The U.S. military seems increasingly incapable of policing itself or ridding its ranks of sexual predators, watchdogs charge, but the latest litany of accusations — leveled Tuesday at Fort Hood — has thrust the Pentagon to the brink of wholesale reform long sought by victims of sexual assault. 

With the second member of the military's campaign to stem sexual misconduct falling under investigation — for alleged sexual misconduct — critics were quick to lambast Pentagon brass for "gross negligence" and for maintaining an internal system of investigation and discipline that appears to be in desperate need of being ripped down and rebuilt with fresh independence and transparency. 

"It is abundantly clear that the military cannot adequately handle its sexual violence crisis from within," said Anu Bhagwati, executive director of Service Women's Action Network and former Marine captain.

"If military culture is to transform in any meaningful way, we need to break down the doors of silence and make sure our troops who are harmed have access to the same legal remedies as all civilians whom they protect and defend," she added. "We can start by ensuring that military crimes are no longer handled by commanding officers, but rather by impartial attorneys and judges."

Nancy Parrish, president of the victims advocacy group Protect Our Defenders, agreed that "the Pentagon is responsible for failing to effectively govern its personnel," following news that a Fort Hood Army sergeant first class allegedly forced at least one subordinate soldier into prostitution and sexually assaulted two others. 

"The problems are so long standing and pervasive that, at a minimum, it constitutes gross negligence on the part of the leadership," Parrish said. 

Late Tuesday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel directed all branches to "re-train, re-credential, and re-screen all sexual assault prevention and response personnel and military recruiters," according to the Pentagon. 

'Open to any and all options'
The Fort Hood scandal, coming just nine days after the sexual battery arrest of an Air Force officer tasked with preventing rape, cranked the volumed on long-standing cries "to get to work reforming the military justice system that clearly isn’t working," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. "I believe strongly that to create the kind of real reform that will make a difference we must remove the chain of command from the decision making process for these types of serious offenses.”

Ironically, hours before the Fort Hood allegations surfaced, Gillibrand was prepping a final draft of her bill — set to be introduced Thursday — that seeks to accomplish precisely that goal: transferring sex crimes from the watch and authority of military brass and instead funneling such cases to independent military prosecutors, said a spokesman for Gillibrand. 

Her proposal was further hastened by the Pentagon's May 7 revelation that 26,000 troops last year claimed anonymously to be sex-assault victims (up from 19,000 in FY11), and a May 9 White House meeting with lawmakers pitching various ideas to stem the military’s rape crisis.

“Sexual violence in the military is not new. And it has been allowed to go on in the shadows for far too long," Gillibrand said Tuesday. "Congress would be derelict in its duty of oversight if we just shrugged our shoulders at these 26,000 sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, and did nothing. We simply have to do better by them."

The appetite for a dramatic military shift on the issue seems to have reached a tipping point, lawmakers and advocates agree, especially after the Department of Defense signaled Monday that Hagel is "open to any and all options." That marked a clear pivot from Hagel's position as recently as May 7 when he said decisions on sex cases must stay inside the command structure. 

"Make no mistake," Pentagon press secretary George Little wrote Sunday in a letter to the New York Times, "Mr. Hagel believes sexual assault is one of the urgent matters facing the Defense Department today and will work very closely with the White House and members of Congress to confront this urgent challenge." 

'Debilitating' crisis
Gillibrand began writing her bill — working with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. — just two days after her impassioned critique of the military's desire to retain "convening authority" in sex crimes went viral last March. She chose to include in her bill all military crimes punishable by one year or longer in the brig because she felt sending only rape cases to the Judge Advocate General's Corps would further stigmatize sex-assault victims and create "a two-class system," her spokesman said.  

Meanwhile, Rep. Dan Benishek, R-Mich., plans to introduce a companion bill in the House, his office confirmed.

The first embers of true Capitol Hill fury were stoked in February when Air Force Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin reversed the aggravated sexual assault conviction of Lt. Col. James Wilkerson, a fighter pilot. A jury of five military officers found Wilkerson guilty of assaulting a civilian contractor as she slept at his home on the Aviano Air Base In Italy. Franklin also dismissed Wilkerson's sentence: one year in the brig and dismissal from the Air Force.

