Government Executive - Authors - Richard E. Cohen

Debt vote shows freshmen Dem concerns

Richard E. Cohen — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

As Democrats face growing tension between their legislative and campaign demands, Thursday's House vote to approve a $1.9 trillion increase in the federal debt ceiling underscored the dilemmas that lie ahead in this campaign year and how party leaders will seek to accommodate them.

It was no surprise that the 217-212 vote to approve the rule setting terms of the debate included no Republican supporters. More revealing were the 37 Democrats who voted no. Of that total, there are 24 first-termers, nine sophomores, and only four more senior members, of whom three are Southerners.

They included 20 of the 26 Democrats elected in November 2008 to seats that had previously been held by Republicans, plus four others who won special elections in the past two years -- three in what had been GOP-held seats.

The fact there were "no" votes from only nine of the 26 Democrats first elected in 2006 in Republican seats revealed that group's greater level of political confidence, and the fact that many took districts that were low-hanging fruit for House Democrats.

Most of these members already are facing serious re-election contests or seeking to avoid bad votes that could give grist to a campaign challenger. But as a group, many have shown that they can be Democratic team-players, when possible.

So, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., prowled the floor during the debt-limit vote, it was revealing that at least four of these Democrats voted no only after the measure had secured sufficient votes to assure passage: Reps. Bill Foster and Debbie Halvorson of Illinois, and Scott Murphy and Bill Owens of New York.

From another perspective, of the 48 House Democrats who hold districts that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., won in 2008, only 19 voted against the debt-ceiling increase.

The remaining 29 Democrats, most of whom are relatively senior, include five House committee chairmen and four Democrats who have announced their retirements since December.

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Lawmaker adds support to Guantanamo replacement in Illinois

Richard E. Cohen — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill., endorsed the controversial proposed maximum-security prison for Illinois, with a snipe at Republican critics and an endorsement of its major job-creation benefits.

"I refuse to be part of the fear factor," Hare said Wednesday. "I prefer that we talk about getting people to work. ... I am afraid of [local home] foreclosure and people leaving the area."

After discussions with Obama administration officials over their plans to move detainees from the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Hare said that the new facility could add $1 billion to the local economy in four years and create more than 3,000 jobs -- including indirect slots for individuals serving the prison. The "once in a lifetime opportunity" could reduce unemployment in nearby areas by as much as half, he said.

The prison is now owned and operated by the state, but it is underutilized because of what Hare called "a miserable job of managing the prisons in this state" by former Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was impeached and removed from office January following his indictment on federal corruption charges.

Located in the small town of Thomson in Carroll County, the prison would be one county north of Hare's district in the state's northwest corner. Rep. Donald Manzullo, R-Ill., whose district includes Thomson, has opposed a federal takeover of the facility because it would house "really, really mean people whose job it is to kill people."

Hare attacked as "a political ploy" the recent criticism of the proposal by Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who is the Republican frontrunner in next year's race for the seat of Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill. In a letter on Sunday, Kirk wrote, "As home to America's tallest building [the Willis Tower in Chicago], we should not invite al-Qaida to make Illinois its number one target."

If Kirk has a better way to get 3,000 jobs for the area, Hare responded, "I would be glad to meet him tomorrow morning."

The Thomson facility has been endorsed by other senior Illinois Democrats, including Gov. Pat Quinn and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin. But Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean, who represents another adjoining district, opposed the plan, pending "substantial assurances regarding potential security threats."

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Dems may repeal term limits for House chairs

Richard E. Cohen — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Although the prospective rules change has been actively pushed by the barons of the House since Democrats regained control two years ago, the elimination of the six-year term limits would not necessarily return the House to the bygone era in which committee chairs ruled without accountability. Among other things, Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has been a more assertive Speaker than her Democratic predecessors, and she has positioned herself to assure that committee leaders are responsive to her views and those of the Democratic Caucus.

The planned rules changes -- of which the end of term limits would be a key piece -- are being tightly held by a small number of senior Democratic staffers, in part because Democrats fear public discussion would create a media firestorm. Actual details are not expected to be completed until Monday, during a planned meeting of the Democratic Caucus. The House typically takes up its biennial rules package immediately after members have been sworn in and a Speaker elected for the new Congress, and while many lawmakers -- especially freshmen -- are busy with celebratory parties.

Another controversial prospective rules change, which would have more immediate impact on day-to-day activities in the House, is a significant weakening of the "motion to recommit," which provides the minority party at least one opportunity to offer an alternative to pending legislation. Republicans likely will say that this change runs directly counter to President-elect Obama's promise for more openness in Washington, though it is unlikely that Obama is familiar with the prospective parliamentary revisions.

Several Republican sources said last week they were confident that Democrats plan to eliminate term limits. "There has been no consultation with Republicans. But our knowledge is pretty firm, based on what we have been told by people who are familiar with what the Democrats are doing," said Jo Maney, Republican spokeswoman at the House Rules Committee. "Removal of term limits is galling. It's a consolidation of power, and removes accountability. The American people won't like it."

Aides to Minority Leader John Boehner predict Republicans would strongly object, though the handling of the opening-day rules package typically would not give them an opportunity for a separate vote on the term-limits removal. Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said he could not confirm the GOP speculation or comment on the Democrats' plans.

Term limits were a major theme in the House Republicans' Contract with America in 1994, when they swept to House control with a 52-seat gain. The Contract called for an unprecedented vote on a constitutional amendment to limit service in Congress, with a stated goal to "replace career politicians with citizen legislators."

When the term-limits measure failed to gain the requisite two-thirds support, it notably became the only part of the Contract that the House defeated. But Republicans contend that they acted in that spirit when they revised House rules to impose six-year limits on chairmanships at the start of 1995. The result was a regular turnover of chairmanships, although some senior members subsequently took the gavel at other committees.

Ironically, House Democrats in mid-November removed their most senior chairman during organizational meetings for the new Congress. They could cite that ouster of Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., from the Energy and Commerce Committee chairmanship -- a post that he had held for 28 years -- as an ad hoc version of term limits. Dingell, the House dean, will be replaced by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who had been chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Waxman has been among the most outspoken critics of term limits. When he sought to remove them soon after Democrats took control in 2007, Pelosi reportedly assured him that she would eventually address the issue. (During the 12-year Republican reign in the House, only one committee chairman was ousted: Rep. Christopher Smith of New Jersey, who was viewed as too independent of party leaders during his tenure as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee.)

The prospective move could create grumbling among rank-and-file Democrats, who might find their ambitions stifled by the return of long-reigning committee chairs. But they will have little immediate recourse, given the tradition that voting for the opening-day rules package is mandatory for members of the majority party.

Interestingly, Boehner became a leading advocate of term limits for committee chairmanships after he was first elected to the House in 1990. During a November 1994 interview with National Journal, he said the change was needed because chairmanships were not selected by an "open and free" process. But Boehner -- who was a key architect of the Contract with America and at the time was a close ally to Speaker Newt Gingrich, and later became chairman of what was then the Education and the Workforce Committee -- parted company with fellow Republicans on the broader term-limits options for service in the House; he voiced fear that they would shift power to unelected aides and lobbyists.

In the Senate, Republicans implemented a similar regime of term limits for their committee chairmanships. But, unlike in the House, those changes were not part of the chamber's rules, and Senate Democrats never installed their own term limits.

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Democrats solidify hold on Congress

Richard E. Cohen — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0500

The result will be a comfortable majority in each chamber starting next January, though not as big as many Democrats and some outside observers had predicted. And the increases probably will not be large enough for the Democratic majority to steamroll over some of the difficult legislative challenges it will face in the 111th Congress.

As of this posting, Democrats had scored a net gain of 16 seats in the House and five in the Senate. But many contests remained unresolved, especially in the West, and several recounts appeared likely in the House.

With the national spotlight focused on Obama's victory speech, congressional Democratic leaders kept a low profile this year compared to their celebration two years ago.

In the Senate, Democrats ousted first-term Republicans Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and John Sununu of New Hampshire. And they took seats vacated by three veteran Republicans: Wayne Allard of Colorado, Pete Domenici of New Mexico and John Warner of Virginia.

The fate of four Republican senators remained up for grabs at night's end: Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Gordon Smith of Oregon and Ted Stevens of Alaska. According to Associated Press reports early Wednesday morning, Chambliss and Stevens led their opponents, while the races in Minnesota and Oregon were still too close to call.

In the House, Democrats ousted 11 Republican incumbents and took nine more GOP open seats. But unlike in 2006, when Democrats lost no seats in either chamber, Republicans took four Democratic-held seats. That left a net Democratic gain of at least 16 seats, with the strong likelihood of additional pick-ups.

House Republicans fared especially badly in the Northeast, where veteran Christopher Shays' loss in Connecticut cost the party its last representative in New England's 22 seats. The GOP also lost three seats in New York and one each in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

GOP setbacks weren't confined to the Northeast, either, with the loss of four seats in the Midwest (two in Ohio and one each in Illinois and Michigan), five in the South (two incumbents in the Orlando area of Florida, another incumbent in North Carolina and open seats in Alabama and Virginia), plus at least five seats in the West (two in New Mexico, and one each in Arizona, Colorado and Nevada).

Of those losses, four were congressional freshmen: Nancy Boyda of Kansas, Nick Lampson of Texas, Tim Mahoney of Florida, plus Don Cazayoux of Louisiana, who won a special election for a vacant seat this spring. All four had taken longtime Republican-held seats only to hand them back this election -- a pattern that House Republicans hope to continue in 2010.

Speaking to reporters on an early-morning conference call, National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., predicted "it will be a much better environment" for Republicans in the next campaign, with Democrats in complete control and pushing what he expects will be a liberal agenda.

Citing a litany of factors that were stacked against Republicans in this election -- including an unpopular president, a weak economy, war and the financial crisis, plus the political challenges of defending 30 open House seats and being vastly outspent by Democrats -- Cole said of the night's results, "I take some satisfaction, though I prefer to win." He cited recent predictions that Democrats might score at least a 30-seat House gain and said he expected that the final House Democrat gain will be closer to 20.

Democratic congressional leaders, for their part, have been struggling to manage expectations throughout this cycle, and especially during the final weeks of the campaign. They have repeatedly cited the historical trend that a "wave" election -- such as 2006, when they gained 30 seats in the House and six in the Senate -- is usually followed by minimal gains or even losses in the next cycle. That was the case, for example, following big Democratic gains in 1964 and 1974, and Republican gains in 1980 and 1994.

With the national spotlight focused on Obama's victory speech in Chicago, congressional Democratic leaders kept a low profile this year compared to their celebration two years ago. And they showed a greater appreciation of the challenges that lie ahead now that they are about to gain full responsibility for governance. At a Capitol Hill reception sponsored by congressional Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., emphasized the need for bipartisan civility. "We must take a deliberate, steady course for America," Pelosi told the mostly young crowd.

"The American people have given all of us -- Democrats, Republicans and independents -- a simple mandate: to work together find big solutions to the big challenges facing our country," Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said in a statement. "With the help of strong Democratic majorities in Congress, President Barack Obama is going to set this nation on a course to provide the change we need."

Congressional leaders from both parties are scheduled to hold several press conferences later on Wednesday.

And Republicans likely will launch several leadership contests for the 111th Congress, which could be held at party organizing sessions as soon as two weeks from now. A widely anticipated shake-up in House GOP ranks gained new fuel when House Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam, R-Fla., released a letter late Tuesday night announcing that he would not seek another term. "I believe it is time to step off the leadership ladder and return my focus to crafting public policy solutions for America's generational challenges -- the very reason I ran for Congress in the first place," Putnam wrote.

His move likely will set off a scramble for the conference chairmanship. Possible contenders include Jeb Hensarling of Texas, Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, Jack Kingston of Georgia, Cathy McMorris-Rodgers of Washington and Mike Pence of Indiana, according to a senior House GOP aide. In addition, House Chief Deputy Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia is widely expected to seek a move up the GOP's leadership ladder.

In the Senate, a reshuffling is expected on the lower rungs. With the narrow re-election victory of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, he and Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., likely will remain in the top two Senate GOP slots.

In coming days, congressional Democrats likely will clarify their plans for a lame-duck session. Reid has announced plans for the Senate to return on Nov. 17, while Pelosi has not been definitive. Senior Democratic aides have said that party leaders would like to pass additional economic-stimulus legislation before year's end, but they are unlikely to move without positive signals from President Bush.

Pressure is also mounting for action to bail out the beleaguered automobile industry. Bush and congressional Republican leaders, for their part, are eager to win final approval of a free-trade deal with Colombia. And they hope that Obama and the Democrats might welcome the opportunity to remove some of these issues from the schedule for what looms as a hectic first few months next year.

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Waxman to vie for energy panel leadership

Dan Friedman and Richard E. Cohen — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., is challenging Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., for the chairmanship of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee.

"I began making calls this morning to members and I informed Chairman Dingell that I am running for chairman," Waxman told National Journal on Wednesday. Waxman has long been the second-ranking Democrat on the Energy and Commerce panel, and is currently chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

His bid to topple Dingell, the longest-serving member of the House, marks an unexpected battle between senior Democrats for a powerful post overseeing major pieces of expected legislation on health care, global warming and renewable energy. Dingell chaired the Energy and Commerce Committee from 1980-1994, and regained the chairmanship when the Democrats took back a majority of the House two years ago.

Aides and lobbyists said Waxman appears to face an uphill fight against the powerful Dingell but would be unlikely to act without at least tacit approval from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., a fellow Californian with whom Waxman is close. Waxman said Pelosi is aware of his bid but declined say to whether she supports it. "I think I have a good chance of winning," Waxman said.

The panel's chairmanship must be voted on by House Democratic Steering Committee and then by the full Democratic Caucus, and is influenced by leadership. Success for Waxman will likely depend on support from the large California delegation and liberals who feel Dingell's support of the automobile industry and concern about automobile emissions limits would prevent strong environmental legislation; Dingell and Waxman were frequently at odds during the nearly decade-long debate that led to the Clean Air Act of 1990. "We have a narrow window to act ... and for the committee to play the essential role of leadership on health and energy issues," Waxman said.

Aides said Dingell will likely win support from Midwestern Democrats, members close to organized labor, the Congressional Black Caucus -- whose members generally strongly support seniority -- and the Blue Dog Coalition. Dingell is close to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. A congressional aide said that the 82-year-old Dingell "is not going to take this sitting down, and will stress his record of passing 90 bills in the last two years many with unanimous support. Dingell is guy who has proven time and time again, he is a guy who has passed bills." Dingell has "also done huge fundraising for the DCCC," the staffer said.

If Waxman wins the post, Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y. -- a member of the Congressional Black Caucus -- would become the senior member of the Oversight and Government Reform panel, but one staffer said Towns is backing Dingell. Reps. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa. and Carolyn Maloney, D.N.Y., follow Towns in seniority. But an Energy and Commerce spokeswoman condemned Waxman's bid as "unhealthy" and said it "does not benefit the party in any way." She added, "Tearing the leadership apart is something the losing party normally does, not something the Democrats should be doing after a historic election."

Christian Bourge contributed to this story.

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Plotting an Endgame

James A. Barnes and Richard E. Cohen — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0400

After back-to-back national conventions that captured the attention of much of the electorate, the presidential race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain remains a puzzle. Despite the public's deep dissatisfaction with President Bush, his party's standard-bearer remains very much in contention.

When Democratic operatives look at the national political environment, they behold a sea of polling indicators suggesting that Obama should be running away with this contest, including voters' economic worries; the public's extreme dissatisfaction with the direction of the country; and Bush's abysmal job-approval ratings. Yet Obama is still locked in a fairly close race, and Democrats are both fretful and at a loss to explain the situation.

"I think there are a lot of Democrats who think we should be up by 15 points in the current environment, and they're wondering why," said one Democratic strategist, who requested anonymity in order to be more candid.

At the same time, some Republicans worry that their convention did little to address the prime concerns of swing voters. Conservative activists applauded McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate. Likewise, the Republican Right was happy that not only did the GOP platform remain thoroughly conservative, the convention's primetime program featured plenty of red meat.

Outside of opening-night remarks by Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the independent Democrat who crossed party lines to endorse McCain, podium speakers included few moderate voices who could appeal to swing voters. When former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani spoke on Wednesday night, he didn't sound much like the moderate Republican who was twice elected in a Democratic stronghold. Rather, as he tore into Obama and ridiculed his resume, Giuliani came off as a snarling attack dog fixated on foreign policy. He barely touched on the economy, despite national polls showing that it long ago displaced the war in Iraq, terrorism, and national security as voters' top concern.

"I still think you don't win major campaigns if you don't talk about the number one issue, which is the economy," said a Republican pollster who asked not be identified. "The 'change' sentiment is still stronger than the 'experience' argument. And the issues that drive 'change' are helping the Democrats now. They haven't receded."

While McCain, Obama, and Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph Biden of Delaware, have been endlessly vetted by the press and the public, Palin is new to the national spotlight and is likely to continue to draw intense scrutiny -- and interest -- throughout the two-month dash to Election Day. Whether the first woman on a major party's ticket since 1984 will end up being more of an asset than a liability might be clearer in a few weeks after she faces Biden on Oct. 2 in the sole vice presidential debate.

"I think it's quite possible she could move Macomb County Democrats," said public opinion analyst Karlyn Bowman, referring to the famous blue-collar territory outside of Detroit that is a bastion of the conservative whites who were "Reagan Democrats." Bowman, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, said that this voting bloc is still up for grabs but agreed that the economic downturn makes it more difficult for McCain to extend the GOP's lease on the White House: "I'm still not sure ordinary Joes think Obama gets their pain, but it's a bigger problem for McCain."

Although Republicans at their national convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul acknowledged that Palin will probably continue to draw fire from Democrats and the media, their mood after her feisty -- pit bull with lipstick -- acceptance speech was hopeful, if not quite confident. "There's a feeling within the party that the wind under which Obama has sailed is dying down," said former Reagan White House speechwriter Clark Judge. "With his money and turnout machine he may yet prevail, but a new wind is blowing. And they feel it's blowing McCain's way."

Republicans are feeling considerably less upbeat about their campaign to take back Congress -- or at least to hold their ground. Recent developments in the presidential contest have not significantly changed the outlook for the congressional contests. Democrats, who won control of the House and Senate in 2006, are expected to gain additional seats. It remains unclear whether their pickups will be minimal or enough to put them firmly in charge of one or both chambers.

Senate Democrats emphasized at their party's Denver convention that they have been stymied by filibusters led by the 49 GOP senators. "We have to communicate that there now aren't enough Democratic senators to pass Barack Obama's agenda," said Matt Miller, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

As for House Democrats, many safe incumbents traveled to Denver, but the many vulnerable freshmen who must try to defend swing seats were largely missing. "Our advice to the great majority of them is to be back home with their constituents," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "Your voters are at home."

Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, contended that their prospects have turned around of late, although they don't go so far as to predict that they will win back either the House or the Senate. "We are in a much better position than people thought 12 or six months ago," said Rep. Tom Cole, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Adding Palin to McCain's ticket has boosted the morale of the Republicans' socially conservative base, Cole noted. Moreover, GOP lawmakers -- who have been hammering a "Drill here, drill now" message -- think that they are already seeing the price of gasoline turn to their political advantage.

"The issues are moving in our direction," House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., says. Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, the minority leader, agrees: "Democrats have made a lot of promises and kept none.... Americans are not impressed."

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Obama camp steering clear of transition talk

Richard E. Cohen — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400

The congressional Democratic superdelegates are mostly on board the Obama train, based on their rhetoric and activities in Denver this week. But a growing divide has become apparent with the top brass of the nominee's campaign.

Many Democratic lawmakers are eager to plan for the transition to what they hope will be an Obama presidency, and even beyond to the 2009 agenda. The Obama team, however, has cooperated only on a limited basis and is reluctant to show any signs of looking beyond Nov. 4.

