Senate Vote Ends Security Stalemate
URL:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49749-2002Nov13.html
By Janelle Carter
The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 13, 2002; 4:07 PM
WASHINGTON –– The Senate rejected a Democratic plan Wednesday for combining several agencies into a new Department of Homeland Security, clearing the path for a version President Bush prefers and reflecting the White House's new post-election muscle.
On a largely party-line roll call the Senate voted 50-47 to set aside a Democratic version that became the focus of Republican delay tactics for several weeks before the election. The Senate's newest member, independent Dean Barkley of Minnesota, appointed to serve the last two months of Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone's term after Wellstone was killed in a plane crash, voted with the Republicans.
The White House reached a compromise Tuesday with enough Senate Democrats to fulfill Bush's desire to have the ability to waive civil service rules and provisions in contracts with federal employee unions when he feels it is in the interest of national security.
The Republican-led House planned to pass the new compromise Wednesday night and final action in the Senate was expected later this week or possibly next week.
"This legislation meets our requirements and gives the president the authority and flexibility he needs to protect the America people, and we are hopeful that Congress will get the legislation to him by the holidays," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
The president, assured of passage, turned his attention to fiscal issues. He told a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday that he wants Congress, when it gets around to the budget and spending bills, to resist any temptation to overspend. "We feel strongly we can meet our nation's priorities and be wise with the people's money at the same time," Bush said.
Soon after he spoke, the House voted 270-143 to keep federal agencies open through Jan. 11, a bill necessitated by this year's budget deadlock between Congress and the White House. Only two of the 13 spending bills for the federal fiscal year that started Oct. 1 have become law, and the remainder will have to be revisited by the new Congress next year.
Passage had been held up because of a fight between Bush and Senate Democrats over provisions of the legislation dealing with worker rights. Bush insisted that broad powers were needed to manage the 170,000-employee agency and that he needed relief from some civil service rules covering labor issues.
According to a description of the agreement circulating on Capitol Hill, the bill would take a small step to address complaints by Senate Democrats that the agency's workers would lack sufficient job protection.
It would require the department to negotiate any workplace changes with the employees' union and require federal mediation if no agreement was reached. But in the end, the department could make whatever changes it wanted – the flexibility the president has sought.
"We all want a homeland security bill," Rep. Albert Wynn, D-Md., said as debate began Wednesday afternoon. But Wynn complained that "This is supposed to be a bill about fighting terrorism. Unfortunately this bill puts the administration at war with federal employees."
The agreement came as lawmakers scrambled to complete work in a lame-duck session that followed last week's stunning congressional victories for Republicans, who retained control of the House while taking back the reins of the Senate.
Armed with that power, GOP lawmakers were to elect their leadership teams Wednesday. Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi and House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois will remain the party's top congressional leaders.
Passage of the homeland security legislation would be the first show of Republicans' new congressional power, and it would give a major legislative victory to Bush, who has made its completion a top priority.
"I believe we can get this done. I believe Congress can show the country that they can finish their work on a high note of achievement," Bush said Tuesday after a day of meetings spent prodding congressional leaders to complete the bill.
The measure would combine nearly two dozen federal agencies into a new department. They would include the Coast Guard, Customs Service, the Secret Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and much of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
The Republican-controlled House on July 26 passed a bill creating a department largely along the lines Bush envisioned, but the Senate version stalled as Democrats fought for tougher union rights for the agency's workers.
The latest compromise measure includes language that would allow airline pilots to be armed in cockpits, another proposal that became popular after the Sept. 11 attacks. Initial versions of that plan have already passed the House and Senate, but the two chambers have not finished a compromise bill.
The bill would also allow a one-year delay in the Jan. 1 deadline for airports to screen all luggage for explosives, and let the new agency do business with American companies that move offshore to avoid U.S. taxes if there are national or economic security reasons to do so, congressional aides said.
The bill would drop Senate language that would have established an independent commission to investigate why U.S. authorities failed to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks, congressional aides said.
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The bill is H.R. 5005.
On the Net: Homeland security office: whitehouse.gov
© 2002 The Associated Press |
