Also In This Issue Related stories are available to subscribers only: Senate Centrists: NJ profiles 17 moderates · House Moderates: A lost cause? · The Center Of The Senate: Who occupies the ideological middle of the chamber? (PDF) · Under Pressure: Eight senators who could face a tough '06 fight (PDF) Related Resources On NationalJournal.com The Newly Elected: Freshman faces in the 109th Congress · Campaign 2004 Tip Sheets: Coverage from last year's House and Senate races · Congressional Calendar: 109th Congress, First Session · Well-Read Wonk: Reviews of books about Congress · Rules Of The Game: "Slipping Standards For House Ethics" (1/10/05) · Capitol Corridors: "Whither The Old Senate Club?" (9/9/04) · Poll Track: Recent national polling on Congress Additional Resources On The Web Centrist Policy Manifesto from Centrists.org · The Centrist Leadership Model, from the Centrist Coalition · The Leiberman-Snowe Senate Centrist Coalition · Bush’s Bipartisanship, from the centrist Democratic Leadership Council · Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s Speech on Opening 109th Congress · Harry Reid’s Opening Remarks as new Senate Minority Leader

By Kirk Victor, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, Jan. 21, 2005

As President Bush begins his second term and Congress convenes with bigger GOP majorities, conservatives certainly feel like they're on a roll. The president -- after pronouncing in November, "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it" -- is aggressively promoting a remarkably ambitious agenda. And congressional Republican leaders are eager to push it through.

Although Republicans made electoral gains in both chambers, their four additional seats in the Senate, where numerous Bush initiatives have died in the past, are especially precious to them. The new GOP senators are, for the most part, hard-charging true believers who will make the chamber a more hospitable forum for conservative proposals. Many of these tough-minded Republicans assumed the seats of moderate Democrats, meaning the Senate will be even more polarized than it was before.

At first glance, the atmosphere doesn't seem conducive to moderation and bipartisanship. If anything, some Republicans predict that the small group of Senate GOP moderates who have played a pivotal role in some of the big battles on Capitol Hill will now be marginalized.

"I don't think there's any question that on most issues, the influence of people like Lincoln Chafee and Olympia Snowe is going to be dramatically diminished, because they are not the crucial 50th vote any longer," said Stephen Moore, who recently stepped down as president of the Club for Growth, a conservative political action committee that has pilloried GOP moderates, like Sens. Chafee of Rhode Island and Snowe of Maine, as "RINOs" or "Republicans in Name Only."

"Donors who stepped up in such a big way [during the 2004 campaign] ... were motivated in large part by building this majority, precisely so that Lincoln Chafee couldn't keep torpedoing the Republican agenda," Moore added.

Conservatives also hope that the defeat of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., will chasten some Senate Democrats, especially those moderates from red states carried by Bush, into thinking twice before defying the White House on big policy fights. "I just think the issues are going to be viewed a little bit differently in light of the new composition, the new makeup, of the Senate," Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who defeated Daschle, told a small group of reporters earlier this month.

But when moderate Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, does the math in the new Senate, she comes up with a far different result. During a recent interview, Collins pointedly noted that the number of GOP senators -- 55 -- is still five short of the magic number of 60 needed to end Democratic filibusters.

"I think our power is essentially the same as it was in the previous Congress," Collins said. "As long as it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster, the moderates on both sides of the aisle are always going to be in a key position to bridge partisan differences and to help forge compromises on major bills."

And moderate Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., said he suspects that Republican leaders may have even more difficulty now keeping their moderates in line. "The fact that the president is not going to run for re-election would seem to make it less incumbent on Republicans in the Senate and even in the House to toe a strict party line," Carper said in an interview. "If I were a Republican in a second term of my president, I would feel that I could vote my conscience a bit more, and exercise my own judgment and independence a bit more."

In fact, a number of veteran observers of Congress agree that conservative Republicans are exaggerating the implications of the last election if they think their proposals will now coast through the Senate.

"Republican leaders face difficult, knock-down-drag-out battles," said Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "They may rue the day they gained four seats, because it raised everybody's expectations without giving them the number that they need to actually make things happen."

Another expert argued that independent-minded Democrats will not be cowed by Republicans' threats and references to Daschle's defeat. "I don't think that Republicans can bully Democrats who are in red states into submission," said Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. "They will be far more independent and defiant than Republicans may lead you to believe."