Lawmakers are anxious because they know that if Barack Obama, D-Ill., is elected president and Democrats increase their House and Senate majorities, they would face a heavy legislative lift and high public expectations. "We need to be prepared for how we want to move in January," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut. Discussions have begun between the Obama campaign and Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee -- the tax-writing panel that would face demands for early action on several major topics -- two committee members said this week.

"Top Obama people have met with Ways and Means Democrats on multiple issues, including taxes, trade, and entitlements," said Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin. "They have listened to us and our concerns. And we have started to look for consensus." Although he did not specify all of the participants, Kind said that they included Phil Schiliro, the campaign's senior congressional liaison.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, another Ways and Means member, said that economic staff on the campaign have "reached out to Ways and Means" with discussion of economic stimulus proposals, among other topics. Van Hollen cautioned that both sides "don't want to get ahead of ourselves or appear presumptuous" but that they are mindful "you have to lay some groundwork... about how to move different pieces."

On national security, Rep. Ellen Tauscher of California said that low-key talks have begun with key congressional players, including herself. "I feel very comfortable that Senator Obama's transition team will work closely with members of Congress after the election," she said.

Even some lawmakers, however, are wary of pushing too hard to plan for what happens after November. "We will have time after the election," said Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, a senior member of the House Rules Committee. "I am Irish and superstitious. We have to fight like hell."

Although top Obama campaign officials want to be respectful of individual members of Congress, they have privately indicated that they want to keep their distance from one of the nation's most unpopular institutions.

For public consumption, they emphasize that they are focused on the next two months. Transition planning "does not consume much of our time," campaign manager David Plouffe said in a Wednesday interview with Convention Daily. For now, he added, "all you can do is get a framework in place."

Convention Daily separately has learned that Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader who is advising Obama, has quietly asked John Podesta to organize the transition effort, which is in a preliminary phase. Podesta, President Clinton's former chief of staff, is hailed by many Democrats as a seasoned Washington insider who understands executive governance and all of the burdens of getting off to a smooth start.

Alexis Simendinger contributed to this story.

For full coverage of the Democratic National Convention, go to NationalJournal.com.

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Key Democrat discusses priorities for government oversight

Richard E. Cohen — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:00:00 -0400

National Journal, he didn't exactly sound like a pit bull.

Sure, Waxman railed against his GOP colleagues for their refusal to conduct any oversight of the Bush administration that could prove "embarrassing." Yet he also said that it would be "presumptuous" to plan his committee agenda now, that he would "reach out" to work with fellow Republicans, and that the 110th Congress will have no room for "autonomous chairmen." Edited excerpts of that August 4 interview follow.

NJ: What would it be like next year if Democrats have a narrow majority?

Waxman: It would be difficult to get legislation. But I never accepted the way that Republicans operated, of doing things solely on a partisan basis. I would want to do hearings, look for solutions, and act on a bipartisan basis. You can get a list of all the bills that I have passed into law. I can't think of a single one where we passed it solely on a partisan vote. If we control the agenda, hopefully we can get support for it.

Some of our successes have turned out not because legislation has passed but because we continued to push an issue. The tobacco issue [featuring high-profile hearings before a Waxman subcommittee in 1994] is a good example. I was very disappointed that we didn't get stronger legislation. But at least we were able to highlight the issue so that people understand the problem.

NJ: What frustrations have Democrats felt, without control of the committee gavels?

Waxman: We have tried to spotlight the issue of the enormous amount of waste, fraud, and abuse by giving out monopoly contracts in the military. We occasionally got the majority to agree to hearings. But whenever it has gotten close to potential embarrassment for the White House, the Republicans won't hold hearings. I don't think that should be the basis for Congress to decide whether to do oversight. In fact, if it's potentially embarrassing, hearings are potentially self-correcting. That's the time to give a spotlight -- when people see that an administration may be doing things wrong.

NJ: If you become chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, what will your priorities be?

Waxman: This committee has oversight over everything that the government is involved with. It could be health and environment issues. Or it could also be on military contracting. But it would be presumptuous to think what I would want to do in January. We won't know what will be the big issues at that moment.

I am stunned by the waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending. The three big areas have been Iraq reconstruction, the damage from Hurricane Katrina, and homeland security. In all three of these areas, we see the same mistakes: big monopoly contracts, no bidding, no competition. So, there are a lot of abuses.

NJ: Can Congress legislate a solution to these problems?

Waxman: Yes, we have some legislation that we might want to advance. I don't object to government contracts. But I do object to government not planning or having clear oversight. The best focus of oversight is to prevent a waste of taxpayer dollars. This is a serious constitutional responsibility.

I want to do it in a rational way and definitely want to avoid what the Republicans did. They misused their oversight affirmatively by going after President Clinton in a very partisan way. And they misused it by not even looking at anything on the Bush administration. As an example, they spent 10 days of hearings looking at whether Clinton misused the White House Christmas card list for political purposes, but they would not have a single day of hearings on what are the practices for dealing with people who leak security information, like [White House aide] Karl Rove.

NJ: Should oversight always have a legislative goal?

Waxman: Often you use oversight to try to gather support behind ideas for legislation to solve a problem. But sometimes you are just exploring a problem. An important part of oversight is for Congress to keep the executive branch honest, and to provide the checks and balances that the Constitution envisioned.

Sometimes, oversight is used to push ideas forward. An example was [our committee's] investigation of steroids in baseball. I would have thought that Major League Baseball would have done an investigation. Kids were using steroids because their role models were using them. And the hearings became a way to push the sports leagues to act on their own. As long as the testing policy was a good one, that was what we wanted. It didn't have to be legislation, as far as I was concerned.

NJ: If Democrats control the House next year, will oversight be a more practical tool than legislation?

Waxman: Even with a narrow majority, oversight can bring about support on a bipartisan basis for certain positions. It can bring more of a public focus to certain issues.

I will give you an example. When [the first] President Bush was in office, he issued an executive order banning any research using fetal-cell transplants, which resulted from abortions. Despite the unanimous decision of a National Institutes of Health panel, he stopped it. Well, we held hearings to have a spotlight on this, and we ended up with overwhelming bipartisan support to resume the research. We had legislation that President Bush vetoed. We were successful in getting an override in the Senate but not in the House.

When President Clinton came into office, we passed the legislation and he signed it, allowing the research to go forward. That was a situation where I could call a hearing, set that agenda item, call public attention to it, and get another perspective out.

NJ: What have been your most successful oversight efforts?

Waxman: In terms of legislation, there were the hearings that we had after the Bhopal explosion [at a chemical plant in India in 1984]. We went to West Virginia and looked at the impact of toxic pollutants. At the time, the Environmental Protection Agency was not even asking about the level of toxic emissions into the air from industrial facilities.

We issued a report, which the chemical industry immediately denounced as exaggerated. But those hearings led to a proposal for an inventory, which the House passed by one vote. So, we built up a record and public understanding so that when we amended the Clean Air Act in 1990, we had a separate section on toxic emissions.

NJ: What lessons do you draw from your tobacco hearings in 1994?

Waxman: The major breakthrough was when we had the CEOs [testify]. Public attitudes changed overnight when they saw the leaders of the industry saying things that people knew not to be true. After that, we started getting calls from whistle-blowers in the industry. They were so angry with the CEOs saying that the nicotine didn't cause disease. We had [industry] scientists who discussed their efforts to adjust the nicotine so that people would continue as smokers. After those hearings, the flow of information became a torrent.

Even though we couldn't get legislation, that led to most places around the country banning cigarette smoking in public places. Once it became clear that there was a medical problem for nonsmokers to breathe in second-hand tobacco smoke, it was no longer just an annoyance, it was a health threat.

NJ: Why did you never issue a subpoena in the 16 years that you chaired a Government Reform subcommittee?

Waxman: To me, a subpoena is something that you do as a last resort. Even when the tobacco executives came in to testify, they came in voluntarily. They wanted to tell their story. It was a serious mistake in strategy. Most of the hearings that I held over the years, we were always able to get witnesses. Knowing that we would come back with a subpoena often made a witness willing to appear.

I was shocked when the Republicans took over and [Government Reform Committee Chairman] Dan Burton issued subpoena after subpoena [from 1997 to 2002]. That was more power than any single member of Congress ever had. The rules always had had a check on the abuse of power by a chairman. But Republicans on our committee gave the chairman unilateral power to issue subpoenas.

NJ: If you were chairman, would you want that subpoena power?

Waxman: My view is that the Republicans have changed the rules. If they think that those are good rules, we will let them stay. I didn't approve of those rules. But it makes the threat more serious. I would use [subpoenas] if I needed them. But I don't think that I would need them.

NJ: Some Republicans see you as highly partisan. Do you worry about that?

Waxman: The best way to change opinion is for them to see how I operate, if I have the chance. I think that the criticism is not valid. I am offended by how partisan the Republicans have been. I think that it's destroyed a lot of what's important in this institution -- that people develop expertise on issues, and operate in a civil and bipartisan way. Republicans have been told that they had to march in lockstep, and they weren't interested in anything that the Democrats had to say.

As chairman, I would want Republicans to join us and to get their input. I would certainly reach out to Republicans who want to work on policy. Partisanship is counterproductive for this institution.

NJ: What kind of speaker would Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., be?

Waxman: One of the lessons that I would take from the Republican management of the House is that there is a good side to centralizing more power in the leadership. In the days when we had the majority, there were too many autonomous chairmen. It would be a mistake to go back to those days. I don't think that the leaders ought to dictate to the chairmen, but they ought to work closely with the chairmen to assure that they are responsive.

The priorities, to some extent, have to be set by the leadership. I think that Pelosi would do an excellent job. She has made clear to members that they will be accountable to the Democratic Caucus.

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New House overseer takes cautious approach to Homeland Security

Shane Harris and Richard E. Cohen — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 00:00:00 -0400

Vale of Tears, that imagines future acts of terrorism against New York City. King, however, was actually a dark horse to become chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee after Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., left to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.

King was the fifth-most-senior member of the panel, and he faced off against such contenders as House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, for the post. Nevertheless, the leadership-controlled House Republican Steering Committee tapped King to be Homeland Security chairman on Sept. 14.

King, who is 61 and was first elected to the House in 1992, assumed the committee chairmanship just two weeks after Hurricane Katrina tore through the Gulf Coast and raised concerns about the Homeland Security Department's ability to adequately respond to natural disasters and terrorist attacks. In a Sept. 27 interview with National Journal's Shane Harris and Richard E. Cohen, King said he is approaching his new role as overseer of the vast and troubled DHS cautiously. He also questioned local and state governments' readiness and said he is weighing a larger military role in responding to crises like Katrina. Edited excerpts from that interview follow.

NJ: Looking at some of the issues about which you've scheduled hearings -- immigration policy, infrastructure protection, even the effectiveness of bomb-sniffing dogs -- you've laid out a pretty broad field of oversight. What is your vision for the committee?

King: It's impossible to home in on any issue, because this is so far-reaching. The whole issue of homeland security is, to me, the defining issue of our time. No. 1 is to make the Department of Homeland Security work, be an effective force. But it is important that it not just be 22 agencies thrown together. We have to also consider, maybe start to reconsider, some basic premises.
It's been our premise that first responders [local police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel] would be first responders. What we saw in New Orleans was, without getting into whose fault it was, for whatever reason, the first responders didn't work. We have to get the timeline of what happened, but there seems to be anywhere from a 12-to-36-hour gap in there before the federal response was really coordinated.

We'll have to consider, I believe, using the military at an earlier stage. Whether that involves amending Posse Comitatus, whether that involves amending the Insurrection Act, I think it's important that we have a real legislative history on it, so if and when this president, or a future president, has to use it, there's not a question that he's overreaching on his powers.

In New York [after the 9/11 attacks], I think we got a bit spoiled, in that the police, fire, emergency-services employees did respond very quickly and effectively. So for the first 24 hours, the local first responders did their job. Also the mayor, the National Guard, the governor all worked together.

NJ: Is the difference in the responses attributable to the fact that New York had a large police force compared with New Orleans?

King: Yeah. In the future, and I've discussed this with [Homeland Security] Secretary [Michael] Chertoff, we need to see firsthand just how effective each municipality's response plans are, and not just on preparedness, but what kind of training their personnel have, how coordinated they are, how often they train... so we will know, certainly on a natural disaster, how much we have to pre-position the military, or how much we have to pre-position the federal response.

NJ: Is it the federal government's responsibility to measure state and local governments' preparedness, to make sure they're up to a standard?

King: Yeah. Let's assume that the New Orleans police and fire [departments] did everything they could have done. The fact is that, for whatever reason, nothing was done that was really effective. So it could have been that their plan just didn't work. What was their plan? How updated are their plans? There seems to be an assumption within the federal government that we would not be coming in for the first 24 to 48 hours -- and, obviously now, we see we should have.

NJ: Are you satisfied with the Homeland Security Department's ability to make those assessments?

King: I don't know. I've known Mike Chertoff for over 10 years. And I have faith that he will get the department up to standards. I've not been over there, I've only been in this job two weeks. I can't tell you exactly who's handling what, but I do have a lot of faith in Chertoff to make an organization work.

NJ: Do you plan to hold hearings on the government's response to Hurricane Katrina?

King: It will be up to the House select committee [on Katrina, led by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va.] right now. But I intend to hold hearings up to the edge of Katrina, until those [select committee] hearings are completed. For instance, we're considering bringing governors from other states, asking what their plans are, how they would react to a situation similar to Katrina, and making contrasts between what their plans are and what happened with Katrina -- and also with Hurricane Rita, for that matter.

NJ: What do you mean when you say that you'll hold hearings "up to the edge of Katrina"?

King: We'll know it when we see it.

NJ: To the extent that you're going to be reviewing the preparedness of local law enforcement agencies and others, does it occur to you or others around the Capitol that these issues, these questions, should have been raised before Katrina hit New Orleans? Is there a failure here, or is this just a learning experience?

King: I think it's a little of both. If, for instance, Katrina had happened [before 9/11], I think the federal government would have even reacted differently on 9/11. There may have been more troops ready to come in. They might not have assumed that the cops and firefighters would handle it as well as they did. I think the presumption after Katrina is going to be that the federal government has to be ready.
Beyond that presumption, we should be really working with [first responders] to find out how real their plans are and how capable they are of being implemented. The response [to Katrina] was obviously inadequate. The response, I believe, was based upon premises that are no longer valid. We have to come up with a quantifiable standard as to how prepared these local governments are. And based on that, how prepared the federal government has to be -- primarily, the military -- to move in quickly.

NJ: Are you confident that the military would accept that kind of expanded domestic role?

King: I hear different things from different people. Probably, the military will not be enthused. And that's a good thing. If we had a military that did want to grab every local issue, then you're talking about a military that doesn't really know its place in a democratic society. In a way, we should be grateful that the military is reluctant to take on expanded domestic powers.

NJ: What do you see as your mandate, from the House Republican Conference and, moreover, from the GOP leaders, who had something to do with getting you elected as chairman?

King: One, they want someone who is totally committed to homeland security. Not to say the others weren't. [I'm] someone who, just by a quirk of history, has sort of an inside knowledge of what it's like to be in a city that's been attacked, and how it's come back. It gives me, unfortunately, a firsthand knowledge of what happens when a city is attacked. Two, put together an effective policy and be able to articulate that in the media. I believe that leadership today means not just having good ideas, but being able to articulate them, being able to get them out in the 24-hour news world we live in today.

NJ: Now that you're chairman, how do you envision your role as a public spokesman?

King: As a committee chairman, my job will be to articulate the Republican view on homeland security -- certainly, the House Republican view on it, and to the extent that that's consistent with the administration's. In most cases it will be [consistent], but I'm sure there will be differences along the way. It's imperative to get our message out there in the right way, and not to allow the media to frame it, [not] to be behind the curve the way the administration was on Katrina.

NJ: How do you see the Republicans' views on homeland security as being different from the Democrats'?

King: I don't look upon it as a partisan issue. I did say, when I was campaigning for the job, that just as the Republican Party became the party of national defense throughout the Cold War, that we should be the party of homeland security during the war against terrorism. I'm not saying the Democrats aren't doing it. I'm just saying we should. And let the people decide who is more of a homeland-security party.

NJ: What do you think about the proposals to restore the Federal Emergency Management Agency to Cabinet-level status, and to remove it from the Homeland Security Department bureaucracy?

King: Right now, I'm opposed to that. I think we have to be careful to be not always responding to the last tragedy or the last incident. If you go back to July [after the London subway bombings], you had politicians running to the microphone saying we had to put so much more money into subway security. Now no one's talking about subways. Now everything is about getting FEMA out of Homeland Security.
We may have to redefine what FEMA's role is. We should maybe change the chain of command. But I don't see how we can effectively have a Homeland Security Department and have this federal response agency separate from Homeland Security.

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Congress to hold special session on Katrina relief

Richard E. Cohen and John Stanton — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 00:00:00 -0400

The Senate plans to approve the spending in a session tentatively set for 10 p.m. this evening, according to a senior Senate Republican leadership aide. The House will meet at noon Friday, the chief administrative officer said in a notice sent to House offices this afternoon.

Both chambers are expected to approve an initial disbursement of $10.5 billion in hurricane relief by unanimous consent. Although any member of the House or Senate can demand a quorum call or roll-call vote, the proceedings are expected to move expeditiously and with few members in attendance.

In a statement issued Thursday afternoon, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said: "The administration notified the leadership of the Congress earlier today that [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] was running low on funds for immediate assistance and would need funds sooner than the next regularly scheduled session, Sept. 6. Upon this notification, we immediately consulted with [House Minority] Leader [Nancy] Pelosi and [Senate Minority] Leader [Harry] Reid and we all agreed to invoke our emergency powers and called the Congress to reconvene."

The top five congressional leaders held a conference call Thursday afternoon with President Bush to discuss the $10.5 billion spending bill, which includes $10 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and $500 million for the Pentagon. In a conference call late Thursday afternoon with reporters, Office of Management and Budget Director Josh Bolten said that the final tab for clean-up and reconstruction will be "almost impossible to determine... until [New Orleans] is basically drained out."

Meanwhile, a GOP leadership aide said today that the Senate would proceed on schedule with the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, and that the additional supplemental spending bills related to Katrina would not have an effect on that process. The first Roberts hearing is slated for next Tuesday afternoon.

The s decision to schedule the special session followed Republican leaders' apparent rejection Wednesday of a request by Pelosi for a special session this week. GOP aides had indicated at the time that Congress could wait to take action following the Labor Day weekend.

Hastert may have prompted some additional political fallout when he told the Daily Herald, a suburban Chicago newspaper that "there are some real tough questions to ask about how you go about rebuilding" New Orleans. "It doesn't make sense to me," he said in the interview posted on the newspaper's Web site -- in an apparent reference to spending billions of dollars for reconstruction of the city.

Hastert's comments prompted sharp criticism from Jim Dean, the head of Democracy for America and brother of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. "We will be here to help the people of New Orleans, no matter how long it takes and we hope that the speaker of the United States House will be too," Jim Dean declared.

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Congress hurtles toward intelligence overhaul

Richard E. Cohen and Siobhan Gorman — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 00:00:00 -0400

Less than an hour earlier, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and other Republican leaders laid out the game plan for the House, where action is expected by month's end on an intelligence bill coordinated by Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. Although DeLay said he welcomed Democratic cooperation and promised not to let "politics get in the way," he also touted "the tremendous amount of work" that the GOP-controlled Congress has already done in the past three years to strengthen national security.

The dueling press conferences made clear that lawmakers, back barely a week from their long summer recess, are intent on quickly implementing recommendations made by the 9/11 commission in late July. At this point, though, the legislative road ahead for the proposals appears uncertain and far from textbook traditional.

