Political calculus 101

By Robert Novak

April 18, 2007
                    Washington, DC

'Blue Dogs': A piece of accepted wisdom from Election 2006 is that dramatic Democratic success stemmed partly from their openness to running moderate and conservative candidates wherever it made sense. During the campaign, the party's leaders and primary voters evinced a willingness to abandon ideological purity, leading to Senate pickups in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Montana, and a governor's mansion in Arkansas.

                   

1. Nowhere was the non-ideological Democratic strategy more successful than in last year's House races, which saw Democrats add 30 members to their caucus and elect Rep. Nancy Pelosi to the post of House speaker. But a closer look at what has happened in the first three and one-half months of this year's congressional session shows Republicans can rarely expect help from these moderate freshmen on important votes. There are exceptions, but most of the Blue Dogs are proving to be the same kind of "rubber stamps" that they criticized their Republican opponents for being during the 2006 election.
                           
                        
2. All of the freshman Democrats -- the supposed moderates, conservatives and liberals -- voted for the Iraq supplemental that sets a timetable for withdrawal. Even Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-Ariz.), who went to the House floor and expressed "disappointment" in his party leadership, bowed and voted "aye" when pressed. Most of them voted for the $400-billion tax hike in the Democratic budget blueprint, and several supported federal funding on scientific experiments that kill "unwanted" human embryos from fertility clinics.
                           
                        
3. All of the "moderate" freshmen came to the aid of Democratic union allies on the two significant labor votes this Congress. All opposed an amendment by Rep. Richard Baker (R-La.) intended to speed up the stalled reconstruction of the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina by exempting federal contractors from "prevailing wage" laws. They also all backed the "Employee Free Choice Act," which would allow union lobbyists to take over workplaces through a system known as "card check."

   Congress

   Earmark Reform: After claiming the moral high ground on ethics and passing a bill almost unanimously that requires transparency in earmarks, the Senate's Democratic leaders have a political problem. How can they abide by their promises of earmark reform without having to abide by them?

4. Ever since the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska captured the public's imagination last year, Democrats have been on record against legislators' stealthily slipping in their favorite spending projects. But most senators, from both parties, really want to keep earmarks. An ingenious effort to reconcile those conflicting political desires created a remarkable tableau Tuesday in the U.S. Senate.
      
    
5. First-term Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) rose on the Senate floor shortly before noon to ask unanimous consent for immediate enactment of a rule requiring full disclosure of earmarks. But the Democratic leadership was forewarned. Eleven minutes before DeMint took the floor, Robert Byrd's (D-W.Va.) Appropriations Committee tried to pre-empt DeMint by announcing "an unprecedented policy of transparency and accountability." Byrd's reform would have no teeth, no enforcement mechanism to prevent earmarks from slipping through. Moreover, it would not affect any earmarks on direct spending bills, such as water and transportation bills. It would not have prevented the "Bridge to Nowhere."
      
    
6. The fact is, no one had anything except earmarks to lose by adopting DeMint's rule change. Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) objected to passage of the DeMint rule, offering the excuse that the ethics bill would somehow be slowed down if an important item like the DeMint rule were implemented on a piecemeal basis. In fact, senators covet their earmarks and fear passage of a rule change.
      
    
7. DeMint's insertion of the earmark rules into that bill was significant, but it remains useless until a bill actually passes both Houses. The ethics bill passed the Senate with the DeMint rule on January 16. DeMint rejoiced at "the intent on both sides of the aisle to make sure there is more disclosure." But the bill won't reach the House floor until this summer, and there is no guarantee that the earmark provision will survive conference. Meanwhile, a water bill is already moving, and hit has more then 800 earmark projects.
      
    
8. Senators of both parties like to be on record against earmarks while still enjoying them. The problem is that DeMint and his fellow Republican first-termer, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), just won't let the issue rest. Amid thundering silence from the GOP leadership after Durbin's objection, Coburn reminded the Senate that Congress does not have a higher favorable rating than the President. "The reason we don't," he added, "is the very reason we just saw."
      
    
9. The non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) heard a new message from the new masters of Capitol Hill. CRS on February 22 issued a directive that it "will no longer identify earmarks for individual programs, activities, entities, or individuals." That deprives DeMint, Coburn, and other reformers of their primary source of intelligence on earmarks.
      
    
10. DeMint first attempted to bring up his rule change on April 12 under unanimous consent. Freshman Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), on duty for the Democratic leadership, objected. Menendez claimed, reporter John Stanton wrote in the Roll Call newspaper, "that despite numerous news stories and notifications from DeMint that he intended to seek the UC [unanimous consent], Democrats had not been given adequate time to review the proposed amendment." DeMint announced he would try again Tuesday, and he was not alone. Besides Coburn, he was joined by Republican Senators Michael Enzi (Wyo.), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.) and John Cornyn (Tex.). That gang of five might be called the Senate Republican reform caucus.
       
     
11. That leaves the door open for earmarks on authorization bills, like the "Bridge to Nowhere." "So," Coburn told the Senate after Durbin's objection, "we will play the same game but one step further back."
       
     
12. This is no Democrat-vs.-Republican partisan struggle. The word in the Republican cloakroom was that a GOP senator would derail the DeMint rule if the Democrats did not. The Republican leadership is not enthralled with DeMint and Coburn, and would like them to go away. They won't. They are determined to reveal who sponsors and who benefits from earmarks.