Gillibrand's bill seeks bar military commanders from setting aside guilty findings.

"Hopefully, we have reached the tipping point," Parrish said. "It is ultimately up to the military leadership. If they decide that this epidemic and all of the recent scandals is a problem that should be solved, reform can happen and happen relatively quickly.

"At least until now, the military has treated the issue of sexual assault and rape in the military as a public relations problem," she added. "There are some recent signs that some in the leadership realize that it is a real crisis: a crisis that, for the military, is debilitating."

Related:

• Air Force's sex-abuse prevention honcho charged with sexual battery
• Army sergeant assigned to sex-abuse prevention being investigated for pimping, sexual assault
• Obama: 'No tolerance' for military sexual assault
• 'Every American should be outraged:' Military sees sharp increase in sex assault cases

David Goldman / AP

A passenger sits at right in the international terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson airport, Friday, April 26, 2013, in Atlanta.

The Federal Aviation Administration will suspend all employee furloughs and return air traffic facilities to their regular staffing levels by Sunday evening, according to a statement released on Saturday.

Travelers across the nation faced delays while the FAA grappled with cuts to air traffic controllers this week forced by the sequester, the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts that took effect on March 1.

The FAA was forced to furlough 13,000 air traffic controllers among its 47,000 employees.

A bill to give the FAA flexibility in defraying its spending cuts was passed by the House of Representatives on Friday. White House press secretary Jay Carney said on Friday that President Obama would sign the legislation when it arrives on his desk.

A few typos have delayed the delivery of the bill to the president for a day or two, however, NBC News’ Chuck Todd reported on Saturday. The president may not sign the bill until Monday.

Related:

• FAA warns of 'wide-ranging delays' from furloughs
• House passes fixes for FAA furloughs
• Senate votes unanimously to fix FAA furloughs

Jason Reed / Reuters

Senator Chuck Schumer, part of the U.S. Senate's "Gang on Eight", speaks during a news briefing on Capitol Hill, April 18, 2013.

The Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent manhunt for suspects has already become part of the debate over immigration reform in Washington, with one high ranking Republican questioning the screening process that allows immigrants into the United States.

The Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to hear testimony from Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano on the bipartisan immigration overhaul introduced by a group of eight senators, but she had to postpone due to ongoing developments in the search.

A ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said at the outset of the committee’s hearing, “Given the events of this week, it’s important for us to understand the gaps and loopholes in our immigration system. While we don’t yet know the immigration status of the people who have terrorized the communities in Massachusetts, when we find out it will help shed light on the weaknesses of our system.” 

Grassley asked, “How can individuals evade authorities and plan such attacks on our soil? How can we beef up security checks on people who wish to enter the United States? How do we ensure that people who wish to do us harm are not eligible for benefits under the immigration laws, including this new bill before us?”

But a few minutes later, Sen. Charles Schumer, D- N.Y. the chief sponsor of the bipartisan immigration overhaul, in an apparent response to Grassley, said one shouldn’t jump to conclusions about the events in Boston “or try to conflate those events with this legislation. In general, we’re a safer country when law enforcement knows who is here – has their fingerprints, photos, et cetera – has conducted background checks and no longer needs to look at needles in haystacks. In addition, both the refugee program and the asylum program have been significantly strengthened in the past five years such that we are much more careful about screening people and determining who should and should not be coming into the country. If there are any changes our homeland security experts tell us need to be made (in his bill), I’m committed to making them….”

In a statement Friday, Frank Sharry, head of America’s Voice Education Fund and a veteran campaigner for an immigration overhaul which would allow a path to legal residence for some of those in the country illegally, said, "It’s premature to jump to final conclusions about the attackers. And it’s shameful that some on the far right are politicizing and demagoguing this issue.” Sharry said some -- whom he did not identify -- are "exploiting this tragedy in hopes of derailing immigration reform."

The Senate will likely debate the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” immigration overhaul next month, but Grassley stressed that the bill ought to be fully debated in committee and open to amendments on the Senate floor.

Referring to the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli immigration overhaul which was supposed to end illegal immigration and prevent any future amnesty, Grassley said, “We screwed up – and we can’t afford to screw up again.”