Even under normal circumstances, intelligence reform would be a heavy lift for this gridlocked Congress, but now only about six weeks remain before Election Day. And already, the House and Senate are taking strikingly different tacks. Still, it appears that political interests at the White House and on Capitol Hill are aligning behind a major reorganization of federal intelligence agencies, either before or shortly after the election.

As the debate begins to unfold, Hastert is working with senior Republicans to coordinate the work of key House committees in a way that also accommodates the interests of the Bush White House. In the Senate, by contrast, Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has designated the bipartisan leaders of the Governmental Affairs Committee to take the lead.

Tensions, to be sure, are high. The proposed intelligence overhaul threatens the turf of many influential House and Senate committees. More broadly, how the debate plays out may well have a significant impact on the presidential and congressional elections.

Both parties are mindful that an election-eve debate two years ago over the creation of the Homeland Security Department became a political football. President Bush successfully cast the Democrats as standing in the way of the bill he had proposed (though Lieberman had proposed it long before). Ultimately, Republicans regained control of the Senate, and Congress approved the new department during a lame-duck session shortly after the 2002 election.

In recent days, DeLay stoked the partisan flames when he told reporters on September 7 that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had "no credibility" on intelligence reform issues and claimed that she and other Democrats are seeking political gain. Pelosi responded by challenging DeLay to a debate. It was all too much for moderate Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., a leading advocate of intelligence reform, who said he "almost wept inside" in response to DeLay's comment.

The legislative dynamics became further complicated this week, as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence took up Bush's nomination of Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., to be CIA director. With questions swirling about whether Congress should create a post of national intelligence director, the committee's chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., noted, "Congressman Goss has been nominated for a position that is not likely to last for much longer."

Bush's Gradual Embrace

Since the 9/11 commission released its unanimous recommendations on July 22, Bush has gradually come to embrace sweeping changes in the nation's intelligence apparatus.

Initially, White House Chief of Staff Andy Card established a task force to examine the commission's proposals. And Hastert, for his part, talked about holding congressional hearings over the next "several months" on the recommendations.

But during the Democratic convention in Boston in late July, presidential nominee John Kerry called for fully implementing the commission's recommendations. House and Senate Republican leaders, sensitive to the political implications of having Congress appear to put its vacation ahead of national security, quickly changed course and scheduled hearings for August. And by August 2 -- just 11 days after the commission released its report, and immediately following the Democratic convention -- Bush announced his support for a national intelligence director and a national counter-terrorism center, the commission's top two recommendations.

The sticking point came over how much budgetary power a national intelligence director would wield, and it appeared that Bush's director would have a somewhat smaller power over the purse than the 9/11 commission had envisioned -- a detail that commissioners emphasized as they made their rounds at Hill hearings. Then, on the eve of the Republican convention in New York City, Bush signed four executive orders on August 27 to bolster intelligence.

Bush went further during a White House meeting with bipartisan congressional leaders on September 8, the day after Congress returned from recess. He announced his support for a new director with "full budget authority" over what is known as the National Foreign Intelligence Program. That's the section of the intelligence budget responsible for strategic intelligence, as opposed to tactical, military intelligence. It represents somewhere around 70 percent of the total intelligence budget, including a few big-ticket items currently in the Pentagon budget, notably the National Security Agency, which handles signals intelligence, and the National Reconnaissance Office, which is responsible for buying spy satellites. And Bush promised to send his own intelligence reform proposal to the Hill in coming days.

"The White House took a giant leap forward," Collins said of Bush's September 8 announcement. "I'm delighted. It greatly enhances our chances of producing a successful bill."

The White House received a stamp of approval from leaders of the 9/11 commission as well. "The president has moved a long way toward the commission's recommendation, and maybe all the way," said former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., who co-chaired the commission with former Republican Gov. Tom Kean of New Jersey.

Tale of Two Camps

Meanwhile, the early birds of the intelligence reform debate were the fathers of the 9/11 commission: Lieberman and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. A few weeks before the 9/11 report was released, the two senators met with Kean and Hamilton to discuss legislation to implement all of the commission's recommendations. On September 7, the day before Bush's high-profile White House announcement, Lieberman and McCain introduced their bill enacting all 41 of the commission's recommendations, as they had promised.

Lieberman said that that bill was more of a marker or a starting point and added that the action now shifts to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. "I hope that the large bill has created some momentum in taking the process further than it would otherwise go," Lieberman said.

The intelligence reform legislation that Collins and Lieberman unveiled on September 15 doesn't go quite so far. To help write the bill, in the works since late July, they hired three 9/11 commission staffers to join the Governmental Affairs Committee. A team totaling 20 committee aides, including detailees from the FBI and CIA, drafted the measure. (And Collins has been working into the night in collaboration with the White House -- she found time to call National Journal just before 8 p.m. earlier this week while she awaited a call from National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.)

Collins and Lieberman expect to report their bill out of committee during the week of September 20. And Frist has scheduled the legislation for Senate floor consideration during the week of September 27.

The Governmental Affairs Committee's bill does not take on the issue of reorganizing the congressional panels that oversee intelligence issues and appropriations -- a reform that the 9/11 commission report had urged. Instead, Frist has convened a 22-member task force to establish a plan for congressional reform. Collins, a member of that task force, said the task-force proposal could be offered as an amendment to the bill on the Senate floor.

While Senate GOP leaders, at least for now, are letting a committee take the lead, House Republican leaders intend on playing a heavy role in crafting their version of intelligence reform legislation. "This will be a leadership bill," said Hastert spokesman John Feehery. "The speaker doesn't have his own ax to grind. He wants to get a bill enacted before the election that is consistent with the views of the White House and the goals of the 9/11 commission."

Both the House Republican proposal, outlined by DeLay and other leaders on September 15, and the Collins-Lieberman bill have at their core two now-familiar proposals drawn from the 9/11 commission report: to establish a national intelligence director, and to launch a national counterterrorism center to house terrorism analysts from a number of intelligence agencies and conduct operational planning.

Hastert has directed his staff to work with senior House GOP committee aides to begin drafting a legislative package. He also has held two lengthy meetings since Labor Day with several committee chairmen who have griped about turf.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., and other senior members of that panel are voicing some of the strongest objections. They fear that the legislation could jeopardize Pentagon access to vital military data by shifting control to the new intelligence office. "All of us believe that reform is necessary," said Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y. "But many of us -- myself included -- are deeply troubled by the generalization that there is a bright line between strategic and tactical intelligence.... A myriad of tactical weapons are used for strategic purposes."

Such disagreements may explain why DeLay left the door open for passage of an intelligence reform bill during a lame-duck session after the November election. At his September 15 press conference, DeLay said he expects a bill to pass "before Congress adjourns." But when National Journal asked whether he meant before or after the election, DeLay smiled and said under his breath, "You found my loophole," before stepping up to the microphone and saying, "We want final action" before the election.

In the House, where party discipline is strictly enforced, the Republican leadership's intelligence reform bill can be expected to prevail. But the Senate is far less disciplined. Maverick senators -- particularly those who sit on the Armed Services, Foreign Relations, and Intelligence committees -- may want to put their own thumbprints on the Governmental Affairs Committee bill. Floor debate could drag on for weeks.

"On the Senate side, it's a bit more of a wild card," said Frank Cilluffo, a former top White House homeland-security aide who now runs the homeland-security program at George Washington University.

Moreover, the narrow window for action this year may give added leverage to the White House and the House Republican leadership, said Ron Marks, a former CIA officer who has also served as intelligence counsel for the Senate Republican leadership. In a short timeframe, "it is often the last bill out that gets the best response," Marks said.

For her part, Collins said that even if the House leads the way, "it's fine," so long as the bill is in concert with the broad authority already outlined by the White House, because that proposal has moved considerably in the direction that she and Lieberman had hoped for.

Careful What You Wish For

Because Congress is feeling such intense pressure to complete a bill labeled "intelligence reform" before adjourning, some experts like Marks worry that members and their staffs will cut last-minute deals that could have grave consequences. "When you're writing language for these things, you don't always understand the implications of what you've just done," Mars said.

And some longtime observers of the intelligence community, such as Jim Wolbarsht, a management expert who has served on several intelligence and defense review boards, contend that the current focus on only two aspects of the intelligence problem -- the bureaucratic reorganization and the budget authority -- will not produce dramatic changes. Much of the debate appears to be centered on simple solutions and easy fixes, he said, rather than on identifying specific problems in the way intelligence is collected and analyzed and then crafting solutions to resolve them.

In some cases, said Alfred Cumming, former staff director for the Senate Intelligence Committee, policy makers lack the information necessary to get specific. The 9/11 commission report offered few details on the progress that federal agencies have or have not made since the terrorist attacks. And the field research that the 9/11 commission staff did on agencies such as the FBI is now a year old.

"I've got this quiver full of arrows, so what do I do now?" Cumming asked, in describing the task that would face a new intelligence director with enhanced authority who, nevertheless, must first assess the changes that have been made within the intelligence community since 9/11. "I think it's quite problematic."

Other experts, like Cilluffo, also warn not to expect too much from a single reform, especially in the murky world of intelligence. "We need to recognize it's not always as easy as knocking on bin Laden's cave and saying, 'We want to join,' " he said.

Whatever the post's limitations, should Congress establish a director of national intelligence before leaving town, whoever takes the job will face an enormous early test: the 2006 budget. Negotiations inside the executive branch are already under way to divvy up the next federal budget. And the new director would have ample opportunity in the early days of this post to show the other members of the intelligence community that there's a new sheriff in town. How the White House resolves budget disputes among the intelligence agencies would make clear how large -- or small -- the new director's influence truly would be.

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Sowing and Reaping

Richard E. Cohen — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 00:00:00 -0500

Soon after taking over as minority leader early last year, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her close advisers devised a plan to capture House control that might have required four years to accomplish. Some senior Democratic strategists, as well as most Republican insiders and nonpartisan experts, concluded that the 2001-2002 redistricting left so few competitive House districts nationwide that it might take even longer -- until after the next round of redistricting in 2012 -- before Democrats could find the key to unlock the House.

Now, however, many once-dispirited House Democrats believe that the conditions are ripe for lightning to strike. Democrats think their electoral prospects have markedly improved over the past three months, thanks to President Bush's continuing struggles with the economy and Iraq, and to the enthusiasm generated within their own party by their presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

A newfound optimism appears to have swept across the House Democrats' often-feisty factions. "It's palpable," House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters recently. "There is a real sense of pragmatism among Democrats to win this election."

And Rep. Robert Matsui of California, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, claimed in an interview: "We only need to keep the status quo in order to take back the House. Unless Bush pulls the kind of national security issue into the campaign as he did in 2002," with the partisan debate over the Homeland Security Department legislation, "Democrats will be in very good shape."

Like Boston Red Sox fans during spring training, hardy Democrats know from their painful experiences over the past decade that the World Series title remains far away. But they cite numerous reasons to justify their confidence that a House takeover is within reach, including the jolt of anti-Bush energy that has invigorated their party's base, the development of campaign talking points that have unified rank-and-file House Democrats, and the recruitment of a roster of credible candidates that -- while hardly deep -- has put enough contests in play to give the party visions of winning the 218 seats needed for a majority. The Democrats do not even feel disheartened by the Texas "re-redistricting" coup orchestrated last year by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, which could eliminate seven Democratic seats. Republicans currently hold an 11-seat House majority.

Politically astute lawmakers, like freshman Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., a former top aide to President Clinton, cite the results of opinion polls that "give us national wind" because of public unhappiness over what Emanuel describes as the "jobless economy" and the "endless occupation" in Iraq.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., who has lengthy experience in crafting the House Democrats' message, agreed. "What generates momentum is the mood of the country that we are moving in the wrong direction," DeLauro said. "When administration officials say that things are hunky-dory, the public is not that dumb. The budget deficit, for example, is important to people, because they no longer feel that their kids will have a better life."

Democrats are ecstatic over their party's win in the February 17 special election to fill the seat of former Rep. Ernie Fletcher, R-Ky., who was elected governor last November. In the special election, Democrat Ben Chandler, a former Kentucky attorney general who had lost the gubernatorial contest, defeated Republican state Sen. Alice Forgy Kerr, 55 percent to 43 percent, in a district that had been trending comfortably Republican in recent years. "There has been a shift in the political mood in the district since November," Chandler said in interview. "There is a feeling against the administration's lack of credibility."

Chandler's victory marked the first time since 1991 that a Democrat won a Republican-held House seat in a special election. And Democrats were quick to note that back in early 1994, the Republicans unexpectedly captured a neighboring Kentucky district long held by Democrats in a special election; that result was a precursor to the GOP's 52-seat gain -- and capture of the House -- the following November.

Democrats hope to accelerate their momentum by winning another special election in June for the seat vacated by Rep. Bill Janklow, R-S.D., who resigned in January following his conviction for manslaughter in the death of a motorcyclist. Democrat Stephanie Herseth, who gave Janklow a competitive contest in 2002, is the early favorite.

But in making their case for taking House control in November, Democrats concede that they will need to win more than open seats. Their prospect of perhaps picking up three or four additional seats because of Republican retirements will likely be balanced by Democratic losses in Texas. Consequently, Democrats face the challenge of unseating at least a dozen GOP incumbents to regain the majority, assuming that all sitting Democrats win re-election.

Democrats are focusing their efforts on three groups of GOP incumbents: first-termers, such as Reps. Bob Beauprez of Colorado, Max Burns of Georgia, and Rick Renzi of Arizona, who won narrowly or against flawed opponents in 2002; perennial targets in swing districts, such as Reps. John Hostettler of Indiana, Anne Northup of Kentucky, and Heather Wilson of New Mexico; and emerging targets, such as Reps. Michael Ferguson of New Jersey and Sam Graves of Missouri.

Several Democratic sources said that Pelosi, Matsui, and their key advisers may seek to place a larger number of seats in play, but they won't make their final targeting decisions until September, after they discern the national political climate. "It will be more difficult for us in states that are not presidential battlegrounds, because we will have to do get-out-the-vote ourselves," a House Democratic leadership aide said.

House Republican campaign operatives, for their part, remain largely dismissive of the Democrats' prospects, noting that several Democratic hopefuls are poorly funded, inexperienced, or both. Still, some Republicans are wary of the political burden their party shoulders for wielding complete control in Washington.

"The fact that we lost the Kentucky seat was a wake-up call to redouble our efforts...We can't take for granted that we are in the majority," said House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-Calif. "The president understands the interdependence of a Republican majority. We need to keep producing." Dreier has been a confidant of Bush's, and he co-chaired Arnold Schwarzenegger's successful California gubernatorial bid last fall.

Democrats, bolstered by Chandler's success, hope to use the same model to prevail elsewhere in November. The DCCC spent $1.4 million to identify and contact 30,000 likely Democratic voters in the Kentucky district. With an estimated 300 local volunteers, and 350 workers bused in from Washington during the campaign's final days, Democrats mobilized a far greater turnout than had been expected. For his part, Chandler concluded that Republicans were especially vulnerable because of "not keeping their promises to veterans," especially on health care. "We were surprised by our victory margin," he said.

The focus on veterans' issues may be a successful offshoot of Pelosi's initiative to expand legislative outreach programs to various issue-based constituencies, including veterans, labor union members, small-business owners, African-Americans, and Hispanics. Pelosi has met several times with leaders of national veterans' organizations and has discussed how policies would be different if Democrats were in charge. In addition, her staff has developed regular e-mail and other communication channels with these groups to reinforce contacts by Pelosi and key Democratic lawmakers. "The outside groups tell us that they have never had this level of outreach from Democratic leadership," said Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly.

But it hardly escaped attention on Capitol Hill that Pelosi failed to venture into Kentucky during the recent campaign. Asked about her assistance, Chandler voiced "admiration for her energy, determination, critical thinking, and ability to raise money," yet he added, "It's a lie to say that I'll do what she wants."

Pelosi will be tested as House campaigns go into full swing in the coming months. Those close to her say that her hands-on management and her intensive focus on the party's message and fundraising will be a plus. "She has created a persona of her own across the country that's very important for us," Matsui said. "Many people want her to be speaker." But House Republicans will continue to try to exploit Pelosi's potential vulnerability as a "San Francisco liberal."

Pelosi's status as an emerging star will take her party only so far, however. To succeed in regaining the House in November, Democrats acknowledge, they will need a strong performance by Kerry in selected districts. "If Kerry wins, the odds that we take back the House and Senate increase significantly ... not because of coattails, but because of the context of the debate," said Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich. Matusi added that Kerry will be a "great candidate for us.... He's smart, wily, and knows how to run a campaign. We'll need that in some places where it would be very difficult for us."

Other House Democrats remain cautious about how closely they want to tie their fortunes to Kerry's, especially in the more conservative South, where some lawmakers already have distanced themselves from the party's presumptive nominee. "We will put together a campaign that will take advantage of the voters' energy, regardless of how Kerry does," one Democratic strategist said.

Many Democratic lawmakers contend that the key is focusing on the record of the Republican-controlled Congress. Yet one of the top GOP leaders at the helm dismissed such a strategy this week. "Democrats are always going to be against whatever we are doing," DeLay said. "They know that they have nothing to run on." For now, the increasingly confident opposition is eager to engage.

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Government Reform chief works to bridge differences across the aisle

Richard E. Cohen — Fri, 19 Mar 2004 00:00:00 -0500

Consider the committee's March 11 hearing on the Pentagon's controversial dealings with U.S. contractors in postwar Iraq. To be sure, ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., blasted the Bush administration for having "badly mismanaged" the rebuilding of Iraq. But Waxman also commended Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., for convening Capitol Hill's initial inquiry into allegations of favoritism and rip-offs by firms such as Halliburton and Bechtel.

Davis, for his part, warned that the committee takes its oversight responsibilities seriously, and he praised Waxman for raising "important questions" about the reconstruction, although the chairman ended the three-hour-plus session of grilling eight administration officials by defending most contractors as "a tough breed of cat." The committee plans additional hearings after the General Accounting Office issues a report this spring on contracting in Iraq.

While the hearing included some partisan shots from each side, it highlighted the transformation at the Government Reform panel since Davis took it over a year ago, when Burton stepped down because of term limits on committee chairmen. The session also said something about the evolution of Davis, who previously had been best known for his successful four-year stint as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee and his encyclopedic knowledge of House districts.

Chairing the House committee with the largest staff and budget requires some of the same managerial skills as his old NRCC job. Of at least equal utility has been Davis's expertise in the complex details of federal procurement and management, which he gained during nearly two decades as general counsel to computer-services firm PRC, a Pentagon contractor. "September 11 showed the need for better integration of information systems across government," Davis said in an interview. "Procurement brings waste. But with competent technicians and the right vehicles, you can get results."

Davis's efforts receive little public attention outside the tight circle of federal managers and contractors, many of whom reside in his suburban district, based in wealthy Fairfax County, Va. But he has scored several legislative victories in his year as chairman. Congress enacted his proposals to change the Pentagon's civilian procurement operations, for example, and to reform the federal process for purchasing computer systems and software. Davis also shepherded the controversial law allowing vouchers for school children in the District of Columbia, which is part of the committee's jurisdiction. This legislative activism was a striking contrast to the panel's limited agenda under Burton.

"Doing these bills quietly was the only way to go. The unions hate any procurement reform, though I have to balance that because I have a lot of federal employees in my district," Davis said. "The public at large doesn't care about this. And I don't include it in campaign literature. But, as chairman, you try to pass legislation." He noted that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tapped him to manage the Pentagon procurement reform initiative. "I'm no wuss," Davis said. "Republicans saw that I picked my fights."

