Copyright 2000 The National Journal, Inc.
The National Journal
May 6, 2000
SECTION: CONGRESS; Pg. 1414; Vol. 32, No. 19
LENGTH: 3352 words
HEADLINE: A
Republican Resurgence
BYLINE: David Baumann
HIGHLIGHT:
House Republicans have newfound
optimism that they will be able
to retain their majority in November.
BODY:
House Republicans kicked off 2000 by
holding a news conference
that was supposed to celebrate their sixth year in
power. But the
event was anything but buoyant. The master of ceremonies,
House
Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts of Oklahoma, touted the
GOP's record even as he was privately debating whether to retire
from
Congress. And when the Republicans tried to play a videotape
highlighting
their accomplishments, they couldn't get the VCR to
work.
The press conference was indicative of the mood among
many
Republicans when the House came into session in January.
With just a
five-seat majority and obstructionist Democrats in
their way, some
Republicans feared that they would not pass much
significant legislation,
would then be branded a "Do-Nothing"
Congress, and as a result would lose
control of the House in the
November elections. Democrats said it looked
like the Republicans
had given up, and a key House GOP leadership aide
conceded, "A
lot of us were tired out."
But over
the past four months, the mood among House
Republicans has improved. They
are more confident that they will
maintain control of the chamber, although
they concede that the
contest will still be very close.
Before they went home for the Easter recess, House
Republicans
went so far as to release a list of their legislative
accomplishments in
2000. They heralded their progress on
protecting the Social Security
surplus, paying down the federal
debt, eliminating the marriage penalty in
the tax code, and
repealing the Social Security earnings limit.
"The world changed," said Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va.,
chairman
of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Added the GOP
leadership aide, "I think you see a much more self-confident
majority."
Republicans are pleased that they passed a budget
resolution by the April 15 statutory deadline. But more
important, they
feel that they have come up with an appealing
legislative agenda this
election year, and they have rallied
around it.
The list includes items that cater to their conservative
base-such as
curbs on abortion and measured tax cuts-even if
they'll be dead on arrival
at the White House. The agenda also
includes items traditionally associated
with the Democrats, such
as providing prescription drug benefits to senior
citizens and
increasing the minimum wage. President Clinton may not
ultimately
sign these GOP-flavored initiatives into law, but at least the
Republicans can say they are moving popular legislation.
"We've paid attention to the fundamentals," said Rep.
J.D.
Hayworth, R-Ariz., referring to steps Republicans have taken
to reform
education; strengthen defense, Medicare, and Social
Security; and provide
prescription drug benefits.
Political developments
outside Congress have also lifted
the spirits of House Republicans. They are
relieved that the
divisive Republican presidential primary battle between
Texas
Gov. George W. Bush and Arizona Sen. John McCain is over, and
that
the candidate whom most of them endorsed is now the
presumptive nominee.
In some generic ballot polls, congressional
Republicans
are faring slightly better than they have in the past. An early-
January poll by Yankelovich Partners found that 46 percent of the
voters
would vote for a Democratic House candidate, and 41
percent would favor a
Republican. A similar poll conducted last
month by CBS News found the
parties tied 40 percent to 40
percent. Other polls have also shown mixed
results.
Most significant, Republicans believe
they've had some
good breaks in a handful of House districts over the past
couple
of months. For instance, the Democrats nominated weak candidates
in a few primaries, and a couple of Republican incumbents who
weighed
retirement, such as Watts, decided against it.
"They
have to gain six seats. The onus is on them, not on
us," Davis said of the
Democrats. "There is no atmosphere out
there that is going to beat our
incumbents. Individual incumbents
beat themselves. Given that environment,
where do they pick up
those six seats?"
Although
this rebound among House Republicans wasn't
fully realized until recently,
it began around the middle of last
year. That was when the can-do, workhorse
mentality of new
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., first started to
gradually
take hold-and when the bad feelings over Clinton's impeachment
and the departure of former Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., started
to
subside. "Clearly, a year and a half has made quite a
difference," said
former Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La., who was in
line to take over for Gingrich
until he quit the House amid
revelations of an extramarital affair.
