Gingrich labors in bid to prove comeback in South

TUPELO, Miss. (AP) — It was an ominous introduction for Republican Newt Gingrich, whose future as a presidential candidate rests in Mississippi and Alabama.

"I can tell you right now, he's tired. He needs your prayers," former state Sen. Lee Yancey told a half-full Jackson hotel ballroom before the former House speaker took the stage.

Gingrich's aides have said the candidate needs to win Alabama and Mississippi Tuesday to justify staying in the race. He scrapped weekend plans to campaign in Kansas ahead of the Saturday caucuses to stay in the South, his adopted home and the only place he's won in the 2012 campaign.

"I want your help next Tuesday so we can win the Republican nomination," Gingrich flatly told the group, his voice a little rough.

What few in the crowd of about 100 knew is that the night before, Gingrich took some time to enjoy himself. He shed his jacket and tie, sipped some wine and danced with his wife, Callista, in the bar, a carefree respite with staff that ran into the early hours of Thursday.

Gingrich was on time for his 9 a.m. appearance on his first day under Secret Service protection, adding dozens of new faces and a buzz of activity around his events. But the former college professor known for speeches resembling lectures drifted further afield from his usual contrast with President Barack Obama.

Gingrich seemed more focused on amusing his audience than pressing them for their votes.

He paused early in his remarks to comment on the thick accents of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, which drew laughs.

He took his routine mocking of Obama's support for exploring the energy possibilities of algae and limits on drilling — a regular laugh line for Gingrich — further than usual.

And, explaining his interpretation of the Declaration of Independence's "pursuit of happiness" passage, he went for laughs again.

"There's no provision for happiness stamps for the under-happy," Gingrich quipped.

Jackson Republican Bill Wolfson stood in line for a handshake and a picture, planning to vote for Gingrich Tuesday.

But Wolfson doubted Gingrich would win the nomination. "I'm afraid he won't," the retired architect said. "We might get Romney, but he's not going to do the job Newt could."

Despite his liberated air, Gingrich was keeping up a rigorous schedule on Thursday and Friday, with events planned from the far northwest corner of Mississippi to Gulfport on the Gulf Coast before plowing back into Alabama on Saturday.

And later Thursday, in Tupelo, the confidence of earlier in the week, when he predicted another comeback, was creeping back.

"This race has been a roller coaster, up and down. I believe with your help next Tuesday when we win here and we win in Alabama we'll be back up again."

Rival Rick Santorum, who won Tennessee, was also campaigning in the South. The former Pennsylvania senator drew twice the crowd in Jackson that Gingrich did the night before, and Santorum was an hour late.

The day brought another call from a top Santorum supporter for Gingrich to quit the race to help conservatives consolidate behind one candidate — Santorum.

Gary Bauer, a prominent social conservative who has endorsed Santorum, said Gingrich could best help the conservative cause by stepping aside.

"There is great admiration for Newt Gingrich's contributions to conservatism, as well as his debating abilities," Bauer said in a statement. "But the overwhelming sentiment was that he could most help the conservative cause by standing with Santorum so that voters have a clear choice in the remaining primaries."

Although Gingrich is airing television ads promoting his plan to push gas prices down to $2.50, his rivals are more heavily invested. A political action committee supporting Santorum announced Thursday it was spending $600,000 on television ads in Mississippi and Alabama.

Alabama polls show Gingrich trailing Santorum and Romney.

Romney planned to campaign in Mississippi Thursday evening.

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The National Journal Big 10

The oft-stated maxim that a week is an eternity in politics must have rung true with Senate Republicans as February drew to a close. With the surprise retirement of Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, what once had seemed assured—that enough Democratic seats were vulnerable to strong Republican challenges for the party to take back the majority—now seems much less likely.

Snowe’s exit throws a once-safe Republican seat up for grabs. In a state where Barack Obama won 58 percent of the vote in 2008, Democrats seem to have the height advantage, although independent former Gov. Angus King’s entry into the race could complicate things. Democrats don’t have many strong opportunities to play offense this year, but the few GOP-held seats they will target offer good odds: Along with Maine, challenges to Sens. Scott Brown in Massachusetts and Dean Heller in Nevada are among the most-pressing Republican worries.

But that’s not to say that Republicans should completely abandon hope of controlling the upper chamber, which would require a net gain of four seats if President Obama is reelected or three if Republicans take the White House. The races for Democrats’ open seats in Nebraska and North Dakota lean heavily toward the GOP; Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Jon Tester of Montana are running in states that Obama will likely lose; and Democratic retirements in New Mexico, Virginia, and Wisconsin—as well as the possibility that Sen. Sherrod Brown could find himself in a tougher-than-expected race in Ohio, leave the GOP with alternate paths for amassing a majority.

To keep track of the battle for control of the Senate, National Journal will feature updates on the 10 races at the heart of that fight—the NJ Big 10. Our coverage of key races will stretch across platforms, including daily updates in National Journal Hotline, snapshots and analysis on Hotline On Call and in National Journal Daily, and broader looks at the factors that will capture the national mood in National Journal.

The 10 Senate races—currently those in Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin—may change as the year progresses (the same way the Dow Jones industrial average sometimes drops a stock that no longer proves representative of the market). But the number of competitive races in a year that has seen more Senate retirements than any since 1996 underscores just how fluid the dynamic remains.

As we kick off our coverage, the two most dominant national trends are working at cross-purposes. On one hand, the number and breadth of competitive Democratic-held seats in play in the Senate conspires to tilt the odds in Republicans’ favor. On the other, an improving national economy, Obama’s growing strength in the polls, and the very real prospect of some states’ bitterly divided GOP primaries producing weak and perhaps overly conservative nominees all auger well for the tenuous Democratic majority.

In Missouri, Nebraska, and Wisconsin, the GOP primary choice can be cast as a longtime insider (Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri, Nebraska Treasurer Don Stenberg, and former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson) pitted against a younger firebrand (former Missouri Treasurer Sarah Steelman; Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning; and Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald) and a relative outsider (Missouri businessman John Brunner; Nebraska state Sen. Deb Fischer; and former Rep. Mark Neumann of Wisconsin). As the Republican Party struggles to find its post-George W. Bush identity, the outcome of all three primaries will affect GOP chances to take back the Senate.

The two constants across all 10 states are the presidential race and the uneven economic recovery. The president’s approval ratings are still too anemic to provide Democrats with any significant advantage in all but a few states. And even though the economy continues to turn around, most Americans still say they don’t believe that things are getting better.

Both of those factors are likely to decide the ultimate makeup of the Senate.

In a hyper-partisan atmosphere, fewer voters are casting split-ticket ballots, meaning that Democrats such as McCaskill and Tester and Republicans such as Brown and whoever emerges in Maine will have to take the most of a small slice of independents to hold their seats. Generally more party-line voting should benefit Democrats in states such as Florida, Wisconsin, New Mexico, and Virginia. But the Senate Democrats who won in 2006 almost uniformly benefited from widespread dissatisfaction with President Bush; now they will have to contend with the choppier waters of mixed reactions to Obama that vary considerably from state to state.

Perhaps no Senate race will demonstrate the pull of the presidential contest better than Virginia, where Democratic former Gov. Tim Kaine and Republican former Sen. George Allen are facing off; the two are close in the polls, and a boost in turnout driven by the presidential contest could have a determinative impact.

Obama’s reelection bid and the slowly improving economy will stand tall amid the battle for the Senate. Whether those two factors will provide coattails for Obama’s fellow Democrats or cast shadows over their chances remains to be seen. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s job security and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s chances for a promotion will depend on outcome of the NJ Big 10.

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Florida passes bill to test state workers for drugs, alcohol

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - Florida lawmakers on Friday approved a measure allowing state agency heads to randomly test employees for illegal drugs, sending the bill to Governor Rick Scott, who is expected to sign it.

By a 26-14 vote, the Senate approved a measure, House Bill 1205, that allows up to 10 percent of a department's employees to be randomly tested for alcohol and other substance abuse.

"This is the 21st Century and drug abuse is rampant," said Senator Alan Hays, a Republican from Umatilla and Senate sponsor of the bill.

The bill would allow tests to be conducted every 90 days. It would prohibit department heads from firing employees who initially test positive for drugs but could require such employees to participate in rehabilitation programs.

Backers of the measure said the voluntary program mirrors efforts that have long been in place in private industry.

"I've had a drug-free workplace for more than 20 years," said Senator Jack Latvala, a Clearwater Republican who is chief executive of a printing company. "I believe that it has contributed to higher quality employees."

Critics, a coalition of Democrats and at least one conservative Republican, said the measure was an intrusive and unnecessary procedure. They also chided their Republican colleagues for a "big government" program that they said would improperly insert the government into an employee's personal life.

"We're talking less personal freedom without probable cause," said Senator Chris Smith, a Democrat from Fort Lauderdale. "This is more government intrusion and more costs."

"It is a waste of our time and our money," said Senator Larcenia Bullard, a Democrat from Miami.

Lawmakers in several states have passed similar measures in the past few years. Florida legislators last year voted to require applicants for federal public assistance to pass a test for illegal drugs. A federal judge barred enforcement of that law pending resolution of a challenge to its constitutionality.

The courts have generally upheld random drug testing for workers in jobs that involve public safety. But opponents say that broader testing of workers who are not suspected of wrongdoing violates their constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizure, and robs them of due process.