Although most Democrats strongly opposed Davis's measures, the chairman said he and Waxman decided from the start "to be civil even when we had to fight." Davis said he has been willing to give Waxman "a stake" on issues that are important to Democrats -- such as provisions in last year's energy bill to promote hybrid cars and improve energy efficiency in federal buildings -- so long as such efforts don't interfere with the GOP agenda. The two committee leaders worked together on the panel's recent inquiries into mad-cow disease and the safety of drinking water in Washington. Both also hope to enact legislation this year to overhaul the financially troubled Postal Service.

"I get along with him personally," Waxman said. "We try to bridge differences, rather than polarize." Not surprisingly, Waxman added, "But if I were chairman, it would be different." House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., who has long worked closely with Davis on regional and federal employee issues, said they continue to cooperate.

By no means has Davis tuned out the world of politics. Late last month, he briefed reporters on congressional campaigns on behalf of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a group of self-styled GOP moderates that counts Davis as a member. And while he carefully keeps his options open, Davis doesn't hide his interest in a possible run for the Senate, especially if 77-year-old Sen. John Warner, R-Va. -- a longtime legislative and political ally -- does not seek re-election in 2008.

But for now, Davis concluded, "I like what I'm doing. This is the right place for me personally."

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Kerry rated most liberal member of Senate

Richard E. Cohen — Fri, 27 Feb 2004 00:00:00 -0500

"I think it's important for people to know the differences between us," Edwards said. "I like and respect John Kerry very much. And I think he feels the same way about me. But we have differences." Edwards added a few moments later: "There are clear differences between us. Now those differences will become more apparent to Democratic voters."

Judging by National Journal's congressional vote ratings, however, Kerry and Edwards aren't all that different, at least not when it comes to how they voted on key issues before the Senate last year. The results of the vote ratings show that Kerry was the most liberal senator in 2003, with a composite liberal score of 96.5. But Edwards wasn't far behind: He had a 2003 composite liberal score of 94.5, making him the fourth-most-liberal senator.

National Journal's vote ratings rank members of Congress on how they vote relative to each other on a conservative-to-liberal scale in each chamber. The scores, which have been compiled each year since 1981, are based on lawmakers' votes in three areas: economic policy, social policy, and foreign policy. The scores are determined by a computer-assisted calculation that ranks members from one end of the ideological spectrum to the other, based on key votes -- 62 in the Senate in 2003 -- selected by National Journal reporters and editors.

The fact that Kerry and Edwards had such similar scores in 2003 is striking, because during the course of their Senate careers, their ratings have often placed them in different wings of their party.

Kerry has compiled a generally more liberal voting record. After winning election to the Senate in 1984, he ranked among the most-liberal senators during three years of his first term, according to National Journal's vote ratings. In those years -- 1986, 1988, and 1990 -- Kerry did not vote with Senate conservatives a single time out of the total of 138 votes used to prepare those ratings.

Edwards, on the other hand, had a moderate voting record during the first four years following his election to the Senate in 1998. The results positioned Edwards comfortably apart from Senate liberals, but not so far to the right that he locked arms with centrist Republicans. His consistent moderation placed Edwards among the center-right of Senate Democrats. But once Edwards decided to run for president and abandoned his bid for a second Senate term, his record moved dramatically to the left in 2003.

Last year, Kerry, Edwards, and other congressional Democrats who were seeking the presidency, including Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, missed many votes. To qualify for a score in National Journal's vote ratings, members must participate in at least half of the votes in an issue category. Of the 62 Senate votes used to compute the 2003 ratings, Kerry was absent for 37 votes and Edwards missed 22.

As a result, in the 2003 vote ratings, Kerry received a rating only in the economic policy category, earning a perfect liberal score. Edwards received ratings in the categories of economic and social issues, also putting up perfect liberal scores.

A separate analysis showed that of the votes that Kerry cast in the two categories in which he did not receive scores in 2003 -- social policy and foreign policy -- he consistently took the liberal view within the Senate. Edwards did not receive a score in the foreign-policy category; he sided with the liberals on five votes in that area, and with the conservatives on one vote. On foreign policy, Kerry and Edwards -- both of whom supported the 2002 resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq -- last year joined most Senate Democrats in voting that half of the U.S. reconstruction aid to Iraq be provided as loans, a provision that ultimately was dropped.

To be sure, Kerry's ranking as the No. 1 Senate liberal in 2003 -- and his earning of similar honors three times during his first term, from 1985 to 1990 -- will probably have opposition researchers licking their chops. As shown in the accompanying chart, Kerry had a perfect liberal rating on social issues during 10 of the 18 years in which he received a score, meaning that he did not side with conservatives on a single vote in those years. That included his 1996 vote, with 13 other Senate Democrats, against the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited federal recognition of states' same-sex marriage laws. Along the campaign trail, Republicans likely will remind voters of Kerry's stance on that issue.

But interestingly, during Kerry's second term, from 1991 to 1996, he dropped back into the pack of Democratic senators and voted more moderately. In those years, he earned composite liberal scores in National Journal's vote ratings ranging from 78.2 to 85.8.

Kerry was especially moderate in his second term when it came to foreign-policy issues. He opposed the liberal position in key Senate showdowns on missile-defense and intelligence spending in 1993, and on procurement of additional F-18 Navy fighters in 1996. Such votes could provide Kerry with some useful talking points for his presidential campaign. Kerry also voted with President Clinton and congressional Republicans, but against many liberals, in favor of welfare reform in 1996, and he occasionally split from organized labor on workplace issues.

Meanwhile, Edwards, the son of a textile worker, has frequently pointed to trade issues as one of the key "differences" between him and his opponent. He has criticized Kerry's support for the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993 and for other international trade deals during the Clinton presidency. (While Edwards did not serve in the Senate during much of that time, news reports confirm that he opposed NAFTA during his 1998 campaign, although it was not a major campaign issue.)

In fact, both senators have spotty records on trade issues. This helps to explain why organized labor backed other Democratic candidates in the early presidential caucuses and primaries.

Edwards voted with Kerry in 2000 to establish trade relations with China, and in 2002 to extend presidential trade-negotiating authority. Also in 2000, Edwards split from Kerry by opposing legislation to drop U.S. trade barriers with Africa and the Caribbean. (That vote was excluded from National Journal's Senate vote ratings because it did not correlate statistically.) In July 2003, Edwards opposed free-trade agreements with Chile and Singapore, each of which passed the Senate handily, despite mostly Democratic opposition. Kerry missed both votes.

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Turf battles could hamper launch of Homeland Security Department

Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., Richard E. Cohen, and Siobhan Gorman — Fri, 03 Jan 2003 00:00:00 -0500

Last June, President Bush called congressional leaders to the White House to lay out the challenge they faced in creating the massive new Homeland Security Department he had just proposed. "There's going to be a lot of turf protection in the Congress," Bush pointedly warned some of the potential culprits seated around the table in the Cabinet Room. Then, raising the stakes, the president added, "I'm convinced that by working together, we can do what's right for America." It took Congress almost six months of often-bitter debate to get the job done.

The already-difficult job of the new Homeland Security Department is greatly complicated by the fact that multiple congressional committees are vying for oversight rights.

Now, Homeland Security Secretary-Designate Tom Ridge must assemble a functioning team for his new department out of 170,000 employees as diverse as Coast Guard captains, Federal Emergency Management Agency relief workers, former FBI computer experts and Agriculture Department scientists. Meanwhile, he must rely heavily on other still-independent agencies to handle key parts of the homeland security job; the CIA is in charge of intelligence, for example, and the Energy Department manages high-tech research.

Coordinating all of that may be a piece of cake, however, compared with another challenge facing the Bush administration. When asked to name the chief obstacle, one pessimistic yet well-informed official said, "What's going to sink the Department of Homeland Security is the fact that there's no single oversight or Appropriations subcommittee."

That is a stark assessment and, at first, it seems a bewildering one. With all the other problems confronting the new department, how can the biggest one be the seemingly arcane issue of congressional committee organization?

Well, by the White House's count last June, a total of 88 congressional committees and subcommittees have jurisdiction over issues related to homeland security, and now the new department will handle many of those issues. That gives the Homeland Security Department a lot of congressional bosses to work with-and answer to-in its drive to make America safer. In fact, at the end of the 107th Congress, the membership of those 88 committees and subcommittees with homeland security jurisdiction included all 100 senators and all but 20 of the 432 House members. These House and Senate panels are chaired by lawmakers who value their gavels highly, and who did not get where they are by stifling their ambition or competitive drive.

In a worst-case scenario, rival chairmen are "going to try to get Ridge involved in their own committee fights" over who has jurisdiction over the new department, predicted a former Pentagon lawyer who advised members of Congress on homeland security legislation. He added that chairmen may schedule competing hearings and tell Ridge, " 'Come to me first, I've got your priority. Yeah, I know this other committee has asked you to testify, but that's our jurisdiction.' Depending on how nasty it gets, subpoenas start flying," the lawyer speculated. "It'll be chaos, and if the congressional leadership isn't willing to step up, it'll fall on Ridge to honor this committee and not that committee."

Members of Congress from time to time bemoan their byzantine committee structures, which have been shaped far more by parochial influence and historical accident than by rational policy making. But members have rarely been willing to modify their committees, because in many cases, they can manipulate the complexities to their advantage. The House and Senate have broad discretion to organize themselves whatever way they wish, giving lawmakers enormous power to meddle.

Nevertheless, a small number of members have been crusading to reorganize the committees in order to oversee the Homeland Security Department more effectively. A week after the November election, the House Republican Conference quietly passed a nonbinding resolution, sponsored by Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., "to consolidate the authorization and appropriations processes" for the new department. Weldon and other reformers argue that a single new committee in each chamber should oversee and authorize all homeland security programs, and that a single Appropriations subcommittee should fund them.

Such an overhaul would take authority away from dozens of chairmen who hold jurisdiction now, many of whom are reluctant to give up that influence. Take House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, whose panel claims responsibility for two of the biggest agencies and half of the federal employees being folded into the new department. Young is adamantly defending his turf. Since Sept. 11, his committee has written the aviation security bill and a maritime safety bill. He's working on rail safety, bridge and dam security and Coast Guard security issues.

"Creating a new committee with members and staff who have little or no experience in dealing with these issues and the agencies themselves would be a huge setback for Congress in trying to have oversight over the workings of the agency," said Young spokesman Steve Hansen. "Most people don't think it's a good idea-talk to probably every chairman and every subcommittee chairman."

But many experts say sharply paring down the number of committees with jurisdiction is the only way to ensure the success of the Homeland Security Department. "If they don't create a separate oversight committee in the House and the Senate, there's never going to be a functioning department," said John Hamre, a former deputy Defense secretary and the current president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "You can't create a new department if all the elements of the new department keep going back to their old bosses."

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., agreed, calling it "a big mistake" to retain the current committee setup. "It is absurd how many places a secretary of Homeland Security has to report to.... It's just the wrong way to handle it," he said. "How do you get a coherent policy, and how do you get a coherent budget?... There's no place where homeland security is the No. 1 topic." Gingrich contended Congress should create a single authorizing committee and a separate Appropriations subcommittee for homeland security, but, he conceded, "They probably won't do it."

Gingrich may be right. But during private meetings the week before Christmas, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and a handful of other top House Republicans decided to take a first step toward a committee reorganization, according to a senior Republican source. When the 108th Congress convenes on Jan. 7, they will ask the House to create a select committee to serve for the next two years coordinating the activities of the various committees with jurisdiction over the Homeland Security Department.

Interestingly, House Republican leaders plan to put forth their proposal for a select committee in a separate resolution rather than including it in the usual opening-day House rules package, which typically is approved by a party-line vote. That may be a signal that Republican leaders are worried about potential opposition from turf-conscious Republicans. The leaders decided at their Dec. 17 meeting to keep their plans secret until they brief the House Republican Conference on the evening of Jan. 6, according to Republicans familiar with the closed-door discussions.

While details regarding the select committee are subject to further negotiation, it probably will have less authority than did the select committee that Hastert created last year to coordinate the House legislation creating the new department. That panel was chaired by then-Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, who has retired. With that coordinating committee dissolved, the absence of a clear front-runner to take over its role may make House members open to a new committee of some form. The transitional approach of creating a select committee is designed to give the House time to adjust to the new department. But the delay could entrench bad legislative habits and could jeopardize Bush's managerial goals.

"The Congress loves to shine the light on others.... We make demands on everyone else to streamline and be effective. Congress needs to do the same thing," said Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., an Army reservist who is active on national security issues. "Probably, we'll do it slowly. It's painful for me to say that. I would love for us to see a realignment of the committee structure, (but) what you have are some very powerful committee chairmen.... Not a lot of people in this town give up power."

In the Senate, meanwhile, no changes to the committee structure are imminent. It is unlikely that incoming Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., would want to tackle the issue early in his tenure. For now, the Governmental Affairs Committee, which handled the Senate legislation creating the Homeland Security Department, may be the most aggressive in the power grab over jurisdiction.

Why Congressional Oversight Matters

Congress has four broad areas of responsibility related to the Homeland Security Department: nominations, budget, oversight, and future legislation. The Senate this month is expected to begin confirming Bush's nominees for top department posts, including Ridge and 24 others. Early on, Congress will also be monitoring how the department spends its money, identifying persistent gaps in internal communication, offering legislative fixes as unintended consequences materialize and assessing the department's performance in the event of another attack. Down the line, Congress will have to make important calls on budget priorities and oversee new management and technology. Experts worry that without centralized oversight, the likelihood that Congress will address any of those responsibilities effectively is nearly nonexistent.

Ivo Daalder, a national security expert at the Brookings Institution and a former aide to the National Security Council, sees myriad problems arising from the current committee structure. First, he said, lawmakers will disagree about who is in charge of different parts of the department, making it difficult, if not impossible, to demand accountability. Second, because of the scattered jurisdiction, Congress will have minimal ability to guide homeland security policy as a whole. Third, the committees will nibble the department to death. "You're likely to make a mess of it, because everybody is competing for a piece of the pie, rather than the whole thing," Daalder said.

Homeland security expert Frank Hoffman worries that, without focused congressional oversight, no one will be paying attention to either civil liberties or fiscal responsibility at the new department. Hoffman was a top aide to the commission chaired by former Sens. Gary Hart, D-Colo., and Warren Rudman, R-N.H., whose report on U.S. national security policy provided the foundation for what became the Homeland Security Department. Hoffman said that components such as the Transportation Security Administration and the Immigration and Naturalization Service are already broken and will need significant parenting by lawmakers who are aware of what is going on elsewhere in the department.

"The mess we're in is in large part an outgrowth of completely dysfunctional oversight of these agencies," said Stephen Flynn, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and another former National Security Council aide. Without congressional coherence, he added, members of committees with homeland security jurisdiction will be more likely to push for projects that have immediate payoff in their states or districts, such as highway-building, rather than otherwise invisible investments such as monitoring the management of the TSA.

Flynn recently directed a task force, sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, that followed up on the Hart-Rudman Commission's initial findings. The task force's report, issued in October, found minimal evidence of progress since Sept. 11 in securing the country against terrorist threats. In a "relatively flat budget environment" (the administration maintains that the Homeland Security Department won't cost any additional money), Flynn said, a department with multiple congressional masters is likely to see some of its components better funded than others-a political reality that will pit agencies against each other at the very time cooperation is most critical.

The creation of the Energy Department in 1977 was the last time Congress consolidated disparate agencies into a new Cabinet department to coordinate the response to a pressing national problem. (In that case, it was the nation's dependence on foreign oil.) But even today, the Energy Department still struggles to mesh its various components effectively. A quarter-century of highly visible scandals-over toxic spills, Chinese spying, missing hard drives, credit card fraud and so forth-hints at broad institutional incoherence within the department. And this dysfunction is mirrored and magnified by the numerous congressional panels with jurisdiction over Energy, an oversight structure that was never significantly reorganized to dovetail with the merged department. DOE answers to some 17 committees and subcommittees on Capitol Hill.

Former Rep. Philip R. Sharp, D-Ind., who helped to oversee the department as a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee from 1975 to 1995, called the situation unworkable. "We had so many different committees in Congress that the leaders of the department were pulled in so many different directions that they couldn't provide the necessary leadership," said Sharp, who is currently a fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a senior adviser to the Van Ness Feldman law firm in Washington.

The tangled chain of command created when the Energy Department was put together is "a model for how not to make a department," said DOE's elder statesman, scientist Sidney Drell. It's also a model for how not to oversee a department. "You're spending a lot of time trying to explain what you're doing to a lot of committees," Drell said. "There's a lot of duplication, (and) the people running the department were torn between the different interests of the different committees."

Adm. James Watkins, the retired chief of naval operations who headed DOE throughout the first President George H.W. Bush's administration, said the oversight by multiple committees "wasn't crippling, but it was a huge problem, because we had to go before two primary committees in the House, for example, that didn't speak to each other." He said he once was impolitic enough to mention one panel's priorities while testifying before another. "I said, 'I'm covering that issue under the jurisdiction of another committee,' " Watkins recalled, "and I was severely chastised."

Current members of Congress who want to streamline the committees with homeland security jurisdiction point to the Energy Department example as a cautionary tale. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, who chaired a special panel formed in 1999 to reorganize DOE's national security functions, and who championed a Homeland Security Department long before Sept. 11, lamented that Congress "never really bit the bullet of having clear lines of authority" over Energy.

"We never wanted to face that, because it affects people's jurisdictions and it makes winners and losers," Thornberry said. "No congressional committee had a clear responsibility for making sure things ran properly. And that is what we must avoid with Homeland Security."

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., who co-chaired the special panel on Energy reform with Thornberry, agreed. "It's too many chefs in the kitchen, but nobody accountable," she said. "You can cross your hands over your chest and point your hands to the left and the right at the same time and say, 'They went thataway. It's not that I didn't do it. The other committee didn't do it.' "

Reform Efforts Of The Past

The current committee structure on Capitol Hill dates back to a comprehensive congressional reorganization in 1946. In that shuffle, the House reduced its committees from 48 to 19, and the Senate cut its panels down from 33 to 15. In addition, committee jurisdictions were written into the rules for the first time. The reorganization consolidated military oversight under the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, which proved fortunate the following year, when Congress passed the National Security Act merging all of the armed services under the Defense Department.

The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 came at a time when government clearly needed modernization after the Great Depression and World War II, and when Congress itself was relatively weak. And many older members who might have objected to such reforms were retiring after hanging on through the war. "You had, for all practical purposes, a fresh start," Hamre said.

Committee reform again became a hot topic in Congress during the 1970s, both before and after the Energy Department was born. The most serious effort came from a bipartisan House select committee chaired by former Rep. Richard Bolling, D-Mo., who in 1974 championed a comprehensive overhaul that would have rationalized the committee structure and consolidated jurisdiction along subject lines. A key piece of the select committee's package was a new Energy and Environment Committee, which would have superseded the work of five other House committees. But the sweeping proposal fueled intense opposition from a cross section of committee barons. The House Democratic Caucus instead developed a far more limited plan that largely kept the existing structure intact.

During the remainder of the Democrats' 40-year reign over the House, committee reorganization efforts were "fruitless," Sharp said. "Reform must be a leadership issue," he said. "If they don't take it on at the outset, it becomes more difficult to do when committee leaders are more certain of their influence" on an issue.

When the Republicans captured House control in 1994, Speaker Gingrich centralized authority in the leadership and required committee chairmen to follow his broad agenda. But the new Republican majority made only modest changes in the encrusted committee structure that House Democrats had built. Republicans eliminated just three minor committees-District of Columbia, Merchant Marine and Fisheries, and Post Office and Civil Service-that served mostly Democratic constituencies, although they did significantly reduce the number of committee staff across the board.