Livingston, who is now a lobbyist, said that House
Republicans "had every expectation that the American people were
not for
them" after they unsuccessfully tried to convict Clinton
following his
impeachment. But since then, he said, the
Republicans have produced a full
agenda that offsets that
attitude. Likewise, the Republican leadership aide
said that
members can focus on issues, rather than on volatile
personalities. "We're not talking about the foibles of Newt
Gingrich,"
the aide said.
Republicans give significant credit
to Hastert and point
to his resolution of the House Chaplain controversy in
March as
an example. Democrats had complained for months that anti-
Catholic bias played a role in the Republican leaders' selection
of a
Presbyterian for the Chaplain's job. Finally, Hastert made a
somber House
floor speech in which he accused Democrats of crass
political maneuvering
and appointed a Catholic to the post.
"The Chaplain
thing had the chance to take us off the
track, but Hastert has done a
masterful job of putting that to an
end," said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich. Rep.
Ray LaHood, R-Ill.,
called the selection of the Catholic Chaplain the
Speaker's
"finest moment."
In fact, LaHood is
one House Republican who sees plenty
of reasons to feel pretty good these
days. "I think there's a
huge air of confidence that we can stay on the
agenda," he said.
"Democrats have not been able to demonize us. Their
message has
been pretty muted and is void now. They're left without a
message. They've certainly not been able to paint us as a Do-
Nothing
Congress."
The Republican Agenda
House Republicans believe that their
first key decision this year
was splitting up their long-sought tax cuts
into individual
components. They worried that the average voter did not
understand the impact of Clinton's veto of their whopping $ 792
billion
tax cut measure last year. So they decided that they
first would push a tax
bill that sought to eliminate the so-
called marriage penalty.
In doing so, House Republicans gave themselves a
significant, 268-158, floor victory in early February, broke the
tax
issue down into terms that voters could understand, forced a
number of
Democrats to vote with them, and put Clinton in a
position that would be
difficult should the bill ever reach his
desk. A few weeks later, the
Republicans pushed another tax-
related bill through the House-this one with
unanimous support-to
repeal the earnings limit on Social Security
beneficiaries. "The
early tax bills give us a couple of victories that we
can go home
and talk about," said one key House GOP lawmaker.
The earnings limit bill sailed through the Senate. But
the
marriage penalty bill, which Clinton has threatened to veto,
bogged down
there for some time. Despite the Senate procedural
problems, the House GOP
leadership aide said that the House's
early passage of the marriage penalty
bill "kind of gave us more
confidence to do our own thing." Senate rules
usually make it
difficult to handle multiple tax bills in any given year.
Recently, House and Senate Republican leaders decided that they
will
craft two forthcoming tax cut bills under rules that will
limit Senate
debate and amendments.
Although polling suggests
that because of the strong
economy, the public may not be craving a tax cut,
many
Republicans say the issue is important to their conservative
base.
Other bills have been put up for debate on the House floor
because they are
also conservative favorites, even though they
have no chance of becoming
law. Among them: a ban on "partial-
birth" abortion, which the House passed
in early April even
though Clinton has vetoed such legislation several
times.
"It's all symbolic," House Majority Leader
Dick Armey, R-
Texas, said of the House's abortion debate. "If the President
wants to veto that, that's a presidential prerogative. We could
not, in
good conscience, not have this vote. Ninety percent of
our Conference wants
it on the floor."
And if Republicans can capitalize
on divisions between
Democrats while appealing to other elements of the GOP,
so be it.
That will be the case in late May, when the House is scheduled to
consider the granting of permanent normal trade relations status
to
China-a priority of business interests. The House Republican
leadership aide
said that the vote will help Republicans
marginally because "it will lead to
disarray among the Democrats"
and their union allies, who oppose granting
PNTR to China.
Meanwhile, House
Republicans are moving bills that the
Democrats have traditionally claimed
as their own. In the past
few months, the House has passed legislation to
raise the minimum
wage, and Republicans have crafted measures to provide
prescription drug benefits to Medicare recipients and to reform
federal
education aid programs. Republicans have also expressed
interest in breaking
House-Senate conference committee deadlocks
on patients' rights and
juvenile-justice legislation that was
passed last year.