(Editing by Paul Thomasch)

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Mississippi high court says some pardons by former governor valid

STARKVILLE, Mississippi (Reuters) - Ten pardons granted to prisoners by former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour just before he left office are valid and should be carried out, a divided Mississippi Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood had asked the court to void those pardons, among some 200 issued by the former Republican governor in January, on the grounds that technical procedures set out in the state constitution had not been met.

But the state Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 that it could not set aside the contested pardons based solely on Hood's claim that the prisoners had failed to meet an obscure provision requiring felons seeking a pardon to publish the request in a newspaper 30 days in advance.

Hood, a Democrat, was not able to show that any of the pardons were invalid on their face, presiding Justice Jess H. Dickinson wrote in the majority opinion.

Like many states, Mississippi allows its governor to issue pardons with virtual impunity. Lawyers for the people pardoned had argued the court did not have the authority to overturn the pardons.

"At the outset, we wish to state that this case is not about whether the governor is above the law," Dickinson wrote. "He clearly is not..."

"We are compelled to hold that - in each of the cases before us - it fell to the governor alone to decide whether the Constitution's publication requirement was met," Dickinson said.

The 10 people who received the contested pardons were all prisoners at the time. Five had worked at the governor's mansion doing odd jobs, and four of those five inmates were serving life sentences for murder.

Half of the 10 remain behind bars due to a temporary restraining order that kept them imprisoned while Hood's challenge was under review.

The court vacated the restraining order on Thursday, but it was unclear when the prisoners would be released.

A spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections said it must notify local law enforcement, prosecutors and any registered victims 48 hours before releasing the inmates.

The cases at issue in the legal challenge were not the only pardons by Barbour, a former Republican National Committee chairman, to spark controversy.

About two-thirds of the pardons were to whites and a third to blacks. Mississippi's prison population is roughly the reverse, two-thirds black and a third white.

One of the people pardoned was the brother of former National Football League quarterback Brett Favre. Earnest Scott Favre was convicted in 1996 of driving while intoxicated after a vehicle he was driving crashed and killed his best friend.

Favre was not in prison at the time of his pardon.

In a statement on Thursday, Barbour applauded the court's decision to uphold the governor's right to exercise not only clemency but also mercy.

"As I've stated from the beginning, I recognize and respect the natural feelings of victims and their families and I know this has been difficult for many of them," Barbour said.

"Nevertheless, these were decisions based on repentance, rehabilitation, and redemption, leading to forgiveness and the right defined and given by the state constitution to the governor to offer such people a second chance."

Hood said he would seek to change the constitution to require courts to enforce the 30-day notification policy in the future. He did not say whether he would challenge more of Barbour's pardons as he previously had indicated he would do.

"We do respect the decision of the Court, but feel deeply for how it must weigh on the victims and their families," Hood said in a statement on Thursday. "It is these victims and family members who have lost today and the criminals who have won."

The ruling shows the state's high court will not "police" other branches of government on procedural requirements, said Matthew Steffey, a constitutional law professor at Mississippi College who has followed the case.

"I believe the majority opinion is more faithful to constitutional history, precedent and theory," he said. "It's a principle of separation of powers."

(Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Greg McCune; Desking by Eric Walsh)

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Santorum: I'm conservative candidate for Alabama

PELHAM, Ala. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum appealed Thursday for votes in Alabama's upcoming primary, calling the state the "heart of conservatism" and casting himself as the best fit for its voters.

During appearances in the Birmingham suburb of Pelham and earlier in Huntsville, the former Pennsylvania senator said he was the true conservative presidential candidate who would present the best contrast to Democratic President Barack Obama in November. His campaign hoped wins here and Mississippi, as well as Saturday's contest in Kansas, would push rival Newt Gingrich from the race and leave Santorum as the leading alternative to front-runner Mitt Romney.

The former Massachusetts governor is too moderate and too much like Obama, having enacted a state health care package that became the model for Obama's national overhaul, Santorum said. Rival Newt Gingrich also has backed health insurance mandates, he said.

"Why would this area of the country put forward a candidate that gives away the most important issue in this election?" Santorum said in a crowded banquet room at a civic building. With his arms spread wide, he added: "There's one option not to give it away."

"We believe in you!" a woman called from the back of the room earlier.

"Unlike President Obama, I believe in you," Santorum said to loud applause.

Santorum was waging a campaign on two fronts: to emerge over Gingrich as conservatives' preferred alternative to Romney, and to derail Romney's march toward the GOP presidential nomination. He told reporters before a late speech in Mobile that strong showings in Alabama and in Mississippi were key to that plan.

"If we can finish first or second in Mississippi and Alabama on Tuesday, that will be a big win for us and hopefully get this race down to two candidates," he said.

"Then we can, again, make the case that there's one conservative who can win in every other place in this country, that has earned the right to take on Gov. Romney, one-on-one, and give conservatives a chance to coalesce around one person to able to win this nomination for the conservative cause."

Santorum and Gingrich were both campaigning hard to win Southern states that will vote in the coming days.

Gingrich has just two wins to his credit: South Carolina and his home state of Georgia. His spokesman said that Gingrich must win the next Southern contests to justify a continued campaign.

In Huntsville, Santorum drew big ovations from hundreds gathered at a state-owned museum with calls for increased federal spending on defense and space programs and less spending on social welfare programs.

Standing under a Saturn V rocket hanging from the roof of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, he recalled watching the moon landing as a child. He also praised Huntsville's importance to the Apollo missions and NASA in general.

"As an American, I want to say thank you, Huntsville," Santorum said. "Thank you for the work you've done."

Forty-seven Republican convention delegates are at stake in Alabama's Republican primary on Tuesday. Romney visits Alabama on Friday. Gingrich visited earlier in the week, including a stop at the space museum.

Decatur resident Robert Couey, who attended both space center events, said Thursday that he doesn't support Romney and contended that Romney isn't conservative enough. Couey said he likes Santorum, adding that he thinks Gingrich has been inconsistent on issues.

"He speaks with conviction," Couey said of Santorum. "Gingrich is intelligent. He has the background but look at ... all the things he's said."

Huntsville resident Gay Nyberg said she is down to deciding between Santorum and Gingrich. Romney, she said, isn't for her.

"I think the other guy is not a true conservative," she said, "and I don't know that I can trust him to represent me."

___

Associated Press writer Philip Elliott in Mobile, Ala., contributed to this report.

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Religion, Race and Romney's Road Ahead

Beyond our post yesterday on whether Newt Gingrich is siphoning votes from Rick Santorum, three other fascinating areas emerge from the exit polls and other recent survey data on the Republican presidential contest. The subjects: Religion, race, and Mitt Romney's apparent inability to light a fire.

First, religion. With the Alabama and Mississippi primaries approaching, the question will be starker than ever: What is it with Romney and evangelicals?

The answer is twofold: First, exit poll results demonstrate that the belief structure of many evangelical voters leads them away from Romney, a Mormon. At the same time, the data are variable enough to suggest that this doesn't reflect flat rejection of Romney by evangelicals - rather, a preference to look elsewhere, given another option.

Generally, it's a clear problem for Romney. He lost evangelicals by 19 points in Tennessee, 18 points in Michigan, 18 points in Iowa and 17 points in Ohio, while winning non-evangelicals in those states by 18, 18, 12 and 15 points, respectively. In Georgia and South Carolina, Romney lost evangelicals by 32 and 22 points, while running about evenly among non-evangelicals. In Florida and Arizona, he ran evenly with his closest competitor among evangelicals, while winning non-evangelicals by 27- and 36-point margins.

Combining results across all states in which we've had exit or entrance polls, Romney's done 19 points better among non-evangelical than among evangelical voters. It's among the few most consistent gaps in his support profile across the 2012 contest to date.

A related result underscores the reason: Evangelicals are vastly more likely than other GOP voters to say it's very important to them to support a candidate who shares their religious beliefs. In the eight states where that question has been asked, Romney's won a mere 19 percent of these strongly religion- focused voters.

This does not bode well for Romney in Alabama and Mississippi; evangelicals accounted for 77 and 69 percent of voters in the 2008 GOP primaries there, among their highest proportions anywhere. And with Santorum and Gingrich on the ballot this year, they do have elsewhere to go.

But the last point is a key one, because where evangelicals don't feel they have elsewhere to go, they've been more accepting of Romney. As I noted yesterday, he won 62 percent of evangelicals in Virginia, where the only other choice was Ron Paul; it's the first and only state where he actually did better among evangelicals than among non-evangelicals. In our ABC/Post pre-election polling, moreover, few evangelicals have ruled out Romney entirely, and many instead cite him as their second choice.

If Romney prevails for the nomination, then, the likely question won't be whether he wins white evangelicals against Barack Obama - but the extent to which he can inspire them to turn out.

RACE - Then there's race. The sentence above pivots from "evangelicals" in a discussion of the GOP primaries to "white evangelicals" in a discussion of the general election. That's because, in the Republican primaries, it's almost redundant. In states for which we have exit and entrance polls, 91 percent of Republican voters to date have been white. If we exclude two states, Florida and Arizona, that goes to 96 percent.

While that's typical for Republican primaries, it runs contrary to the increasing racial diversity of the nation's electorate more broadly. The share of whites in general election for president has declined from 90 percent in the 1976 to 74 percent in 2008. Obama lost whites by 12 points in 2008, about the average for a Democratic candidate; he won the election on the strength - and increasing size - of the minority vote.

It's a point worth considering, not just for the 2012 general election but for the future of the Republican Party beyond. If minorities by and large are not participating in the party's primaries, will they tune into its candidates later? Given the country's demographic trends, it increasingly matters.

