Tricky Votes Loom For 3 Candidates: Lawmakers Aim to Make Campaign Trail Slippery

WP: Tricky Votes Loom For 3 Candidates
Lawmakers From Opposing Parties Aim to Make Campaign Trail Slippery
By Jonathan Weisman and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, April 1, 2008; A04

With Congress returning today after a two-week break, leaders from both parties are preparing legislative agendas -- on issues including the economy, Iraq and immigration -- designed to present the three remaining White House candidates with dangerous political choices.

The obstacle course begins immediately, with a Democratic-sponsored Senate vote today on legislation to ease the mortgage crisis. Next week, Iraq will dominate, when Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker testify before two committees on which Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) serve. By the week of April 21, sweeping housing legislation could reach the House floor. By the end of the month, an Iraq war funding bill could be moving, with a second economic stimulus package attached.

Republicans will counterpunch by pushing for a vote on tough immigration legislation, and by pressuring Democrats to cave in to their demands for legislation on surveillance of terrorism suspects that offers retroactive legal immunity to telephone companies that cooperated with the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping efforts. It is clear that Capitol Hill will be a battleground for one of the longest presidential campaigns in the nation's history....

There's nothing new about using the congressional agenda as a staging ground for presidential campaign themes. In July 2004, just weeks before Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) accepted his party's nomination, Republicans forced a vote on an amendment to the Constitution that would have banned same-sex marriage. That proposal was part of close coordination between Senate GOP leaders and President Bush's campaign team.

Democrats say they hope to highlight some of McCain's less-popular positions by forcing him to vote on certain issues or take stands on the legislation from the trail, as Kerry was in 2004....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/31/AR2008033102674_pf.html