All of these bills are not necessarily written the way
Clinton
and Democratic lawmakers would like them to be. But some
GOP insiders
believe that that flaw is not as important as the
appearance that the
congressional Republican majority is tackling
issues the American public
cares about.
On prescription drugs, House
Republicans were compelled
to rush to unveil their proposal the day they
left town for the
Easter recess-before they had all the specifics nailed
down. The
plan would provide benefits to low-income seniors and encourage
the private sector to keep drug costs low for other seniors.
Democrats
and some interest groups criticized the GOP plan,
saying it does not go far
enough.
Nevertheless, Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif.,
the chairman of
the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, said that
Republicans want to work with Clinton to make sure a prescription
drug
bill wins approval. He said passage of the proposal would
send a signal to
voters that Congress can enact significant
legislation, even during an
election year. "It's the start of a
productive session, when people used to
think we couldn't get
anything done," Thomas said.
House Democrats are unimpressed by the Republicans'
recent agenda
shifts and are still trying to paint their GOP
counterparts as extremists.
"The Republicans have conceded the
middle," declared House Democratic Caucus
Chairman Martin Frost
of Texas. "They have been uncompromising."
Meanwhile, a conservative political action committee
called the Club for Growth has made known its unhappiness with
the GOP
forays into the Democratic arena. Stephen Moore, the
group's president, said
that Republicans lost House seats in 1998
because they caved in to Clinton
on the budget. He warned that if
they do it again, "Republicans could be in
danger of losing the
House." Moore pointedly added: "The Republican
establishment view
is that quantity matters. We believe that quality
matters. We
want to move the Republican Party toward the conservative,
Reaganite agenda."
The Club for Growth caused
quite a stir in March by
deciding to support conservative GOP state
Assemblyman Scott
Garrett in his primary challenge to moderate Rep. Marge
Roukema,
R-N.J. Moderate House Republicans pressed their leadership to
intercede in asking the group not to challenge incumbents. Moore
said
his group is backing Garrett because Roukema is "beatable"
and is an
"anti-growth Republican." He said the only other
incumbent his group may
challenge is Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert,
R-N.Y., another moderate.
Although House Republicans have sought to carefully
lay
the legislative tracks this year, a derailment may be ahead
during
the appropriations season. As the budget surplus continues
to grow,
Republicans continue to be divided between those who
want to spend at least
some of the money, those who want larger
tax cuts, and those who want to pay
down the debt.
"We have to get through the budget
process," said one
Republican House member. "We have to avoid getting stuck
to the
political flypaper. We've done real well because we've kept
ourselves beneath the radar screen. The Democrats are going to do
all
they can to get the flypaper stuck to us."
Because
spending decisions are often made at the 11th
hour before adjournment-and
close to Election Day-they tend to
stick in voters' minds. Republican
leaders are hoping for fast
and easy going on the 13 annual must-pass
appropriations bills,
but conservatives are already complaining that another
Clinton-
dictated spend-a-thon is in sight. "We do not want to be like we
were the last couple of years-spending our way out of
Washington," said
Upton. "The public will see right through
that."
Davis, for his part, is clearly worried that a protracted
GOP blowup
over the spending bills could be politically harmful.
"We're going to work
very hard not to do it," he said. "We've got
a six-seat lead and get very
little help from the Democrats. We
have to work with our conservatives
because we have to pass the
bills."
Office of
Management and Budget Director Jacob "Jack" Lew
has made it clear that
Clinton will not accept the priorities
that the Republicans included in
their budget and will not agree
to bills that do not invest more in
education and other domestic
priorities. "While we believe we can work
together to address
these issues, absent significant improvements to the
appropriations and other bills, the President simply cannot and
will not
sign them," Lew flatly declared during a May 2 speech.
Counting the Seats
Apart from their maneuvering on the legislative front,
Republicans
believe that electoral developments since January
have put them in a good
position to maintain control of the
House. "We're going to lose some, but
they're going to lose
more," Upton said of the Democrats. "There are going
to be a
number of seats that are going to be late-night calls."
For starters, Republicans were pleased that Rep.