AND THE FIRE - Finally there's the related question of Romney's ability to light a fire under his voters. His campaign's appropriately been described as lackluster. One interesting example is Romney-friendly Vermont. Independent voters surged to the polls there Tuesday, increasing their share of the state's GOP primary electorate from 23 percent in 2008 to 40 percent this year.

But they did not turn out for Romney: Seven in 10 Vermont independents showed up to vote for someone else. And in general elections, independents customarily are the quintessential swing voters.

Romney campaign officials pushed back this week by pointing out that his favorability rating in national polls is no worse than Bill Clinton's was at this time in 1992 - yet Clinton turned those views around sufficiently to win his party's nomination, and then two terms in office.

It's true enough - but with a cherry-picking alert. In ABC/Post data, Clinton at this point in 1992 was seen favorably by 39 percent of Americans; Romney's currently seen favorably by 35 percent, about the same. But one thing to note is that March 1992 was a month and a half after the first controversy over Clinton's sexual escapades had erupted, the Gennifer Flowers affair. Romney's favorability is 4 points lower without any such scandal. Romney's unfavorable rating, moreover, is 14 points higher than Clinton's was then, scandal and all.

The number of Americans who see Romney favorably is lower than it was for any leading presidential candidate at about this point (in winter or springtime ABC/Post data) in 2008, 2004, 2000, 1996 and 1992 alike. Of all those candidates - both George Bushes, Clinton, Bob Dole, Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Obama - only one was underwater in approval, as Romney is now. That was Hillary Clinton, who ultimately did not prevail.

This in no way predicts Romney's future. But it means he's got his work cut out for him, for sure. The question: Whether the turnaround skills he learned in business will work in politics, too.

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Santorum Says Campaign is 'Burning Through Our Savings'; SuperPAC Spends in South

PELHAM, Alabama-Rick Santorum asked the Alabama crowd here to deliver him a win in this state Tuesday and pitched to them he's a better choice than either of his opponents because of his working class background and blue collar roots.

"I've basically given up all my sources of income almost a year ago. We're burning through our savings," Santorum said to the enthusiastic crowd at a conference center. "People say, 'Well did you ever think you'd get this long and have to worry about all the bills you'd have to pay? Well, I was praying I'd get this long, now I have to pray we can somehow or another stretch the budget a little bit more."

He continued the theme of a candidate who is more in touch with his supporters and the electorate because he doesn't have the fortune of his opponents or other politicians. "We need a candidate who can go out and deliver a message when it comes to energy who maybe doesn't own oil wells, but his grandfather was a coal miner so I was in the energy industry too," Santorum said to the crowd of about 200. It wasn't clear who he was referring to whether it be former President George W. Bush, whose family was in the oil business or just trying to portray himself as the hardscrabble underdog to Mitt Romney's wealth. The campaign did not return requests for clarification. According to his tax returns, Santorum made about one million dollars last year.

Despite the former Pennsylvania senator's need for Newt Gingrich to abandon his bid-an aide to the former House Speaker said this week Mississippi and Alabama were must wins-he hardly mentioned Gingrich and focused almost completely on President Barack Obama and Romney.

He told voters they need a nominee "who can go out in the general election and not just spend millions and millions of dollars trying to beat up the other person" and even insinuated the press favored the former Massachusetts governor because he will not be able to defeat Obama.

"Every time we've nominated a moderate in the last 30 or 40 years, we lost. Every time so now you know why the media's for him," Santorum said, referring to Romney. "They don't want him to win. You know who they want to win."

Santorum's superPAC "The Red, White, and Blue Fund" announced Thursday they were running a negative ad jabbing both Romney and Gingrich in Mississippi and Alabama. They also called for Gingrich to get out of the race Wednesday to try and consolidate the more conservative electorate around one of the GOP candidates. The fund says the ad buy is "well over half a million dollars."

If Santorum beats Gingrich here and in Mississippi it could very well be a fatal blow to the speaker's candidacy, although Gingrich has stressed he is going all the way to the convention. "If you elect, here in Alabama, and I'll tell you what, a conservative will be nominated by the Republican party in the next few months. And if a conservative is nominated, we will win the general election," Santorum said.

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Texas looks to fund health program without feds

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday directed state officials to begin looking for money to keep the Medicaid Women's Health Program, even if the Obama administration revokes federal funding amid a fight over clinics affiliated with abortion providers.

"We'll find the money. The state is committed to this program," Perry told reporters, shortly before he issued a letter directing Thomas Suehs, head of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, to work with legislative leaders and identify money to keep the program going if federal funds are halted.

But pulling that off will be no mean feat: The program costs about $40 million and the federal government currently covers 90 percent of that.

The health program provides care to about 130,000 low-income women statewide. It had been expected to close next week, when Texas begins enforcing a law passed last summer that bars state funding from clinics affiliated with abortion providers. The Obama administration has said it will stop funding the program because federal law requires women to be able to choose any qualified clinic.

Perry spokeswoman Catherine Frazier countered that Texas has the right under federal law to determine qualified providers in the program.

The law is part of a long-running campaign by conservatives in the Republican-dominated Texas Legislature to shut down abortion providers by imposing strenuous regulations and cutting off state and federal funds for their non-abortion services. Perry and Republican state lawmakers specifically don't want Planned Parenthood clinics, which treat 40 percent of the program's patients, to get any state funding, even when that money is not spent on abortions.

That has created a legal standoff, with federal and state officials accusing each other of political extremism while poor women will be left without necessary health care. The Women's Health Program serves women ages 18-44 earning less than $20,000 a year or less than $41,000 for a family of four.

Perry did not specify where the funding for the Women's Health Program might be found. "We've got a multibillion-dollar budget, so we've got the ability to be flexible on where the money comes from," he said after an event at Texas Republican Party headquarters.

His letter to Suehs noted officials have been discussing the possibility of making up lost federal funding in the Women's Health Program for weeks.

The state Legislature is out of session and does not meet again until next year, but Frazier said the governor has the authority to redistribute available funds as he sees fit — and would not need to convene a special session.

Perry said he's anxious to save the program after the Legislature last year cut funding for 160,000 women enrolled in it. In total, lawmakers slashed $83 million in funding for women's health programs. It was not immediately clear what other areas would have to be scaled back to make funds available for the governor to keep his promise.

The Texas Democratic Party blasted Perry for removing funding from other parts of the state budget to save the program.

"Instead of diverting resources from already strained state services Perry should own up to his mistake," party spokeswoman Rebecca Acuña said in a statement.

State law already forbids taxpayer money from going to organizations that provide abortions, so groups such as Planned Parenthood have established legally distinct corporations to separate family planning and women's health providers from clinics that perform abortions.

The law about to be enacted goes a step further to make any affiliation between a clinic and an abortion provider grounds for cutting off funding. That can mean sharing a name, employee or board member, even if the two clinics are legally and financially separate. Lawmakers last year said their goal was to cut off all state funding for Planned Parenthood, not to leave poor women without health care.

"Those people that are out there trying to say, 'Oh they're going to kill this program' are just dead wrong," Perry said of the Women's Health Program on Thursday. He said the Obama administration is "trying to support an organization that supports them. ... But Texans don't want Planned Parenthood, a known abortion provider, to be involved in this."

In a letter to President Barack Obama, Perry accused the administration of trying to violate states' rights "by mandating which health providers the State of Texas must use."

"I will not allow these services to be denied by your administration's political agenda and opposition to enacted Texas law that prohibits abortion providers and their affiliates from receiving taxpayer dollars," the letter said.

___

Associated Press writers Chris Tomlinson in Austin and Angela K. Brown in Fort Worth contributed to this story.

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House speaker ready to drop stalled transport bill

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, signaling a lack of Republican support for a stalled $260 billion transportation bill, said on Thursday he was ready to pursue a less ambitious version under consideration by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

A day after imploring House Republicans to end their deep divisions over the five-year measure to rebuild roads, bridges and railways, Boehner moved a step closer to giving up on the troubled House bill altogether.

"The current plan is to see what the Senate can produce and to bring their bill up," Boehner told a news conference. "In the meantime we're going to continue to have conversations with members about a longer-term approach, which most of our members want. But at this point in time, the plan is to bring up the Senate bill or something like it."

Being forced to take up the Senate bill would be another potential setback for Boehner, who has repeatedly struggled to whip up support among conservative Republicans on spending bills. He also has castigated the Senate for failing to consider jobs bills passed by the lower chamber.

The shift to a Senate bill also means Boehner would have to sell House Republicans on a two-year, $109 billion measure that will not contain several provisions they favor.

The Senate on Thursday rejected an amendment that would approve TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL pipeline project from Canada to Texas.

The House version has faced difficulties from the start, alienating fiscally conservative Republicans over its price tag while Democrats and some Republicans have opposed a provision that would end dedicated funding for mass transit projects.

But House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica said he was not giving up on the measure, and that his staff was working with the Boehner and other Republican leaders to try to marshal sufficient votes for passage.

Time is running short, however, as current funding for road and rail construction projects expires on March 31. As many as 1.8 million construction workers would face layoffs if a new measure is not signed into law by then, Democrats say.

"We're not going to let March 31 go by and experience any kind of a shutdown. That is not an option under consideration," Mica said, adding that one possibility was a temporary extension.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan; editing by Vicki Allen and Mohammad Zargham)

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Lawmakers gut Ga. gov's tax credit proposal

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia lawmakers have gutted a proposal to sweeten tax credits for employers who create jobs, a prominent part of Republican Gov. Nathan Deal's agenda to lower the state's 9.2 percent unemployment rate.

