News
Briefly
Calendar of Events
Commentary
Opinions
Sports
Diversions
One time, one night
Special Section
World News
Classifieds
Login
Letter Submission
Search
Archive
Publishing Policy
Mail Subscriptions
St. Cloud State University
College Publisher
Home
>
News
Republicans ready for action
Published:
Thursday, November 7, 2002
James Kuhnhenn and Jodi Enda
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON — President Bush and congressional Republicans took a look at the postelection landscape Wednesday morning, pinched themselves to dispel disbelief and began to assemble a legislative agenda that could capitalize on their new control of Congress and the White House.
Overnight, the president’s party had a majority in the Senate, a stronger hold in the House of Representatives and a logjam of legislation blocked by Senate Democrats to begin moving.
Nominations of conservatives to federal judgeships and a new homeland security department headed the GOP’s to-do list Wednesday. But lawmakers, lobbyists and White House officials also saw opportunities to revisit pension-protection legislation, a Republican version of a prescription drug plan, new energy policy and limits on certain types of lawsuits.
All this had become imaginable because Republicans gained two seats in the Senate, giving them 51 of the 100 votes there, and thus razor-thin control.
“I’m excited to be able to be on offense, working with the president, thinking about what we can do when we come back into session next year,” the Senate’s Republican leader, Trent Lott of Mississippi, said Wednesday.
Perhaps the most ambitious Republican goal is to make permanent last year’s 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax cuts. With an ongoing war on terrorism, the potential for war in Iraq and pressure to spend on new programs such as a drug subsidy for seniors, the cost of extending the tax reductions will meet plenty of skeptics in Congress.
The prospect of further tax cutting, an article of faith among Republicans, provoked a sharp rebuttal from Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota. Showing surprising combativeness the day after defeat, Daschle said the tax reduction had little chance of passage.
“Not if we have anything to do with it,” he said on NBC. “We’re not going to go away. We may not be in the majority, but we’re going to fight just as hard for the things we believe in now as we have before.”
Lott could wrest the title of majority leader from Daschle even before the new Congress convenes in January. But Lott downplayed the chances for major legislative action this month, saying he had a personal aversion to “lame duck” sessions of lawmakers from the current Congress.
Even in the minority, Daschle’s Democrats could wield plenty of clout by using Senate parliamentary rules to fend off legislation they don’t like.
Most major legislative proposals require 60-vote Senate majorities to pass, because minorities exploit the chamber’s arcane rules. That will force Bush and Lott to build coalitions with moderate and conservative Democrats or face defeat.
In the House, where Republicans expanded their majority by at least four seats, Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., announced that he would not seek re-election to his leadership post. He has been contemplating a run for president in 2004. At least two Democrats were positioning themselves Wednesday to run for minority leader.
All across the capital, lobbyists and interest groups assessed the new partisan alignment.
Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, a liberal pressure group, said the new Republican-controlled Congress presented “the greatest threat to many fundamental rights and liberties in decades.”
Neas said he worried that the Senate would acquiesce to Bush on judicial nominations. He noted that it had been eight years and three months since the last Supreme Court vacancy, suggesting it is likely that Bush will nominate one or more justices.
By the end of 2004, judges appointed by Republican presidents will dominate all federal circuit courts, he said. “Needless to say, we are facing an exceptionally challenging situation.”
Business lobbyists saw a brighter future for their favorite causes.
Michael Baroody, executive vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers, predicted that Bush would adopt more business-friendly environmental regulations and Congress could impose limits on asbestos litigation that has long vexed businesses. But he checked his optimism, noting that Senate Democrats still wield enough votes to block controversial bills.
“A major assault (by Congress) in terms of regulation-reform legislation, I don’t know about that,” Baroody cautioned.
Greg Casey, executive director of the Business Industrial Political Action Committee, said Republicans probably would fail if they did not attempt to attract moderate Democrats. “You’ll still have to construct coalitions from both sides,” he said.
Stan Collender, a budget analyst with the public-relations firm Fleishman-Hillard, predicted a tax package next spring that could include some or all of these three areas: permanent extension of the 2001 tax cuts, business tax cuts and investor tax cuts.
Depending on the sweep of the tax-reduction package, it could push the budget deficit into the $200 billion to $300 billion range in 2004-05. The previous record deficit was $290 billion in 1992, but the economy was smaller then.
For pivotal moderate Democrats such as Ben Nelson of Nebraska, next year’s budget projections will determine which legislative initiatives they decide to support.
“I don’t know how you can responsibly say, `This is what the agenda is’until you see what the numbers are,” he said. “You have the war against terrorism and potential war against Iraq. Some accountability on those numbers needs to be taken into account.”
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said that in addition to extending the tax cuts, he wanted Congress to reduce capital-gains taxes to spur the economy. He predicted that Congress also would try to overhaul the tax code and Social Security and enact new immigration legislation, but said those items would be too controversial to pass during the next two years.
“Those are big ones that are starting to break out, but will probably take longer than a two-year time frame,” he said.
Tuesday’s elections did not appear to have repercussions in the Senate’s Democratic leadership. Democrats inside and outside the Senate said Daschle would weather the loss and remain as the chamber’s Democratic leader.
In the House, however, even before Gephardt announced that he would not run for Democratic leader again, Rep. Peter Deutsch, D-Fla., called on him to step down or abandon his presidential ambitions. Deutsch said he talked to a dozen other Democratic House members Wednesday and suspected Gephardt would reach the same conclusion after talking to Democrats. “I think based on his reading, he’ll realize he can’t win.”
Two other high-ranking Democrats, minority vote-getter Nancy Pelosi of California and Caucus Chairman Martin Frost of Texas, have been campaigning among Democratic House members to replace Gephardt, Deutsch said.