The committee was hearing Friday from two witnesses, conservative attorney Peter Kirsanow – who indicated his opposition to the bipartisan bill because he said it would lower wages for U.S. low-skill workers -- and former director of Congressional Budget Office Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who supported the bill.

Related links:

Suspects to carjack victim: We are the bombers 

Who are the brothers accused of the Boston Marathon bombing? 

An empty metropolis: Photos show deserted streets of Boston  

What we know: Timeline of terror hunt

‘Dedicated officer’ gunned down by Boston Marathon suspects at MIT

Slideshow: Bombings at Boston Marathon

Boston bombing spurs Senate debate on tighter immigration screening 

Photos from Bostonians locked down amid terror hunt 

Tweeting police chatter creates confusion over Boston suspect

This story was originally published on Fri Apr 19, 2013 11:47 AM EDT

With a bipartisan group of senators expected to unveil immigration-reform legislation in the next few days, a brand-new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that nearly two-thirds of Americans – including eight-in-10 Latinos – support giving undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship.

A slight majority of Republican respondents oppose this path, possibly foreshadowing the resistance which any comprehensive immigration reform bill might receive, especially in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives.

But when Republicans hear that a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants includes paying fines and back taxes, almost three-quarters of them support the idea.

What’s more, a majority of the public – for the first time in the poll – agrees with the statement that immigration strengthens the nation, reflecting a shift in attitude on this issue. 

Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted this survey with the Democratic firm Hart Research Associates, says that this change in sentiment on immigration “speaks to something potent,” particularly given the economic struggles of the past five years.

"These more positive attitudes provide more leeway for lawmakers to build support for change on this issue," McInturff adds.

View the poll results here

On other matters, the poll shows a majority of the public favors stricter gun laws, President Barack Obama’s approval rating falling below 50 percent for the first time since Oct. 2012, and fewer than two-in-10 Americans saying the automatic budget cuts known as “the sequester” have significantly affected them.

Immigration – a strength or weakness?
A majority (54 percent) agrees with the statement that immigration adds to the nation’s character and strengthens it by bringing diversity and talent to the country.

Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images

Tens of thousands of immigration reform supporters march in the "Rally for Citizenship" on the West Lawn of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on April 10, 2013.

In a 2010 NBC/WSJ survey, fewer than half of respondents agreed with that statement, and in 2005, a plurality said that immigration weakened the nation.

Additionally, the Democratic Party holds a 7-point advantage over the Republican Party on the question of which party does a better job in dealing with immigration.

Among an oversample of Latino respondents, the Democratic edge increases to 26 points.

Regarding the current legislative debate over immigration, 64 percent of respondents say they favor allowing undocumented immigrants to have the opportunity to become legal American citizens.

That includes 82 percent of Latinos, 80 percent of Democrats and 54 percent of political independents supporting a path to citizenship.

But 51 percent of Republicans oppose it, versus 47 percent who back it.

Yet when told that the pathway to citizenship would require paying fines and back taxes, as well as passing a security-background check, support grows – with 76 percent of total respondents, and 73 percent of Republicans backing the path.

That pathway to citizenship is the heart of a comprehensive immigration reform proposal that the so-called “Gang of Eight” senators – including Democrats Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin and Republicans John McCain and Marco Rubio – are drafting and plan to introduce in the next few days.

The proposal also calls for strengthening the U.S.-Mexico border, tying that security to establishing the path to citizenship and expanding legal immigration.

A majority of all respondents (51 percent) believe undocumented immigrants should be eligible for citizenship five years after application. Just 12 percent say the eligibility should occur after 10 years, and only 18 percent believe citizenship should be immediate.

On border security, nearly two-thirds of Americans (63 percent) think the U.S.-Mexico border is “mostly” or “totally” not secure, compared with a smaller percentage of Latino respondents (49 percent) who believe that.

55 percent favor stricter gun laws
In addition to immigration, Congress is grappling with the issue of gun control, with the Senate expected to vote on Thursday whether to begin debate on a Democratic-backed measure requiring background checks for most gun sales.

According to the poll, 55 percent favor stricter laws covering the sale of firearms.