House lawmakers voted 167-0 on Wednesday to strip out changes that would have made the state's Jobs Tax Credit and Quality Jobs Tax Credit more lucrative. Estimates from Deal's administration put the annual cost of those credits at $75 million starting in mid-2014, a cost that made lawmakers uneasy as the state tepidly recovers from a deep recession that severely reduced its tax income.

Making the credits available for more employers was a key part of Deal's State of the State speech in January when he outlined his legislative agenda.

"We will modernize our job tax credits to better incentivize small business growth and to help every Georgia community compete with their regional peers," Deal told lawmakers. "My office is already working with House and Senate leadership to create legislation to this effect."

He got a much watered-down version of what he wanted. Still, Deal spokesman Brian Robinson said the legislation was an improvement over the current system.

"The cost was higher than expected and we think we've arrived at a proper proposal that fulfills our competitive needs," Robinson said in a statement.

The changes to the plan are striking. For example, Deal initially wanted to raise the lowest-level tax credit in one program from $750 for each new job created to $2,000. Other changes would have made tax credits available to employers who create as few as 15 new jobs, a loosening of the current threshold of 50 jobs.

During the debate over the plan, the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute questioned whether a tax credit worth several thousand dollars would coax an employer into hiring new workers if there was not an underlying business need.

"Georgia cannot afford to undermine its ability to invest in education, infrastructure, and quality of life, which are far more critical to economic growth and job creation," Wesley Tharpe, a GBPI analyst, wrote in a review of Deal's proposal.

House lawmakers ultimately abandoned the largest changes that Deal sought. Analysts do not expect the current plan, which now heads to the state Senate, will significantly affect the state's income.

"It was not really a giving in," said Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, who sponsored the bill for Deal. "It was more of us saying, 'Hey, let's be fiscally prudent.'"

Besides loosening several rules, the bill would explicitly state that companies making alternative energy products or doing biomedical manufacturing can qualify for the tax credits. Still, that is not a major policy shift. Collins said those firms should have already been eligible.

"If I look at it and I don't see my industry, I might not apply," Collins said, explaining why lawmakers made the change.

Deal and other Republican lawmakers will get a second chance to change the tax system. In the coming weeks, Deal's administration is expected to unveil a plan that would at a minimum eliminate the state sales tax that manufacturers pay on the energy needed to create their products.

___

Follow Ray Henry at http://www.twitter.com/rhenryAP.

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House Republicans riven by internal battle over spending

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A battle among Republicans in the House of Representatives over government spending laid bare on Thursday deep divisions that threaten the party's hopes of major gains in the November congressional elections.

House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, faced a new challenge to his authority as lawmakers aligned to the budget-slashing Tea Party movement ignored his plea to support a $260 billion job creation measure he had championed.

Boehner told reporters he was ready to abandon the highway, bridges and railroad funding bill after fiscally conservative lawmakers balked at the price tag.

The bill was meant to help Republicans stake an election-year claim as the party of job creation, funding as many as 7.8 million new jobs in the U.S. construction industry.

But Tea Party-affiliated lawmakers, a powerful group within the 242-member House Republican caucus, were elected in 2010 on a wave of voter discontent over a bad economy and government spending. They have repeatedly shown themselves to be uncompromising on tax and spending issues, bringing the United States to the brink of an unprecedented debt default last year.

"This is a very difficult process we're in," Boehner acknowledged on Thursday. "We've got a new majority, we've got 89 freshmen and my job every day is to work with our members and find out where the center of gravity is," he said.

Boehner has struggled over the past year to control an unruly caucus that has often bucked his leadership, raising repeated questions about his staying power. The Republican leader and aides dismiss talk that he is vulnerable to an ouster.

But internal revolt is also stirring over federal spending levels for 2013. Fiscally conservative lawmakers now want even deeper spending cuts than those agreed to with the White House in a deficit reduction deal last August.

So, instead of putting the finishing touches on a budget that they can contrast with Democratic spending priorities in an election year, Republican leaders huddled with House Budget Committee members on Thursday in an effort to quell the conflict within their party.

But they failed to agree on a spending cut target that could please both conservatives and more moderate members.

"There are differences of opinion within our conference," Representative Mike Simpson told reporters after the meeting.

AIDES ACKNOWLEDGE DIFFICULTIES

Veteran Washington political analyst Larry Sabato said there was a "deep divide, not fully acknowledged within the caucus."

"They don't grasp how deep," he said.

The intra-party infighting comes seven weeks after House Republicans pledged at a party retreat to bury their differences and unify to defeat President Barack Obama in November.

The display of unity followed a public relations nightmare for them in December when the party struggled to heal an internal rift over whether to extend a costly payroll tax cut extension for 160 million Americans.

The squabbling threatens to distract the party when it is meant to be focused on retaining control of the House and recapturing the Senate from Democrats.

Two senior House Republicans aides, asking not to be identified, acknowledged the difficulties their party faced just eight months before the November 6 elections.

"It is easy to take a snapshot now and say, 'look things aren't going well,'" one of the aides said, while laying the blame on Democrats. "We don't have the Senate and we don't have the White House. Nobody expected this Congress would be easy."

The second aide said Boehner was in a difficult bind. If he decided to allow a 2013 House budget proposal with deeper spending cuts than planned in order to win Tea Party support, he could end up painting the party into a corner.

The aide said setting a lower level in the spending bills might be popular with some voters, but the bills, which must be approved by September 30, were unlikely to get Democratic votes and enough moderate Republican support to assure passage.

That would leave Republicans with two choices just six weeks before the November 6 elections, the aide said: Switch their votes to support the higher spending levels - a potentially embarrassing move - or threaten government shutdowns as funding would be running out with the start of the new fiscal year on October 1. That likely would bring a strong voter backlash.

Representative Bill Shuster, a six-term Republican who worked to build Republican support for the now-stalled transportation bill, said the large number of Republican newcomers to the House makes for an uphill battle.

"You have 89 members who never seen a transportation bill before," Shuster said of the freshmen, many of them Tea Party supporters. "It's a lot of people to educate."

(Additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro, editing by Ross Colvin; desking by Cynthia Osterman)

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GOP Primary Enters A Holding Pattern

By MICHAEL FALCONE ( @michaelpfalcone ) and AMY WALTER ( @amyewalter )

After a sprint to Super Tuesday, the race for the Republican nomination seems to be shifting into neutral - at least for the moment.

With more delegates in the bank than anyone else, Mitt Romney's campaign this week offered up a mathematical argument about why no other candidate is capable of overtaking him before the Republican National Convention.

Although Romney spent yesterday (and will spend today) campaigning in the south - Mississippi and Alabama hold primaries next Tuesday - even his campaign aides acknowledge this is not necessarily fertile territory for the former Massachusetts governor.

That said, Romney has picked up the endorsements of the governors of both states, a potential boost to his challenge to Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum in both places.

All four candidates are on the campaign trail today and we'll be listening closely to how they spin this morning's jobs number. Employers created 227,000 jobs last month, but the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 8.3 percent.

The number of new jobs was in line with expectations, but it's likely that we'll hear the candidates make the case that while a recovery is happening, it's not happening fast enough. However, if steady jobs growth continues, it's hard to see how that angle will resonate heading into the summer and fall.

In the short term, the four candidates have a more immediate problem on their hands. Namely, trying to sort out what has become a long and messy primary.

There are caucuses in Kansas and several other U.S. territories over the weekend. Kansas looks like a good pick-up opportunity for Santorum, but the main event of the next week will be on Tuesday in Alabama and Mississippi.

As calls increase for Gingrich to drop out of the race, his performance in those states - after his win in Georgia on Super Tuesday - could be crucial. But there's been no real indication from the Gingrich campaign that he intends to exit under any circumstances.

"I think we can win a victory of extraordinary proportions. I do want to ask your help the next few days," Gingrich said yesterday. "This is a very, very important primary. This is without any question the most important primary that Mississippi's had for the presidency. Mississippi matters in this particular cycle."

Without a big shake up, there appears to be no other option for Romney than to plow through the next primary states and hope that the math remains on his side.

AN AMERICAN AUTO BAILOUT - FOR FRANCE? Attention U.S. taxpayers, ABC's Jonathan Karl reports,   you now own a piece of a French car company that is drowning in red ink. That's right.  In a move little noticed outside of the business pages, General Motors last week bought more than $400 million in shares of PSA Peugeot Citroen - a 7 percent stake in the company. Because U.S. taxpayers still own roughly one-quarter of GM, they now own a piece of Peugeot. Peugeot can undoubtedly use the cash.  Last year, Peugeot's auto making division lost $123 million.  And on March 1 - just a day after the deal with GM was announced - Moody's downgraded Peugeot's credit rating to junk status with a negative outlook, citing "severe deterioration" of its finances. In other words, General Motors essentially just dumped more than $400 million of taxpayer assets on junk bonds. GM has said the deal is designed to give GM access to Peugeot's expertise in small car and hybrid vehicle technology and ultimately allow both GM and Peugeot to save money by pooling their resources. But auto industry analysts find the deal mystifying. http://abcn.ws/xpsA5G

Presidential Pivot in New Glossy Campaign Doc: Jake Tapper's "World News" report on President Obama's new campaign film "The Road We've Traveled." WATCH: http://abcn.ws/Ah9grW

THE BUZZ

OBAMA HEADS SOUTH FOR FUNDRAISING. Obama heads to the Lone Star state this afternoon for a duo of fundraisers that will net at least $2.8 million for the 2012 campaign, notes ABC's Devin Dwyer. Obama will headline an event at Union Station at Minute Maid Park in Houston, where tickets start at $500, according to an invitation for the event. Six hundred supporters are expected, according to a campaign official.  Later the president attends a private reception in Houston with 70 of his wealthiest donors. Tickets cost $35,800. These are Obama's 35th and 36th fundraisers of the year for the Obama Victory Fund, a joint fundraising account for Obama and the Democratic National Committee. He has attended 103 fundraisers so far this election cycle - more than any of his predecessors.

