June 30 roundup: McConnell vows to push abortion limit as Senate majority leader

News beyond Sen. Elizabeth Warren's Sunday visit for Alison Lundergan Grimes:

• In advance of the visit, Grimes "introduced a plan aimed at relieving student debt that includes dropping student loan interest to the discount rate banks pay, allowing students to refinance the loans and fully funding Pell grants," reports Joe Gerth of The Courier-Journal. "The Grimes plan also calls for making sure women are paid the same as men to help women pay off their student debts."
• In a "passionate" speech at the National Right to Life convention Saturday in Louisville, Sen. Mitch McConnell "sounded more than ready to take the Senate reins from Majority Leader Harry Reid" to advance anti-abortion legislation if Republicans take over the Senate, Cortney O'Brien reports on TownHall.com. "It's long past time for us to join the ranks of most other civilized nations to protect children past 20 weeks in the womb," McConnell said.
• "Grimes has said she believes the issue of abortion should not be dictated by government but should be a choice a woman makes with her doctor," Gerth writes from the meeting. "She favors keeping the law as it is under Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling affirming the right to an abortion." Gerth notes that McConnell didn't speak with reporters afterward and writes, "Abortion hasn't been much of an issue" in the race because the candidates "don't talk about it in stump speeches."
• PBS NewsHour's "Morning Line" says "Republicans believe conservatives will come home" and "McConnell will find a way to pull out a win in November, despite most public and private polls showing the race to be a dead heat." Grimes must find a way to get out from Obama's shadow, "an effort not helped by the administration’s recent announcement of new regulations to cut carbon pollution from power plants in this coal-friendly state." 
• Today is the last day of a calendar quarter, making it the end of a campaign-finance reporting period, and both candidates are making pleas for money. An email from McConnell was titled "One last time" and one from Grimes was titled "My last email."

Warren's visit for Grimes is covered somewhat differently by different reporters and news outlets

Different takes on Sen. Elizabeth Warren's campaigning for Alison Grimes:

• In Louisville, where today's events occurred, Joe Gerth of The Courier-Journal says Warren "brought her brand of populism to Kentucky" and accused Sen. Mitch McConnell of "betting against you vote after vote after vote, year after year after year," most recently on Warren's bill to allow refinancing of college loans. Gerth notes that Grimes "refused to take questions following the event, ignoring a gaggle of reporters," and ends his 603-word online story with one brief line from the other side: "McConnell's campaign has been critical of the Warren visit, saying that it showed that Grimes is out of touch with Kentucky voters."
• In the second paragraph of his 610-word online story, Sam Youngman of the Lexington Herald-Leader plays off a Warren line about being surprised to be in Kentucky because she is surprised to be a senator: "Given that Warren's stances on guns, coal and health care align closely with those of President Barack Obama, Republican allies of ... McConnell also were surprised but delighted when Warren announced she was coming." Among his quotes from Warren: "Alison and I don't agree on everything. We don't. But we agree that there is a lot on the line here. Our economy, our country, our values." The story ends with two paragraphs from McConnell's campaign, including a 50-word quote.
• Adam Beam, Frankfort correspondent for The Associated Press, led his 674-word story with an example of a student who would benefit from loan refinancing and the fact that "Tuition and fees at Kentucky’s public colleges and universities have increased 110 percent over the last decade." Beam summarizes the candidates' and Warren's positions on the issue and notes, "McConnell’s campaign has not countered Grimes on college tuition, instead focusing on the person Grimes has chosen to promote the plan." He concludes with a quote from a McConnell news release.
• Ronnie Ellis of Community Newspaper Holdings ends his 718-word story likewise and starts by saying that Warren cast the race as a simple choice: McConnell, who "represents the interests of the wealthy and says 'no, no, no' to measures to assist the middle class. Or voters from a relatively poor state can vote to replace him with ... Grimes, who will represent their economic interests." But "in a brief interview" with Ellis, Waren wouldn't get more personal, saying, "This is about Alison." She said her populist message would work in Kentucky, and Ellis writes, "It worked Sunday morning. Warren evoked echoes of a former kind of Kentucky Democrat, like Wendell Ford who was governor from 1971 to 1974," when he began a 28-year Senate career.
  
