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Frist vs. Daschle

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, will travel to South Dakota next month to campaign against his Democratic counterpart, Minority Leader Tom Daschle, Roll Call reports.

Mr. Daschle is up against his toughest opponent since joining the Senate in 1986 -- former Rep. John Thune. Mr. Thune won statewide election in South Dakota as the state's only representative in the House for three terms before retiring to run for the Senate four years ago. In that race against the state's junior senator, Tim Johnson, he lost by 518 votes amid accusations of election fraud on the state's Indian reservations.

A spokesman for Mr. Daschle said he welcomes Mr. Frist and plans to lobby him on matters of local interest, such as country-of-origin labeling for meat.

Senate historian Richard Baker told Roll Call that he could not recall a time in the modern era of campaigns when one floor leader campaigned against the other in his home state. But that is mostly because Mr. Daschle is the first floor leader since the 1960s to face a tough re-election fight, he added.

Gorelick's history

Former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick is a member of the September 11 commission, but she should be sitting on the witness stand, Ethan Wallison writes in National Review Online.

Today, former Attorney General Janet Reno, "under whom Gorelick served for three years beginning in 1994, testifies in open session," said Mr. Wallison, who covers the White House for Roll Call.

"The questioning can reasonably be expected to focus on steps taken (or not taken) at the Justice Department in the wake of the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 and the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City -- the worst incidents of terrorism inside the United States before the September 11 hijackings.