BOB DOLE'S TOUGH WORDS FOR ROMNEY. ABC's Matt Negrin reports: Mitt Romney's campaign sent out a short statement of support this morning from 1996 Republican nominee Bob Dole,  boosting Romney in Saturday's Kansas caucuses. We thought we'd email Dole for some elaboration. He called back. Dole thinks Romney is in a tough spot over his role in crafting the Massachusetts health plan that the White House says was a blueprint for ObamaCare. He called it a liability for Romney but said it wasn't "fatal." "In the first place, you're dealing with the state level rather than the national level," Dole said. "And I haven't gone over the Massachusetts plan, but there are mandates in it. That's the one thing that Romney has to answer to, about mandates." Dole added: "But I think he's, you know, when he stands up and says, 'One of the first things I'm going to do is repeal ObamaCare' - of course the president can't repeal it. He's going to start the ball rolling." http://abcn.ws/wCTRJK

PRO-ROMNEY SUPER PAC EXPANDS AD BUYS. On Wednesday, the Romney-backing super PAC Restore Our Future reported big purchases of TV time in Tuesday's primary states of Mississippi and Alabama, as well as Illinois and Louisiana, which hold primaries on March 20 and March 24, respectively, ABC's Chris Good reports. It was once unthinkable, according to conventional wisdom, that the Republican primary would stay competitive long enough for a heated battle over the heavily Democratic Illinois. However, Restore Our Future is spending more money there than in any other upcoming state - likely because ads in the Chicago media market are expensive. Restore Our Future reported new spending of $901,438 in Illinois, $425,165 in Louisiana $680, 385 in Alabama, and $581,183 in Mississippi. http://abcn.ws/ABdGeJ

SENATE REJECTS KEYSTONE PIPELINE AMENDMENT. President Obama's pipeline lobbying paid off…for now. A controversial Republican amendment to a transportation bill, to mandate construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, has failed in the Senate. The numbers may be a little too close for comfort for the White House: the amendment fell just short of the 60 votes needed for the amendment to be included in the final bill at 56-42. President Obama had personally lobbied Democrats, telephoning members of Congress directly to encourage them to reject the measure. The amendment would have taken the pipeline's approval process out of President Obama's hands and mandated an expedited building of the pipeline project in light of the nation's rising gas prices. "The president obviously has communications with members of Congress with some regularity," White House press secretary Jay Carney said on Thursday confirming the lobbying effort. "We have made our position clear about purely ideological and political efforts to attach legislation regarding the Keystone pipeline to whatever some members of Congress fancy at the time." http://abcn.ws/AB1Mmk

PRIMARY STATE SPEED READ.

-Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant Endorses Romney. Having been one himself, Mitt Romney has done well in collecting the endorsements of governors-two of his most prominent backers are New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell-and on Thursday he received the support of yet another, as first-term Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant told the Associated Press he thinks Romney has the best chance to beat President Obama in the fall.   http://on.thec-l.com/xVUCSM

- Romney's Uphill Southern Battle. Campaigning ahead of Tuesday's primaries in Mississippi and Alabama, the Associated Press reports that Romney is fighting the impression that he's too slick and not a real conservative. "I'm learning to say 'y'all' and I like grits. Strange things are happening to me," the AP quotes Romney saying during a campaign stop in Pascagoula, Miss. http://bit.ly/xADPE0

-Romney: D.C. Could Learn From Mississippi. Mitt Romney campaigned in Misssissippi Wednesday, telling a crowd there that while Washington, D.C. hasn't adequately confronted its problematic spending and debt issues, he thinks Mississippi has. "If the federal government were run more like the government here in Mississippi, the whole country would be a lot better off," Romney said, according to the Biloxi Sun Herald. http://bit.ly/AD7Mn1

-Herman Cain Stumps for Dale Peterson's Wife. Herman Cain's "Solutions Revolution" bus tour is rolling through Alabama. After he campaigned for Newt Gingrich ahead of Super Tuesday, one might assume the purpose of his current swing is the same. But the Birmingham News reports on Cain "rallying support for Alabama Public Service Commission candidate Kathy Peterson during a series of campaign stops." Kathy Peterson is the wife of Dale Peterson, who ran for agriculture commissioner in 2010 and rose to brief fame for a TV ad in which he called one of his opponents a "dummy" and held a rifle. http://bit.ly/xcFhCE -Santorum Focuses on Obama in Alabama. At a forum hosted by the Alamaba Policy Institute on Thursday, Rick Santorum set his sights on the president. The former senator "barely mentioned his rivals for the Republican nomination," the Birmingham News reports. Santorum also campaigned in Huntsville and Pelham yesterday. http://bit.ly/ABjJU1

-Ron Paul Picks Up Pro-Life Endorsement in Kansas. Keeping with his strategy to pick up delegates in caucus states, Ron Paul is focusing on Kansas's upcoming Saturday caucuses. The Texas congressman will campaign in Topeka, Wichita, and Lawrence today, and on Thursday he received an endorsement from the presidenti of OperationR Rescue, a Kansas-based anti-abortion group. http://bit.ly/wP73hS

WHO'S TWEETING?

@DLeonhardt : The economy just had its best 12 months of job growth in more than five years.

@FixAaron : RNC chair Reince Priebus on jobs report: "…the situation is clearly not improving."

@JBennet : Do yourself a favor and see Game Change - just about as funny, scary and humanizing as the  @jheil,  @markhalperin book itself.

@realDonaldTrump : The only candidate who can get 1145 delegates is  @MittRomney. The primary is over.

@aterkel : There will be SIX copies of the Limbaugh bust created in Missouri. wapo.st/zZ1VsQ

POLITICAL RADAR

-Mitt Romney is on the trail in Jackson Mississippi with a town hall meeting at the Mississippi Farmer's Market. Then, Romney heads to Birmingham, Alabama for an event at Thompson Tractor. Mitt Romney's son Matt Romney will be on the island of Saipan near Guam to meet with GOP Leaders on the Northern Mariana Island.

-Rick Santorum starts his day in Mobile, AL for a rally at the Battleship USS Alabama Pavilion. Santorum then travels to Kansas for two rallies in Topeka and Wichita.

-Newt Gingrich spends the day in Mississippi visiting Meridian, Ellisville, and Gulfport.

-Ron Paul is going after Kansas voters with their caucus on Saturday. He will address Kansans in Topeka, Wichita, and Lawrence.

Check out The Note's Futures Calendar:  http://abcn.ws/ZI9gV

* Get  The Note delivered  to your inbox every day.

* For breaking political news and analysis check out The Note blog:  http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/ and ABCNews.com/Politics:  http://abcnews.com/politics

Also Read

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"Morning, y'all." Romney seeks breakthrough in South

JACKSON, Mississippi (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is laying it on as thick as a syrupy Southern drawl as he tries to break through in the South, a region that has been unkind to him in the past and may soon turn its back on him again.

"Morning, ya'll," Romney told a campaign rally on Friday in Jackson, Mississippi. "I got started this morning right with a biscuit and some cheesy grits."

The former Massachusetts governor is admittedly the underdog in Mississippi and Alabama, two stalwarts of the Old South where Republicans vote in primaries on Tuesday to decide which candidate they think should challenge Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 6 election.

Romney thus far been unable to make a breakthrough in the heart of Republican conservatism. Despite a huge effort, he was trounced by Newt Gingrich in South Carolina in January. He came in second on Tuesday to Gingrich in Georgia and lost Tennessee to chief rival Rick Santorum.

The only southern states he has won are Virginia, where Texas Congressman Ron Paul was only other candidate on the ballot, and Florida where his campaign outspent rivals on ads.

"I realize it's a bit of an away game," Romney told Birmingham radio state WAPI on Thursday, referring to his chances in the South.

His troubles in the South reflect lingering suspicions about the depth of his conservative views. As a former governor of a heavily Democratic state he is seen as more of a moderate.

His Mormon faith is also seen as a factor in the Bible Belt.

"I think religion should have no part in today's politics, but it does," said Cheryl Patton, who attended Romney's Jackson event and said she likes Romney's business experience and family values. "He seems mellow and kind."

Bob Hardin, also at the Jackson event, thinks Romney is the best Republican to take the fight against Obama, but believes his vast wealth may also be a factor.

"Unfortunately he carries with him the baggage of success," which doesn't resonate with a large part of the public today. As a free market capitalist, I don't think it should, but it does," he said.

LIKELY TO LOSE PRIMARIES

Romney has struggled to connect with everyday Americans throughout his 2012 campaign. Thus his "I like grits" comment was intended to ingratiate himself with the back-slapping South, where biscuits and grits are a breakfast staple.

As Romney campaigns this week in Mississippi and Alabama, he and his advisers are under no illusions that he could win here, but would love to be surprised.

Romney's camp is more concerned about making sure he has a good enough finish to win some of the 1,144 delegates needed for the Republican nomination.

"We are successfully executing against our plan, even when we don't come in first," said senior Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom.

In fact Romney is engaged in a war of attrition with his rivals, less concerned about winning states and more intent on winning delegates.

He has more than 400 delegates now, a total that is double his nearest competitor, Santorum.