Virgil
H. Goode of Virginia quit the Democratic Party and is now an
independent who, for most purposes in the House, is treated as a
Republican.
In addition, Republicans were elated
that Rep. Owen
Pickett, D-Va., decided to retire, because they are certain
they
can pick up his seat. Republicans also believe they can pick up
the
seat being vacated by Rep. Ron Klink, D-Pa., who is running
for the Senate.
That is because the Democratic nominee in Klink's
district, Terry Van Horne,
continues to attract controversy for
allegedly calling a fellow state
legislator "an inner-city
nigger" in 1994.
Moreover, the decisions by Watts and Rep. Amo Houghton,
R-N.Y., not to
retire helped ensure that Republicans will keep
those seats. Republicans
still face a great disadvantage in
retirements because 23 of their members
are calling it quits
compared with seven of the Democrats. But of late they
have seen
the bright side.
Davis considers
several Democrats vulnerable: Reps.
Shelley Berkley of Nevada; Baron Hill of
Indiana; Joseph M.
Hoeffel III of Pennsylvania; Rush Holt of New Jersey; Jay
Inslee
of Washington; James H. Maloney of Connecticut; Dennis Moore of
Kansas; and Michael P. Forbes of New York, who quit the
Republican Party
last year. Still smarting over that party
switch, Davis declared, "If we
can't beat Mike Forbes, we can't
beat anybody."
Democrats will have to pick up seats in California and
Kentucky to win
control of the House, Davis said. He admits to
being worried about Rep.
James E. Rogan, R-Calif., and the seat
being vacated by Rep. Jack Metcalf,
R-Wash.
Republican challengers in key House races
who were
interviewed by National Journal are optimistic. Several said that
although many in Washington, D.C., believe the tax cuts are not a
big
election issue, they actually are back home. In fact, the
challengers
reinforced several of the themes that House
Republicans are emphasizing in
Washington.
In California, Mike Stoker, a Republican
attorney who is
challenging Democratic Rep. Lois Capps, said he believes
that
voters want a tax cut and noted that they are also talking about
debt reduction. He added that voters are demanding prescription
drug
benefits for seniors.
Taxes are also a big issue in
the Washington race of
Republican state Sen. Dan McDonald, who is
challenging Inslee.
"There's no reason in the world why we can't give a tax
reduction," McDonald said. "It wasn't the Congress that created
the
surplus. It was the people." He said that education also
remains huge, and
on this issue, voters simply want the federal
government "to get out of the
way."
House GOP leaders have campaigned for
McDonald, as they
have for most of the other Republican challengers
interviewed.
But McDonald was quick to point out that "doesn't mean that I
agree with everything that Congress does."
Connecticut Republican Mark Nielsen, who made an
unsuccessful bid
against Maloney in 1998 and is trying again,
said that he's "running on a
reform agenda" that includes "a
fairer, flatter tax code." Nielsen, a lawyer
who previously
served in the state legislature, said that voters also want
reform of the Social Security system; his preference would be to
set up
some sort of individual retirement accounts.
In
Nevada, voters are concerned about too much control by
the federal
government, according to Republican state Sen. Jon
Porter, who is
challenging Berkley. He said voters want a tax cut
but do not understand a $
792 billion cut. He said they want it
broken down into terms they understand
and want to know the
direct impact on their lives.
Meanwhile, as they plot their legislative and political
strategies,
House Republicans have not gotten a lot of assistance
from their presumptive
presidential nominee. Bush's political
director, Maria Cino, recently
attended a retreat with House
Republicans to discuss how the Texas governor
might help elect
more House GOP members. But Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., Bush's
key man
on Capitol Hill, said not to expect too much policy coordination
this fall.
"My sense is that there won't be any
agenda
coordination," Blunt, the House deputy majority whip, said in an
interview. "There's a real understanding-in Austin and here-that
we have
different jobs to do. Each side benefits if they do their
jobs well."
House Republicans seem resigned to this fact. One
GOP
lawmaker said Bush is wise to stay far away from the Hill. "He
can't
get too close to us," said this lawmaker. "Congress has
been America's
whipping boy for 200 years." For now, House
Republicans are concentrating on
stifling that tendency.
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