"We changed a few small things, but not many," Gingrich conceded. "People go in and they pick a committee to spend their career on.... You're now coming in with what is a very personal request -you're asking them to change their career, their power, their importance," he said. "The human reaction is to say no."

Don't Tread On Me

The best bet for wholesale committee reform now would be a lightning strike by the leadership. In theory, leaders in both chambers could quickly clip the existing committees' wings before chairmen got too comfortable in their homeland security prerogatives-especially in the Senate, where the Republican takeover changes the leadership of every committee. But such a plan does not appear to be in the offing.

Instead, House leaders are poised to take an interim step by proposing the new select committee to coordinate the various committees with jurisdiction over the Homeland Security Department, and Senate leaders plan to do nothing for now. The leaders' reluctance to go further is not all that surprising, given that chairmen are already sending strong signals of "don't tread on me."

One such message is coming from Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who is taking over as chairwoman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. Collins has been arguing that because her committee handled the bill establishing the new department, the panel should be responsible for seeing the job through.

Incoming Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, is also protecting his turf. "We made it clear during statements in the record that we intended to keep jurisdiction over Customs," Grassley said. "We would not have jurisdiction over (confirmation) hearings on the secretary of Homeland Security. Presumably, that's Governmental Affairs. But we would still have jurisdiction over this stuff. And maybe it would end up being joint jurisdiction." And Grassley, who also sits on the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, added, "I would hope Immigration (jurisdiction over the Immigration and Naturalization Service) would still be within Judiciary."

In the House, Hastert's plan for a new select committee will be a hard sell to notoriously hard-driving chairmen of such key committees as Judiciary, Transportation and Infrastructure and Ways and Means. Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., said while he's "not a knee-jerk opponent" of consolidating jurisdiction over homeland security, proponents have the burden of proof "to show that it can be done in a way to provide more-effective oversight." Sensenbrenner noted, for example, that if oversight of the INS is handed to a new committee with no experience in immigration law, it won't have the expertise to monitor the agency effectively.

Even members with relatively small stakes have sworn resistance to change. For instance, jurisdiction over a disease-research facility on tiny Plum Island, off Long Island, N.Y., is slated to move from the Agriculture Department to the Homeland Security Department. But outgoing Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, "is going to fight and definitely work to make sure that Plum Island would stay under the jurisdiction, at least for oversight, of the Agriculture Committee," said spokesman Seth Boffeli. "The research they do is critical for agricultural safety and farming."

The impending Battle of Plum Island underlines the biggest obstacle to change: Because the challenge of homeland security cuts across so many different issues-from public health to disaster relief to intelligence-every part of the new department is important to more than one lawmaker for more than one reason. The Coast Guard, for example, not only provides security along the shores but also protects the environment and maintains navigation buoys. And so, many members contend that they have a legitimate interest in retaining their jurisdiction.

"There are many members who have very specific expertise built up over the years" regarding one agency or another, said a House Appropriations Committee Democratic staffer. "We wouldn't want (them) to be summarily cut out. I very much hope the Republican leadership does not insert itself into the process at the micro level in terms of reorganizing committees," the staffer said. "It would be a mistake for Republican leaders to say, 'This is how it's going to be, and that's it.'"

Potential Paths For Congress

In the face of such resistance, even some strong advocates of committee reform are calling for cautious change. "There are arguments for just bearing down and doing it, and there are arguments for phasing it in," Tauscher said. "Wild gyrations of organizations, even when they're well intended, have serious deleterious effects, so maybe we need to figure out how to do this in a bite-size way. But we need to be moving forward," she said. "I don't think any of us are interested in leading the American people to believe that we are more interested in protecting turf than we are in protecting them."

But assembling even a select coordinating committee without treading on too many toes would take some time. And larger questions loom about the authority of a new committee-even a temporary one-in one, or both, chambers.

The Hart-Rudman Commission tried to achieve a balance between coherent organization and turf sensitivities by calling for a select oversight committee in each chamber, composed of members of the committees currently involved in homeland security. But such a committee would have no powers of appropriation or authorization, according to the Hart-Rudman model. Gingrich and former House International Relations Committee Chairman Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., helped to craft that proposal. "We did not win any debates about moving committees," said former commission aide Hoffman. "We had to make sure that when the music stopped, everybody had a chair and had something to do."

Since then, some well-placed Republicans have developed variations on that theme. After reading the Hart-Rudman report and its predecessors and holding hearings on the threat of terrorism, Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Robert Bennett, R-Utah, put together a proposal in the spring of 2001 to establish a Senate select committee on homeland security. The committee would have two ex officio chairs, the majority and minority leaders, plus two "worker-bee chairmen," one from each party, Roberts said. Then, as security issues arose, the committee could pull in a handful of chairmen from other committees and subcommittees to address problems quickly. "It would be a facilitator, a grand central station, a belly-button kind of thing," he said.

Roberts's proposal was later overtaken by other post-Sept. 11 priorities. He pushed to include a chapter on congressional reform in the Select Intelligence Committee's report on Sept. 11 that was released last month, but he lost. Roberts is now taking over as Intelligence Committee chairman, and he vows, "I'm not giving up."

Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., who chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, established a Terrorism and Homeland Security working group in early 2001 at the leadership's request. After Sept. 11, it became an Intelligence subcommittee. Now, Goss says, the House needs a more formalized entity to handle the new Homeland Security Department. "I don't care what they call it," he said. It should involve "regularly interested" members on homeland security and should be flexible enough to pull in relevant committee chairmen, depending on the topic du jour. "We've used (that model), and it's worked," Goss said.

But the Homeland Security Department wasn't born of the easy-does-it approach. Daalder and other experts say Congress needs to step up and create a new standing committee on homeland security, plus an Appropriations subcommittee. The longer Congress drags out its disconnected oversight, these experts argue, the less likely it is that change will come and the more likely that chaos will reign at the new department.

Likewise, Thornberry warned that with agencies on a tight schedule to move to the new department, "we can't have a six-month dispute over who gives up jurisdiction. If we're going to play our role, Congress needs to hit the ground running in January," he said. "These early months of a new department are going to be critical-not only in setting it up for decades to come, but while you're setting it up, not losing any ground in day-to-day missions."

The White House, while clearly an interested party, is letting Congress decide how to oversee the Homeland Security Department. "We think that if they undertook some reorganization with regard to how they look at this new department and deal with this new department, it might streamline some of the processes," said Homeland Security spokesman Gordon Johndroe. "But beyond that, their reorganization is up to them."

Surely the president won't want his newly ensconced Secretary Ridge spending all his time running around Capitol Hill to testify before 88 panels of one interest or another. If Bush wants Congress to realign itself with the executive branch, he may have to expend some political capital. And don't forget that congressional Republicans are still euphoric over the gains they made in the November election with the help of their popular president.

"If there is any reluctance among Republicans (to reorganize the committees), that would melt away if there were a signal from the White House," said a top aide to a House chairman. "No one will stand in the way if the president says an action is important for homeland security."

Well, that may be stretching it. But if Bush could convince veteran committee chairmen that it's in their interests to relinquish their turf, that indeed would be the strongest indication yet of his power.

Staff Correspondent Marilyn Werber Serafini contributed to this article.

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New agency's creation sets off realignment of panels

Richard E. Cohen — Wed, 20 Nov 2002 00:00:00 -0500

In January, each chamber must make at least short-term decisions on which authorizing committees will provide oversight of the new department. Plus, the House and Senate Appropriations committees will have to decide what changes, if any, to make in how their 13 subcommittees divvy up pieces of the executive branch as they make annual spending decisions.

As the current crazy quilt of jurisdiction makes clear, the House and Senate are not required to maintain identical lines for committee jurisdiction. On the other hand, the 13 Appropriations subcommittees generally fall along similar lines in each chamber, and it has not been uncommon in years past for senior appropriators to shift lines of authority from one subcommittee to another-especially following government restructuring.

In the House, in particular, Republican leaders already have begun to wrestle over possible changes. With little public notice, last Thursday the House GOP Conference approved a "sense of the conference" resolution to "expeditiously" amend House rules "to consolidate the authorization and appropriations processes" for homeland security in the House.

"My goal was to create momentum" for the committee reorganization, said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., the resolution's sponsor. "The vote in the conference was overwhelming. Now, it's up to the [party] leaders to show leadership.... If we don't do it, we doom the Homeland Security Department."

Although he emphasized that the lack of opposition at last week's session gave a boost to his plan, Weldon conceded that some committee chairmen and others with current jurisdiction would fight the changes. That showdown could take place Jan. 7, when GOP leaders are scheduled to bring the rules package to the House floor, as typically happens on the opening day of each Congress.

Creation of a new homeland security committee "is a real possibility," said Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-Calif., who has been working with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., on possible rules changes.

Dreier, who currently is on an overseas trip with Hastert and other members, said discussions would continue in the next several weeks. GOP sources speculated that the leadership-controlled Republican Steering Committee could make tentative decisions, possibly at a meeting next month.

"The speaker said that he agreed with my resolution, but he also said, 'Please, don't tie my hands,'" Weldon said.

Weldon added that he also has received encouragement from Dreier and Republican Policy Committee Chairman Christopher Cox of California during separate pre-election hearings on his proposal by each of their panels.

With the distractions of the election plus pressures to complete business of the 107th Congress, many members with an interest in committee realignment have had little time to focus on the issue.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., for example, could lose jurisdiction over the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which has shifted from the Justice Department to the new agency. But he was busy in recent weeks with terrorism insurance and bankruptcy legislation.

"I haven't spoken with the chairman" on the reorganization proposal, said a committee spokesman.

At least one committee has sought to protect its turf.

Although the Customs Service will be shifted to the Homeland Security Department, the Ways and Means Committee drafted that part of the bill to make clear that the Treasury Department-over which it has jurisdiction-"retains authority" over the collection of revenues by the Customs Service, said a Ways and Means spokeswoman.

Adding a further complication is pressure from the Bush administration to limit the number of committees and subcommittees before which the new Homeland Security secretary must testify.

In testimony last week before the House Armed Services Committee, former GOP Virginia Gov. James Gilmore-who chairs an advisory panel to assess the nation's response to terrorism-urged "a focal point in the Congress for the administration to present its strategy and supporting plans."

As inevitably is the case in Congress, questions of committee turf are linked to who will hold the gavel. Although Weldon said he did not offer his proposal because of personal interest in chairing a new committee, he gave ample reasons why he would be suited for the job.

"These are my issues," said Weldon, a senior member of the Armed Services Committee and the founder of the congressional Fire and Emergency Services Caucus. Weldon unsuccessfully sought the Armed Services chairmanship in 2000, and next year will be the second ranking Republican on the panel after the incoming chairman, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.

With its broad federal oversight, the House Government Reform Committee has obvious interest in the creation of a new panel. But its desire to protect its turf is complicated by the three-way contest to succeed Government Reform Chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind., who must step down because of chairmanship term limits.

The chief candidates are eight-term Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., who has the most seniority on the Government Reform Committee, plus two challengers from Republican leadership ranks. They are Cox and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Davis of Virginia.

"We haven't heard anything coming down the pipeline right now. Our basic answer is we just don't know," said a Government Reform spokesman of the homeland security jurisdiction issue.

In addition to the Judiciary and Ways and Means panel, leaders of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee earlier voiced strong objections to shifting agencies-notably, the Coast Guard-now under its domain. A spokesman for that panel was not available Tuesday for comment.

Likewise, House appropriators have yet to focus on whether they will create a new subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Homeland Security Department.

"I don't want to prejudge what we're going to do," said an Appropriations spokesman. "We haven't decided our preference yet."

The spokesman said it was possible the committee would "carve out" a new homeland security subpanel by eliminating one of the existing subcommittees. The District of Columbia Appropriations Subcommittee, for example, could be folded into one of the other subcommittees.

In the Senate, meanwhile, Governmental Affairs Committee members already are staking claim to jurisdiction over the department.

"There may have to be another appropriations subcommittee," but not a new authorizing committee, said incoming Senate Governmental Affairs Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Jurisdiction "should stay with Governmental Affairs," Collins said. "I don't think there's a dispute about that."

"The conversation needs to take place," said a Senate GOP leadership source, who observed, "Nobody likes losing jurisdiction-that's one thing you can count on around here."

But the source stressed that "this conversation hasn't started yet" among Senate Republicans.

Mark Wegner and Charlie Mitchell contributed to this report.

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House, Senate approve Iraq war resolution

Richard E. Cohen — Fri, 11 Oct 2002 00:00:00 -0400

The House approved the resolution Thursday on a 296-133 vote. The Senate followed suit early Friday morning, voting 77-23 to back the measure.

On the House side, the vote showed stronger opposition by Democrats than their party leaders had expected. In the vote on the resolution, 126 Democrats were opposed, along with six Republicans and independent Rep. Bernard Sanders of Vermont.

House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., was instrumental in working with White House officials on details of the resolution. His aides initially had said it would receive strong Democratic backing. Democratic Caucus Chairman Martin Frost of Texas predicted in a National Public Radio interview Thursday morning that a majority of Democrats would support the resolution.

Instead, most Democrats lined up behind an alternative sponsored by Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., that would have authorized military force if the United Nations approved an appropriate resolution. The House defeated that alternative, 270-155. Democrats were in favor, 147-60, although both Gephardt and Frost were opposed. Minority Whip Pelosi worked closely with Spratt on the details and in securing support for his proposal.

Also receiving unexpected support was an amendment by Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., which emphasized the need for diplomacy and the resumption of inspections in Iraq. It had no provision for military action. With 71 Democrats voting in favor, it was defeated 355-72.

Supporters included 33 of the 37 voting members of the Congressional Black Caucus. The only CBC members opposing Lee's proposal were Reps. Sanford Bishop of Georgia, William Lacy Clay of Missouri, Harold Ford Jr. of Tennessee and William Jefferson of Louisiana.

The only Republican voting for Lee's amendment was Rep. Constance Morella of Maryland, who faces a competitive reelection contest. On the final vote for the resolution, she was joined by Republican Reps. John Duncan of Tennessee, John Hostettler of Indiana, Amo Houghton of New York, Jim Leach of Iowa and Ron Paul of Texas.

Following the vote, leading opponents of the resolution claimed a measure of success. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, a leader of the group, said the 61 percent of House Democrats in opposition made a "powerful statement." He predicted that the result would have "a tempering effect on the administration to know that those lawmakers represent widespread concern across the land about the direction the country is headed."

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., who generated widespread criticism for harsh comments about Bush while he was in Iraq last week, said following the vote that Bush would have "an enormous responsibility" to families of Americans and Iraqis who might die in such a conflict. Speaking in the TV-radio gallery, he added that very few "children of people like us" are in the U.S. Army, and most soldiers will be "people at the bottom of the economic level."

In the Senate vote, 21 of 50 Democrats opposed the measure, along with Vermont independent James Jeffords and Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I.

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House Budget chairman warns of possible spending cuts

Richard E. Cohen and Lisa Caruso — Thu, 02 Aug 2001 00:00:00 -0400

Treasury Department

Richard E. Cohen, John Maggs, and Julie Kosterlitz — Thu, 28 Jun 2001 00:00:00 -0400

Established: 1789
Address: 1500 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20220
Phone: 202-622-2000
2001 Budget:: $389.8 billion
Employment:: 144,019
Web Site: www.ustreas.gov
Functions: The Treasury Department is charged with advising the President on fiscal policy, acting as fiscal agent for the federal government, and performing certain law enforcement tasks through the Secret Service. Treasury also administers tax policy and tax collection; manages the public debt; conducts international monetary affairs; produces all postage stamps, currency, and coinage; and supervises national banks and thrift institutions.

Paul H. O'Neill
Secretary
202-622-1100
O'Neill's reputation as a corporate turnaround specialist might come in handy as he grapples with the uncertainty of a slowing economy. He made his mark as chief executive of Pittsburgh-based Alcoa from 1987-99, (retiring as chairman in 2000), where he vastly cut management, boosted productivity, and repaired frayed relations with workers. From a field of candidates for Treasury Secretary, O'Neill was chosen as the only one not tied closely to Wall Street. A former Ford Administration colleague of Vice President Dick Cheney, O'Neill reportedly impressed President Bush with his direct manner. He has one of the busiest and most varied jobs in the Cabinet-serving as the chief agent and spokesman for economic policy, supervising tax collections, printing money, handling international economic events, and overseeing a large law enforcement bureaucracy. O'Neill got into a few scrapes in his first months on the job, surprising the financial markets with comments on the dollar, and generally earning a reputation as something of a loose cannon, but there is no evidence this has hurt him at the White House. For his tendency to drone on about obscure topics, some career officials call him "Dr. Strangelove," a reference to the early 1960s Peter Sellers movie about a nuclear Armageddon. Before Alcoa, O'Neill held senior posts with International Paper Co. from 1977-87, and before that spent 10 years at the Office of Management and Budget, the last three years as deputy director. He was born in St. Louis in 1935, graduated from Fresno State College with a bachelor's degree in economics, and earned a master's degree in public affairs at Indiana University.

Kenneth W. Dam
Deputy Secretary (designate)
202-622-1080
Dam is part of the Reagan revival within the current Bush Administration. Dam and his mentor, former Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz, made news in 1998 when they mounted an attack on the International Monetary Fund and the idea of financial bailouts. In the Clinton years, the deputy secretary took the lead in averting such foreign crises. It is not clear whether Dam will do the same-in the Reagan and first Bush Administrations, the job was more of an administrative position. Meanwhile, Dam's confirmation to the No. 2 job at Treasury, and those of most of Treasury's top nominees, have been held up for months by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., under the threat of a filibuster. Helms is demanding changes to Customs Service regulations on textiles, but the Bush Administration says the changes must be accomplished legislatively. Dam, 68, has spent most of his career as a law professor at the University of Chicago, specializing in international economics. He held positions in the Nixon White House and then served as Schultz's deputy at State from 1982-85. After seven years as a vice president at IBM Corp., Dam worked in 1992 for a year as president of the United Way to help it recover from a scandal. He grew up in Kansas and attended the University of Kansas and the University of Chicago Law School.

Charles O. Rossotti
Commissioner of Internal Revenue
202-622-9511
One of the few Cabinet department officials appointed to a fixed term, Rossotti intends to complete his five-year service, which expires in November 2002. His chief mandate is to implement the restructuring of the IRS that Congress approved in 1998-with Rossotti's active involvement. He previously reorganized the agency's regional structure, creating four operating divisions that serve individuals; small businesses and the self-employed; large businesses; tax-exempt groups and government entities. Despite his nonpartisan portfolio, he is under considerable pressure from Secretary O'Neill to ensure that an estimated 95 million income-tax rebate checks are distributed quickly and accurately this summer. Rossotti also has placed a high priority on the IRS's years-long battle to upgrade its often-outdated computer system-a project that has consumed huge amounts of dollars and effort, with disappointing results so far. And he must contend with the reality that the IRS remains an agency that Congress, and the public, love to hate; a recent complaint has been excessive audits. Rossotti, 60, came to the IRS from Fairfax, Va.-based American Management Systems Inc., an international business and information-technology consulting firm that he co-founded in 1970. He held administrative positions at the Pentagon during the Johnson presidency. A New York City native, he graduated from Georgetown University and received an MBA from Harvard.

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Next President may not face gridlock

Richard E. Cohen and Burt Solomon — Tue, 14 Nov 2000 00:00:00 -0500

"The swing voters didn't swing--they split," said Gary Langer, an analyst for ABC News.

Is this precise bisection something scary? Probably not. "The country is evenly divided over things that aren't that important," says Mark S. Mellman, a Democratic pollster who has been close to the Gore campaign. He contrasts prescription drugs and tax cuts--leading issues in this still-to-be-concluded presidential campaign--with slavery and civil rights.