That’s down 6 points from the Feb. 2013 NBC/WSJ poll – conducted after Obama’s State of the Union address that contained a call to action on gun control – but it’s essentially unchanged from the Jan. 2013 poll.

Yet there’s a wide political divide to these numbers: 82 percent of Democrats favor stricter gun laws, while just 27 percent of Republicans do.

Obama’s approval rating drops to 47 percent
Despite majorities backing the broad outlines of his legislative priorities on immigration and guns, President Obama confronts a pessimistic public and declining poll numbers.

Only 31 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction – a decline of 10 points since Dec. 2012.

His overall job-approval rating stands at 47 percent, which is down 3 points since February and which represents the first time he’s been below 50 percent since just before the 2012 election.

In addition, 47 percent approve of the president’s economic handling (up three points from February), and 46 percent approve of his handling of foreign policy (down six from Dec. 2012).

Democratic pollster Fred Yang of Hart Research says that the public’s sour attitude, particularly on the economy, has “dragged down” Obama’s numbers.

Sequester’s limited impact (so far)
Lastly, the NBC/WSJ poll finds that only a combined 16 percent of Americans say the automatic across-the-board budget cuts that went into effect earlier in the year have impacted them either “a great deal” or “quite a bit.”

By comparison, a whopping 75 percent say the cuts to military and non-military programs have affected them “just some” or “not much.”

But a plurality of respondents – 47 percent – believe the cuts will mostly harm the economy, versus 30 percent who say they won’t have an impact.

The NBC/WSJ poll was conducted of 1,000 adults (including 300 cell phone-only respondents) from April 5-8, and it has an overall margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points.

Robin Kelly will head to Washington, D.C. this week to become the next congresswoman from Illinois.

With 76 percent of precincts reporting as of 8:30 p.m., Kelly, a Democrat, had earned 74 percent of the vote, trumping ballots cast for her closest challenger, Republican Paul McKinley.

The 56-year-old congresswoman-elect, who replaces convicted former Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., said she'll head to Congress with a priority list.

"Legislatively, gun safety and gun control, of course. Immigration reform. I'm stepping into all of it, it seems, like at the right time," she said earlier in the day.

Kelly will have big shoes to fill: Jackson was a 17-year incumbent who served on the powerful House Appropriations Committee and brought home nearly $1 billion to the district. He also had strong relationships with mayors, activists and voters across the district that includes city neighborhoods, suburbs and some rural areas.

Jackson resigned in November. He pleaded guilty in February in federal court to lavishly misspending $750,000 in campaign funds.

Kelly received big name endorsements including from President Barack Obama and received a huge boost from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's super PAC, which supported her gun control stance. Also, the district is solidly Democratic and has been for about six decades. McKinley is an ex-con-turned-community activist who barely won his primary.

Early estimates showed low voter turnout in parts of the district, especially the city. Tuesday's special election coincided with municipal contests in other parts of the state; Chicago held its municipal contests in 2011.

Only 8 percent of city voters showed up at the polls, according to early estimates, with an expected turnout of roughly 12 percent by day's end. In the suburbs, the number was higher.

Independents Elizabeth Pahlke, Marcus Lewis and Curtis Bay, as well as Green Party candidate LeAlan Jones, were also on Tuesday's ballot.

With the Associated Press

President Barack Obama has deployed American military personnel and drone aircraft to the African country of Niger, where they could be used to support a French counterterrorism mission in neighboring Mali.

Defense Department officials told NBC News that a first wave will include two Raptor surveillance drones and 250 to 300 military personnel, including remote pilots and security and maintenance crews. They are expected to arrive soon.

The officials stressed that the drones are meant for surveillance only. The White House has faced criticism for a legal memo concluding that the U.S. government can use drones to kill American citizens overseas in certain cases.

Besides helping the French in Mali, the drones could be used to provide intelligence on a growing Islamic militant threat throughout North and East Africa.

The president notified Congress on Friday under the War Powers Act, which requires him to tell Congress when heavily armed U.S. military personnel are newly deployed to a region or nation.

Obama told Congress that the U.S. military presence was under the consent of the government of Niger, and that they would “facilitate intelligence-sharing” with the French. He said that the American military personnel were armed for their own protection and security.

