Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, one of Capitol Hill’s most influential voices in the Iran nuclear debate, is strongly endorsing passage of a law opposed by President Barack Obama that would give Congress an avenue to reject the White House-brokered framework unveiled last week.

The comments Monday by the Democratic leader-in-waiting illustrate the enormity of the task ahead for President Barack Obama and his team: While there’s no guarantee that Congress would ultimately reject an agreement with Iran, there’s an increasingly bipartisan consensus that Congress should at least have the ability to do so.

“This is a very serious issue that deserves careful consideration, and I expect to have a classified briefing in the near future. I strongly believe Congress should have the right to disapprove any agreement and I support the Corker bill which would allow that to occur,” Schumer said in an emailed statement to POLITICO.

Hello,

When two of the biggest Wall Street banks announced Friday that they might withhold $30,000 in political contributions to Senate Democrats because of me, I asked you to help us match it.

In less than 24 hours, we’d raised the $30,000 – so on Saturday, I asked you to help double it. (I honestly wasn’t sure if we could hit such a ginormous goal, but what the heck – we tried it anyway.)

I have incredible news: Our team didn’t just double down on Wall Street’s threat – we TRIPLED it. In fact, 3825 people have helped us raise more than $100,000 since Citigroup and JPMorgan fired their warning shot a few days ago.

Tomorrow night is the big quarterly fundraising deadline. What do you say we really show them and QUADRUPLE it?

Let’s send Wall Street the loudest possible message that their bullying won’t make us go away. If you can chip in $5 or $10 – or whatever you can afford – you’ll help us reach $120,000 by midnight tomorrow night.

Thank you for being a part of this,

Elizabeth

"Sen. Ted Cruz plans to announce Monday that he will run for president of the United States, accelerating his already rapid three-year rise from a tea party insurgent in Texas into a divisive political force in Washington.

Cruz will launch a presidential bid outright rather than form an exploratory committee, said senior advisers with direct knowledge of his plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity because an official announcement had not been made yet. They say he is done exploring and is now ready to become the first Republican presidential candidate.

The senator is scheduled to speak Monday at a convocation ceremony at Liberty University in Virginia, where he is expected to declare his campaign for the presidency."

But when the news came that the state had reached a deal to settle its $8.9 billion claim for about $250 million, the driving force behind the settlement was not the attorney general’s office — it was Gov. Chris Christie’s chief counsel, Christopher S. Porrino, two people familiar with the negotiations said.

One of those people, Bradley M. Campbell, was the commissioner of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection in 2004 when the lawsuits against Exxon were filed. Mr. Campbell, in an op-ed article appearing in The New York Times on Thursday, wrote that “even more troubling” than the decision to settle the lawsuit were “the circumstances surrounding the decision.”
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He goes on to say that former colleagues of his in the state government told him that Mr. Porrino “inserted himself into the case, elbowed aside the attorney general and career employees who had developed and prosecuted the litigation, and cut the deal favorable to Exxon.”