The even-steven split of the electorate may be evidence that, nationwide, the two major parties have at last achieved something like parity. A. James Reichley, a Washington expert on political parties, says that Democrats still slightly out-register Republicans, but that in voting behavior, each party "claims just about half of the electorate." Or maybe it is merely a measure of how little was really at stake in this election, at a blessedly boring time of peace and prosperity; or of how unappealing the respective candidates were to voters of the other political persuasion, after a long campaign that often was about nothing larger than itself.

This was fine with the public, which hasn't been demanding that very much be done. And why should it? "These are the best of times," says Richard P. Nathan, the director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, N.Y., and so "it is best to not rock the boat.... This is not a time for hot-button, hotly debated changes." Before the election, an important Republican lawmaker said privately: "Most Americans don't want us to produce a lot."

The longer and nastier the battle over the White House becomes, of course, the greater the chances that these ever-lower expectations will be met. The bitter feelings that are sure to remain (stirring the emotional embers from impeachment) can only make it harder for Washington to get anything done during the next two to four years, no matter who is in the White House. A mandate, after all, is in the eye of the beholder, and on election night, even Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., acknowledged on CNN that Bush, if elected, "may not have a sweeping mandate" from such an ambivalent electorate. Neither would-be President is likely to cast into lawmakers' hearts the fear of an angry electorate, which is probably the deepest and truest source of power behind an honest-to-God electoral mandate.

A Ray of Hope

Be prepared, however, to be surprised: The next President may well get considerably more accomplished than the quickly coalescing wisdom in Washington suggests. Bush's chances would seem to be stronger than Gore's. "In a perverse sort of way," political scientist Earl Black of Rice University surmised the day after the election, "Bush has a real opportunity here to succeed, even though the nation itself is sharply divided."

It won't be easy--especially with Congress so evenly divided. "It obviously is going to be difficult on the part of anybody to put together majorities," says Howard G. Paster, who was President Clinton's top lobbyist on Capitol Hill from 1993-95.

And no matter how the current saga ends, it will only get harder to end the bickering in Washington, something Bush said again and again on the stump that he wishes to do. He would need to appeal to at least a cluster of congressional Democrats if he is to have any hope of cobbling together a governing majority, while keeping the loyalties of his purported friends. One of the psychological thrillers in a Bush presidency would be whether Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, on behalf of other hard-charging Republican conservatives, would heed calls for a bipartisan tone or fulfill the role that Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia played for Bush's dad-a determined obstacle to a fellow Republican in the White House.

The noises from Capitol Hill in the wake of the election certainly sounded conciliatory enough. Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle, D-S.D., said, "We should ... work in a bipartisan way." Amid talk that a President-elect Bush would invite conservative Democrats in the House to Austin, Texas, one of their leaders, Rep. Charles W. Stenholm, D-Texas, said in an interview: "With the new administration, you're going to see a change in the atmosphere."

James A. Thurber of American University, an expert in executive-congressional relations, guessed that maybe 10 to 15 House Democrats might respond to a bipartisan call, roughly half of the 25 to 30 that Bush would probably need to get much of anything done.

But there is reason to think that Bush might find some success. "If we reach out at the beginning of the process, the opportunity is there to build a bipartisan consensus," Rep. John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, who is close to the Bush campaign, said in an interview the day after the election. "Substantial numbers of Democrats will be willing to work with us. At least one-fourth of House Democrats really want to accomplish something for their constituency, if they are dealt with fairly by us." James Cicconi, a veteran of past Republican White Houses who has helped the younger Bush's campaign, suggests that "both parties will be compelled by politics, and by people's expectations, to come together."

The political environment, in many respects, would be favorable. Bush would be one up on his father in facing a Congress run by Republicans, not by Democrats. That would enable like-minded (or, at least, like-partied) politicians to run the congressional committees and to control the schedule and procedures for action on the floor-an awesome power, especially in the more rule-bound House.

Money Always Helps

Bush could also benefit from a fiscal environment far more buoyant than his dad ever had. Even if the expiring 106th Congress indulges in an orgy of appropriations--as it did before the election, even though some of these might be undone during the coming lame-duck session, which now appears likely to extend into December--the 43rd President and the 107th Congress would still have plenty to spend. According to Robert D. Reischauer, the president of the Urban Institute and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO's latest preliminary (though unreleased) estimates show that the projected budget surplus will show "at least as much money and probably more, conceivably a good deal more," than Congress had figured on before.

In the flashiest item on his campaign agenda--a gigantic, across-the-board tax cut--Bush might find some solace. To pass a tax cut, says Cicconi, Bush would have to work with congressional Democrats and "be prepared to address a lot of their concerns." This suggests a smaller tax cut, with less of a focus on estate taxes, than candidate Bush proposed. But Reischauer, for one, suspects that the Democrats would be hard-pressed to fend off a politically appealing tax cut without an offer of their own.

Bush, if elected, could also accomplish something on health care and education. Democrats and Republicans alike are eager to start subsidizing prescription drugs for the elderly, a subsidy that Bush has tied in with a larger fling at reforming the Medicare program. Both parties may want to do something concrete on that--and also on a patients' bill of rights--before they face voters in 2002. Republican strategists are also banking on an education package that includes, for starters, a program to let parents in underachieving schools use governmental resources to send their children to private (and maybe parochial) schools. This program might give Bush, mindful of the support in many inner cities for an alternative to failing public schools, an opportunity to reach out to members of the Black Caucus.

Unless he concludes that his campaign proposal to let younger workers invest some of their contributions in private investment accounts costs him a clear victory in Florida, Bush might also try his hand at restructuring the politically volatile Social Security program. "Exit polls showed that Social Security reform was a reason for voters to support him," said Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who is close to Bush's policy advisers. But the program's finances are safe for another 10 to 12 years, and the political and technical complexities may demand prudence from Bush; he might set up a blue-ribbon commission to craft a bipartisan approach and to build up public support.

Combined, these accomplishments would be nothing like a New Deal or a Reagan-like sharp turn in the nation's direction. Under no circumstances should people expect a policy-flourishing first 100 days. But the country, not facing an economic depression or double-digit interest rates, does not want one. Voters' expectations are low--and probably falling daily. Their ideals won't be hard to meet or exceed.

The caveat for Bush is that personal charm may have its limits. In an inaugural address, Bush could easily repeat--without even having to rekeyboard--the sentiments that his father, the 41st President, uttered in his 1989 inaugural address: The American people "didn't send us here to bicker" but rather "to rise above the merely partisan." Well, that was a dozen years ago, and nobody listened then-or has since. So could a second President Bush, younger and less experienced, pull it off? There's every reason to be skeptical.

"Just because George Bush wants comity and sings 'Kumbaya,' " says Thurber, "it's not going to work politically." For one thing, unabashedly assertive interest groups--labor unions, businesses, and the elderly--will still want what they want, and will press lawmakers to resist what the White House wants.

The Gore Outlook

Low expectations would work in Gore's favor as well, if he should wind up in the White House. Not a lot else would. Republican congressional leaders pretty much detest him (especially, by one account, since his Nov. 4 characterization of the presidential race as a matter of good vs. evil). Nor does Gore, who is something of a loner, share the natural schmoozing skills of his political mentor President Clinton. In getting along with Congress, Gore "should aspire to be as good as Clinton," says a well-placed aide to a Democratic liberal on Capitol Hill, "but I doubt he would make it." An aide to a Democratic conservative describes Gore as aloof and distant, and less sensitive to lawmakers' political needs than Clinton has been.

A Gore administration may be little different from Clinton's, except there would be more tension between the White House and congressional Republicans. Unlike Clinton, who ordinarily does what his pollsters tell him, "Al Gore actually believes some of the things he's saying," and he would try to put his "strident liberal ideology" into practice, says an aide to a conservative House Republican. But he isn't as skilled in communicating as Clinton is, the aide added. Gore's political opponents would probably "fare much better in a public clash with Al Gore than we did in public clashes with Bill Clinton."

As a creature of Washington, though, and of Congress in particular, Gore may have a better intuitive feel than Clinton does about the political turf. He served eight years in each chamber and occasionally indulged in bipartisanship, as he did on defense and telecommunications matters in the Senate. Gore might be able to pick up support from a smattering of moderate Republicans and pass a few things, such as prescription drug subsidies, a patients' bill of rights, some investment in education, and maybe some of the targeted tax cuts he proposed during the campaign. Rep. Michael N. Castle, R-Del., said in an interview that Gore "does not have many personal relations" with members of Congress. But, he added, "I don't think Republican moderates are going to turn our backs on anyone."

But other Republicans are dubious, pointing out that the election and the contested result would leave Gore in such a weakened position that bipartisanship may be elusive. "Al Gore has shown that he has a harder edge than Bill Clinton and that he is willing to win at all costs," said a senior House GOP aide. "The greater ideal of American democracy is secondary to him." Although it's possible that Gore could win House passage for parts of his agenda, the Republican aide added, "some in the Senate would say, `screw you,' and teach him about the filibuster."

Congressional Democrats have barely begun to focus on how a Gore administration would function in the wake of the bruising election aftermath, but some contend that he must follow Clinton's path. "We have to govern from the center out, as Clinton demonstrated, and Gore can do that," said a House Democratic leadership aide. Gore ought to work first on his priorities--campaign finance reform and patients' rights laws--because, in each case, the measures have bipartisan support and the public wants action, the aide added. During the past two years, Clinton and Congress pressed each other on those issues, but neither side showed much willingness to reach common ground. And complicating Gore's task is his indebtedness to the groups who voted for him in large numbers--African-Americans and union members. These groups may take a harder line than Gore on many issues and hurt his chances for compromise.

If Gore is politically supple enough, though, he could possibly turn his disregard for fellow Democrats' opinions into a legislative plus, by pursuing a truly bipartisan approach on issues such as tax cuts and entitlement reform and trying to strike deals with mainstream Republicans, much as Clinton did on welfare reform and in balancing the federal budget. Bipartisanship isn't something Gore talked about during his campaign--he preferred a populist, confrontational tone.

But during White House strategy sessions in the soon-to-end administration, Gore showed himself more willing than Clinton to buck pressure from elsewhere in the Democratic Party. "He would be temperamentally suited to take the risk down the middle," says Patrick J. Griffin, who served as Clinton's top congressional lobbyist during 1995-96, "but whether the Republicans would be receptive and/or see it in their self-interest--that's the question." The alternative, however, may be gridlock.

But if either man succeeds, he may well have Clinton to thank. As an activist President in a relatively unhistoric era, Clinton talked loudly and carried a small stick. He filled the stage but, in the vast scale of history, didn't do a hell of a lot. It was enough, though, to earn him two terms in office and, everything considered, a decent measure of success.

Staff correspondent David Baumann and National Journal News Service correspondent David Hess contributed to this report.

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Hastert changes committee chairmen selection process

Richard E. Cohen — Tue, 07 Nov 2000 00:00:00 -0500

Aspirants "will be given an opportunity to discuss their legislative agenda, oversight agenda, how they intend to organize the committees, and their committee communications strategy," according to a letter Hastert sent GOP members last week.

Those interviews will take place in December - tentatively, the first week of the month, said sources. But the Steering Committee would not meet to select the chairmen until Jan. 4, a day after the House is scheduled to organize for the 107th Congress and select the speaker.

If Republicans retain control, the scheduling could serve Hastert's interests in at least two ways. The Steering Committee sessions could provide him cover to make decisions that inevitably will leave winners and losers. Plus, the delay in selecting chairmen until after the new speaker is in place would make it more difficult for losers to vent their unhappiness in a way that might jeopardize Hastert's prospects of retaining control.

By creating a more open process, the interviewing also could reduce the prospect that seniority would automatically prevail if, for example, a candidate for chairman makes a poor presentation before the Steering Committee. In the past, that committee has included the elected party leaders, representatives of the freshman and sophomore classes, plus the chairmen of the Appropriations, Budget, Rules, and Ways and Means committees.

But Hastert's recent letter left open the possibility of changes in party rules before the new Congress convenes.

Hastert's process - which has been eagerly awaited by candidates for chairmen - is an evolution of party procedure.

During former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's two terms in that post, he dictated the selection of committee chairmen. When Hastert was tapped to take over the job two years ago, the organizing of the 106th Congress was virtually complete. When they were in the majority, Democratic challenges for top committee slots were waged in the full Democratic Caucus.

At the start of the 106th Congress, Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., invited prospective ranking minority members to state their plans to the party's steering committee. The purpose was to "bring in members not for a grilling, but for a symbolic act" that the senior committee members will be responsive to the party, said a Democratic leadership aide. If Democrats take back the majority, the aide added, a similar process will be used.

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Get ready for more legislative mudslinging

Richard E. Cohen — Thu, 01 Jun 2000 00:00:00 -0400

Rather than joining hands to celebrate their bipartisan achievement on the China trade bill, House members on May 24 immediately headed to separate mega-million-dollar fund-raising events where they bashed the other party with election-year hyperbole. The symbolism was apt.

By all appearances, the House's stressful and uncharacteristic abandonment of partisanship during the vote over permanently normalizing trade relations with China will quickly become a dim memory. Members of both parties have made clear that they are eager to return to posturing-as-usual during the mere 12 weeks of legislative business scheduled before the 106th Congress shuts down.

To be sure, Republicans and Democrats vow to press a heavy workload after the weeklong Memorial Day recess-including spending bills, tax cuts, and politically popular proposals designed to appeal to voters. And the effort to grease the China deal has left some residual promises of bipartisan cooperation.

But congressional leaders of both parties, as well as a lame-duck President Clinton, face a familiar dilemma in the politically divided government: Should they cooperate in the interest of scoring some legacies that might also prove useful as election-year fodder, or would it make more sense simply to draw the lines and let the voters decide?

For Republican leaders in charge of the legislative agenda, their first inclination was to use the trade vote to hype what they see as their party's steadfast commitment to the nation's business. "Democrats feel that it's in their best interests to be obstructionist," said House Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts of Oklahoma in an interview. "But [Speaker] Denny Hastert changes the tone. His only special interest is to get the House's work done."

As Republicans seek to regroup for the homestretch drive to adjournment, tentatively scheduled for Oct. 6, they will refocus their priorities on the "three T's" that they laid out early this year-taxes, technology, and trade, according to senior aides. The House's 237-197 vote for PNTR with China, on top of final approval earlier this month of legislation to lower trade barriers with African and Caribbean nations, largely completes the trade leg of the Republicans' trifecta.

House Republicans have been steadily hammering away at the other two pieces. On tax cuts, they have scored some successes with their strategy to shift from last year's omnibus $792 billion bill to rifle-shot appeals to targeted constituencies. They have won Clinton's signature on their bill to remove the earnings limitations for Social Security beneficiaries. The House also passed a bill to eliminate the tax code's "marriage penalty," although the measure became bogged down in a procedural morass in the Senate.

House Republicans have been churning out a host of other bills banning or repealing certain taxes, including a continuation of the moratorium on Internet taxes and a phaseout of the telephone excise tax. In line for possible action after the Memorial Day recess are a reduction in inheritance taxes and an expansion of retirement incentives.

House Republicans have also made progress with their so-called eContract 2000 on technology. Besides the Internet tax measure, they are moving legislation to provide additional immigration visas for high-tech workers and an "e-signatures" bill that would set a legal standard for e-commerce and online contracts.

As House Republican leaders and White House operatives worked to lock in the final votes on PNTR, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, told reporters: "I think this is a great opportunity for us to work with the President, and it has been a good working relationship."

Hastert, in particular, has been trying to find common legislative ground with the President. Aides reported that Clinton and Hastert made progress in recent weeks on several issues, including the marriage-penalty measure, health care, and a proposal to provide community renewal tax incentives to low-income neighborhoods.

For many Republicans, their agenda serves a dual purpose in a campaign year. It gives them-rather than Democratic leaders-an opportunity to join hands with Clinton at bill-signing ceremonies and to appeal to Republican stalwarts. In the words of Hastert spokesman John Feehery, "These proposals [particularly the tax cuts] matter to our base," adding: "Democrats will find any reason to invite a veto. We will have to work through that."

However, the recent gridlock on the Senate floor presents an obstacle that could keep the House-passed bills from even making it to the White House. The tensions in the Senate escalated on May 17, when, following several days of legislative inaction because of Democratic demands for gun control votes, the Senate's two leaders attacked each other in terms not normally heard in that chamber.

Senate Democratic leaders have made clear that they will continue to use their leverage under their chamber's rules to influence the scheduling and debate of nearly all issues. Although Senate leaders from the two parties reached something of a truce on May 23 to process dozens of stalled judicial and executive branch nominations, Democrats held firm to their threat to slow down Senate GOP plans.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said in recent days that it is "going to be a very difficult year" for the 13 must-pass spending bills in the Senate. "There is a logjam," Stevens said. "It's totally partisan. It's wrong." Still, some of the bottlenecks on appropriations bills have resulted from intra-GOP disputes over controversial language tacked onto the bills, or from the tight funding levels that Republicans approved as part of their budget resolution in April.

Republicans hope to evade some of the Senate Democrats' delaying tactics this summer by packaging several House-passed tax cuts into one or two budget-reconciliation bills that would be protected by special Senate rules limiting debate.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., has said his chief preference for tax legislation is marriage-penalty relief, but as usual, House and Senate GOP leaders may not be on the same page. "The House is the House. The Senate is the Senate. They have to do what they have to do," Lott said.

On other legislation, Lott voiced hope for final action on several measures that have been stuck in House-Senate conference committees for many months, including gun safety provisions, reforms of health maintenance organizations, and a minimum-wage increase. Although these proposals initially were pushed chiefly by Democrats, GOP leaders are under pressure to move them along-both to respond to political pressures and to break the legislative logjam.

But deadlines already have been set and broken on these and other bills, and additional election-year complications will probably ensue. The minimum-wage hike of $1 per hour, for example, has received less attention in recent weeks because labor leaders have been focused on the China bill. Some health care insiders contend that the HMO bill may be sacrificed because lawmakers believe that voters now favor legislation to provide prescription drug coverage to Medicare beneficiaries. In other cases, bills backed by Clinton have stalled because of objections by Democratic lawmakers over Senate procedures.

"The Democrats' Operation Gridlock is in full effect," said Lott spokesman John Czwartacki. "They are trying to throw sand in the gears because they are getting desperate and frustrated."

For their part, Democrats hope to reunite their fractured party and refocus the Washington agenda after the debilitating China debate of recent weeks. "We are going to talk about what we think is important," said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Martin Frost of Texas. "We won't accept half-measures.... The President has made clear that he will stick with us on our core issues," including health care and education. Although it will take time to restore Democratic unity, Frost said, "it's not in anyone's interest to elect a Republican President or House."

It may prove easier to reunite the Democratic Party than to mend the wounds between Democrats and organized labor. "The emphasis here will be on Democratic unity," said a House Democratic leadership aide. "I can't say what will happen with labor." Democratic insiders noted with dismay the statement by United Auto Workers President Stephen P. Yokich, which was made on the eve of the China PNTR vote, that America's working families "have no choice but to actively explore alternatives to the two major political parties" in the presidential election.

But the splits are not solely among the Democrats. Some congressional Republicans contend that their leaders ought to simply move to the sidelines and applaud the efforts of their presidential standard-bearer, George W. Bush, rather than spend time on legislative minutiae. "Republicans should talk about tax cuts for everybody and about Social Security reform," said a veteran House GOP aide. "We should talk about whatever Bush wants us to talk about. He has positioned us so that we can win this battle."

Most congressional Republicans dismiss calls for a stand-pat approach in the closing months of the campaign. Such a strategy would be counterproductive, a House GOP leadership aide said. "That would force George Bush to run away from a 'Do-Nothing' Congress," said the aide. "Instead, we have shown an ability for him to embrace us."

For Republicans, as well as Democrats, the hope is that this year's legislative endgame will be a precursor not only of the election, but also of the still-unpredictable legislative scenario for next year.