Next door in Mali, Tuareg rebels overthrew the government last year. Islamists then pushed the rebels aside, taking control of important towns and pushing toward the capital.

France intervened last month — initially with airstrikes and later with about 4,000 ground troops. The United States has flown French troops and equipment into Mali and refueled French fighter jets there, the Pentagon has said. France plans to begin withdrawing troops from Mali next month, once African forces are in place to take over.

On Friday, five people were killed in a remote Malian town in car bomb attacks by Islamists on Tuareg fighters, a spokesman for the Tuareg fighters said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Fri Feb 22, 2013 11:19 AM EST

The automatic spending cuts known as the sequester have ignited a political firestorm in the nation's capital. But if America’s feuding politicos can’t come to an agreement soon, the $1.2 trillion in broad spending cuts will begin March 1, trimming $85 billion a year through 2021. Half of that money would come from the Pentagon and half from non-defense programs, including education and National Parks. Congress has the power to delay, reduce, or cancel the cuts at any time, either before or after they take effect, and programs like Social Security, veterans’ benefits, and student loans will be exempt.

Here’s what you need to know about sequestration as Washington’s gridlock drags us toward spending cuts that Congress passed and Obama signed into law, but that now few lawmakers seem to want.

1. How did we get into this mess?

Sequestration was supposed to be a gun that Congress pointed at itself to force lawmakers to behave and pass a budget. Instead, it’s become just the latest in a seemingly endless series of self-inflicted economic crises that threaten to damage American businesses and undermine credibility with world partners. Sequestration was built into the Budget Control Act of 2011, the bill that brought an end to a bitterly partisan battle over the government’s borrowing power, and included a provision for Congress to develop legislation in time that would have warded off the cuts. The problem with that was Congress failed to pass any such legislation, despite a heated exchange of proposals that went up to the stroke of New Year’s Eve. A bill was passed on January 2 that pushed sequestration back just a little farther – to where we are now.

2. Why call it the sequester?

The term “sequester” is adapted from the legal meaning of the power of a court to seize property, and it came into economic parlance as part of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Act of 1985. Most people are familiar with the idea of sequestering a jury during high-publicity court trials, but in this case it refers to the threat of cuts that was supposed to "force Congress to act on further deficit reduction," according to a report on the potential effects of sequestration by the White House Office of Management and Budget. 

3. Who’s responsible?

The key players are President Obama, Speaker of the House John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and wonk lawmakers including Rep. Paul Ryan. They’re the same folks who walked the government into near shutdown in 2011 during the debt-ceiling debacle, squandered America’s AAA credit rating, and held hands to peer over the brink of the fiscal cliff together late last year. Earlier this week, Obama said the idea behind writing the sequester into law in the first place was to get Democrats and Republicans to “find a good compromise of sensible cuts as well as closing tax loopholes.” Republicans have lately been placing all the blame for the pending cuts on the White House, but the measure passed with a majority of Republican votes, and Ryan said at the time that the bill containing the sequester represented “a victory for those committed to controlling government spending and growing our economy.”

4. Will the government shut down?

No. The planned cuts aren't large enough to cripple the federal government. But if they do take place, it will mean that some military deployments may be cancelled, federal agencies and offices like the Transportation Security Administration and Department of Agriculture will reduce services, and some federal employees may be furloughed, asked to involuntarily take off a certain amount of time per week. There may be some alternatives to furloughs, as Jeffrey Zients, Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget, said in a memo last month. Those could include government hiring freezes, the release of temporary employees, and incentives for existing employees to retire early. But many Americans can lay some of their most basic concerns to rest: Grandma will not see her Social Security check reduced.

5. When would the cuts take place?

The cuts are scheduled to take effect March 1, but they wouldn’t come all at once. For the current fiscal year, the cuts would total $44 billion, which sounds like a ton of money but represents just 1.2 percent of planned federal outlays. Defense contractors likely would be among the individual industries hardest hit by the cuts, but even there layoffs remain “speculative and unforeseeable,” Assistant Secretary of Labor Jane Oates said. But the Pew Center on the States said cuts in discretionary defense spending could cost more than 400,000 jobs over the next 10 years in Florida, Maryland, Texas, California, and Virginia -- the top five states for defense contracting.

