Congressional Chronicle - Advice From the Minority

by Kirk Victor

Sat. Jan. 5, 2008


Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has a reputation for being a tough, shrewd, political strategist. He worked his way up the leadership ladder, including serving twice as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, a post that is all about scoring partisan points, raising money, and recruiting candidates.

So it might be surprising that the Kentucky lawmaker is giving political advice to Democrats. In a December interview after the Senate had wrapped up its business for the year, McConnell provided his take on how Congress can get its approval ratings out of the toilet. Just replicate what lawmakers did in the last two weeks of the session, he said, by pursuing compromises that lead to enactment of legislation.

"If I were Reid and Pelosi, I would be looking for accomplishment next year, not sparring, because I think their whole strategy this year was flawed," McConnell said of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. "The approval ratings of Congress demonstrate it. I think it is bad for them politically to do that."

McConnell ticked off measures that passed in late December, including energy legislation that raised fuel-economy standards but dropped tax increases that Republicans opposed; a "fix" to the alternative minimum tax -- again, minus the tax hikes that Democrats favored to make up revenue lost by the AMT changes; and a budget that did not exceed President Bush's ceiling.

"Maybe they figured out at the end of the year the way you accomplish things and the way you improve the standing of Congress," McConnell added. "I predict [that the ratings] will go up as a result of just the last two weeks and showing cooperation, meeting in the middle, which is the only way you can make law in the Senate."

McConnell said that the Democrats' strategy of forcing repeated votes on Iraq -- 34 in all -- to try to condition funding on a timetable for troop withdrawals or redeployments "didn't change the policy and only changed their image."

What McConnell sees as a recipe for success, many Democrats see as capitulation. The changes they swallowed in the measures that McConnell touted came only after filibusters and threatened vetoes. Reid, the former amateur boxer who seems to long to return to the ring with Bush, complained bitterly at a session with reporters on December 19 that the president draws lines in the sand and does not negotiate. Reid predicted that Republicans' allegiance to that strategy would haunt them on Election Day.

"I hope this last year of his eight-year reign will be one where he will understand -- and, more importantly, the Republican senators will understand -- that they've got to break away from this," Reid said. "He is leading them right over the cliff."

The pugnacious Nevadan rarely has a press conference without referring to the record-setting number of filibusters that Senate Republicans waged in this Congress -- 62. So don't look for him to take McConnell's advice. Indeed, he promised the opposite course. "We're going to have more votes on Iraq. We're going to continue putting our pedal to the metal," he vowed. "We're going to push on this."

Activists contend that despite his pugilistic talk, Reid has failed to take Republicans to the mat. These true believers are infuriated that the minority has used Senate rules requiring 60 votes to end a filibuster to stymie Democrats from effecting the changes they promised during 2006 campaigns.

"Republicans have been getting a free ride, a free pass," Roger Hickey, co-director of the liberal Campaign for America's Future, said in an interview. "Democrats in the Senate have not stood up to" them.

"All [the Republicans] have to do is say that we have 40 votes, and Democrats say, 'OK, we don't have 60 -- we've lost,' " Hickey complained. "Harry Reid ought to be forcing the Republicans to actually do a filibuster. That way the American people would see who's obstructing things."

But Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said that the end to this frustration will come not on the Senate floor but on Election Day. "Republican senators are filibustering themselves out of their seats. This strategy of blockage may make them feel good at the moment, but it's a strategy that will cause them to lose and lose and lose."

One old Senate hand, Republican Trent Lott of Mississippi, who served as both majority leader and whip before retiring last month, has seen this dance before. When asked in an interview to assess the state of play for 2008, he said, "It will be a pretty miserable year in terms of actually trying to get things done.... I just hate being around when we are just beating each other up, all partisan politics, all day. I just don't need that."

 

  •  
  •