This is the best "Inside the House" story I have ever read. Good, hardnosed politics by pros.
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House GOP Practices Art Of One-Vote Victories
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 14, 2003; Page A01
The recent House roll call on a bill to provide school vouchers to D.C. parents had lasted more than 30 minutes, but the Republican sponsors were still one vote shy of victory. At the back of the chamber, Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.), Majority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) and other GOP leaders surrounded Rep. Ernie Fletcher (R-Ky.), who had opposed the measure the week before.
Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.) took to the microphone. "Is anyone from the office of the attending physician present?" he deadpanned. "I understand someone's arm is being broken."
Fletcher finally relented, giving his party's leaders the vote they needed for the contentious bill, even if it meant he later would have to explain why he switched positions. Dramatic as the scene was, it was hardly the first time that House leaders have pushed an important measure they knew would pass by a whisker -- if at all.
Bringing legislation to the floor with only the narrowest prospect for victory has become a hallmark of the leadership of Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Time and again, on high-profile bills involving Medicare, education and other programs, Hastert and his lieutenants have calibrated the likely yeas and nays to the thinnest margin possible, enabling them to push legislation as much to their liking as they can in a narrowly divided and bitterly partisan House.
More often than not, that direction is to the political right, and generally in line with President Bush's priorities.
The goal, insiders say, is to start negotiations with the narrowly divided Senate -- which is considerably more moderate than the House -- with a House position that yields as little ground as possible. That makes it more likely that the eventual compromise language will be more to House leaders' liking.
In exchange, these leaders often must cajole or bully GOP moderates, endure Democrats' bitter complaints and wait out nail-biting roll calls. But it is worth it, House leaders say, to fight for legislation that is as conservative and pro-Republican as possible.
"That's one of our guiding tenets: Let's do it our way if we possibly can," said House GOP Conference Chairman Deborah Pryce (Ohio). Voters, she noted, "put a Republican House, Senate and administration in place," so GOP lawmakers should not apologize for scraping for every political inch.
On three recent House votes -- one on Medicare, a second on Head Start funding and a third on D.C. school vouchers -- Republican leaders prevailed by a single vote. They assembled the bare majorities for these bills -- and for several similar measures, party sources say -- first by demanding party loyalty, which makes it difficult for GOP moderates to oppose their more conservative initiatives.
Party unity is vital because the Hastert team virtually always ignores the 205 House Democrats and one independent. It concentrates instead on the pool of 229 Republicans, from which it can lose no more than 11 moderates in order to have a bare majority.
Once they are within striking distance of that goal, the House leaders often turn to one-on-one jawboning and negotiating with a potential vote-switcher such as Fletcher.
The recent voucher and Head Start votes show that House leaders are willing to push their advantage as far as possible rather than accept "the status quo," said Blunt, the House's third-ranking Republican. "That's why it's a one-vote victory rather than an overwhelming victory."
The three recent showdown votes illustrate the leadership's methods.
Prescription Drug Coverage
Earlier this year, the House and Senate were pursuing divergent plans to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. House leaders, however, faced a brewing rebellion within their own caucus: Conservatives were balking at creating a huge new entitlement, and moderates worried that the plan could undermine the Medicare program.
Top Republicans began a large education campaign, providing facts and figures intended to reassure members. When Rep. Max Burns (R-Ga.), president of the freshman class, told Blunt that many first-termers were resisting the plan, Blunt arranged briefings by senior members, including Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), who crafted the bill.
Despite their efforts, House leaders were short of victory as the roll call clock ticked down. They frantically worked the floor, looking for a convert. At one point, Thomas was visibly upset, witnesses said.
In the end, Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) agreed to back the plan if the leadership promised to allow a later vote on reimporting U.S.-made prescription drugs from abroad. The compromise led to a 216 to 215 passage of the Medicare bill, but it eventually proved costly. Emerson and her allies would win on drug reimportation, which Hastert and the White House opposed.
Head Start Funding
In the previous Congress, House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) worked closely with his Democratic counterpart, George Miller (Calif.), to pass Bush's No Child Left Behind law. But this session he has gone it alone, pushing for a revision of other elements in the nation's education system.
This summer, for example, Boehner and Rep. Michael N. Castle (R-Del.) sponsored legislation that would allow states to combine federal Head Start money with their own early childhood education programs. The proposal angered teachers and administrators, making many lawmakers -- including GOP moderates -- uneasy.
Castle and Boehner tinkered with the legislation to address those worries. They scaled back the program to make it a pilot project in eight states, rather than a change applying to all 50 states. They added money for teacher training, which brought along members such as moderate Rep. Jack Quinn (R-N.Y.).
Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.) said party leaders have been better about consulting moderates such as himself before votes, rather than "asking us for a fire extinguisher when the House is burning down."
Again, the issue came down to a final negotiation. This time it involved Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), who asked for an unrelated House hearing concerning radiation exposure at a federal nuclear facility in his home state. The House leaders agreed, and the measure passed, 217 to 216.
"I have fought as hard as I can to get these workers a fair hearing before it's too late," Wamp said.
Whether the division was truly that narrow is unclear. Castle said House Republicans had three yes votes in reserve if they really needed them. And Blunt said later, "You save that member for another day. There's no reason to win by five or six votes if you can figure out how to win by two or three." Or in this case, one.
Vouchers for D.C.
The Sept. 9 vote to appropriate $10 million in private-school vouchers for D.C. students was another cliffhanger. Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.), a moderate with many Democratic-leaning constituents, was loath to vote for a measure strongly opposed by many public school advocates and teachers unions. Three Republican colleagues from safer districts offered to vote yes to get him off the hook.
Still, House leaders were one vote short as time ticked away on the roll call. Fletcher, who had voted against vouchers a week earlier, told leaders he needed a guarantee that the money would go only to children in failing schools. They agreed, Fletcher voted yes, and the bill passed 209 to 208.
"It got the job done," Blunt said.
Chief Deputy Whip Eric I. Cantor (R-Va.) defended such practices when leadership needs a crucial vote. "It's the old saying: You attract more flies with honey than vinegar," he said.
If the House strategy is good for suspenseful votes and animated arm-twisting, it offers nothing but cold shoulders for the House's 205 Democrats. "For my purposes, they're irrelevant," said Amy Steinmann, Blunt's director of floor operations.
This, unsurprisingly, enrages Democrats, including those in the narrowly divided Senate, where Democrats play a much larger role. "The bitter partisanship we've seen in so many battles in the House has undermined the productivity of Congress overall," said Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.).
The Democrats may fume, but there is little doubt that the House leadership strategy makes it harder for them to pull legislation to the political center or left in House-Senate negotiations, said John J. Pitney Jr., a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College in California.
"It means the compromise will be closer to what the Republicans want than the Democrats want," he said.
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