6. How are government agencies preparing?

The White House and some federal departments already have started to buckle down to prepare for the eventuality that sequestration will go through. Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Pentagon had cancelled deployment of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Harry S Truman to the Middle East. The Navy has said that it would delay repairs to the submarine U.S.S. Miami. But officials have assured defense contractors that standing deals will be honored. Future contracts, however, could be imperiled. Other federal departments may be able to shift some funds around within their department from lower priority activities where funds were not cut to higher priority activities that are hit by the sequester.

7. What may the long-term effects be?

This is where it starts to get really political, because it depends on who you ask. To debt hawks, a force-fed fiscal enema like sequestration may be just the purgative a bloated government needs, and they argue it would be good for the economy in the long run. But outside that circle, the economic consequences don't look so good. The Bipartisan Policy Center says that the American economy may stand to lose 1 million jobs if the full package of cuts goes ahead on schedule. And the Congressional Budget Office noted that the planned cuts will act as a drag on the country’s overall economic growth over the coming fiscal year. The long-term economic ramifications of sequestration may take years to unfold in the lives of ordinary Americans if the cuts go ahead, but for legislators who can't figure out a better way to implement the cuts, the political blowback could come much more swiftly.

8. What can be done to stop it?

With both chambers of Congress on what House leaders call a “District Work Period” this week – also known as a recess – Democrats have called on Republican House leaders to reconvene and strike a deal. Speaker of the House John Boehner has said he’s opposed to the cuts, and has made the case it's up to the White House to break the impasse. Republicans have said they will only agree to a deal to avert the cuts if it includes a plan to cut an equivalent amount of government spending in more orderly fashion. Senate Democrats are backing a plan that includes new revenue generated by closing tax loopholes for the richest Americans. With the clock ticking down, the debate is beginning to resemble the one that set up this manufactured crisis in the first place.

NBC News' Tom Curry contributed to this report.

On television, it looked like the ultimate Beltway nightmare come true.

In the scrum of glad-handing and back-slapping that accompanies the president’s State of the Union entrance, Representative Eliot Engel (D-NY), who had been saving his seat for most of the day, got passed over by President Obama for a handshake on Tuesday night.

Ouch.

But there will be no boo-hooing in his Bronx district for this veteran lawmaker, who has attended 24 State of the Union addresses. In fact, Engel claims television watchers — including NBC Nightly News host Brian Williams — got it wrong saying a snub ever occurred in the first place.

And he couldn’t be happier.

“I was very surprised when I was told afterwards, ‘The president walked by you,’” Engel told NBC News on Wednesday. “He shook my hand with his left hand.”

“I was very shocked when they said to me that he walked by me, because he didn’t,” the congressman said.

Indeed, video coverage of the president’s procession down the aisle did cut to a shot that blocked the view of both men’s hands just as the president passed Engel – making it look to everyone at home as though Obama passed Engel by and left him to exchange a few words with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

But Engel tweeted at Williams, MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell and NBC News on Tuesday night: “No swing and miss. Shook POTUS’ left hand as I introduced [Rep. Gloria Negrete McLeod (D-CA)] to him. The streak continues. #ny16.”

The encounters between the president and lawmakers on the way to the podium typically last a few seconds at the most.

Engel is one of a group of legislators somewhat unkindly called the “aisle hogs” or “aisle huggers” – congressmen and women who lay early claim to seats along the aisle. Seats are awarded first come, first served basis, and whiling away the hours before the president’s 9 p.m. entrance has become a routine for some intent on getting the best seat in the house.

But Engel says he was able to get plenty of work done on Tuesday after making his way to the chambers at 10 a.m. to lay an early claim to an aisle seat.

“It’s not a day that I’m stuck in my seat,” Engel said. There’s also a code of ethics observed among early arrivers, Engel said, as one or another of them leaves the chamber to walk around or conduct business: “You leave, they watch your seat. They leave, you watch their seat.”

This year, the speaker’s office sent a note to members of Congress tightening up some of the rules regarding seat-saving. Calling dibs with a jacket or stack of papers would no longer be enough, according to the note.