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Budget Breakdown

Richard E. Cohen and David Baumann — Fri, 01 Oct 1999 00:00:00 -0400

his year, Congress and the Clinton administration are celebrating the first federal budget surplus in decades. But at the same time, the process by which that budget is crafted on Capitol Hill is in disarray.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. The 1974 Budget Act was designed to make the trains run on time. It set targets and deadlines for Congress to meet. But now, 25 years later, deadlines are routinely missed-and nobody worries. Provisions of the law are regularly waived-with the approval of budget hawks. And spending caps are evaded through myriad gimmicks and tricks.

Congress has had a particularly rocky time during the past few years passing budgets and implementing them through appropriations bills-making it all the more difficult for federal agencies to predict spending levels for many programs. The government shutdown of 1995-96 was the biggest budget horror show in recent memory. In 1997, Congress had a slightly easier time, since congressional leaders and the Clinton administration agreed on a balanced budget plan that provided more money that year for several administration priorities. But last year-for the first time since the Budget Act was passed-Congress failed to pass a budget resolution and only completed the appropriations process by passing a huge omnibus spending bill that simply declared more than $20 billion to be "emergency" spending outside mandated caps.

The collapse of the congressional budget process, ironically, comes on the silver anniversary of the law that was designed to make that process more coherent. That law, many say, was designed solely to bring the federal budget deficit down. Now that a surplus has been achieved, they argue, the law is outdated and needs to be rewritten. But any attempt to do so will raise serious turf and power issues.

Appropriators' Accountability

At the time it was written, the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act received little public fanfare and few members of Congress understood its vast consequences. But its enactment was one of the most important legacies of that year's epic confrontation between President Nixon and the Democratic-controlled Congress-which resulted in Nixon's resignation on the eve of what appeared to be his certain impeachment and removal from office as a result of the Watergate scandal.

The political impetus for the revised budget procedures came from Nixon's 1973 decision simply to not spend funds that had been appropriated by Congress. While Nixon claimed constitutional authority for his decision, federal courts largely ruled that the President did not have the power to withhold congressionally appropriated money. Still, a wide array of lawmakers-liberals fearful of the impact on favored programs, appropriations committee members concerned about their clout and congressional purists worried about the constitutional balance-grew alarmed about the threat to their power of the purse.

"A Congress that cannot control spending cannot effectively control the executive branch either," said Sen. Sam Ervin, D-N.C., who chaired the Watergate investigation. So the new law laid out detailed procedures with which the President must comply if he wanted to "defer" or "rescind" appropriations that had been signed into law; in each case, Congress retained the power to override presidential efforts to use such measures to "impound" spending.

The 1974 law also had several provisions dealing with how Congress handled the annual budget that would have more significant long-term consequences. The idea behind these provisions, which were largely unrelated to the impoundment crisis, was to force accountability on the appropriators.

For decades, the 13 House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees had separately considered the bills under their control-with jurisdictional lines that reflected historical factors rather than a rational organization of government, budget dollars or workload. Only when they completed their work, and Congress also accounted for separate action on taxes or changes in entitlement programs, could lawmakers total up the bottom-line impact of their decisions on the federal Treasury. In their desire to overhaul the budget process, the reformers decided to require that Congress approve a budget resolution early each year that laid out the broad outlines for spending and revenue for the coming fiscal year.

When Nixon signed the Budget Act into law on July 12, 1974, he commended the new procedures. "This bill will allow the Congress to step up to full and equal responsibility for controlling federal expenditures," he said. Although he raised concerns about the new anti-impoundment procedures, the beleaguered Nixon evidently determined that this was not the right time for him to stir a fuss; the House had passed the House-Senate conference report on the bill, 401-6, and the Senate approved it on a unanimous roll-call vote. When Gerald Ford-who had been the House GOP's minority leader for nine years-took over as President a month later, he too supported the new law.

By 1981, when the new Reagan administration used the law as a tool to quickly implement its plans to reshape the federal budget, the Budget Act had become a major part of Washington's policy-making process. As they wrote tax or spending legislation, both the appropriators and the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee were required to comply with limits in the annual budget already approved by Congress. The new law created in the House and Senate a competing center-the Budget Committee-to shape fiscal policy. The third leg of the budget process-the House and Senate authorizing committees-saw their power weakened considerably. In addition, the 1974 law created the Congressional Budget Office as an independent source of budget expertise, so lawmakers would no longer have to rely on the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Top-Down Approach

Over the subsequent quarter-century, Congress has made numerous informal changes in the workings of the Budget Act, including its timetable and key players. But the original intent of its authors has, if anything, been strengthened. The new process "has allowed for a more 'top-down' or centralized approach to budgetary decision-making," political scientist Randall Strahan wrote in 1990.

When President Bush and Democratic congressional leaders spent months in 1990 negotiating the painstaking budget deal that began the decade-long process of reversing the string of huge federal deficits, they essentially expanded the framework of the 1974 law to include the President in the process of crafting a budget plan. And in 1997, when President Clinton and Republican congressional leaders wrote the legislation that finally envisioned an era of federal surpluses (though, even at that recent date, they forecast that deficits would not end until 2002), they crafted a detailed spending blueprint without the participation of congressional committees.

The consequences of the Budget Act for Congress have been profound-and hardly what the 1974 drafters envisioned. Institutionally, committee power has eroded to the point where it now has largely collapsed. Although that collapse has been partially caused by factors that extend beyond the purview of the Budget Act, the annual budget resolution the act mandates has become a document that reflects the views of party leaders and-occasionally-rank-and-file members, not the authorizing committees. Even when the budget resolution has been written without the President's participation, it has become apparent that many members who voted for it have not understood its consequences. Recently, for example, moderate House Republicans voiced objections to the terms of a tax cut that was anticipated by the budget resolution for which they had voted three months earlier. The moderates complained Congress had failed to implement other components of the initial plan.

The current process calls for the President to submit his budget in February. That is followed by passage of a congressional resolution setting discretionary spending targets, targets for tax legislation and instructions for committees to find entitlement savings. Authorizing committees work on the tax and entitlement legislation, while the appropriations committees work on the 13 appropriations bills. Those bills are supposed to be completed by the beginning of the fiscal year on Oct. 1, but in recent years, Congress has been unable to complete all of them, resulting in last-minute deals that evade, break and ignore spending caps called for in the budget resolution by resorting to various budgetary devices, such as designating large amounts of spending as "emergency" spending.

"Once you go down the road of winking and nodding through the process, you erode the credibility of the process," says Richard E. May, a principal at Davidson & Co. and a former Republican staff director of the House Budget Committee. The last-minute haggling results in helter-skelter lawmaking, one analyst argues. "Lately, the closing days of the session have deteriorated into a very costly and unstatesmanlike cross between a food fight and a game of budgetary chicken in which the aim of each side seems to be to inflict maximum political embarrassment on the other while getting as much as possible for one's own spending or tax priorities," Martha Phillips, former executive director of the Concord Coalition, a group that advocates fiscal restraint, told the House Rules Committee earlier this year.

Legislators who wrote the Budget Act wanted the budget committees to be "leadership" committees, rather than panels made up of members of the spending and taxing committees, says Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., ranking minority member of the House Appropriations Committee and a protege of the late Rep. Richard Bolling, D-Mo., who was instrumental in passage of the law. At the time, Bolling acknowledged "this would never work unless the party leaders lead," Obey says. That has not happened, Obey argues. "The budget resolution has become a political document," he says.

Instead of the President's budget and a congressional budget resolution reflecting priorities, Obey says, analysts "ask only one question: Does it hit the number?" As long as the budget reaches a deficit or surplus target, no one pays attention to the policy assumptions behind the document. "So what you have is two parties saying, 'My surplus is bigger than your sur- plus,' " Obey says.

The 1997 balanced budget deal exacerbated the situation, because it was based on several years worth of deep spending cuts that Congress is unlikely ever to approve. "It was a set of phony, unrealistic promises" based on "assumptions that were never really talked about except in the back rooms," Obey says. "The process rewards those who tell the biggest lies." He argues that since Republicans took control of Capitol Hill in 1995, budget resolutions have become even more political. "We've never been able to get the reality horse back on track," he says.

Under GOP control, the House Budget Committee has taken two approaches to budget resolutions. Some years, committee chairman John R. Kasich, R-Ohio, produced a document filled with illustrative cuts that appropriators and authorizing committees could make to meet the budget targets. That drew fire from many members-particularly appropriators-who argued that Kasich was overstepping his jurisdiction. In recent years, Kasich simply has produced a document that sets spending targets. May says appropriators often believe they understand the programs better, adding it "was never intended for the Budget Committee to dictate [cuts] to the appropriators."

Designed for Deficits

Aside from confusion of what role each committee should play, congressional aides who have worked through-and sometimes evaded-the budget process acknowledge that the Budget Act may well be out of date and in need of rewriting. For example, a key result of the act was the creation of the budget reconciliation process, whose sole purpose is to find savings in entitlement programs in order to keep federal deficits from spinning out of control.

Ultimately, the only goal of the process created by the Budget Act was to "get the deficit down," says Stanley Collender, managing director of the federal budget consulting group at Fleishman-Hillard who also writes a weekly column appearing on Government Executive's Web publication, GovExec.com. "Does the Budget Committee have anything to do anymore?" he asks. But, Collender adds, the new system has one benefit: "The budget process has created some order and some deadlines so that at least you know when you're late."

The surplus has changed the entire budget climate, says G. William Hoagland, staff director of the Senate Budget Committee. "When the cookie jar was empty, not too many people were dipping into the cookie jar," he says. "Once there is a perception that the budget is in surplus, people can't understand why they can't have a cookie out of the cookie jar." The surplus also makes it more difficult to simply de-authorize programs, he notes. "In an era of deficits, you could argue for eliminating them," he says.

Obey says the budget process itself hampers authorizing committees. "It takes so long that nobody else's legislation gets considered," he says. "If I were on an authorizing committee, I'd be going mad."

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici, R-N.M., argues that the budget process consumes so much time that Congress can't deal with oversight issues. But others say that simply is a cop-out. "The people who do oversight aren't the ones who put the budget together every year," Collender says. A former congressional aide agrees, arguing that the real problem is simply that "members hate to do oversight."

But while oversight has suffered, Congress has been willing to make changes in federal programs for budgetary reasons. In many cases, Congress has tinkered with programs simply to find savings-or appear to find savings-to help offset spending increases in other programs. Changes in federal housing programs, District of Columbia employee pension programs and broadcast spectrum auctions all have been implemented in recent years at the last minute to pay for other spending boosts.

But some contend that the problem is not the process alone. "It does not work because the people who are working it don't want to make it work," says James Dyer, staff director of the House Appropriations Committee. Dyer said problems could be solved more easily if more discipline were built into the system, arguing that the initial budget resolution Congress passes is "soft" and easily ignored. "It provides a road map into the wilderness," he says. And while Congress often has ignored the timetables called for in the Budget Act, "this year we're adhering to a timetable to the detriment of everything else."

Congress simply has not had the political will to strictly follow the requirements of the Budget Act, a House Democratic aide argues. "In the end, Congress can't stop Congress or make [Congress] do something if there's no political will," says the aide, a veteran of the budget wars. Making the budget resolution and budget laws more difficult to evade could provide the political will, but details still would bog down the process, he says. It took Congress months-and several political fights-to implement the 1997 balanced budget deal even after GOP leaders and the White House agreed to a budget framework.

Others see the deeply entrenched appropriations committees as part of the problem. "Because the appropriators have a different committee-funding system, they are not under the control of the Speaker," says a House Republican leadership aide. "The staff has been there for 30 years, and the chairmen are mostly temporary appointments."

Hoagland agrees-to some degree. "The appropriators do the best they can, under difficult circumstances, and granted, we have made it more difficult for them," he says. "But they make problems for themselves." For example, by using such devices as forward-funding, in which program costs are shifted to the next fiscal year, appropriators simply dig themselves a deeper hole.

But Obey says appropriators are put in an impossible position by writers of the budget resolution, who call for spending cuts that are not politically feasible.

Prospects for Reform

Finding a solution to the budget mess is likely to be difficult. The first problem is adjusting to an era of surpluses instead of deficits. "There's so little experience in this country in dealing with surpluses," Collender says.

Asked how he would solve the budget mess, Dyer responds with a quip: "Get a new administration." He criticized Clinton administration officials for remaining disengaged from the process until the last minute, and only appearing to submit balanced budgets by using offsets that Congress would never accept.

But administration officials argue the budget enforcement rules have worked. The 1974 act and subsequent enforcement laws have "imposed an essential discipline on discretionary spending by means of enforceable discretionary spending caps," Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob J. Lew told the House Budget Committee earlier this year. "And [statutory requirements] have ensured that new mandatory spending and new tax cuts are paid for with offsetting spending reductions and revenue increases."

Nevertheless, many in Congress are committed to budget process reform. Congressional committees have come up with various plans, but each infringes on someone's turf. "When you start reforming the process . . . there's a whole new set of winners and losers," May says. For example, the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has pointed out that many of the reforms circulating on Capitol Hill would squeeze discretionary spending by making it possible to use discretionary money for tax cuts.

The leading House plan would-among other proposals-implement an automatic "continuing resolution" to keep federal agencies operating if Congress fails to pass the 13 funding bills by the end of the fiscal year. Appropriators dislike that provision, arguing it would take discipline out of the system. Likewise, the Clinton administration has made it clear it will not accept any budget reform plan that contains an automatic continuing resolution. That's because the proposal would take some of the power away from Presidents during last-minute spending negotiations, May says. Presidents always hold the trump cards during end-of-year haggling, he argues, because Congress must complete the 13 funding bills for members to go home.

The leading Senate plan would implement two-year budgeting-a proposal that has circulated on Capitol Hill for years. But critics say two-year budgeting won't make the process any easier, but instead, simply will drag it out even more. "I'm not certain whether two-year budgeting is the solution," said a former congressional aide. "If you gave people two years to get their budget stuff done, they're going to take two years to get the process done."

David Baumann and Richard E. Cohen are staff correspondents at National Journal.

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Budget reform prospects sinking on Hill

Richard E. Cohen and Lisa Caruso — Thu, 24 Jun 1999 00:00:00 -0400

The budget process reform bill approved last week by the House Budget Committee does not have sufficient support to win House approval, and Republican leaders' intention to bring the measure to the floor next week is in serious jeopardy, according to well- placed GOP sources.

Although proponents are not willing to publicly declare the proposal dead, all indications are that the measure has become a victim of the formidable opposition of House appropriators, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bud Shuster, R-Pa., and most House Democrats.

Republican leaders "won't bring the bill up next week unless they think it can pass," said a senior GOP Budget Committee aide, adding, "It's probably correct that it can't pass."

Another Republican source said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., has been unwilling to take on the long-stated opposition to the plan by the Appropriations Committee, where opposition has focused on several features, notably, the proposal for an automatic continuing resolution to prevent a federal shutdown if Congress has not finished action on the annual spending bills before the start of the fiscal year.

On Tuesday, the House Appropriations Committee, which has partial jurisdiction over the bill, marked up and reported out unfavorably the budget process reform measure.

As expected, the committee adopted unanimously, by voice vote, a substitute amendment by Chairman Young to delete the section creating an automatic continuing resolution to provide level funding at the start of a new fiscal year for government agencies covered by spending bills not finalized on time.

Young, ranking member David Obey, D-Wis., and several senior committee members of both parties said the budget process changes in the bill would not only weaken appropriators' authority, but would weaken the House's authority and that of the legislative branch as a whole, in determining how government money is spent.

Separately, Hastert has had problems getting appropriators to move this year's bills within the budget resolution's spending caps.

Leadership sources, hopeful of giving Republicans a legislative victory that they can trumpet to constituents, said they expect House action on the budget process bill next week, although official announcement awaits the Rules Committee's scheduled markup of the bill this afternoon.

"As far as we know, it's still going forward," said Hastert spokesman John Feehery.

Michele Davis, spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, added: "The vast majority of our members support the bill. ... We expect that it will be on the floor. That's the intention."

Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich, R-Ohio, had hoped to compensate for the appropriators' opposition by picking up Democratic support.

But unexpectedly strong White House objections have reportedly led to nearly unanimous opposition from Democrats.

"We have heard of closed-door sessions where Democratic members were really worked over," said the Budget Committee GOP aide.

Kasich, who has had less time for House business because of his presidential candidacy, also has been weakened internally by his continuing feud with Shuster, who defeated a Kasich-led bid last week to limit spending on the Transportation and Infrastructure panel's airport spending bill.

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The rise and fall of Newt

Richard E. Cohen — Tue, 09 Mar 1999 00:00:00 -0500

In their political backgrounds, Reps. Bill Archer, J.D. Hayworth, and Mary Bono share little in common.

But last November, these three Republicans played key roles in ending one of the most turbulent and unconventional eras in the House's history. Following the House Republicans' unexpected five-seat loss in the Nov. 3 elections, Archer, Hayworth, and Bono each separately reached the conclusion that Newt Gingrich should consider stepping down as House Speaker in the new Congress. When each of them conveyed that message to Gingrich in telephone calls within a few hours of one another on Friday, Nov. 6, the stunned Speaker realized that his base of party support had collapsed.

In those frantic days after the election, a few House GOP rebels made high-profile public pronouncements that they would not vote to give Gingrich another term as Speaker. As Gingrich made cross-country phone calls from his Marietta, Ga., district to some 60 other House Republicans to try to round up support, Archer, Hayworth, and Bono responded with significant questions about whether he could continue as the top House leader.

According to a close Gingrich confidant, it was these three loyalists from three different generations in the House who perhaps had the most impact in leading the 55-year-old Speaker to the decision, that Friday afternoon, to quit the job for which he had spent a lifetime preparing, the job in which he had fully intended to serve another four years. He had perhaps even hoped that his tenure as Speaker would serve as the precursor to a presidential bid.

"The Speaker sought me out and said he needed my vote," recalled Hayworth, a frequently bombastic ex-sportscaster from Arizona. "I said it could be a tough race. I said he needed to ask himself how he could run the majority. I said that it hurt me to say this, because he is my friend and mentor, but that he had to ask himself whether now was the time for a graceful exit from the stage. He said to me, 'So, you feel I should reassess.' He was very businesslike and pleasant, not brusque. He said he needed my vote. I didn't commit. I said, 'Mr. Speaker, call me back.'"

Hayworth's words must have struck Gingrich hard. Hayworth is one of the most partisan of the 73 House Republicans first elected in November 1994, a true Gingrich revolutionary. Moreover, he owed much loyalty to the Speaker, who had given him ample campaign help and other rewards, including a seat on the Ways and Means Committee.

By the time that Gingrich phoned Bono of California, she was already worried that the poor election results would result in another coup attempt. "I feared it would be bloody," recalled the ex-waitress and political novice who was elected just a year ago to the seat that had been held by her late husband, Sonny. "I didn't suggest that he sacrifice himself," Bono said. "I felt I could not pledge my support. I am so new at this, and I wanted to see how it would unfold." Later that day, Bono learned that Gingrich had quit. "I was devastated," she said. "But I felt that I said and did the right thing. In the end, it was his choice."

The final blow, that Friday, quite likely was the call that Gingrich received in mid-afternoon from Archer of Texas, the mild-mannered Ways and Means Committee chairman and an imperturbable 15-term House veteran. On Wednesday and Thursday of that week, Archer had stuck by Gingrich, even when several House Republicans urged that he himself should run for Speaker. But at 7 a.m. on Friday, Archer was awakened at his Arlington, Va., home by another House Republican, someone who, he says, "has become quite close to me and is considered in the middle" ideologically. "He spent 20 minutes telling me that I was the only one that had the respect of all the wings when we needed a change in Speaker," Archer said. "I said OK, I would consider it."