"We're not going to win either Alabama or Mississippi," said a senior Romney adviser. "But we'll pick up delegates in both places."

The Romney campaign is happy to watch Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, and former House of Representatives Speaker Gingrich, who represented a Georgia district, fight it out in the South.

Romney is steering clear of a Monday candidates' forum in Birmingham that both Santorum and Gingrich plan to attend.

"Romney just needs to stand aside and let Santorum and Gingrich beat each other up," said Merle Black, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta.

An encouraging sign for Romney was the endorsement of his campaign by Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant, yet another signal that the party establishment is warming to the idea of Romney as the ultimate nominee.

Phil Neville, who attended the Jackson event, said the size of the crowd jammed into a building at the Mississippi Farmer's Market suggested to him the opinion of Romney is changing.

"I think this crowd is evidence that people feel the most important is to beat Obama," said Neville. "Whatever faults Romney may have that people complain about, they all want the man with the best chance to beat Obama, and that person is Romney."

Romney's forces are pouring resources into the two states to try to raise questions about Santorum, whose victories in Tennessee and Oklahoma on March 6 "Super Tuesday" have solidified his status as the main conservative alternative to Romney.

Restore our Future, the Super PAC supporting Romney, has been on the air in Alabama and Mississippi with anti-Santorum ads for days, spending nearly $3 million.

Romney is driving home his message that he would focus on job creation, cutting government red tape, reducing deficits and overhauling sacrosanct entitlement programs for the poor and elderly to try to restore America's economic might.

"We have to have a fundamental restructuring of our government, which is to take out the scale and power of the federal government and return it to the people and the states," he said in Jackson.

Republican pollster Whit Ayres said the South wants to hear how the economy will rebound just as much as the rest of the country.

"The message of job creation and fiscal responsibility will play extremely well. The South is hurting every bit as much as the rest of the country with this anemic recovery and Southern states tend to be fiscally responsible states," he said.

Romney's message is more crisp than during his campaign in South Carolina, where his work as a private equity executive for Bain Capital became a distraction, along with his refusal to release his tax records. He later released his tax records and his work for Bain has faded as an issue.

Romney has been full of facts and figures about his proposals for a 20 percent cut in income taxes across the board, deficit reduction and entitlement overhaul. But he has not explained in plain English how these changes would relate to the average American.

"Romney needs to make sure that people understand clearly how his economic plan, cutting taxes, shrinking government and entitlement reform, impacts businesses large and small," said Jim Dyke, a South Carolina-based Republican strategist.

(Editing by Alistair Bell and Vicki Allen)

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Senate rejects GOP environment, energy proposals

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate killed Republican-backed attempts to overturn several of President Barack Obama's environmental and energy policies Thursday as lawmakers worked against a March 31 deadline to keep aid flowing to more than 100,000 transportation construction projects around the country.

The two-year, $109 billion transportation bill before the Senate has wide, bipartisan support, but has become a magnet for lawmakers' favorite causes and partisan gamesmanship. Among the amendments batted aside were GOP proposals to bypass Obama's concerns about the Keystone XL oil pipeline, to delay tougher air pollution standards for industrial boilers and to expand offshore oil drilling.

Action on those and other amendments came under an agreement between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., aimed at clearing the way for passage of the transportation bill next week.

Obama lobbied some Senate Democrats by telephone ahead of the Keystone vote, urging them to oppose an amendment by Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., that would have prevented the president from intervening in decisions related to construction of the pipeline and would have speeded its approval. Pointing to the administration's environmental concerns about the project, which would carry tar sands oil from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast, Republicans accused Obama of standing in the way greater oil supplies at a time when Americans are coping with rising gasoline prices.

But some Democrats, especially those from oil producing states, were torn between support for the pipeline and their support for the president. The amendment was defeated 56-42, even though 11 Democrats broke ranks to support it. Sixty votes were needed for passage.

Republican leaders jumped on the White House lobbying.

"Most Americans strongly support building this pipeline and the jobs that would come with it," McConnell said in a statement.

The president's lobbying against the Keystone provision came "a week after the president signaled to me and to Sen. McConnell that he might be willing to work with us on some bipartisan steps forward on energy legislation that the American people support," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters. "If we're going to have bipartisan action on energy, the Keystone pipeline is an obvious place to start."

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama felt it was "wrong to play politics" with the pipeline, especially since the company behind the project has said it still was working on a final route that might satisfy environmental concerns. He also said it was "false advertising" to suggest the amendment would have any impact on gasoline prices.

Also defeated was an amendment by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, which would have forced the Environmental Protection Agency to rewrite a rule requiring boiler operators to install modern emissions controls. Boilers are the second-largest source of toxic mercury emissions after coal-fired power plants. Collins said the EPA's rule would drive some manufacturers out of business.

And the Senate turned down an amendment to expand offshore oil drilling even though its sponsor, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., contended it would increase domestic energy supplies and reduce gas prices.

The transportation bill itself would overhaul federal transportation programs, including boosting aid to highway and transit programs, streamline some environmental regulations in order to speed up approval of projects and consolidate dozens of programs.

Lawmakers are under pressure to act quickly because the government's authority to collect about $110 million a day in federal gasoline and diesel taxes and to spend money out of the trust fund that pays for highway and transit programs expires at the end of the month. Chris Bertram, a Transportation Department official, said that if Congress doesn't meet the deadline, aid to about 130,000 transportation projects around the country will be disrupted and federal workers who send that money to states will be furloughed.

The construction industry, already suffering 17.7 percent unemployment at the end of January, would be especially hurt.

House Republicans crafted their own five-year, $260 billion bill, but they've been unable to marshal the support of rank-and-file lawmakers behind it. Conservatives say it spends too much money, while moderates say it would penalize union workers and undermine environmental provisions.

Boehner conceded Thursday that for the moment the House's best option is to take up the Senate bill after it passes — "or something like it" — although GOP leaders were still talking to their members in the hope of resurrecting their bill.

The inability of House Republicans to pass a highway bill of their own is an example of a paralysis that has struck several times in the past year. Last summer, an impasse over labor issues and subsidies for rural airports led to a two-week shutdown of non-essential Federal Aviation Administration operations.

In December, Boehner overrode his own rank-and-file when he agreed to a deal to extend the Social Security payroll tax cut after most lawmakers had gone home.

___

Associated Press writers Matthew Daly, Dina Cappiello, Andrew Taylor and Ken Thomas contributed to this report.

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Keystone oil pipeline bill fails in Senate

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Democrats on Thursday defeated a Republican proposal to give a permit to the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline in a vote that will give Republicans more ammunition to criticize President Barack Obama's energy policies on the campaign trail.

Republicans argue the pipeline, which would ship oil from Canada and northern states to Texas, would create jobs and improve energy security at a time of surging gasoline prices.

Obama put TransCanada's $7 billion project on hold earlier this year pending further environmental review. He took the unusual step of calling some senators personally ahead of the vote, asking them to reject the proposal.

"He understood that a majority of the American public, a majority at least in the Senate, are strongly in favor of this project," said Senator Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, who sponsored the bill to take control of the pipeline decision away from Obama.

The Republicans tried to advance their plan as an amendment to a highway funding bill. It failed on a vote of 56-42, four short of the 60 needed to pass, although 11 Democratic senators voted with the Republicans.

Republicans are using the proposal to highlight Obama's delay of the project ahead of November presidential and congressional elections, linking his decision to rising gasoline prices.

"We're going to continue this fight," said Republican Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota, who championed the bill.

He told reporters he hoped the measure might still be attached to the highway funding package when the Senate and House of Representatives work on a final version.

"With gas prices going up every day, with what's going on in the Middle East, I'll tell you what: the pressure is just going to increase on the administration to get this project done," Hoeven said.

Obama has supported construction of the southern leg of the pipeline, and his administration will assess a new route around an environmentally sensitive area of Nebraska once it has been identified, said White House spokesman Clark Stevens.

"Once again, Republicans are trying to play politics with a pipeline project whose route has yet to be proposed," Stevens said. The entire project will take more than two years to build once permits are granted.

 

GREEN GROUP: 'TEMPORARY VICTORY'

The Keystone amendment was among 30 measures - many of them energy-related - being voted on as the Senate pushes in coming days to renew funding for highways and other infrastructure projects, slated to run out at the end of March.

Earlier, the Senate defeated proposals to expand the area available for offshore oil drilling and extend the time for manufacturers to phase in new pollution regulations set by the Environmental Protection Agency for industrial boilers.

But the Keystone amendment attracted the most attention. The pipeline would carry crude from Canadian oil sands to Texas refineries and would also pick up U.S. crude from North Dakota and Montana along the way.

Environmental groups have fought the project, staging large protests last year that pressured the Obama administration to block approval.

"Today's vote was a temporary victory and there's no guarantee that it holds for the long run," Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, said in a statement.

"We're grateful to the administration for denying the permit and for Senate leadership for holding the line."

With a 34-64 vote, senators also defeated a proposal from Democratic Senator Ron Wyden that would have blocked exports of oil from the pipeline, as well as refined products made from that oil.

Wyden said lawmakers need to carefully think through projects that would increase exports of oil, fuel and natural gas, lest the exports end up boosting prices for Americans.

"This is just a step in what is clearly going to be an extensive debate," Wyden told Reuters after the vote.

Democratic senators who voted for the Republican Keystone plan included Max Baucus and Jon Tester of Montana, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Jim Webb of Virginia.

Two Republican senators were absent, and all the 45 who were present voted for the amendment.

(Additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro; editing by Mohammad Zargham and Todd Eastham)

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Mississippi Presidential Primary Voter Guide

The Mississippi presidential primary will be held Tuesday, March 13. The New York Times states there are 40 delegates to the Republican National Convention at stake in the Mississippi primary this year. Here's a guide for voters in Mississippi who want to participate in the GOP nomination process.

Ballot

There are eight candidates on the official Mississippi ballot. Choices are listed in alphabetical order beginning with Rep. Michele Bachmann and ending with Rick Santorum. There is also a slot for a write-in candidate. All four of the mainstream choices still in the race are on the ballot in addition to four people who have dropped out of the Republican race.

Polling Times and Places

Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on election day for those who wish to cast ballots in the ordinary manner. Absentee ballots may be cast anytime at your local circuit clerk's office up to noon on Saturday, March 10. Mailed absentee ballots must be received no later than 5 p.m. on Monday, March 12, in order to be counted.

Polling places may be found on your voter ID card. You may also call your local election authority to find out your polling location.

What to Bring

The easiest way to identify yourself at the polls is to bring your voter identification card that you received in the mail. The registration deadline was 30 days before the March 13 primary. If you don't have your voter ID card and are registered, there are valid forms of ID you can bring with you.

Among those accepted forms of ID are a valid photo identification such as driver's license or state-issued ID card. A utility bill with your current address is also a valid form of ID that can match your name to a registered address. A current bank statement and paycheck may also be used, as long as it has your name and address listed together.

How to Vote

Mississippi has two ways to vote depending upon where you live. Optical scan ballots are one common way to vote in which voters fill out an oval using a number two pencil or a dark pen. Red pens are not allowed.

The other way to vote is with touch screen computers. The "Touch and Vote" system allows you to vote by touching a square next to a candidate choice on a computer screen. After all of the ballots have been filled in, you can print your ballot in the summary screen that shows you what choices you made.

You can go back and make changes at any time until your ballot is cast. Your ballot will be printed so you can review your choices. After it is printed, you can "reject" or "cast" your ballot. The touch screens will need to be activated by the election official at the polling place before you vote.

William Browning is a research librarian specializing in U.S. politics. Born in St. Louis, Browning is active in local politics and served as a campaign volunteer for President Barack Obama and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill.

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Romney faces question about possible VP picks

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mitt Romney may still be fighting to win the Republican presidential nomination, but he's also been fielding questions about who he'd choose as his running mate.

The question came up again Friday during a town-hall meeting in Jackson, Miss. While Romney offered no names, he says the Republican Party has many excellent governors, senators and former elected officials.

He said his most important criteria in a running mate would be a person who has shown they can be president.

Romney leads his Republican rivals in the race for convention delegates as the party's nominating contest turns to the Deep South. The former Massachusetts governor was headed to Alabama after his Mississippi stop. Both states hold GOP primaries on Tuesday.

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U.S. House GOP look to reshape birth control debate

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Republican leaders are looking for a way to reshape the debate over the administration's new rule on birth-control insurance coverage before moving ahead with a bid to nullify the requirement.

Representative Jeff Fortenberry, who has introduced legislation on the issue, acknowledged hesitation by some fellow Republicans to take on the incendiary issue. But he said a delay could give Republicans time to recast the issue as a question of religious freedom rather than women's rights.

We'll keep trying to appropriately frame the debate about this core American principle," Fortenberry said.

Representative Pete Sessions, who heads the House Republican campaign committee, said party leaders are not backing off. “We're not hesitant to do anything," Sessions said. The successful rain dance has a lot to do with timing."

House Republicans have taken a cautious approach after the Senate, mostly on party lines, rejected a measure that would have allowed employers with moral objections to opt out of birth control coverage and other services.

The administration's plan would require employers, including charities and other religious institutions, to provide contraception coverage at no extra charge.

Senator Roy Blunt, who offered the Senate measure, said Democrats' framing of the issue as a women's rights question proved to be a problem. We're not going to win that debate on birth control," said Blunt. But the debate over religious liberty is not going to go away."

The issue has made some Republicans cautious in an election year, when most voters are concerned about U.S. economic growth and job creation, said one aide.

A spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Republican leaders were still discussing with members how best to move forward.

Fortenberry said it is unclear whether his legislation will be the bill that moves forward in the House. But he believes he has the votes to ensure passage.

FIRST OBAMA, THEN REPUBLICANS

Obama faced an uproar from religious groups over the administration's birth control requirement. But he moved quickly to quell it by altering the rule so employers with religious affiliations would not be required to offer free birth control to workers.

Insurers would instead bear the onus to provide coverage.

Republicans said the compromise did not go far enough and announced plans to move forward with measures that would override the ruling.

Incendiary comments by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who called Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a “slut" and “prostitute" for speaking out in support of the Obama policy, helped Democrats reframe the issue to their political advantage, analysts said.

Limbaugh, who has lost advertisers who found his comments objectionable, has since apologized.

It looked like an attack on women and women are the majority of the electorate," said Jennifer Lawless of the Women and Politics Institute at American University.

A Kaiser Family Foundation survey last week of 1,500 adults showed nearly two-thirds of Americans favor Obama's policy, including clear majorities of Catholics and evangelicals.

A number of religious groups have filed lawsuits challenging the new rule.

Republican strategist Ron Bonjean, a former congressional aide, said House Speaker John Boehner has good reason to schedule a vote on a measure to overturn the rule.

While jobs and the economy are the number one issue, this is one of those niche issues that can really make a difference in the election among Catholic voters," he said.

They respond well to the issue of religious freedoms," he added. If Catholic congregations hear that Republicans are on their side, that can only help them in November."

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Deal not sealed, Romney hits Santorum with big ad buys

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mitt Romney's presidential campaign would like to be focusing its attacks on Democratic President Barack Obama around now.

But after failing to seize control of the Republican nomination race on "Super Tuesday," Romney cannot shake off rival Rick Santorum, whom he criticized on Thursday as a political insider.

Opening up a new front against Santorum, the Romney campaign accused him of being a lobbyist in his home state of Pennsylvania even before he went to Washington in 1991.

Romney's campaign also attacked Santorum for holding regular meetings with lobbyists as a Senate leader, part of the Republican "K Street Project" seeking to increase the party's influence in the capital.

"Senator Santorum's claims to be a Washington outsider are at odds with the facts. After serving as a lobbyist in Pennsylvania before running for Congress, Santorum became a go-to guy for D.C. lobbyists while he served in the Senate," Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in a statement headlined: "Lobbyist/Congressman/Senator Rick Santorum: The Insider's Insider."

With an appeal to evangelicals and conservatives that Romney often lacks, Santorum is challenging the idea his rival is the inevitable Republican nominee to face Obama in November's election.

Santorum could pick up support in a series of primary fights this month in the kind of strongly Republican states where the former Massachusetts governor has had little success so far.

To help fend off the challenge, the Super PAC outside spending group that supports Romney - by far the biggest fundraiser in the Republican field - has been pouring millions of dollars into anti-Santorum advertising.

Conservative Kansas, where Santorum is the favorite, holds its caucuses on Saturday. Alabama and Mississippi, two Southern states where evangelical Christians are a big voting bloc, have primaries on Tuesday.

Romney would dearly like to win in any of those strongly Republican states, after securing most of his primary and caucus victories to date in states that supported Obama in the 2008 election. On Thursday, Romney picked up the endorsement of Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant.

AD BUYS

Restore our Future, the Super PAC supporting Romney, has been on the air in Alabama and Mississippi with anti-Santorum ads for days, spending nearly $3 million.

The group is already buying $1.4 million in advertisements in two states that do not vote for weeks. Restore our Future spent more than $909,000 in Illinois, which holds its primary on March 20, and more than $431,000 in Louisiana, where the primary is March 24.

A pro-Santorum Super PAC, called the Red, White and Blue Fund, retaliated by spending $500,000 to air ads attacking Romney in Alabama and Mississippi.

Santorum spent Thursday campaigning in Alabama, where he called for a strong defense at a state-owned space museum.

Romney campaigned in Mississippi, where during a stop in Pascagoula, he said longtime aide Garrett Jackson, a graduate of the University of Mississippi, had been instructing him on the ways of the South. "I'm learning to say ya'll, I like grits," Romney said.

Also campaigning in Mississippi was Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the House of Representatives from Georgia.

Now running third in national polls, Gingrich canceled campaign stops in Kansas to stake his campaign on strong performances in Southern contests near his home state. He has refused to heed calls to leave the nomination race.

Romney won six of the 10 states up for grabs in this week's "Super Tuesday" races, but Santorum won three and Gingrich captured one, keeping alive both their hopes and the likelihood the nomination race will continue for months.

(Additional reporting by Alina Selyukh, Alexander Cohen and Steve Holland; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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Romney eager to connect with Southern voters

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Eager to connect with Southern voters, Mitt Romney burnished his business credentials — and his new-found love for cheesy grits — as he sought support for his Republican presidential campaign in a region that presents significant challenges for the former Massachusetts governor.

Romney greeted the crowd at a town hall meeting Friday with a hearty "Morning, y'all!"

"I got started right this morning with a biscuit and some cheesy grits," he said. "Delicious!"

With voters in Mississippi, as well as Alabama, headed to the polls on Tuesday, Romney is battling against his perceived weaknesses in the Deep South. He focused heavily on his private sector background while answering voters' questions, and sought to cast himself as the Republican candidate best-suited to tackle the nation's economic problems.

"In business, you have to be a fiscal conservative. If not, you go out of business," Romney said.

