On Hill, Relations Take Turn for Worse

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2003/12/01/on_hill_rel
ations_take_turn_for_worse/

On Hill, relations take turn for worse
By Anne E. Kornblut, Globe Staff, 12/1/2003

WASHINGTON -- After a spate of fierce political tussles, most recently over
Medicare, Democrats are circulating a new line about President Bush: That,
to his credit, he has kept his campaign pledge to "change the tone" in
Washington.

Now, they say, it's worse.

Over the course of more than a year, Republicans have foiled their opponents
on issues large and small, and in ways that Democrats say are unprincipled
if not illegal. The result is an exceptionally bitter atmosphere in the
nation's capital, far from the harmonious world Bush promised as a
candidate, and one that is widely expected to influence the dynamics of next
year's presidential race.

>From chasing down fugitive Democrats in the Texas Legislature when they
tried to flee a vote on redistricting, to calling the Capitol police on
Democrats in the US House, to shutting Democrats out of routine meetings,
Republican leaders in Congress have given their opponents a slew of concrete
incidents to protest. And on a grander scale, Bush has infuriated the
minority party with tough rhetoric and hardball tactics -- starting with his
campaign against former senator Max Cleland, a disabled veteran who lost
reelection last year after Bush's chosen candidate, Saxby Chambliss,
questioned Cleland's commitment to homeland security.

"I thought I'd seen everything, the way the Republicans behaved during the
Clinton years," Representative James McGovern, Democrat of Worcester, said.
"I thought it couldn't get any worse. It is worse."

Former House speaker Thomas S. Foley, a Democrat, agreed on the state of
relations. "I think there is an unfortunate intensity of tensions between
the parties. That's been true for several years," he said. "And if anything,
it has become more severe during the present administration."

Norm Ornstein, politics scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for
Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank in Washington, said: "It
has changed, much for the worse."

There are countless reasons for Democrats and Republicans in Washington to
be at one another's throats: with a shrinking number of swing voters
nationwide, both parties are trying to motivate their most partisan players;
redistricting in many states has created congressional districts that are
either very liberal or very conservative; the Gingrich revolution, followed
by the Clinton impeachment, followed by the Florida recount, followed by the
war in Iraq, have left each side disgusted with the other. And the
much-discussed "culture wars" have driven Democrats and Republicans further
apart, over everything from flag burning to gay marriage.

Republicans insist that if the atmosphere in Washington has worsened, it is
not Bush's fault.

"Bush doesn't do the name-calling Clinton got into, and to the extent that
he's in control of it, Bush calls for civility," said Grover G. Norquist,
head of the conservative group Americans for Tax Reform. But the more
important question, he said, is whether civility is as essential as some
members -- especially in the minority -- would have the public believe.

"The two teams are going to fight really hard because the stakes are higher,
the issues matter, and both sides believe they have a chance to win,"
Norquist said. "We will have civility when one side or the other decides
they don't have a shot at winning, and decides to quit and go home. My vote
is for the Democrats to do that first."

It is not just Republicans who maneuver procedures to their advantage:
Democrats have used the tactic of filibustering in the Senate to block
federal judges nominated by Bush, one of the nastiest struggles in recent
months. Blasting Democrats for their opposition to his nominees earlier this
year, Bush declared a "crisis in the Senate, and therefore a crisis in our
judiciary."

"The obstructionist tactics of a small group of senators are setting a
pattern that threatens judicial independence," Bush said.

But Democrats contend that after making such a big deal of being a "uniter,
not a divider" during the last election -- and given that Republicans are in
control -- Bush should be held accountable for the negative vibe.

"I think it's fair to say that this White House has been a disappointment,"
former Nebraska senator Bob Kerrey, a Democrat, said last week, arguing that
even by the standards of the 1990s, relations between the parties are badly
frayed. "The president promised to be a unifier, but the White House has
been divisive -- not just in its rhetoric, but in its actions."

Republicans mostly dismiss such criticism as the grumblings of a losing
party, and say that the president's legislative victories have been achieved
with support from at least a few Democrats. Members of both parties also
agree that the "tone" was never quite as collegial as congressional veterans
like to recall, despite nostalgic stories of disputes resolved over golf
games and cigars smoked in back rooms. "It's never pretty," said Republican
veteran Sheila Tate, who worked in the Reagan and first Bush
administrations.

At the same time, said Amy Walter, who covers the House for the Cook
Political Report, an independent nonpartisan election newsletter, there is
little precedent for the current makeup of Congress.

"We've never had a House that's this closely divided, so we don't know what
it's supposed to be like," Walter said. In past eras, "it just didn't seem
as dramatic, because you had a 40-seat margin at certain points," making it
easy for the majority to be magnanimous and for the minority to accept
certain defeat.

But it is the manner in which Bush and Republican leaders have used their
majority status that Democrats say irritates them most. On education, the
president worked with Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts to pass the
No Child Left Behind Act and then, critics say, did not fully fund it. The
Medicare bill passed in the House only after Republican leaders held the
roll call open for an unprecedented three hours as they lobbied members to
switch their votes, then closed it before the scales could tip again. On
both issues, Kennedy, once a key administration ally, has complained about
the "hijacking" of two of his signature pieces of legislation.

In a similar vein, senior House Democrat Charles Rangel of New York
frequently protests Republican procedural tactics -- especially after GOP
leaders called the Capitol police to evict Democrats from a meeting in a
House library. More recently, in the Senate Judiciary Committee, an
investigation has been launched to determine whether Republicans leaked
private memos stolen from Democrats' computers; one suspected Republican
staff member was placed on administrative leave last week, and more
suspensions are expected to follow.

On more than one occasion, Democrats have been shut out of negotiations --
as is the Republicans' right, and as they argue Democrats did when they held
the majority. Nonetheless, it is yet another point of contention.
Republicans did not allow any Democrats into the energy conference
negotiations -- a tactic the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
chairman, Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, said was necessary to
get a bill done. Only two Democrats, Senators John B. Breaux of Louisiana
and Max Baucus of Montana, were allowed into conference negotiations over
Medicare.

Representative John Tierney, Democrat of Salem, said Republicans have now
taken the view that they would "rather rule than govern." The exclusion of
so many Democrats automatically means that most minorities in the House are
disenfranchised, he said, since so many Hispanic, black, and female members
are in that party. Republicans, he said, have "excluded them totally from
contributing."

Democrats used parliamentary tactics to get their way when they had the
majority, but never excluded Republicans from conference committees, Tierney
said. Peter Fenn, a Democratic consultant, said the behavior of Republican
officials is nothing less than "duplicitous."

"Think back 10 or 20 years ago -- would you have a conference committee
where one party was completely shut out?" Fenn said. "I think this bodes
very badly for the whole process of compromising and actually getting things
done. This group is truly `my way or the highway.' You can't trust them;
that's part of the problem."



--
--
FAIR USE NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which
has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am
making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of
environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and
social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any
such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so
long as I'm the dictator." - GW Bush 12/18/2000.

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that
we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic
and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
---Theodore Roosevelt

"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of
Iraq."
-- Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz,