11-11-2000

POLITICS: A House Divided

Having survived a costly and grueling fight to stay in power, House
Republicans can perhaps afford to gloat. After all, this is the moment
that GOP congressional leaders have been talking about for years: Their
party controls the House, the Senate, and maybe the White House. In the
meantime, House Democrats could be stuck in the minority for a long time
to come.


Democrats "will face steep electoral challenges in redistricting and
a wave of potential retirements in their ranks," crowed Rep. Tom
Davis of Virginia, the National Republican Congressional Committee
chairman, on the day after the election. "Several House Democrats
have already signaled that they are pondering crossing party lines to join
our ranks, and we will welcome these Democrats with open
arms."


But Davis and his GOP colleagues may soon find that they have little to
celebrate. Although Republicans retain control of the House, Democrats
have eaten into the GOP's already narrow majority and are poised to play a
spoiler role.


Before Election Day, Republicans essentially had a seven-seat advantage.
The exact makeup of the new House is still not known, but Democrats will
shrink that margin by at least one and possibly two seats. At press time,
there were 221 Republicans, 211 Democrats, and two independents (one who
usually votes with the Republicans and one who usually votes with the
Democrats). One race was still too close to call, and several races were
subject to recounts. The magic number for a House majority is 218.


That tiny margin will make it easier for House Democrats to block GOP
initiatives, should they so choose. House Republicans are further
undermined by the marginal nature of their party's Election Day victory in
the Senate. And if George W. Bush is declared President, he certainly
won't have much of a mandate. "The clear signal sent by the American
people is that they are equally divided between the two parties,"
said Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, a political
action committee that helps centrist Democrats.


If Bush is President, House GOP leaders would have to do some
fence-mending. Bush assiduously ignored Republicans on Capitol Hill during
the campaign. He did not stump for congressional Republicans and failed to
even mention them in his speech accepting the GOP nomination in
Philadelphia in August. On his one visit to Capitol Hill this year, Bush
went out of his way to avoid being photographed with key House leaders by
ducking out a side door.


For their part, House Republicans pointedly refused to embrace the
centerpiece of Bush's campaign: his across-the-board tax cut. Bush will
have a tough time selling that tax plan to House Republicans, let alone to
Democrats. Likewise, his proposal to partially privatize the Social
Security trust fund is controversial.


"Frankly, George Bush is going to be put to the test as to whether or
not he can get his own party to come to the table," said Rep. Steny
H. Hoyer, D-Md., a co-chair of the Democratic Steering Committee, who had
hoped to serve as majority whip if Democrats took over the House.


It remains to be seen, moreover, whether the famously
"compassionate" Bush can make peace between the long-feuding
social conservatives and moderates in the House Republican Conference. And
even if Republicans manage to keep the peace amongst themselves, House
Democrats may not play along.


If Gore lands in the White House, House Republicans have shown little
inclination to cooperate with him. "Gore has made clear that he's
going to govern and talk to the left," said former Rep. Bill Paxon,
R-N.Y., a senior adviser at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer, and Feld who works
closely with House Republicans. "And as a result, it will be a much
more contentious time" should Gore win.


A Call to Arms From Gephardt?


On the surface, House Democratic leaders were conciliatory in the wake of
their disappointing showing at the ballot box. "Democrats are
determined to work with Republicans on a bipartisan agenda," said
House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt, D-Mo., on the day after the
election.


But in the same breath, Gephardt delivered what sounded like a call to
arms. "For the third consecutive election, Democrats picked up seats
in the House, we made real gains in the Senate, and Al Gore has won the
popular vote," Gephardt declared. "While the country is
obviously divided in both the vote in the Senate and the House and in the
vote for President ... in my view, this election indicates that the people
do want their unfinished agenda fulfilled."


House Republican leaders will have to do a better job of working with
Democrats if they expect to achieve anything, warned Vic Fazio, a former
House Democrat and now a partner in the law firm of Clark and Weinstock.
"It will be very hard to run the House as long as the strategy of
`doing it ourselves' dominates," he said.


Under former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., Fazio said, House
Republicans were willing to compromise only after legislation had reached
a House-Senate conference committee. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay,
R-Texas, and Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, have "never
deviated from the Gingrich line," Fazio complained.


While House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., is more conciliatory, Fazio
said that the Speaker must attempt to revive the committee system, which
has largely collapsed in recent years because leaders have often crafted
important legislation themselves. "The fear is that Denny will not be
in a position to carry that out," Fazio said.


Another prominent former House Democrat, Lee Hamilton, had a discouraging
prognosis for House Republican leaders. "The big question that
emerges from this election is, can the President and the Congress govern
effectively?" said Hamilton, now director of the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars. "I've always thought that to
govern the House effectively, you need a 30-vote majority."


For the House to operate successfully, Hamilton said, Democratic and
Republican leaders will have to meet on a regular basis. But Hastert and
Gephardt reportedly haven't had a meeting since June. Hamilton, too,
called for a return to the committee system as "one mechanism to
encourage bipartisanship." He added: "The leadership has to set
the tone. A lot depends on Gephardt and Hastert."


Yet the tension between these two leaders is as great as ever. Indeed, the
107th Congress could prove even more chaotic and combustible than the
106th-during which lawmakers had such trouble hashing out a budget deal
with the White House that they will be returning on Nov. 13 for a
lame-duck session.


Early in the morning after the polls closed, Hastert could not resist
taking a dig at Gephardt-even as he claimed he was not being critical.
"I'm not pointing fingers at anyone tonight," Hastert said on
CNN, but continued: "It was pretty evident in the House of
Representatives this year that the strategy of the Democrats was to try to
block everything, to run against us as a `Do-Nothing' Congress. We didn't
let that happen. But it was awful tough to get anything done when that was
the strategy."


A Democratic leadership aide shot back that Hastert has been
"blasting Gephardt personally. It doesn't bode well. [Hastert] didn't
get anything done this year. And he isn't going to get anything done next
year if he keeps this up."


Whoever started it, Democrats appear well positioned to be every bit as
disruptive as Gingrich was during the years before he led Republicans back
to power in 1994. "It's really an ideal setting to be in the
minority," said John J. "Jack" Pitney Jr., an associate
professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. "If you have to
be in the minority in the House, this is the way to do it, by having a
close margin, a President without a mandate, and indeed without a popular
vote plurality."


A Mushy or Solid Middle?


Not that there won't be room for legislative accomplishments in the 107th
Congress. Moderates in both parties insist that the House's narrow margin
has increased their influence. They note that next year's freshman class
will include a disproportionate number of moderates from both sides of the
aisle.


"We've been in the gym training for two or three years," said
Rep. Amo Houghton, R-N.Y., a founder of the Republican Main Street
Partnership, a moderate group. "Now I think we can flex some
muscle."


With such a slim GOP majority in the Senate, Republican moderates will be
warning their leaders against taking issues to the House floor simply to
score political points, said moderate Rep. Michael N. Castle, R-Del.
"The political agenda of doing things [in the House] that never will
get through the Senate or signed by the President has been harmful to
Republicans," Castle said. He added that might mean passing a
"more limited" agenda. "Our concentration is going to be on
what can be achieved."


Conservative Blue Dogs and centrist New Democrats may also be poised to
work with Bush, if he is elected, on such issues as education, health
care, and fast-track trade authority. "There's a tremendous
frustration among many Republicans about not being able to get much done
because of the partisan bitterness and hardened party lines," said
Rep. Charles W. Stenholm, D-Texas, co-chair of the Blue Dogs. "But I
think with the new Administration, you're going to see a change in the
atmosphere [in the House.] There's a desire that I see on the part of many
House members, in both parties, to find some middle ground on a lot of
issues and work together."


Even conservatives in the House are making soothing noises. "By
necessity, we need to focus on issues that keep our moderates on the team
and attract Democratic conservatives," said Rep. Steve Largent,
R-Okla., a member of the House Conservative Action Team, or CATs.
"The goal will be to stay focused on the issues that unite us rather
than divide us," he added, pointing to such issues as "marriage
penalty" tax relief and a repeal of the estate tax.


Another CATs member, Rep. Ernest J. Istook Jr., R-Okla., dismissed
speculation that a Bush White House could lock horns with House
conservatives. Istook said a lot more would be accomplished with Bush than
ever was under Clinton. "Al Gore has said he wants to fight,"
Istook said. "Bush wants to bring people together."


For all the happy talk, though, political analysts are dubious that a
"trifecta" by Republicans would produce a smooth and productive
legislative session next year. "When Republicans were thinking of
unified control, they were thinking of Lyndon Johnson in 1965-big
majorities in the House and the Senate, big capabilities for getting
things done," said Pitney. "This isn't the kind of unified
control they had in mind."


Already, the 2002 election seems to be casting its shadow over the 107th
Congress. Democrats, in particular, appear to be in campaign mode. For
Gephardt, who had staked his reputation on his party's regaining control
of the House, the loss was a bitter blow-particularly since Democrats
appeared at the outset to enjoy several advantages. House Democrats had
far fewer open seats to defend than House Republicans. And polls suggested
that voters trusted Democrats more than Republicans on popular issues such
as education and health care.


But Republicans knocked off two Democratic incumbents, Reps. David Minge
of Minnesota and Sam Gejdenson of Connecticut, and won an unexpectedly
large number of open seats previously held by Democrats. "We did
pretty well in Republican districts, but lost too many of our own,"
said Ed Kilgore, policy director at the Democratic Leadership Council.
"Nobody was predicting that many losses."


Kilgore also faulted some Democrats for failing to emphasize centrist
themes, such as economic growth and prosperity. "This is now our
third straight attempt to take back the House after `94, and we keep
falling short," he said. "You have to ask whether there's
something about the House Democratic message that isn't quite doing
enough."


Despite speculation that Gephardt would step aside in the wake of a House
Democratic loss, Democratic lawmakers insisted that he shoulders no blame
and is here to stay. "I think people are angry and upset that it
didn't work out," Hoyer said. "But I don't think that they think
that Dick Gephardt could have done any more than he did."


Some political analysts also credited GOP leaders for moving to the center
in the election, much as Clinton had done during his political battles
with congressional Republicans. "Republicans knew they were fighting
on Democratic turf, which heartened Democrats," said Marshall
Wittman, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. "What Democrats
didn't expect is that Republicans would so effectively neutralize the
issues by blurring the distinctions."


If House Republicans captured the center on the campaign trail, however,
it remains to be seen whether they can cobble together a governing
coalition. In a topsy-turvy election that produced few decisive results,
House Republicans are a far more chastened bunch than the Gingrich
revolutionaries that stormed to power six years ago. "We talk about
how the electorate wants things done," Wittman said. "But
actually they've given us a formula for gridlock."


Eliza Newlin Carney, David Baumann, and Bill Ghent

National Journal