Administration

The Senate Democratic Caucus will refuse to seat former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris if Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) appoints him to the U.S. Senate, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said today, reacting to a Chicago Tribune report that Blagojevich intends to do so.

Reid, along with the other 49 Democrats in the Senate, sent a letter to Blagojevich earlier this month making it clear that any appointment would be rejected.

"It is truly regrettable that despite requests from all 50 Democratic Senators and public officials throughout Illinois, Gov. Blagojevich would take the imprudent step of appointing someone to the United States Senate who would serve under a shadow and be plagued by questions of impropriety," Reid said today in a written statement issued by his office, on behalf of the Senate Democratic leadership. Read more...

Confirmation hearings will begin next week for President-elect Barack Obama's picks to run the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Education, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) announced today.

None of the three picks are expected to draw significant opposition in the Senate. See the schedule below:

• 10:00 AM Thursday, January 8, 2009: Confirmation Hearing for Secretary of Health and Human Services-Designate, Former Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.)

• 9:30 AM Friday, January 9, 2009: Confirmation Hearing for Secretary of Labor-Designate, Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-Calif.)

• 10:00 AM Tuesday, January 13, 2009: Confirmation Hearing for Secretary of Education-Designate, Mr. Arne Duncan

All hearings will be held in 430 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Grammy-winning rocker and lesbian activist Melissa Etheridge says she's talked with Rev. Rick Warren and that he's not the "hate spouting, money grabbing, bad hair televangelist" she expected him to be. In fact, Etheridge says, gays should welcome Warren when he arrives in Washington, D.C. to deliver the invocation at President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration Jan. 20.

Etheridge spoke with Warren Sunday before they both appeared at an event hosted by the civil rights oriented Muslim Public Affairs Council, Etheride wrote in an entry on The Huffington Post last night, telling readers that the conversation dissolved her previous, second-hand conceptions of the reverend.

Etheridge says she reached out to Warren "in the spirit of unity" after being informed that he would speak at the event Sunday night. The singer said she considered canceling her appearance in light of Warren's support of California's Proposition 8 and his opposition to gay marriage--the political stances that have brought a maelstrom of complaints against Obama for giving him a prominent role in the coming inauguration.

Warren spoke passionately in support of Prop 8 in a video message to his congregation, calling gay marriage "not even a Christian issue--it's a humanitarian, a human issue that God created marriage for the purpose of family, love, and procreation." Warren has also said that approving gay marriage is equivalent approving incestuous, pedophilic, and polygamous marriages.

Etheridge writes:

I told my manager to reach out to Pastor Warren and say "In the spirit of unity I would like to talk to him." They gave him my phone number. On the day of the conference I received a call from Pastor Rick, and before I could say anything, he told me what a fan he was. He had most of my albums from the very first one. What? This didn't sound like a gay hater, much less a preacher. He explained in very thoughtful words that as a Christian he believed in equal rights for everyone. He believed every loving relationship should have equal protection. He struggled with proposition 8 because he didn't want to see marriage redefined as anything other than between a man and a woman. He said he regretted his choice of words in his video message to his congregation about proposition 8 when he mentioned pedophiles and those who commit incest. He said that in no way, is that how he thought about gays. He invited me to his church, I invited him to my home to meet my wife and kids. He told me of his wife's struggle with breast cancer just a year before mine.

When we met later that night, he entered the room with open arms and an open heart. We agreed to build bridges to the future.

Etheridge called on fellow gays and lesbians to keep an open mind on Warren. She suggested that, instead of marching on his California church, they should consider volunteering for one of his charitable organizations that works to fight HIV/AIDS. She also said that, after speaking with Warren, she decided to attend (and not protest) Obama's inauguration.

When President-elect Barack Obama takes his oath and is sworn into office on Jan. 20, he will place his hand on the same Bible used to swear in Abraham Lincoln in 1861, the Presidential Inaugural Committee announced today.

Obama will be the first president, other than Lincoln himself, to use the emancipator's Bible when being sworn into the White House, the committee said. The Lincoln Bible will be made available by the Library of Congress, where it resides.