“Members are requested to be on the floor and seated no later than 8:25 p.m.,” read a note from the Speaker of the House’s office to members. “As has been the practice in the past, Members will not be allowed to reserve seats prior to the joint session by placement of placards or personal items. Chamber Security may remove these items from the seats. Members may reserve their seats only by physical presence following the security sweep of the Chamber.”

To Engel, his quick squeeze with the president remains all about the voters in the district where he’s lived since he was 12 years old.

“The frosting on the cake is my constituents enjoy it,” Engel said. “I found that when I did it initially, which was a total fluke, I found people in my district coming up to me saying, ‘I saw you on TV, you were great, I saw you with the president.”

And on the way out, Obama stopped and signed a campaign poster for Engel.

Formulaic and often little more than a point-by-point policy primer, the State of the Union – which is not technically required to be a speech – is often something many Americans watch out of sheer democratic obligation. But even the staid corridors of Congress can come alight with the unscripted during the president’s constitutionally mandated address to legislators. Here are some of the more memorable State of the Union moments from history:

Polk strikes gold
Talk about giving the economy a boost. Eleventh President James K. Polk used his 1848 address to set off what would become the Gold Rush, sending bands of “Forty-Niners” on a journey westward. Before then, prospective prospectors had been wary of claims of a hidden El Dorado under the westernmost state’s soil. “The accounts of the abundance of gold in that territory are of such an extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief,” Polk said in his speech, revealing that a quicksilver mine being worked in California was “believed to be among the most productive in the world.”

National Archives / Getty Images

Undated portrait of U.S. President James K. Polk

‘One year of Watergate is enough’
Nice try, Dick. If there was one person in 1974 who’d had enough of all that Woodward-Bernstein nonsense tracing the misdeeds of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President or the White House “Plumbers” – the five men arrested after being caught breaking into the Watergate Hotel in 1972 – it was President Richard Milhous Nixon. “As you know, I have provided to the Special Prosecutor voluntarily a great deal of material,” he said in January of that year. “I believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end. One year of Watergate is enough.” America’s 37th president resigned in disgrace seven months later.

 Reagan cracks wise
A dash of standup likely isn’t what Republicans are looking for when they say that President Obama would do well to crib from the Gipper. In his first State of the Union, President Ronald Reagan harkened back to the words of that most unimpeachable of Founding Fathers, George Washington. “President Washington began this tradition in 1790 after reminding the nation that the destiny of self-government and the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty is finally staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people,” Reagan said in his own 1982 speech. “For our friends in the press who place a high premium on accuracy, let me say, I did not actually hear George Washington say that.”

Clinton’s teleprompter breaks
The first in a series of eventful State of the Unions, Bill Clinton’s famous loquacity saved his first address and some poor teleprompter operator’s neck in 1993 after the wrong speech was loaded into the machine during his 1993 address. Clinton flew solo for seven minutes while what was surely a sweaty-palmed script scroller tried to catch up – even as the commander-in-chief added whole new paragraphs and other emendations to the prepared text.

Reuters

President George W. Bush delivers his State of the Union speech in 2003 as Vice President Dick Cheney looks on.

Clinton clashes with OJ verdict
The State of the Union provides presidents with a rare platform to address the nation at length on a variety of policy issues. Television news stations narrowly avoided a moral quandary as tangled as America’s obsession with celebrity trials when, in 1997, Clinton almost wound up contending for air time with the verdict in O.J. Simpson’s civil trial. The major networks stuck with the president, switching immediately after the speech ended to Simpson coverage in Los Angeles.

Alex Wong / Getty Images

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito looks on as President Obama enters the chamber before his first State of the Union address in 2010.

Bush’s 16 words
“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” With these words in his 2003 State of the Union, President George W. Bush set off his own chain reaction that some critics contend led to the war in Iraq. Later that year, CIA Director George J. Tenet said that “the President had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound,” but that the line shouldn’t have made the final cut. “These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President.”

