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Good Tuesday morning from Washington, where the protests in Ferguson, Mo., led to a series of speeches on the House floor by Congressional Black Caucus, Senator Rob Portman of Ohio announced he wouldn’t seek the presidency in 2016, and Senator Harry Reid repeated his perennial threat to keep Congress in session through Christmas. President Obama’s immigration action will have two hearings before Congress, and his attorney general nominee is making the rounds at the Senate.

House Republicans haven’t figured out how to respond legislatively to Mr. Obama on immigration, but that won’t stop them from criticizing the new policy at hearings on Tuesday by the Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees.

Since the Judiciary Committee session is titled “President Obama‘s Executive Overreach on Immigration,” it’s safe to assume that the panel’s Republicans have made up their minds and are simply building a case against the president. As usual at such sessions, the deck is stacked in favor of the Republican majority, with three constitutional specialists summoned to dispute the president’s power and a lone immigration advocate called by the Democrats.

“The president’s executive power does not give him the power to govern by decree,” Ronald Rotunda, a law professor at Chapman University, says in testimony prepared for the hearing. “If the president can get away with this action, future presidents will be able, for example, to rewrite other laws.”

Jeh Johnson, the secretary of Homeland Security, is the only witness set to appear before the Homeland Security panel, whose chairman, Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, is no less hostile to the president’s move, calling it a “threat to our democracy.”

In a less public but potentially more significant forum, House Republicans will meet privately on Tuesday morning to sort through their options, such as restricting money for border and immigration agencies while funding the rest of the government.

– Carl Hulse

Senator Rob Portman said in a statement late Monday night that he would run for re-election in 2016 and not seek the Republican presidential nomination.

“I don’t think I can run for president and be an effective senator at the same time,” said Mr. Portman, who had publicly mused about a White House race. His spokeswoman, Caitlin Conant, said the senator made the decision over the Thanksgiving weekend and saw little reason to delay a public announcement.

Mr. Portman — a former congressman, United States trade representative and director of the Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush — has deep connections in Republican establishment circles that could have helped him had he run. But he indicated in his statement that the Republicans’ Senate majority in the next Congress offered an appealing opportunity.

“That’s where I believe I can play the most constructive role,” he said.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, in an interview posted on Monday by The Lexington Herald-Leader, said he would also run for re-election in 2016. He acknowledged that he might try to run for president at the same time, but that would require a change in Kentucky law or Republican party procedure.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida said on Monday that he would soon make a decision on running, but vowed not to pander to the party’s extreme right wing.

— Jonathan Martin

Representative Al Green of Texas had a flashback to 1968 when he saw five of the St. Louis Rams duplicate the “hands up, don’t shoot” gesture on Sunday in solidarity with protesters in nearby Ferguson, Mo.

It reminded him, Mr. Green said on Monday, of the black-power salute by the American track stars John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. He compared the backlash then to the criticism of the Rams now, and of the pressure on the N.F.L. to punish the players.

“I believe history has vindicated” Mr. Carlos and Mr. Smith, he said as members of the Congressional Black Caucus took to the floor to discuss the racial unrest in Ferguson caused by the shooting of a black teenager by a white police officer.

The Olympic athletes “actually were causing many people to understand that the black-power movement at that time was much bigger than anybody thought,” Mr. Green said.

The congressman took time on Monday to read the names of the St. Louis players — Jared Cook, Kenny Britt, Stedman Bailey, Chris Givens and Tavon Austin — on the House floor, predicting that history would vindicate them, too.

— Jada F. Smith

It was Louisiana, so talk of corruption dominated the final debate between Senator Mary L. Landrieu and Representative Bill Cassidy.

As in, which of them is more corrupt?

Is it the incumbent Democratic senator accused of using thousands of taxpayer dollars for a 400-mile round-trip charter flight from New Orleans to Lake Charles, La.? (“A bookkeeping error,” Ms. Landrieu explained.)

Or is it the Republican challenger, a medical doctor, who is said to have padded his paycheck for part-time work at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center? (“I serve at the will of my employers,” Mr. Cassidy said.)

The Landrieu-Cassidy face-off was the last debate of the 2014 midterm season. It was a fitting end to a monthlong runoff campaign that has turned exceptionally ugly and will be settled on Saturday. (The results themselves will decide only whether the Republicans will have an even bigger majority in the next Congress than they’ve already won.)

And while there were the usual stretched truths, misquotes and beside-the-point talking points, Mr. Cassidy came up with a line that both summed up debate season and was untrue all at the same time: “We don’t have to have a he-said, she-said.”

— Steve Kenny

Loretta E. Lynch will be on Capitol Hill for courtesy calls with senators in advance of her confirmation hearings.

President Obama heads first to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to visit wounded soldiers and then to the National Institutes of Health for remarks on the Ebola crisis.

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee holds a 2:30 p.m. hearing on domestic abuse by professional athletes.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas will give a speech on foreign policy at a Concerned Veterans for America gathering in Washington at 11:45 a.m.

Speaker John A. Boehner lights the Capitol Christmas tree at 5 p.m.

After the Senate decided to push the confirmation of a new attorney general into next year, it looked as if lawmakers would be home for the holidays. That’s not something that’s happened much in recent years.

But Senator Harry Reid is threatening to play Scrooge (or is it the Grinch?) in his final days as majority leader. He suggested that if Congress didn’t clear the decks of legislation and stalled nominees and “work hard to complete our work in a timely and efficient fashion, we may have to be here the week before Christmas” — if not into Christmas week itself.

Mr. Reid is known to employ such tactics to get the Senate into gear, and his threat may be intended to encourage Republicans to cave on a group of White House nominations. But if lawmakers don’t make progress soon, it may mean another holiday on the Hill.

— Carl Hulse

Republicans find themselves facing a predicament before Congress adjourns: how to fight President Obama over immigration without shutting down the government.

The president, responding to the events in Ferguson, Mo., said he would tighten standards on military-style equipment provided to local police departments.

Another Capitol Hill lesson in the use of social media: A congressional staff member resigns after she ridiculed Mr. Obama’s daughters in a Facebook post.

Is Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. an Eminem fan? He quoted the rapper’s lyrics in a case involving threats posted on Facebook.

A federal judge rejected a request for a new trial by former Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia and his wife, Maureen, The Washington Post reports.

New York magazine profiles Reihan Salam, the new executive editor of National Review. The article calls him a “curious choice for a magazine used to setting the agenda for policy makers on the right.”

The Nation says the Democratic Party would be better served if Hillary Rodham Clinton faced serious opposition during the primaries.

The Alaska “unity ticket” — Gov. Bill Walker and Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott — was inaugurated on Monday, the beginning of an era that Alaska Dispatch News says is likely to be dominated by four years of budget turmoil.