After Archer arrived at his Capitol Hill office that morning, his telephone kept ringing with calls from colleagues telling him that they would vote against another term for Gingrich as Speaker. "When I was convinced that they meant it, I called Newt at 3 o'clock and reported to him that they meant it," Archer said. "I said that I should share this with him. . . . There was a moment of silence. He said perhaps he should resign. I said that was his decision. And I said that I was convinced that he could not be elected Speaker, and that I was thinking of running myself, to avoid putting the House through this."

At 2 p.m., then-House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston, R-La., had held a rally outside the Capitol to announce his own bid for Speaker. Then, less than 30 minutes after the conversation with Archer, Gingrich began telephoning from his district office to tell his aides and closest advisers that he had called it quits. Shortly after 7, his Capitol office issued a terse statement announcing that the Gingrich era was ending. Gingrich's swift and dramatic exit was a fitting conclusion to his four years as Speaker. It had been a sensational and ultimately exhausting ride for the GOP-thrilling achievements, gut-wrenching disappointments, and endless conflict.

During the past four months, Gingrich's departure has been overshadowed by the House impeachment and the Senate trial of President Clinton, as well as by Livingston's withdrawal as the designated Speaker following the revelations of his marital infidelity. But it is worth reviewing the rise and fall of the Gingrich speakership, which marked the end of the Democrats' 40-year era of House control. The Gingrich era may have been brief, but it may also have been epochal; it has become clear in recent weeks, as lawmakers have struggled to define an agenda, that it will not be easy for the narrowly divided House to transcend the partisan bitterness of the Gingrich years.

Interviews with nearly a dozen current and former lawmakers who were key allies of Gingrich's, and several of his former aides, revealed notable areas of agreement about his successes and failures. Despite several requests for his views, Gingrich continued his post-resignation policy of no news-media interviews. "He doesn't feel he needs to defend himself," said a source who remains in contact with Gingrich. "He feels that being silent for a while is OK." Meanwhile, the ex-Speaker has been working actively behind the scenes to reposition himself. Privately, Gingrich's associates believe that his twisting, swooping, plunging career has at least a few more turns left to go.

Articulating the Vision

From the onset of his House career, Gingrich was determined to rewrite the rules of courtesy and compromise that governed lawmakers' behavior and served to limit partisan warfare. Within months of winning (on his third try) a House seat as a Georgia Republican in 1978, the former history professor was challenging his own party's leaders as too cautious and the House as too willing to abide corruption.

In 1980, Gingrich led the move to expel veteran Rep. Charles C. Diggs Jr., D-Mich., who had been convicted of accepting kickbacks. Facing a likely ouster, Diggs resigned. In 1983, Gingrich and a handful of restless House Republicans created what he termed the "Conservative Opportunity Society" to push for a radical overhaul of the "liberal welfare state." Soon after that, Gingrich so rattled then-Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr., D-Mass., that the House's presiding officer was forced to chastise O'Neill for using harsh rhetoric in criticizing Gingrich on the House floor.

By 1986, the upsetting backbencher was preparing to move into a more aggressive leadership role. In an interview late that year with National Journal, Gingrich said that President Reagan-who, entangled in the Iran-contra scandal, had entered his relatively weak, final years in office-represented only the first stage in the Republican Revolution. "He is the brilliant articulator of a vision that will take a generation to sort out," Gingrich said at the time.

Soon it became clear that Gingrich saw himself as the next leader of that crusade. He launched a strenuous campaign against Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, formally accusing Wright of unethical behavior in selling to lobbyists bulk orders of a book he had written. Gingrich's complaint forced an investigation by the House Standards of Official Conduct (Ethics) Committee into Wright's literary career; the resulting critical report, in the spring of 1989, forced Wright to step down. Meanwhile, Gingrich was consolidating his strength within his party. That March, he won election as GOP Whip by just two votes. By October 1993, when Minority Leader Robert H. Michel, R-Ill., announced his retirement, Gingrich was his obvious heir.

Gingrich's allies from these early years, many of whom later became his critics, regard his successful efforts to redirect the Republican congressional brigade-and thereby the Republican Party and politics in general-as a lasting and significant achievement. "Newt was a historic figure who changed Congress and the country," said recently retired Rep. Bill Paxon, R-N.Y., a one-time key lieutenant of Gingrich's who later had a bitter split with him. "He was a great visionary who could see the trend moving in our direction. He moved it faster and farther than others could have done."

Robert S. Walker, a Republican from Pennsylvania who retired from the House in 1996 and remains one of Gingrich's closest allies, views his former partner in more singular terms. "Newt was not the second stage of the Reagan Revolution," said Walker, who now is president of the Wexler Group, a Washington lobbying firm. Gingrich's leadership of the GOP's quest for control of the House in 1994 was "an opening gun of 21st-century politics, and he understood that," Walker added. "For the first time, a national party designed a campaign that was a positive articulation of issues and appealed to [voters] as individuals." This campaign, of course, was the Contract With America, a document signed by nearly all of the Republican House candidates in 1994, committing a Republican House to voting on 10 main planks and a variety of subtopics, ranging from balancing the budget to strengthening national defense. In working with other House Republicans to craft and showcase this document before the 1994 elections, Gingrich played several key roles: chief political strategist, fund-raiser, spokesman, and internal cheerleader.

To this day, Republicans of all ilks gush when they reflect on Gingrich's role in their 1994 campaign victory. "Newt was the most forceful member of the [Republican] Conference in saying we needed a positive agenda to motivate people," said conservative Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., an architect of the contract. Said moderate Rep. Christopher H. Shays, R-Conn., another Gingrich ally at the time: "Newt energized Republicans to realize we didn't have to be in the minority forever, and he gave us an agenda and objectives. . . . Only Newt could do this. He got us focused on what we wanted to accomplish."

And Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich.: "Newt Gingrich led us out of the wilderness after 40 years. His vision changed the way that we thought about ourselves, so that we could be a majority [party] with an agenda that the American people wanted."

Even the opposition concedes that Gingrich was highly effective during the 1994 campaign. "He was a galvanizing force and an articulate spokesman for them," said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Martin Frost of Texas. But Frost is quick to add that once the Republicans won the majority, Gingrich "tried to do too many things."

Indeed, even some Republicans were reeling from exhaustion by the time GOP leaders fulfilled their commitment-in early 1995, after many longer-than-usual work weeks and late-night sessions-to hold House votes during the first 100 days of the 104th Congress on every measure of their contract. Moreover, the highly disciplined House Republicans passed every proposal, except for a proposed constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress, which required a two-thirds majority.

Only three of the contract's items were backed by a majority of House Democrats: requirements that Congress comply with workplace laws, restrictions on the federal government's placing of "unfunded mandates" on local governments, and stronger rules against child pornography. As a result of bitter partisan divisions or minimal interest in the Senate, as well as Clinton's veto of product-liability legislation, those three were the sole parts of the original contract that were directly enacted. Other key provisions that later became law were included in the 1996 Welfare Reform Act and the 1997 balanced-budget deal between Clinton and GOP leaders.

Leading the Charge

The Contract With America days were at times exhilarating for Gingrich and his newfound majority. But the Speaker's image in the press was largely negative, and it soon got much worse. Republicans agree that the disastrously defining period for Gingrich as Speaker began in mid-1995, when he attempted to overhaul the federal budget.

At the center of that conflict was Gingrich's showdown with Clinton. The two party leaders faced off over their spending priorities, both refusing to back down, in a process that culminated in a four-week shutdown of the federal government during the winter of 1995-96. Before that budget standoff, Clinton, who had been battered by the Republicans' November 1994 takeover of Congress, seemed to be in such a weak position that reporters asked him whether he was still "relevant." By the time it ended, with press coverage heavily favoring the White House interpretation of the crisis, Clinton clearly emerged as the victor-and it was Gingrich who was permanently weakened.

With the assistance of congressional Democrats and their interest-group allies, Clinton was highly effective in painting the Republicans' proposed budget cuts as draconian and mean-spirited. Gingrich, a man of short fuse and tin ear, was the perfect foil for such a campaign. During the heat of the crisis, Gingrich flew with Clinton aboard Air Force One home from Israel after the funeral of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Gingrich wanted to meet with Clinton during that flight, but was snubbed; even more galling to him, he was seated in what he regarded as the steerage section of the plane. This treatment may or may not have been calculated to inspire resentment. Regardless, it did. An irritated Gingrich complained to reporters about his treatment. That won him a front-page headline in the New York Daily News: "Cry Baby."

A number of Republicans acknowledge that Gingrich vastly overestimated himself and underestimated Clinton in pushing the fight of 1995 to a one-man-standing conclusion. While moderate Rep. James C. Greenwood, R-Pa., calls Gingrich "inspirational, a real commander, in almost a military sense," he added: "His biggest mistake was to fail to understand that the 1994 election was not an open invitation to knock the President off his feet." Republicans further failed, Greenwood added, as "we miscalculated how the Democrats would use jiujitsu on us to flip us over with our 'unprincipled' stand."

In his 1998 book, Lessons Learned the Hard Way, Gingrich conceded that the budget war had been a fiasco. "The idea of a grand showdown over spending had long been a staple of conservative analysis," Gingrich wrote. "I was to learn something about the American people that too many conservatives don't appreciate. They want their leaders to have principled disagreements, but they want these disagreements to be settled in constructive ways. This is not, of course, what our activists were telling us. They were all gung-ho for a brutal fight over spending and taxes. We mistook their enthusiasm for the views of the American public."

Republicans, concluded Gingrich, had forgotten the lesson that they should have learned from Reagan's legislative victories: "The White House media operation trumps any effort of that kind by the Congress."

By the spring of 1996, both the White House and Gingrich had called a budgetary truce, and stopgap funding legislation was passed. Eventually, in mid-1997, negotiations between congressional Republicans and the White House led to the passage of the five-year balanced-budget deal. Some Republicans continue to insist that the results justify Gingrich's methods. Large federal surpluses are now forecast for years to come, in contrast to the deficits that Clinton's Office of Management and Budget in January 1995 had predicted would continue at about $200 billion annually to 2000 and beyond. And Gingrich allies boast that it was their policies-not the Democrats' 1993 tax hike and deficit-reduction package-that brought the good economic times.

"It's only because the House Republicans shut down the government that we got a balanced budget," said Walker. "We suffered some short-term damage. Over the long haul, it was the single most important thing that we did."

Shays, who parted company with Gingrich on other issues, called the 1997 budget agreement with Clinton "our major achievement." He said that the chief failures in the fiscal showdown were not strategic, but rhetorical. "The mistake was not in shutting down the government, but how the President positioned us," Shays said. "None of us [Republicans] did a good enough job in selling our accomplishments."

One repercussion of the budget showdown was to force congressional Republicans to work with the Clinton White House in mid-1996 to reach agreement on several legislative proposals-including welfare reform and a modest health care bill-so that each side could claim accomplishments during that fall's political campaign. "The fundamental problem may have been unavoidable," said Greenwood. "To keep the majority, over the long haul, we have to compromise with the President."

But this bout of bipartisanship also had the effect of undermining the presidential bid of Republican Bob Dole, who had had an awkward relationship with Gingrich before quitting as Senate Majority Leader in the spring of 1996. Gingrich wrote in his 1998 book that although Dole politically would have been "better off with our having reached no agreement with Clinton . . . he loyally stuck it out with us, to what would be, for him, the bitterest end."

The dilemma that was becoming apparent to the Republicans was that the core of their agenda could not be enacted-or perhaps even defined-until their party controlled both the White House and Congress. In the 68 years since 1931, however, that has happened only once-during the first two years of the Eisenhower presidency.

Planting the Seeds of Destruction

By the time that the 105th Congress began in 1997, the rumbling within the Republican Party over Gingrich's failings as Speaker had become audible outside party confines. From early in the 104th Congress, Gingrich's style had infuriated many allies. Hoekstra, who was a corporate marketing specialist before he was elected to the House, sent three memos to Gingrich in 1996, criticizing his lack of focus and lack of follow-through. "He was not doing the things as Speaker that he needed to do," Hoekstra said. "We lost our focus on the agenda and on saying who we are."

Other House Republicans bristled over Gingrich's proclivity to dominate the power levers, especially in dealing with committee chairmen. "He had more authority than previous Speakers, especially in the early months," Camp said. "It probably went too far. We will rise or fall as a majority to the extent we are a team."

There was no question that Gingrich possessed a great talent for hurting himself with public missteps, and for persisting in this talent. Occasionally, after some particularly unfortunate public relations episode, a chagrined Gingrich would exile himself for a while, saying that other Republican colleagues should come to the forefront. But he never could contain himself for long, and the next gaffe was usually worse than the previous one. With each rhetorical overreach or legislative misfire, he further weakened himself among House Republicans.

A particularly grave self-inflicted wound was Gingrich's ethics trouble, which resulted from his myriad activities outside the House, including teaching, book-writing, and an active speaking schedule. The trouble dated back to 1995, when Rep. David E. Bonior, D-Mich., filed the primary ethics complaint objecting to the financing of a college course that Gingrich taught in Georgia.

In late 1996, the Ethics Committee concluded its two-year investigation with a statement of alleged violations, which Gingrich formally admitted. During January 1997, Gingrich was only narrowly re-elected Speaker, and two weeks later, the House reprimanded him for his ethics violations and fined him $300,000. Recently, the Internal Revenue Service issued a ruling that cleared the Progress and Freedom Foundation-the tax-exempt organization that financed Gingrich's course-of all impropriety in organizing the class that he taught. But the time and resources that Gingrich and his allies invested in his defense clearly were a distraction.

(Bonior, who criticized the IRS for failing to "ask the right questions" in seeking information about Gingrich from the Ethics Committee, said that the ruling did not change his view of Gingrich's modus operandi. "He destroyed the institution, and several lives along the way," Bonior said. "He sowed so many suspicious seeds of hatred that it became very difficult to operate.")

During the summer of 1997, the simmering tensions involving Gingrich boiled over into a bungled coup attempt. The uprising began as a series of meetings among House Republican rebels of the Class of 1994 who were disgruntled about the Speaker's occasional break with the conservative agenda. Later, the discussions spread to include four senior members of the Speaker's leadership team. Although the details remain fuzzy on the precise nature of the threat to Gingrich and the steps taken to quell it, the participants undoubtedly discussed possible ways to remove Gingrich.

This peculiar incident nearly sparked a meltdown among House Republicans after Majority Leader Richard K. Armey, R-Texas, alerted Gingrich to the peril. The only immediate consequence was Gingrich's firing of Paxon as the chairman of his leadership operations. But in the coup's aftermath, Gingrich distrusted the elected party leaders, and a deep chill descended between Armey and House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

Taking the Fall

Just as Gingrich was the chief beneficiary of the House Republicans' sweeping success in 1994, he was the logical victim when things got really bad in 1998. "When a naval ship ends on a reef, the captain gets the blame," said Rep. Marshall "Mark" Sanford, R-S.C.

The Republicans' nearly empty legislative scorecard was one sign that Gingrich's leadership had run dry. Other than the balanced-budget deal, not much significant legislation was passed in 1997. By March 1998, the media-and the Democrats-had begun to suggest that this was a "Do-Nothing" Congress. Still, during the rest of the year, Republicans gave themselves few legislative accomplishments to take into the 1998 campaign. "We created high expectations for ourselves that couldn't be filled," said a former senior House GOP leadership aide.

In hindsight, GOP members gave several explanations for the debacle of 1998, not the least of which was Washington's obsession with the Monica Lewinsky scandal that began unfolding in January 1998. Gingrich, according to a lawmaker who requested anonymity, often expressed in private his view that "everything will be OK because Clinton will collapse" from the impact of the investigation by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr.

Monica Lewinsky aside, however, so many things went wrong for the Rebublicans on so many fronts in 1998 that it is hard to pinpoint a specific final cause for Gingrich's demise. By last year the party was suffering a widely shared malaise, which was compounded by continuing clashes between its many factions and by the Speaker's own personal weariness.

According to many Republican lawmakers, the most basic of problems was the lack of an agenda beyond the Contract With America that had brought the GOP to power in 1994. In particular, Republicans were left rudderless by their inability to chart a new course in response to the emergence of federal budget surpluses.

"We didn't recalibrate our message to make a more powerful case for tax cuts and our new priorities," complained Hoekstra. That shortcoming was exacerbated by congressional Republicans' support for a spending binge-a spree most evident in the highway-funding bill last spring, and in the 11th-hour omnibus appropriations bill last autumn. "That took away our centerpiece, to be the responsible party," Shays said.

Gingrich the backbench visionary was never able to come up with a new message as Speaker. He tried, though. In May 1995, Gingrich-then riding high following the passage of most pieces of the contract-spoke at a three-day House GOP retreat in Leesburg, Va., about his desire for Republicans to focus on "third-wave" issues dealing with the Information Age economy. Such issues had long interested Gingrich, but they didn't do much at all for a Congress filled by lawmakers who needed to show the voters concrete achievements in the here and now, not gauzy promises of a utopian future. One chairman called Gingrich's proposal "psychobabble," Walker recounted.

"Despite all his efforts, he couldn't persuade House Republicans to go along with his new set of ideas on conservatism," said Jeffrey A. Eisenach, a key Gingrich aide in the early 1990s and now president of the Progress and Freedom Foundation, which he helped found in 1993. "He could have been a superb Speaker," Eisenach said. "But in the context in which he was operating, every mistake was magnified, and every success was dismissed. He was up against, one, a very focused political enemy fighting for his life; two, the media certainly were not friendly to Newt; and three, the majority was too small to [be able to] govern."

Clearly, the discipline that Republicans had shown during the Contract With America and budget debates disappeared soon thereafter. Long-standing divisions re-emerged between fiscal disciplinarians and social-issue activists, and among libertarians, states' righters, and advocates of a federal role. "We weren't demonstrating an ability to govern," said Michael R. Johnson, who is the senior vice president and political director at APCO Associates Inc., a public affairs firm. Johnson served for seven years as chief of staff to Michel and has remained an adviser to House Republicans. "The whole party believed we can govern by communicating messages," he said, "instead of doing the work."

Yet others who were interviewed for this story refused to blame the congressional GOP at large, and instead faulted Gingrich's own leadership skills. More than a few Republicans complained that he was not suited to be a day-to-day legislative leader. "It's a tedious, boring, and, in some ways, demeaning job-holding people's hands and tending to runny noses," said one GOP lawmaker.

Paxon offered that Gingrich's "problem was that, as the guerrilla leader with the focus of taking the Capitol, he was not able to translate that into an effort with leadership, equilibrium, and focus." And even Daniel P. Meyer, Gingrich's chief of staff from 1989-96, said that one explanation for Gingrich's legislative limitations is that he is a "political warrior. He sees things in black-and-white." The party's decision to select Livingston, and then J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, as Speaker reflected an obvious desire for legislative expertise over electoral skills.

Last November came the denouement. The election results hurt terribly, not only because the Republicans lost five seats, but because Gingrich had confidently predicted a double-digit gain-even on the morning of Election Day. "He was surprised by the election, and he didn't have the answers," Camp said. Others said that the outcome revealed that Gingrich had become too dependent on a few confidants, chiefly his longtime political adviser Joseph R. Gaylord. "Newt could have survived one more time, if he had laid the groundwork for a seat loss," said a Republican insider.

In the end, Republicans concluded, Gingrich was forced out because he had lost "his reservoir of good will." Ironically, that identical phrase was used by Democrats a decade ago to explain the exile of then-Speaker Wright. Given the public's short attention span, it won't surprise many if Gingrich eventually returns to the campaign world, perhaps to indulge his obvious interest in presidential politics. For now, however, Capitol Hill regards his departure with very dry eyes.

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