Copyright 2000 The National Journal, Inc.
The National Journal
View Related Topics
May 27, 2000
SECTION: CONGRESS; Pg. 1680; Vol. 32, No. 22
LENGTH: 1707 words
HEADLINE:
After the China Vote
BYLINE: Richard E. Cohen
BODY:
Rather than joining hands to
celebrate their bipartisan
achievement on the China trade bill, House
members on May 24
immediately headed to separate mega-million-dollar
fund-raising
events where they bashed the other party with election-year
hyperbole. The symbolism was apt.
By all
appearances, the House's stressful and
uncharacteristic abandonment of
partisanship during the vote over
permanently normalizing trade relations
with China will quickly
become a dim memory. Members of both parties have
made clear that
they are eager to return to posturing-as-usual during the
mere 12
weeks of legislative business scheduled before the 106th Congress
shuts down.
To be sure, Republicans and
Democrats vow to press a
heavy workload after the weeklong Memorial Day
recess-including
spending bills, tax cuts, and politically popular proposals
designed to appeal to voters. And the effort to grease the China
deal
has left some residual promises of bipartisan cooperation.
But congressional leaders of both parties, as well as a
lame-duck
President Clinton, face a familiar dilemma in the
politically divided
government: Should they cooperate in the
interest of scoring some legacies
that might also prove useful as
election-year fodder, or would it make more
sense simply to draw
the lines and let the voters decide?
For Republican leaders in charge of the legislative
agenda,
their first inclination was to use the trade vote to hype
what they see as
their party's steadfast commitment to the
nation's business. "Democrats feel
that it's in their best
interests to be obstructionist," said House
Republican Conference
Chairman J.C. Watts of Oklahoma in an interview. "But
(Speaker)
Denny Hastert changes the tone. His only special interest is to
get the House's work done."
As Republicans seek
to regroup for the homestretch drive
to adjournment, tentatively scheduled
for Oct. 6, they will
refocus their priorities on the "three T's" that they
laid out
early this year-taxes, technology, and trade, according to senior
aides. The House's 237-197 vote for PNTR with China, on top
of
final approval earlier this month of legislation to lower trade
barriers with African and Caribbean nations, largely completes
the trade
leg of the Republicans' trifecta.
House Republicans
have been steadily hammering away at
the other two pieces. On tax cuts, they
have scored some
successes with their strategy to shift from last year's
omnibus $792 billion bill to rifle-shot appeals to targeted
constituencies.
They have won Clinton's signature on their bill
to remove the earnings
limitations for Social Security
beneficiaries. The House also passed a bill
to eliminate the tax
code's "marriage penalty," although the measure became
bogged
down in a procedural morass in the Senate.
House Republicans have been churning out a host of other
bills banning
or repealing certain taxes, including a
continuation of the moratorium on
Internet taxes and a phaseout
of the telephone excise tax. In line for
possible action after
the Memorial Day recess are a reduction in inheritance
taxes and
an expansion of retirement incentives.
House Republicans have also made progress with their so-
called
eContract 2000 on technology. Besides the Internet tax
measure, they are
moving legislation to provide additional
immigration visas for high-tech
workers and an "e-signatures"
bill that would set a legal standard for
e-commerce and online
contracts.
As House
Republican leaders and White House operatives
worked to lock in the final
votes on PNTR, House Majority Leader
Dick Armey, R-Texas,
told reporters: "I think this is a great
opportunity for us to work with the
President, and it has been a
good working relationship."
Hastert, in particular, has been trying to find common
legislative ground with the President. Aides reported that
Clinton and
Hastert made progress in recent weeks on several
issues, including the
marriage-penalty measure, health care, and
a proposal to provide community
renewal tax incentives to low-
income neighborhoods.
For many Republicans, their agenda serves a dual purpose
in a campaign
year. It gives them-rather than Democratic leaders-
an opportunity to join
hands with Clinton at bill-signing
ceremonies and to appeal to Republican
stalwarts. In the words of
Hastert spokesman John Feehery, "These proposals
(particularly
the tax cuts) matter to our base," adding: "Democrats will
find
any reason to invite a veto. We will have to work through that."