  Or voters from a relatively poor state can vote to replace him with Democratic Alison Lundergan Grimes, who will represent their economic interests. - See more at: http://www.glasgowdailytimes.com/local/x1760117504/Warren-stumps-for-Grimes-blasts-McConnell-on-economic-issues#sthash.isgnXB7v.dpuf
• Matt Viser of The Boston Globe, in Warren's home state of Massachusetts, says she "was in full campaign mode Sunday, thrusting her fists in the air and delivering folksy aphorisms with a slight twang as she relentlessly attacked" McConnell; and her trips to Kentucky and West Virginia "represent a test of whether her brand of liberal populism, which has captivated the national left, can also appeal in the South and help Democrats defend their hold on the Senate majority. The results of this experiment could have far reaching consequences, not only for her own political fortunes but for the party’s efforts to reconnect with Southern, white, working-class voters." Viser's story includes material from Warren's first of two fund-raisers for Grimes, Saturday night in Northern Kentucky; no story on any of the events could be found on The Cincinnati Enquirer's website by 11:20 p.m. Sunday.
• For a text and video report on Warren's speech to a rally of about 500 students and others at the University of Louisville, from Nick Storm of cn|2's "Pure Politics," click here.
• The event was "Observers, however, noted the crowded Grimes event lacked a high number of college-aged students in the audience," Phillip Bailey of WFPL notes in a story that ends with good back-and-forth from the two sides.

June 26 roundup: McConnell decries dysfunction, media eye Warren's weekend appearances for Grimes

Sen. Elizabeth Warren's trip to Kentucky this weekend is getting much attention:

• Sen. Mitch McConnell said the "Senate has reached a new level of dysfunction." McConnell blamed "Senate Democrats for the limited number of bills that have reached President Obama’s desk this year," Steve Benen of MSNBC reported. Benen said, "hearing McConnell complain about Capitol Hill dysfunction is a bit like hearing Uruguay’s Luis Suarez complaining about biting in soccer."
• National news media are quite interested in Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren's plans to appear in Kentucky with Alison Lundergan Grimes this weekend. Warren "is expected to tout her student-loan bill that failed to overcome a filibuster earlier this month but is becoming a rallying cry for embattled Democrats," said Nia-Malika Henderson of The Washington Post.  "Coal will no doubt be the elephant in the room in West Virginia and Kentucky, given that Warren supports Obama’s move to curb carbon emissions."

Grimes and McConnell duke it out over student loans; bill's sponsor to campaign for fellow Democrat

By Megan Ingros
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes attacked Sen. Mitch McConnell for blocking a bill that would have let Americans refinance student loans and paid the cost by raising taxes on the wealthy.

The bill's sponsor, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), announced soon after the June 11 vote that she will be campaigning for Grimes in Kentucky. Asked on MSNBC how she planned to fight back, she said, "One way I'm going to start fighting back is I'm going to go down to Kentucky and I'm going to campaign for Alison Lundergan Grimes. She's tough, she's feisty, she endorsed the student loan bill, said she wanted to bring down interest rates for Kentuckians."

Warren told interviewer Chris Hayes, "Mitch McConnell is there for millionaires and billionaires. He is not there for people who are working hard playing by the rules and trying to build a future for themselves."

McConnell said on the Senate floor, "Senate Democrats don't actually want a solution for students. They want an issue to campaign on -- to save their own hides in November. . . . Students can understand that this bill won't make college more affordable. They understand it won't reduce the amount of money they have to borrow. And students know it won't do a thing to fix the economy that's depriving so many young Americans of jobs."

McConnell said Democratic Whip Charles Schumer said two years ago that if Democrats "wanted to be, quote, political about this" issue they would have paired it with a tax increase on the wealthy. "His words show, without equivocation, that Senate Democrats are now playing politics with the futures of young Americans -- instead of doing something about the VA crisis."

McConnell said the Democrats who run the Senate should give "full attention" to legislation addressing problems in the Department for Veteran Affairs health care system rather than passing bills to create issues for the election.

Warren's bill died Thursday, June 11 on a 56-38 vote, four votes short of the 60 needed to pass significant legislation in the Senate. Only three Republicans voted with Democrats to proceed with the bill.

Grimes, in a statement, said the bill would have helped 360,000 Kentuckians with student loan debt."The Obama administration estimated the bill could have helped 25 million borrowers save $2,000 over the lifetime of their loans," The Washington Post reported. The default rate for student loans is higher then for other types of loans.

Grimes said the average Kentuckian's student loan debt is $22,384, and "this vote against our middle-class families underscores the fact that my opponent has been in Washington for far too long and just does not get it."

Grimes released a record and background of McConnell's history with student loans. One example given was in 2013 when McConnell "voted against ending filibuster on plan to extend student loan interest rates for two years and keep them from doubling by closing tax loopholes including those for oil companies."

Grimes called on the Senate "to pass both the legislation to ease student loan burden as well as the bipartisan bill to address problems within the Department of Veterans Affairs."