As key Bush initiatives reach the Senate floor, leaders on both the Republican and the Democratic side will be exerting intense pressure on their own moderates to vote the party position. The leaders will also be struggling to persuade a few moderates of the other party to cross the line and side with them.

For his part, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., wants to help Bush accomplish his mission of scoring early victories during a "honeymoon" period, before he is perceived as a lame-duck president. And from a personal perspective, Frist -- who has said he will not seek re-election in 2006 and is widely assumed to be preparing for a presidential bid in 2008 -- is also probably looking to satisfy conservative voters in the Republican base, who are crucial in the presidential nominating process.

Meanwhile, new Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., wants to prove that he can keep his caucus unified in his first year as leader. Democratic activists across the country will be looking to him as the last line of defense to stop Bush's agenda and assert Democratic priorities. But Reid will also be mindful that his predecessor was pummeled and ultimately defeated as an "obstructionist."

Between Frist and Reid and other party stalwarts, it'll be hand-to-hand combat over every moderate vote in the Senate, featuring offers of legislative favors and other horse-trading, along with some threats of retaliation against those who consider switching sides. As a result, Senate centrists -- particularly those apt to fence-sitting during key legislative showdowns -- will receive considerable attention from the president and their colleagues, not to mention the news media.

No Ultimatums, Please
Despite the wide-eyed goals some Republicans have espoused since the election, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, warns that no majority party in the Senate can simply ride roughshod over the minority.

"Even if we had 60 Republicans, nothing is going to get done in the Senate unless you have a bipartisan approach," Grassley said in an interview. As Senate Finance Committee chairman, he will be at the center of the battles over reforming Social Security and rewriting the tax code. "The necessity for bipartisanship," Grassley added, "is going to give minority elements in both political parties an opportunity to have a voice."

That's music to the ears of Collins and 10 other senators interviewed for this story, all of whom caution that if the Senate is to make progress on major issues, this is no time for ultimatums and lines in the sand.

Centrist Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., who has parted company with fellow Democrats on several big issues, emphasized that the support of moderates will be "essential" if Bush is to pass his top priorities. "We are going to have to remind ourselves that 'compromise' is not a bad word," Lincoln said in an interview. "Nobody gets 100 percent of what they want out of life, and we should be no different up here."

Lincoln explained that if she decides a bill will help her Arkansas constituents, this calculation outweighs any pleas for her to remain in the party fold. She took such a stance in 2003 on legislation providing Medicare prescription drug benefits. Even as Daschle tried to kill the bill, only to lose by one vote on a parliamentary maneuver, Lincoln supported it because she had negotiated on behalf of rural health care providers and secured benefits that would keep small hospitals open in her state.

"I had been in the debate on that from the very get-go," she said. "It's not like I came up at the last minute and said, 'By the way, I am going to vote for this bill.' " When asked about pressures from Democratic leaders during such high-profile showdowns, Lincoln observed, "Arm-twisting has never been as productive as people think; in the long run, it causes great consternation among the people that get twisted."

Many analysts agree that the only way for Bush to pass one of his signature initiatives for his second term -- allowing workers to invest part of their Social Security taxes in the stock market -- will be for Frist and the White House to win over some swing Democratic senators. Otherwise, Republicans will be disinclined to go out on a limb and support such a major overhaul of the program, fearing that Democrats will use the issue against them in the midterm elections.

Carper, one of the Democrats likely to be wooed by Bush on Social Security, made clear in the interview that he is open to the possibility of supporting reform legislation. But Carper stressed that the chances for success will depend in part on the president's negotiating style.

"If the president takes a 'my-way-or-the-highway' approach, we are not going to get very far," Carper said. "I am not unalterably opposed to private accounts. Having said that, if we end up going down that road, it is imperative that we not add billions of dollars of new debt for this country, and that we not undermine the safety net that's part of the fabric of Social Security."

But even as Carper and several other moderate Democrats have not slammed the door on this high priority of Bush's, Reid has staked out a firm position against it. "I will oppose any privatization to Social Security," Reid said in an interview with National Public Radio last month. "Any privatization to Social Security will be the beginning of the ruination of Social Security."

Frist, meanwhile, will feel intense pressure to keep all Republican senators in line. If he succeeds in pushing Social Security legislation to enactment, he will receive a huge political boost for a future national campaign. "The right wing of the Republican Party is always going to be looking over his shoulder and judging whether he has been naughty or he has been nice," Wittmann said. "Every day, he is being judged by future Santa Clauses of the Republican Party."