However, the recent gridlock on the Senate floor
presents
an obstacle that could keep the House-passed bills from even
making it to the White House. The tensions in the Senate
escalated on
May 17, when, following several days of legislative
inaction because of
Democratic demands for gun control votes, the
Senate's two leaders attacked
each other in terms not normally
heard in that chamber.
Senate Democratic leaders have made clear that they will
continue to use their leverage under their chamber's rules to
influence
the scheduling and debate of nearly all issues.
Although Senate leaders from
the two parties reached something of
a truce on May 23 to process dozens of
stalled judicial and
executive branch nominations, Democrats held firm to
their threat
to slow down Senate GOP plans.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-
Alaska, said
in recent days that it is "going to be a very
difficult year" for the 13
must-pass spending bills in the
Senate. "There is a logjam," Stevens said.
"It's totally
partisan. It's wrong." Still, some of the bottlenecks on
appropriations bills have resulted from intra-GOP disputes over
controversial language tacked onto the bills, or from the tight
funding
levels that Republicans approved as part of their budget
resolution in
April.
Republicans hope to evade some of the Senate
Democrats'
delaying tactics this summer by packaging several House-passed
tax cuts into one or two budget-reconciliation bills that would
be
protected by special Senate rules limiting debate.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., has said his
chief
preference for tax legislation is marriage-penalty relief,
but as usual,
House and Senate GOP leaders may not be on the same
page. "The House is the
House. The Senate is the Senate. They
have to do what they have to do," Lott
said.
On other legislation, Lott voiced hope for
final action
on several measures that have been stuck in House-Senate
conference committees for many months, including gun safety
provisions,
reforms of health maintenance organizations, and a
minimum-wage increase.
Although these proposals initially were
pushed chiefly by Democrats, GOP
leaders are under pressure to
move them along-both to respond to political
pressures and to
break the legislative logjam.
But deadlines already have been set and broken on these
and other
bills, and additional election-year complications will
probably ensue. The
minimum-wage hike of $ 1 per hour, for
example, has received less attention
in recent weeks because
labor leaders have been focused on the China bill.
Some health
care insiders contend that the HMO bill may be sacrificed
because
lawmakers believe that voters now favor legislation to provide
prescription drug coverage to Medicare beneficiaries. In other
cases,
bills backed by Clinton have stalled because of objections
by Democratic
lawmakers over Senate procedures.
"The Democrats'
Operation Gridlock is in full effect,"
said Lott spokesman John Czwartacki.
"They are trying to throw
sand in the gears because they are getting
desperate and
frustrated."
For their part,
Democrats hope to reunite their fractured
party and refocus the Washington
agenda after the debilitating
China debate of recent weeks. "We are going to
talk about what we
think is important," said House Democratic Caucus
Chairman Martin
Frost of Texas. "We won't accept half-measures.... The
President
has made clear that he will stick with us on our core issues,"
including health care and education. Although it will take time
to
restore Democratic unity, Frost said, "it's not in anyone's
interest to
elect a Republican President or House."
It may prove
easier to reunite the Democratic Party than
to mend the wounds between
Democrats and organized labor. "The
emphasis here will be on Democratic
unity," said a House
Democratic leadership aide. "I can't say what will
happen with
labor." Democratic insiders noted with dismay the statement by
United Auto Workers President Stephen P. Yokich, which was made
on the
eve of the China PNTR vote, that America's working
families
"have no choice but to actively explore alternatives to
the two major
political parties" in the presidential election.
But
the splits are not solely among the Democrats. Some
congressional
Republicans contend that their leaders ought to
simply move to the sidelines
and applaud the efforts of their
presidential standard-bearer, George W.
Bush, rather than spend
time on legislative minutiae. "Republicans should
talk about tax
cuts for everybody and about Social Security reform," said a
veteran House GOP aide. "We should talk about whatever Bush wants
us to
talk about. He has positioned us so that we can win this
battle."
Most congressional Republicans dismiss calls for a
stand-
pat approach in the closing months of the campaign. Such a
strategy would be counterproductive, a House GOP leadership aide
said.
"That would force George Bush to run away from a 'Do-
Nothing' Congress,"
said the aide. "Instead, we have shown an
ability for him to embrace us."
For Republicans, as well as Democrats, the hope is
that
this year's legislative endgame will be a precursor not only of
the
election, but also of the still-unpredictable legislative
scenario for next
year.
LOAD-DATE: May 29, 2000
