Race for the White House inflames Capitol Hill debate
Presidential politics and hot-button issues
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis
Baltimore Sun National Staff
March 8, 2004
WASHINGTON - In the 27 short days that Congress has met this year, lawmakers have found time to vote on fetal rights and gun control. They have held hearings on a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. And they plan to crack down on indecency on television.
The reason for tackling so many hot-button issues so early on? Presidential politics.
The race for the White House is dominating nearly every congressional debate, from discussions on the federal budget to President Bush's call last month for an amendment barring same-sex marriages.
With a light schedule and a short list of must-do work, lawmakers have transformed the congressional agenda into a backdrop for presidential politicking. That has left little room for substantive lawmaking but plenty for partisanship.
It is a familiar dynamic for an election year, when lawmakers try to score points on their candidate's behalf. But the trend is especially striking because John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is a sitting senator.
The trend is not confined to such emotionally charged cultural issues as abortion or gun control, which energize both parties' bases. Republicans and Democrats plan to frame most action this year - on spending bills, tax cuts, legal reform and other items - as part of the fight for the White House.
"The presidential race may play out, in part, on the floor of the United States Senate," said Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican. "It's almost inevitable."
'A paralyzing effect'
Election years are typically some of the least productive on Capitol Hill. Leaders schedule little work and long breaks to give lawmakers, many of whom are campaigning for re-election themselves, lots of face-time with voters back home. Politics - always a subtext for congressional action - becomes an overpowering force.
A presidential election "often has a paralyzing effect on Congress," said Darrell M. West, a political science professor at Brown University. "There are so many partisan controversies that the House and Senate find it almost impossible to act."
When they do, West said, "every major issue Congress is considering is right in the middle of the presidential campaign."
That's true of the budget plan Congress begins considering this week. It will pit Republicans who want to impose spending limits and to make Bush's tax cuts permanent against Democrats who want to increase spending and to reverse the Bush tax cuts, which they blame for swelling the budget deficit.
To push through their budget plan, Republicans have cast Kerry - who says he would repeal most of Bush's tax cuts and spend more on health care and education - in a starring role.
After Kerry's Super Tuesday victories, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, declared that the senator's budget plan "does not add up."
There is even talk among House GOP leaders, aides said, of putting together a "Kerry budget" that they could use to point out flaws in his plan.
"We can't just adjourn for the year and go after John Kerry - we have to govern," said John Feehery, Hastert's spokesman. "But we can, as we govern, point out our differences and the problems with John Kerry's positions."
Republican leaders deny that they are allowing the presidential race to dictate the congressional agenda. Bush's priorities are theirs, they say, and therefore it is logical for them to push legislation that dovetails with the president's campaign message.
"We're going to schedule legislation that we think is important to this country moving forward, and if [Democrats] want to play politics with it, we will respond," said Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.
Still, congressional Republicans are scarcely hesitating to take advantage of the legislative process to drive home Bush's message and to rebut Kerry's.
"It's an open secret that [Kerry is] a U.S. senator, and he will use the floor as a platform for his campaign," said Robert Traynham, a Santorum aide. "We will certainly use the floor to augment the president's agenda as well."
Bush campaign officials have met with Republican aides to plot themes in what Traynham called "an unprecedented level of communication."
Democrats are just as determined to use Capitol Hill to bolster Kerry's campaign.
"Both sides, on every issue, will try to position the votes and the debate so it helps their party's presidential candidate - it's just natural," said Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois. "Every time [Republicans] get close to the economy and jobs, we're going to have some very interesting discussions on the floor."
Democratic congressional aides say they are working to create an "echo chamber" to amplify their candidate's message, by proposing amendments that parallel his policies, conducting news conferences and using the floor to defend Kerry.
Kerry's campaign has tapped Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and Rep. Edward J. Markey, both of Massachusetts, as its point men on Capitol Hill, said Stephanie Cutter, a campaign spokeswoman.
Kennedy set about the task in a vitriolic speech Friday that accused Bush of distorting intelligence information to justify the war in Iraq and said he should be voted out of office.
"No president who misleads the country on the need for war deserves to be re-elected," Kennedy declared.
Jobs and tax breaks
The Democratic echo chamber was hard at work last week as the Senate debated legislation to replace a tax break for exporters that the World Trade Organization has ruled illegal with a new corporate tax break.
Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat, proposed the elimination of a tax break for companies that move factories overseas. That is something Kerry has been proposing as part of his pledge to scrub the tax code of advantages for what he calls "Benedict Arnold companies."
The Democratic leader in the Senate, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, wanted to force companies that plan to move jobs overseas to give employees 30 days' notice - another idea Kerry pitched while campaigning.
The European Union is imposing retaliatory tariffs on a range of U.S. products. It plans to continue doing so - and to keep raising tariffs until Congress drops the tax break.
But debate on the legislation has devolved into a skirmish over which party is to blame for the flow of manufacturing jobs overseas - a central theme of the presidential race so far.
Lobbyists who hope to see legislation considered this year are ruefully aware of the election-year dynamic. Lee Culpepper of the National Restaurant Association is pushing a bill to shield food-makers from liability for people who eat their products and become obese. The House is scheduled to consider the issue this week. But getting the bill on the Senate calendar is a longer shot, Culpepper said.
"Everything's so scripted," he said. "It's like, 'OK, I'll show you mine, you show me yours, we'll please our bases and then we'll move on to the next bill and repeat.'"
At the same time, the presidential race can also spur Congress - filled with lawmakers who face their own re-election battles - to action. Popular items on the agenda include a highway bill that states say is desperately needed and a renewal of the welfare law.
Also up for consideration is an energy bill that is a top priority not only of Bush and congressional Republicans but also of Daschle. The South Dakota Democrat, who is running for re-election, is an advocate of the bill's benefits for producers of corn-based ethanol, many of whom live in his state.
Beyond votes or legislative debates, members of Congress are ready to use their time on the House and Senate floor - televised on C-SPAN - to influence the presidential contest. Republicans took to the Senate floor last week to attack several Democrats, including Kerry, who had said before the Iraq war that they believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction but who now say that Bush misled the nation about the existence of such weapons to justify the war.
"Why did [Kerry] say that then, and why, as a candidate, is he saying the things he is saying today?" asked Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, a Utah Republican.
Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the No. 2 Democrat, put Republicans on notice that his party would fight such criticism.
"We in the Senate are going to do everything within our power to protect our nominee," Reid said. "Anything that is said outside this Capitol or inside this Capitol that reflects upon our nominee, we are going to be on this floor defending him."
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