Alito mouths ‘Not true’
While the other Supreme Court justices present sat black-robed and expressionless during President Obama’s speech in 2010, Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., gave his own quiet commentary during a section on campaign finance. “I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests or, worse, by foreign entities,” Obama said – a line that drew applause from Democrats but a furrowed brow and the apparently mouthed words “not true, not true” from the Supreme Court justice.

Major Garrett’s NSFW Tweet
The chief White House correspondent for Fox News added some flavor to the 2010 State of the Union Address when he mistakenly tweeted a link to a Las Vegas-based adult website instead of the speech excerpts he seemingly intended. The reporter, Major Garrett, apologized in a later tweet and blamed the mishap on a link-shortening service. “Bit.ly turned my original link to SOTU excertps to a soft-porn link,” Garrett wrote. “NOT my intention.”

Evan Vucci / AP File

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., left, applauds during President Barack Obama's State of the Union address in 2011 as an unidentified woman appears to sleep behind him. Rep. Peter King is at right.

Obama puts woman to sleep
Strenuous effort might perhaps get one a seat at the State of the Union, but it can also be pretty exhausting. Such might have been the case with the red-clad woman seated behind Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., at President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union. She seemed to suffer a sudden stroke of narcolepsy just as the president said that America’s children need to be taught that “success is not a function of fame or PR, but of hard work and discipline.”

Alex Wong / Getty Images

Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid speaks to members of the press after the weekly Senate Democratic Policy Luncheon at the U.S. Capitol January 29, 2013.

The Nevada Democrat’s comments come as Congress begins the challenging process toward approving its first major piece of gun legislation since the 1990s.

The Senate Judiciary Committee holds its first hearings that topic on Wednesday, featuring high-profile witnesses on either side of that issue. Speaking in favor of gun control will be retired astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of Gabrielle Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman injured critically in a 2011 shooting.

Giffords herself will deliver an opening statement to the committee.

On the other side will be National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre, whose influential gun rights lobby is working to thwart the administration’s proposals on Capitol Hill. According to LaPierre’s prepared testimony, released Tuesday by the NRA, he will stake out a clear stance against the heart of the president's plan.

“When it comes to the issue of background checks, let’s be honest – background checks will never be ‘universal’ – because criminals will never submit to them,” said LaPierre in those prepared remarks.

LaPierre's testimony on Wednesday will surely reflect the sharp opposition to the Obama plan among gun rights groups; aversion that threatens to transform the battle into a legislative slog and sap the administration’s momentum.

Skepticism over assault weapons ban
While the outrage prompted by the December rampage at Sandy Hook elementary school has lingered longer than previous mass shootings, the impetus for gun control measures threatens to fade as time passes.

Already, one of the central proposals from Obama’s plan – renewing the ban on assault weapons – faces an uphill battle to be included in any final legislation. 

Reid, who has said he would not seek Senate passage of legislation that had no chance of approval in the House, was non-committal on the issue of the assault weapons ban during his comments on Tuesday. 

“I'll take a look at that,” he said of a proposed ban on assault weapons favored by California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

“As I've indicated to you folks, we're going to have votes on all kinds of issues dealing with guns. And I think everyone will be well advised to read the legislation before they determine how they're going to vote for it.”

Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has said that the House would consider whatever legislation on guns the Senate manages to pass, but has committed to little more than that. 

And, in fact, whatever legislation the Republican-controlled House is able to consider might depend ultimately on a handful of moderate Senate Democrats.

Several of those lawmakers have expressed skepticism toward the assault weapons ban, but have conveyed more interest in universal background checks – the element of Obama’s plan that gun control proponents that might have a better chance at passage. 

That provision appears poised even to win some Republican support: Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn told a Tulsa television station on Friday that he’s working with Democrats on legislation to ensure universal background checks. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was more reluctant to endorse such a measure, saying during an availability at the Capitol on Tuesday: “I'm among those who'd be happy to take a look at whatever the majority decides to advance on that subject.” 

But Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin congressman who frequently mentioned his pride as a hunter during his time as Mitt Romney’s running mate appeared to lend support to that idea during a Sunday interview on “Meet the Press.” 

“I think the question of whether or not a criminal is getting a gun is a question we need to look at. That's what the background check issue's all about,” he said. “And I think we need to look into making sure that there aren't big loopholes where a person can illegally purchase a firearm.”