Hispanic Groups Start $5 Million Voter Registration Drive

WASHINGTON â€" The nation’s largest Hispanic group kicked off an effort on Thursday to register a quarter of a million new Hispanic voters by the midterm elections in November.

Officials at the group, the National Council of La Raza, said they planned to spend $5 million in tangent with Mi Familia Vota, a nonpartisan voter education organization, to target eligible voters.

The announcement comes shortly before House Republicans are to reopen discussions about an overhaul of immigration laws at their annual retreat next week. Gary Segura, a co-founder of the polling firm Latino Decisions, said that if Republicans eased their opposition to immigration changes, the decision could improve their electoral chances.

“The Republicans have a great deal to gain in terms of brand improvement and in terms of essentially demobilizing virulent opposition built around the supposition that they are the impediment to immigration reform,” Mr. Segura said.

Clarissa Martínez de Castro, La Raza’s director of immigration and civic engagement, said Democrats needed to hone their message, too. “I think it’s clear that Democrats need to demonstrate that they can actually deliver on promises made, and that it’s clear that voters need something to vote for, not just something to vote against,” she said.

About 39 percent of Hispanics said that Republicans care “some” or “a lot” about their community’s concerns, according to a recent Pew Research study. About 72 percent of Hispanics said the same of Democrats.

To reach their voter registration goal, La Raza and Mi Familia Vota will mail voter registration materials to more than 2.5 million Latinos in seven states â€" Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah â€" and will make follow-up calls.

The groups will also expand existing registration efforts in California and Florida, although officials did not detail that plan on Thursday.

La Raza has already raised $3 million from private foundations toward the $5 million effort, which Janet Murguía, the group’s president, said was a sign that donors recognize the importance of getting an early start on voter registration drives.

Last year, the Senate passed a bipartisan measure to overhaul immigration laws, and Ben Monterosso, executive director of Mi Familia Vota, said he hoped the new campaign would spur the House to act.

“We expect that the House of Representatives also gets the message and do their jobs, or else our community in November is going to go out to vote con más ganas â€" with more effort â€" to make sure that our interests are being taken care of,” he said.

McMorris Rodgers to Deliver Republican Response to State of the Union

Republicans have selected their official responder to President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night: Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a member of the party leadership from Washington State.

The choice of Ms. McMorris Rodgers â€" who even as the highest-ranking Republican woman in Congress is not well known nationally â€" gives Republicans a fresh face to deliver the party’s rebuttal to the president at a time when the G.O.P. has struggled with its perception among female voters.

In years past, both parties have alternated between governors and members of Congress to deliver the official response. This is the second year in a row Republicans have chosen someone from Capitol Hill, leaving out rising party stars like Governors Scott Walker of Wisconsin or Susana Martinez of New Mexico. Last year Senator Marco Rubio of Florida delivered the response.

John A. Boehner, the House speaker, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, made the announcement jointly on Thursday.

“Cathy will share our vision for a better America built on a thriving middle class, guided by a fierce belief in life and liberty, and grounded in greater trust between citizens and their government,” Mr. Boehner said.

Administration Is Finalizing Budget

President Obama will send his annual budget to Congress on March 4, about a month late because of lawmakers’ tardy agreement on the current fiscal year’s federal spending.

“Now that Congress has finished its work on this year’s appropriations, the administration is able to finalize next year’s budget,” Steve Posner, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, said on Thursday. “We are moving to complete the budget as quickly as possible to help Congress return to regular order in the annual budget process.”

Congress reached a bipartisan budget deal in late December, nearly three months after the 2014 fiscal year began on Oct. 1. Only then was it able to agree to specific spending levels for domestic and military programs, which it did last week. Without final figures, the president’s budget office could not complete his multivolume submission for the 2015 fiscal year.

Last year, Mr. Obama’s budget arrived even later, in early April, because a fiscal fight between him and Congress delayed final action into January. Presidents are supposed to submit budgets in early February, but are often late.

In March, Congress begins its own budget-writing process, taking some of a president’s proposals into consideration and ignoring many of them, regardless of party.

In Lengthy Session, House Lives Up to ‘Do-Nothing’ Label

The House held one of its longest sessions in months this week, even though no legislative business was accomplished.

Although Congress is officially on a recess, the House conducted an unusually long pro forma session that lasted from 11:30 a.m. Tuesday until shortly after 9 a.m. Thursday. The American flag flew, the lights burned and two members of Congress and some ancillary staff members were forced to dress the part, even though nothing was really going on.

It has been customary for Congress to hold pro forma sessions during recess periods. In recent years, Republicans have tried to block the president from using his recess appointment powers to install nominees they opposed by holding these sessions, requiring members of both chambers to gavel in briefly to meet the definition of holding a congressional meeting.

Those sessions, however, tend to last a few minutes, with a prayer, a pledge and maybe a little legislative banter before the gavel is smacked and the session ends. They tend not to stretch over nearly two days of quiet.

But right before Christmas, it was House Democrats who declined to sign off on a holiday adjournment, citing the failure of Congress to come up with an agreement to extend unemployment benefits. Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat, took to the floor on Dec. 26 to explain the logic.

Leaving town without dealing with the benefits, he said, was, “sadly, consistent with our failure to pass meaningful jobs legislation proposed by the president. It is, sadly, consistent with our failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform, which is broadly supported by business, labor, farmers, farmworkers and an overwhelming number of religious leaders and members of the faith community. It is, sadly, consistent with our failure to pass a farm bill, which could give confidence to those in dire need of help putting food on their family’s table that this Congress will not abandon them.”

Mr. Hoyer then threw in the towel, the House adjourned, end of story.

But because no adjournment message was put together for Martin Luther King’s Birthday â€" Democrats would have objected, they said â€" another pro forma session was called for Tuesday.

But then, snow intervened. While the session was meant to start midday Tuesday, the speaker’s authority was invoked, and Representative Luke Messer of Indiana was tapped to come in earlier in the day to avoid a precipitation mess and gavel in a four-minute session. (Prayer, pledge, some sort of oblique statement of “an imminent impairment of the scheduled time for the House meeting,” and goodbye.)

However, when that speaker’s authority is used, the House is unable to adjourn, though it can recess. So from Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. until Thursday at 9 a.m., nothing happened. Nothing at all. Then, Thursday morning, Representative Frank R. Wolf of Virginia sauntered in, announced that the House would return on Monday, smacked the gavel, and the people’s nonbusiness business thus concluded.