Romney spoke as the latest jobs numbers showed the economy added 227,000 jobs in February, though the unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.3 percent, largely because more people streamed into the work force.

Romney did not directly address the fresh economic data, but he criticized President Barack Obama for failing to bring the unemployment rate back below 8 percent.

The GOP front-runner also faced a question about who he would pick as vice president. He side-stepped the inquiry, saying only that the party has excellent governors, senators and former leaders and that he would pick a running mate who has the capacity to serve as president.

Romney holds a solid lead in the race for delegates to the party's summer convention as the primary race turns to the South. While Romney's campaign says the delegate math makes it almost impossible for his rivals to catch up, both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich see the Southern states as an opportunity to make up ground in the race.

One of Romney's top surrogates in Mississippi said that while the former Massachusetts governor may be an underdog in Tuesday's primary, his campaign infrastructure in the state gives him the opportunity for a strong showing.

"We are the most organized campaign in Mississippi," said Austin Barbour, a national chairman for Romney's campaign. "We're an underdog in Mississippi, but we're a fighting underdog."

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How Slim Are Gingrich and Santorum's Chances of Catching Romney?

We all know that if Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich want to be the Republican presidential nominee, they have to win more states. But they also have to win by large margins, The New York Times' Nate Silver explains, because so many states award delegates proportionally. So while a little gain in Alabama is good news for them, it isn't great. Here's our guide to today's polls and which ones matter.

RELATED: Santorum Wins Tie with Romney in Iowa

Findings: There's essentially a three-way tie in Alabama, with Gingrich with 30 percent of the vote, Santorum with 29 percent, and Romney with 28 percent.
Pollster: Rasmussen
Methodology: Robo-calls to 750 likely Republican voters on March 8.
Why it matters: This poll sharply contradicts one released Thursday by the Alabama Education Association that showed Romney ahead by 10 points in the state, followed by Santorum with 21.6 percent and Gingrich with 21.2 percent. Which should be good news for either of these guys' chances for overtaking Romney, right? Yes. But. It helps to look at Alabama when thinking about how Santorum could come back from Romney's big lead in delegates, given that most of the remaining states award delegates proportionally. As The New York Times' Nate Silver explains, a small win for Santorum in those cases doesn't hurt Romney enough. In Alabama, if the final tally on March 13 is 35 percent for Santorum, followed by Gingrich and Romney tied with about 30 percent, then Santorum gets 21 delegates, while the others get 13 each. But if Santorum wins with 45 percent of the vote to Gingrich's 28 percent and Romney's 19 percent, then Santorum wins 33 delegates to Romney's 1 -- much better. But Silver writes that something pretty huge would have to happen in the race to give Santorum that kind of momentum everywhere. Gingrich, who's only won two states, has even further to go than Santorum.
Caveat: Rasmussen leans right, and there haven't been many polls in Alabama. 

RELATED: Remembering When the GOP Candidates Loved George W. Bush

Findings: Gingrich leads in Mississippi with 35 percent, followed by Romney with 30 percent and Santorum with 20 percent. Mississippi votes March 13.
Pollster: American Research Group
Methodology: Survey of 600 likely Republican voters on March 7 and March 8.
Why it matters: Gingrich's campaign has made it pretty clear he can't go on if he doesn't win the South. His huge lead is party thanks to his popularity among Tea Party supporters, 49 percent of whom say they're voting for him. Santorum is in third place among them with 17 percent, being beaten by Romney, who has 24 percent of Tea Partiers' vote.
Caveat: As explained above, for Santorum or Gingrich to win enough delegates to be the nominee, they have to not just win a lot of states, but crush Romney.

RELATED: GOP Debate: Easy Night for Romney

Findings: 65 percent of adults think the president and Congress can do something to stop gas prices from rising. And 85 percent of Americans think Washington should take immediate action to control gas prices.
Pollster: Gallup
Methodology: Interviews for the tracking poll with about 500 adults on March 5 and March 6.
Why it matters: They are, for the most part, wrong. But it explains why Gingrich -- and Michele Bachmann before him -- is campaigning on a promise to lower gas prices, arguing that gas prices might reach $9 under Obama and that Romney is too rich to understand high gas prices. 
Caveat: This week the national gas price average was $3.79 a gallon. Gallup finds $5.30 a gallon is the point where Americans think they'd have to seriously change their spending habits.

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NJ bill would end payments for banked sick time

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey's Republican governor and Democrat-controlled Legislature have long agreed it's time to stop large end-of-career payouts to government employees for unused sick days, but there's been less agreement on how to legislate an end to the payouts Gov. Chris Christie mockingly calls "boat checks."

An Assembly committee advanced the latest proposal Thursday. The measure would end payouts that can reach six figures from now on, but would allow employees to keep what they've lawfully accrued to date.

"We will finally end the outrageously large cash payments to public workers that don't exist in the private sector and have burdened taxpayers for far too long," said Assemblywoman Pam Lampitt, a Voorhees Democrat who is sponsoring a two-bill package to cover union and non-union employees. "We'll be implementing a reasonable and responsible system that in the long run benefits everyone by putting an end to these unacceptable cash payouts."

The cash-outs to retiring school administrators, police and firefighters, and other public-sector workers, is costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Christie has estimated the tab at $825 million for accumulated sick leave payments collectively owed to workers around the state. He refers to the payouts as "boat checks" because he says they are sometimes so large that retirees could finance a boat purchase.

Christie, who has been calling for legislation that ends the payouts entirely for newly hired workers, vetoed a bill capping the payouts at $15,000. Legislative sponsors then knocked the cap down to $7,500, but the governor threatened to veto that as well, so it didn't advance.

Senate President Steve Sweeney last month offered up a measure that halts payouts for unused sick time going forward. His bill allows employees to roll over the time and use it for illnesses, but not cash it out once they leave. It hasn't yet had a legislative hearing.

In testifying on behalf of her bill, Lampitt ticked off what many consider to be outrageous payouts that need to end: A former police chief in Harrison left office with a check for $305,000; the impoverished city of Camden paid $2.3 million to 20 retiring employees over four years ending in 2008; Counties, towns, colleges and school boards are straining under the weight of large payouts to longtime employees.

One Assembly bill entirely eliminates the cash value of unused sick time for non-union employees such as administrators. The other allows workers to bank up to $7,500 in sick time that could be credited toward their health insurance payments in retirement if the provision is negotiated as part of their union contracts.

The accrued time would have no cash value, per Christie's insistence.

The bills also limit vacation carry-forward to one year.

Another sponsor, Democratic Assemblyman Al Coutinho of Newark, said the legislation is a win for taxpayers.

"The so-called 'boat check' will be gone, and local governments will have the flexibility they need to negotiate what works best for their community," he said.

Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande, a Freehold Republican who voted "no" on both bills, said Christie has made it clear he would veto any bills containing payouts.

But, Assemblywoman Linda Stender, a Scotch Plains Democrat who voted "yes," said the bills preserve collective bargaining while eliminating a cash value to accumulated sick time.

The bills advanced in a 3-2 party-line vote.

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Ron Paul, Rick Santorum to Make Missouri Campaign Stops

The Missouri GOP caucus will be held Saturday, March 17. Locations in all of Missouri's 114 counties will hold caucus meetings in the mid-morning or early afternoon. Ahead of those caucuses, two of the four mainstream Republican candidates for president will make campaign stops in Missouri. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas and Rick Santorum will be campaigning in the Show-Me State on the same day as Kansas holds its caucus meetings March 10.

Here's a breakdown of when and where the candidates will be.

Ron Paul

Paul will start out in St. Charles, Mo., at Hyland Arena on the campus of Lindenwood University at 3 p.m. March 10. Admission is free and is on a first-come, first-served basis. Expect Paul to be there for about an hour. KMOX reports Paul spoke in Kansas City in February and this will be his second stop in Missouri.

The candidate then travels about 200 miles to the southwest for a stop in Springfield, Mo., at a town hall meeting at the Hillcrest High School gymnasium at 7:30 p.m. The Springfield News-Leader states Paul will speak for about 15 minutes and then have a 15-minute question and answer session with the public. After he speaks to those in attendance, Paul will be available for the media for about 15 minutes.

Rick Santorum

Santorum will also make two stops in Missouri March 10. At 2 p.m., Santorum will hold a rally at Digital Monitoring Products at the Partnership Industrial Center in northeast Springfield. Digital Monitoring Products has been headquartered in Springfield for 35 years and specializes in manufacturing central security monitoring devices.

Later in the day, Santorum will go to Cape Girardeau, Mo., at 6:30 as the keynote speaker of the Cape Girardeau County Lincoln Day banquet hosted by the local Republican Party. Tickets are $20 for the event if you want to attend. At 8 p.m., Santorum will hold a rally at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport.

Venues

Paul's rally at Hyland Arena is on the campus of Lindenwood University. The basketball venue is capable of seating 3,000 people in seats around the floor. When Paul comes to Springfield, he will be at Hillcrest High School located on Grant Avenue just north of Kearney Street in Springfield.

Santorum will speak at Digital Monitoring Products, a factory in northeast Springfield off Kearney and U.S. 65. In Cape Girardeau, the Plaza Conference Center is capable of hosting 750 people at a banquet-style event. The airport in Cape Girardeau is located on Rush H. Limbaugh Jr. Memorial Dr. just west of Interstate 55 to the northwest of the city.

William Browning, a lifelong Missouri resident, writes about local and state issues for the Yahoo! Contributor Network. Born in St. Louis, Browning earned his bachelor's degree in English from the University of Missouri. He currently resides in Branson.

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