Senate Committee System in Chaos
Tuesday, January 14, 2003
WASHINGTON — Chaos rules the Senate.
Senate Republicans have been back in power for a week now, which means they're supposed to run the committees and schedule hearings. But new committee chairmen haven't gotten their gavels, new senators haven't gotten their committee assignments and hearings are being rescheduled.
What's missing is an "organizing resolution" that details exactly who reigns over what committee and how much money the majority and minority parties divide up in each committee.
The standoff is causing quite an organizational ruckus on Capitol Hill, and at least 11 new senators are floundering without portfolios.
The hold-up in organization, the result of Democratic clamoring for more funds, forced incoming Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., to postpone a Tuesday hearing on the economy with Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.
It also left Homeland Security Secretary-designate Tom Ridge waiting for confirmation. The administration called off a confirmation hearing for Ridge scheduled for Tuesday because it didn't want the outgoing Government Affairs Committee chairman, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., to preside.
Democrats and the White House repeatedly clashed during the last Congress over whether Ridge is obligated to testify before Congress on his job and the progress being made. President Bush has said Ridge is under no such obligation, since he is not yet a Senate-confirmed Cabinet member.
Democrats charged he has a responsibility to the American people to explain his course of action and where their taxpayer money is going.
Ridge's hearing was rescheduled for Friday after Lieberman and his successor, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, agreed to a plan in which Lieberman would gavel the hearing open and then turn it over to Collins.
Normally, the Senate quickly disposes of the organizing resolution. Traditionally the minority party gets one-third of the committee funds.
But with such a close split between the two parties in Congress this year, Democrats say they're entitled to more than that.
Republicans are pushing to get two-thirds of the total funding for committees, but Democrats say they should be given 45 percent of the funding and resources -- as was done in the last session.
The last Congress kicked off with a 50-50 tie and then-Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., agreed to a near-even split of committee resources. When independent Vermont Sen. James Jeffords left the GOP and power shifted to the Democrats, new Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., agreed to only minor adjustments.
Now, with Republicans holding a narrow majority of 51 seats, Democrats say it's only fair that they get close to half the committee seats and money.
"If it was good for both parties in the last Congress with 51-49, we are simply saying it is good for this Congress," Daschle said.
Democrats insist they have no intention of using the organizing dispute to hold up legislation, including a package of 11 spending bills for fiscal 2003 that the last Congress did not act on. Bush wants the bills on his desk as soon as possible.
But Republicans are pointing the finger at Democrats for using the circumstances as a way to block the White House's agenda.
Emerging from their weekly policy lunch, several Republicans called the Democratic strategy to hold up organization "unprecedented," "outrageous" and "tantamount to a coup."
"This is a routine recognition of who won the election. It is being turned into a leveraging of trying to get their procedural agenda through to try to slow up the nomination process and potentially the legislative process. That is almost incredible. I mean, it's tantamount to an attempted coup right here on the floor of the United States Senate," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said
GOP senators circulated an e-mail supposedly written by a Daschle staffer earlier this month stating that Democrats had leverage over the organizing resolution and little meaningful legislation would move on the Senate floor without an agreement.
"There's some who think that, if they just keep shoving it, that the crisis in our agenda is so important that Sen. Frist will just give in," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., referring to the new Senate majority leader. "I know he's not going to capitulate and give in to this unhistorical way to divide the leadership in this Senate."
Asked about the memo suggesting that Democrats were employing stalling tactics to thwart the GOP agenda, Daschle said, "It is a long-term plans in so long as we're not going to have fairness."
Later in the day, Daschle announced committee assignments for Democrats, but without a resolution it is unlikely any work will get done.
Current funding levels will be in effect until the end of February.
Asked if he would go so far as to characterize it as "tantamount to a coup," Frist hedged but then said: "I'm disappointed ... if that e-mail's in the public record, that you all read the e-mail and make your own decision. ... And if that is the strategy, the gist, the thrust of that memo, and if that is the spirit that as majority leader I have to operate and it's sustained over time, I think America's in big trouble."
Earlier in the day, the fight was taken to the Senate floor, with both sides accusing the other of obstruction.
"I have a suggestion for a three-word resolution: do unto others," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. "Along comes an election, now Republicans are in control, and this fair just approach is now being rejected."
"Some on other side believe lack of success in the last election was not obstructionism but that they were too cooperative," Sessions said. "If that's true, we're in for difficult times ... that's why I'm troubled by this extraordinary delay."
Fox News' Julie Asher and The Associated Press contributed to this report. |