"President-elect Obama is deeply honored that the Library of Congress has made the Lincoln Bible available for use during his swearing-in," Presidential Inaugural Committee Executive Director Emmett Beliveau said today in a press release announcing Obama's intention.

"The President-elect is committed to holding an Inauguration that celebrates America's unity, and the use of this historic Bible will provide a powerful connection to our common past and common heritage."

Following his new assignment as head of a task force on the middle class, Vice President-elect Joe Biden says he does not intend to take on a narrow, discrete role in any one area of policy in President-elect Barack Obama's new administration.

In an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos that aired today, Biden said he stipulated to Obama in August that he did not want a narrow assignment as VP.

"When Barack Obama, Senator Barack Obama then, talked to me about being his vice president, I said we have to

Vice President-elect Joe Biden will, in his own words, be "honchoing" a task force focused on the middle class in President-elect Barack Obama's new administration, advising Obama on economic, education, and labor policy that affects middle- and working-class Americans.

Effective Jan. 20, 2009, Biden's group will include Cabinet secretaries from various federal departments in the Obama administration, including Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Commerce, as well as the heads of the Office of Management and Budget, the National Economic Council, the Domestic Policy Council, and the Council of Economic Advisors.

The group, dubbed the White House Task Force on Working Families, has been given the following priorities, as listed by Obama's transition team in the press release announcing its formation:

President-elect Barack Obama left Chicago today for Hawaii, his place of birth, where he plans to spend the holidays with his family and a few friends. The Obamas are expected to return to Chicago Dec. 30.

Obama last traveled to Hawaii in October to visit his ailing grandmother shortly before she died.

The Obama family will spend its 10-day vacation with the families of two or three friends at a multimillion-dollar beachfront property on Oahu, according to the AP.

The weather in Hawaii should prove a significant upgrade for the Obama family: they will be greeted with 80-degree temperatures on the islands, while Chicago expects a temperature of six degrees (Fahrenheit) tomorrow.

President-elect Barack Obama this morning praised President Bush's decision to grant $13.4 billion in immediate loans to General Motors and Chrysler from the Treasury's $700 billion bailout fund.

Obama called on the automakers to take the opportunity to begin restructuring their companies. See his full statement below:

Today's actions are a necessary step to help avoid a collapse in our auto industry that would have devastating consequences for our economy and our workers. With the short-term assistance provided by this package, the auto companies must bring all their stakeholders together -- including labor, dealers, creditors and suppliers -- to make the hard choices necessary to achieve long-term viability. The auto companies must not squander this chance to reform bad management practices and begin the long-term restructuring that is absolutely required to save this critical industry and the millions of American jobs that depend on it.

Former President Bill Clinton today publicized a list of contributors to his William J. Clinton foundation, following reports that President-elect Barack Obama's team stipulated he must disclose the list before his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) could be officially tapped as the nation's prospective secretary of State.

Clinton's foundation posted the list to its website this morning. As of the time of this post, however, the database was not functioning. The Clinton foundation told The Hill that it is working to make the list available as soon as possible.

Clinton was reported to have disclosed the list to Obama's team late last month.

The foundation notified reporters this morning via e-mail in a press release, noting that donors had enabled the foundation to combat HIV/AIDS, assist with economic growth, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, address poverty and health worldwide, in addition to assisting with Hurricane Katrina recovery and helping the governments of Rwanda and Malawi to deliver basic government services.

Questions had been raised about potential conflicts of interest between Hillary Clinton's pending post and her husband's global financial ties, including those of his organization. The disclosure of his donors list was seen as a move to alleviate that concern.

A new poll from Marist College today reported that 63 percent of those surveyed approve of President-elect Barack Obama's transition efforts.

Of the 883 registered U.S. voters surveyed via phone Dec. 9 and 10, 10 percent said they disapprove, while 27 percent said they were unsure.

A vast majority of Democrats said they approve of Obama's transition activities, while Republicans voiced less confidence in the president-elect: 86 percent of Democrats and 36 percent of Republicans said they approve of Obama's transition efforts, while 46 percent of Republicans said they were unsure.

The margin of error for the survey was 3.5 percent.