Congress returns amid chaos over House speaker

WASHINGTON — Congress returns from a week-long break to a simmering pot of palace intrigue as House Republicans continue to struggle to identify the next speaker and the Benghazi committee prepares for its long-awaited showdown with Hillary Clinton.

There is plenty of legislation to keep both chambers busy this week. The Senate is taking up a bill to punish "sanctuary cities" that protect undocumented immigrants from deportation and may also take up a cybersecurity bill aimed at preventing the kind of hack attacks that have compromised the personal data of millions of Americans. The House is expected to vote on a "budget reconciliation" bill that would defund Planned Parenthood and portions of the Affordable Care Act — a bill that President Obama would certainly veto.

But budget drama looms. Lawmakers are facing an Oct. 29 deadline to renew highway spending and a Nov. 3 deadline to lift the debt limit so the government can continue borrowing money to pay its bills. Congressional leaders plan to negotiate with the White House on a long-term budget deal that will keep federal agencies open past Dec. 11.

For the House, the most pressing business continues to be choosing a new speaker to replace John Boehner, R-Ohio, who plans to leave Congress at the end of this month unless Republicans fail to choose a new leader. House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is expected to announce soon whether he will run for the top job. Ryan is being pushed to run by Republican colleagues who see him as the best hope to unite the fractured GOP caucus.

Conservatives rejected Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., causing him to withdraw from consideration at an Oct. 8 meeting that was expected to nominate him. Some of those same lawmakers and outside activists are also rallying against Ryan, and there are a half dozen other House Republicans who have hinted they may run if Ryan does not.

McCarthy lost support in part because he suggested publicly that the House Select Committee on Benghazi was created to damage Clinton's presidential campaign. Another Republican, Rep. Richard Hanna of New York, said essentially the same thing in a recent interview.

Clinton has seized on those remarks to portray the committee's investigation as a political witch hunt against her — a charge the panel's leaders have denied. The former secretary of state is scheduled to testify before the committee Thursday in what is being viewed as a credibility test for both Clinton and the Republican-led panel.

The committee was created 17 months ago to investigate the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. The focus of the probe has since shifted to Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

While the week's major political drama will play out in the House, the Senate will vote Tuesday on whether to advance a bill by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., to bar sanctuary cities and states from receiving certain federal law enforcement grants.

The legislation targets jurisdictions that refuse to comply with requests from the Department of Homeland Security to detain an arrested person for up to 48 hours so that they can be taken into custody by federal agents to face deportation. Grant money taken away from sanctuary cities and states would be given to local and state governments that cooperate with federal authorities.

Republicans have pushed for the bill in response to the murder of 32-year-old Kate Steinle, who was allegedly shot to death by an undocumented immigrant and convicted felon on July 1 in San Francisco. A San Francisco city-county law dating back to 1989 bars local officials from helping federal agents with immigration investigations or arrests unless required by federal or state law or by a warrant.

More than 300 cities have adopted sanctuary policies because they object to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents rounding up people arrested by local police for minor, non-violent crimes. Some cities with large immigrant populations say that undocumented immigrants will be afraid to report crime to police if they believe local authorities will turn them over to federal agents for deportation.

Republicans say such policies threaten the lives of law-abiding Americans. Democrats say Republicans are using the Steinle tragedy to pander to right-wing GOP primary voters and demonize immigrants. President Obama vowed to veto a similar bill passed by the House in July.

The Senate also is expected to begin debate soon on the bipartisan Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, which encourages the voluntary sharing of cyber threat information between private companies and between companies and the federal government.

The bill would give companies protection from lawsuits from consumers and shareholders for sharing data with the government. It also would protect businesses from anti-trust laws for sharing information with competitors.

Supporters of the bill say it would help thwart hackers by allowing companies and the government to get immediate information about cyber attacks and defend against them before they spread to other targets. Opponents say it threatens Americans' privacy rights by allowing companies to turn over their customers' personal data to the government without customers' approval.