But Frist may find privatization a hard sell to several moderate Republicans. For one, Snowe -- the co-chairwoman of the Senate Centrist Coalition, a bipartisan group whose numbers can vary from a dozen to 18 or so on any given issue -- has expressed reservations about a big overhaul of the entitlement program.

"I have concerns about ... private savings accounts and the impact [they will have] on the basic Social Security program that has worked, essentially, extremely well since its creation," Snowe said in an interview. "It is important for people to have a defined benefit. So to alter or disturb that basic guaranteed benefit is a concern."

As Snowe mulls over her position on Social Security reform, she may feel even greater political pressure than usual. That's because she is up for re-election in 2006, in a state that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry carried.

Shaking Off Those Big Sticks
If anybody doubted that Senate moderates had the wherewithal to stick to their guns and not cave to party pressure, those doubts were probably alleviated during the 2003 tax-cut debate. In that case, moderates had quite an impact.

During the spring of 2003, Bush was seeking a tax cut of $726 billion, and House Republicans were happy to go along. But Grassley stunned Washington on April 11, 2003, when he went to the Senate floor to acknowledge that in order to secure sufficient Senate votes to pass the fiscal 2004 budget resolution conference report -- which would set the size of the tax cut to be debated that year -- he had been forced to promise Snowe and fellow moderate Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, that the tax cut would be no greater than $350 billion.

"Unfortunately, there is not now a majority of senators in support of the president's [tax] figure.... As much as I wish it weren't so, that is the political reality," Grassley told his colleagues. "In order to get the necessary support, we made an agreement with Senators Snowe and Voinovich. Let me be clear: Without this agreement, the budget resolution conference report would not pass the Senate today. There would be no budget and no growth package, without our agreement."

Following Grassley's statement, Snowe and Voinovich voted for the budget resolution conference report, which the Senate approved 51-50, with Vice President Dick Cheney casting the tiebreaker. At the end of April of that year, when Congress was about to give final approval to the $350 billion tax bill, Bush himself derided the amount as "itty-bitty."

Last spring, Senate centrists again put their foot down on the tax-cut issue. Four Republican moderates -- Snowe, Collins, Chafee, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. -- joined with Democrats to approve an amendment to the Senate's fiscal 2005 budget resolution reinstating the "pay-as-you-go" rule.

The rule requires that any new tax cuts or entitlement-spending increases be offset -- through either tax hikes or spending reductions -- unless 60 senators agree to waive the rule. Bush and House and Senate Republican leaders do not want "paygo" applied to tax cuts; they argue that doing so could hinder their party's tax-cut agenda. But the demands by the Senate moderates doomed efforts to reach agreement and meant that for only the third time in 30 years, Congress failed to adopt an annual budget resolution.

Collins said she agonized during those budget negotiations, as she felt pressure from the White House and her party's leaders, and hated to disappoint then-Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles, R-Okla., with whom she is close. "It is difficult, because I want to be a team player, and I share many of the same goals as the president and other members of my party," she said in the interview. "But there are some key issues -- environmental issues are obvious ones, such as [the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge], and the need for budget restraint -- where I truly have a different viewpoint."

"I feel bad when I can't support them," Collins added. "The president and the majority leader and others asked me many, many times to please support them. It is very difficult to say no. What I try to do -- in the case of the budget, I kept trying to come up with alternative formulations that would allow the budget to go through and yet allow me to adhere to what I felt was an important principle. I made many offers -- I wasn't public about it -- but I made many offers to Don Nickles ... to try and break the impasse."

Perhaps in response to such displays of his colleagues' independence, Frist recently won new powers that might be used as a stick to try to keep independent-minded GOP senators in line. Late last year, Senate Republicans voted 27-26 to give Frist the authority to make appointments to half of the seats on 12 key Senate committees, known as "A" committees. No longer would such assignments be based strictly on seniority.

Snowe, Collins, McCain, and other moderates were quick to blast the new rule as little more than a thinly disguised disciplinary tool. "What it could portend for the future ... is troubling," Snowe said in the interview. "We have got to have a middle-ground approach on some issues, frankly, I think, to sustain a national majority for the long term." Referring to her 16 years in the House, where leaders frequently flex their wider-ranging disciplinary powers, Snowe added, "I made my objections known [to this change in the Senate] because I saw how this tool and this prerogative can be used."

Even with the additional authority, the Senate majority leader won't be able to keep mavericks in line on major legislation, according to Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "The stick that Frist has is the strong sentiment within his caucus for loyalty, unity, and action," Mann said. "He will try to use the social pressure of the many to hold the few in line. He has gotten some additional powers relating to committee assignments and the rest. But I don't think it will amount to much on high-stakes, high-visibility matters."

Still, conservative Republican activists like Moore hold out hope that the centrists of their party will recognize the need to support Bush's overarching goals.

"I hope they realize that this is a historic opportunity to accomplish some really big things," said Moore, the head of a new group called the Free Enterprise Fund, which will lobby for Social Security reform, permanent repeal of the estate tax, and tort reform. "But I don't know if these tigers are going to change their stripes. Look at Arlen Specter [R-Pa.] -- he is going to be the same old Arlen Specter."

Getting Off On The Wrong Foot?
Recognizing the need to get off to a quick, bipartisan start, Senate Republican leaders have decided to hold early votes on the highway bill, which enjoys wide support, and on legislation limiting class-action lawsuits and reforming the bankruptcy laws, both of which have received some Democratic backing in the past. "We're going to try to build some momentum up, to try to see if we can build relationships and move forward," Senate Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said on Fox News Sunday, on January 16.

Given that effort to create an atmosphere conducive to deal-cutting, a number of Republican and Democratic senators were taken aback by Bush's announcement last month that he was resubmitting 20 judicial nominees whom the Senate did not approve during his first term, including six especially controversial nominees whom Democrats filibustered.

Over the past two years, no issue in the Senate has provoked more acrimony than the Democrats' decision to use the filibuster to kill 10 judicial nominations. Republicans charge that the tactic unconstitutionally deprives presidential nominees of an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. In fact, Frist has signaled that he is considering taking an extraordinary parliamentary step -- dubbed "the nuclear option" -- to bar future filibusters against judicial nominees, although it is not clear that he has the support to succeed. (See NJ feature story, "Bombs Away!" 12/11/04, p. 3668.)

Democrats counter that filibustering -- the right to endlessly debate any issue -- is part of the Senate's very fabric, and they have vowed a fierce response if Republicans resort to the nuclear option. Democrats could refuse to grant "unanimous consent" requests from Republicans to move perfunctory matters, thus requiring time-consuming debates on usually routine business and perhaps bringing the chamber to a halt.

When asked about a possible GOP effort to change the filibuster rule, Snowe said that her party leaders are "just laying down the gauntlet." She said she hoped for "a better way" to reach an accommodation over judicial nominees. "It would be difficult to begin this session by drawing those lines," Snowe said.

Moderate Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who has supported only one Democratic filibuster to block a judge, echoed those sentiments, saying he wished Bush had not started the session in this fashion. "Stylistically, I wish he hadn't [resubmitted the nominees], because I would like to see us have, if there is such a thing, 'a new beginning,' " Nelson said in an interview. "This smacks to some people as just dredging up the past."

Another moderate, Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., agreed. "If I were the Republicans, I would not push that," Pryor said in an interview. "It goes right to the heart of one of the great traditions of the Senate."

Interestingly, Collins does not view Bush's resubmission of his judicial nominees as all that provocative. "The White House did it over the holidays in a way that was not calculated to inflame the Democrats," she said. "It was done quietly, without fanfare. It is not like the president held a special press conference with all the nominees there. I also think it is unrealistic for anyone to expect that the president is not going to stand by his nominees."

At the same time, Collins acknowledged that all bets are off for bipartisanship if Republican leaders pursue the nuclear option.

"It is wrong for the Democrats to block judicial nominees from coming to the floor," she said. "But to change the rules of the Senate and to invoke what they are calling the nuclear option ... would so poison the well that I fear that it would be very difficult for us to tackle those major issues that are coming down the road. For that reason alone, aside from the merits, I hope the majority leader does not decide to go down that road."

Collins' concerns, at least at the moment, seem justified. Frist appears ready for a brawl, and Democrats seem equally poised for a counterattack. Regardless of the outcome of this looming war, its fallout is most likely to produce more partisanship, more acrimony, and more gridlock.

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