John Byrne
WASHINGTON -- It began on a quiet Thursday afternoon in May. Fourteen senators from both parties reached across the aisle to form a pact that ensured that a longstanding rule preserving the rights of the minority party – the Democrats – would survive.
That evening, Republican leader Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) took to a nearly empty Senate chamber to denounce the deal. His voice was defiant but tempered with defeat – Republicans would not get an “up or down vote” on their President’s coveted judicial nominees.
In retrospect, the deal likely marked the first crack in the levee of the Republican Congress. Since then, a fissure in Senate Republican discipline – paired with the triple indictment of House Republican mastermind Tom DeLay (R-TX) – has sent the conservative caucus spiraling into increasingly entropic waters.
On Tuesday, two leading Republican senators broke ranks. The first was Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KN), who signaled that he might oppose Harriet Miers, President Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court.
“Her views on the Constitution need to be answered,” Brownback declared.
The second was Senate veteran John Warner (R-VA). Warner openly criticized Frist for stalling the military’s budget bill. For a man known to prefer backdoor channels to bare-knucked politics, the senator’s words rang like an air raid siren through the halls of Congress.
"Sure as I'm standing on this floor right here, we're gonna have that bill up" for debate, the angular 78-year-old senator charged.
And on Wednesday, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) joined in, saying President Bush’s choice for the Court was “clearly not” the most qualified person for the job.
While hardly all-out rebellion, the three senators’ comments may presage unrest to come. As Senate leader, Frist sets the timetable for when legislation is voted on; he is the gatekeeper of the President’s agenda.
Frist has prevented a vote on the military budget because he is certain to lose a battle over an amendment authored by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) which prohibits the Administration from employing torture -- a measure that President Bush has threatened to veto.
The defense bill has passed without fanfare every year for the last forty years. A veto from the President during wartime would set the Republicans’ disagreement in sharp relief.
In the House, the hardnosed Republican leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) has seen his stature erode since December, when the bipartisan House Ethics Committee admonished him for violating House rules. In April, a pair of newspaper articles questioning DeLay’s ethics led the conservative Drudge Report to question the viability of the Texan’s tenure.
DeLay – whose consummate skill finagling votes from undecided congressmembers ensured his swift rise among House Republicans – managed to keep hold of the reins. During a July vote on the Central American trade agreement, the onetime exterminator was the quintessential DeLay, holding the vote open late into the night and cajoling reluctant Republicans to change their vote. The agreement passed, 217-215.
That all changed last Wednesday. Served with an indictment that alleged campaign finance “conspiracy,” DeLay was forced to relinquish his leadership post. An ensuing battle over his successor – pitting the suave handpicked David Dreier against ambitious Missourian Roy Blunt – further demonstrated that DeLay’s reign had come to an abrupt end.
Blunt seems to have only a tenuous hold on his 232-strong caucus.
“The credibility of the House leadership has not been this low since 1998,” a Republican lobbyist told The Hill Thursday, referring to the period that spawned an attempted coup against then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA). Blunt faces a leadership challenge from Ohio Republican John Boehner (R-OH).
Bush’s nomination of his trusted counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court has further illustrated the growing divide in his party. Miers received an “underwhelming” rating from many grassroots conservatives; Brownback is not alone in concerns that Miers may not be the best conservative the President could have selected.
The party is also restive about the budget. Fiscal conservatives are aghast that Bush has presided over the largest increase in government spending in U.S. history. Even the American Conservative Union – on whose board sits Rove ally Grover Norquist – slammed Bush and the Republican Congress for reckless spending in mid-September.
“Conservatives throughout the United States are increasingly losing faith in the President and the Republican Leadership in Congress to adequately prioritize and rein in overall federal spending," ACU chairman David Keene quipped.
Where Democrats have struggled to maintain party unity, it has been the Republicans’ ability to ensure party fealty that drove President Bush’s aggressive legislative agenda through Congress. Like Democrats, Republicans hold a panoply of differing views on social and fiscal issues, but their ability to vote along party lines has given them the mantle of certainty.
What was once a hairline fracture in party cohesion is now a broken bone. Whether Republicans in Congress can reform a disciplined cavalcade behind the party’s agenda and its leadership – as the Democrats did on Social Security – may be the difference between holding onto the presidency and Congress and losing control in the years to come.
And as for the fourteen senators who held together the filibuster and marked the first crack in Republican hegemony: they’re meeting today at 4:30.
Correction: The first edition of this article incorrectly identified Sen. Trent Lott's home state. He is from Mississippi.
WASHINGTON -- It began on a quiet Thursday afternoon in May. Fourteen senators from both parties reached across the aisle to form a pact that ensured that a longstanding rule preserving the rights of the minority party – the Democrats – would survive.
That evening, Republican leader Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) took to a nearly empty Senate chamber to denounce the deal. His voice was defiant but tempered with defeat – Republicans would not get an “up or down vote” on their President’s coveted judicial nominees.
In retrospect, the deal likely marked the first crack in the levee of the Republican Congress. Since then, a fissure in Senate Republican discipline – paired with the triple indictment of House Republican mastermind Tom DeLay (R-TX) – has sent the conservative caucus spiraling into increasingly entropic waters.
On Tuesday, two leading Republican senators broke ranks. The first was Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KN), who signaled that he might oppose Harriet Miers, President Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court.
“Her views on the Constitution need to be answered,” Brownback declared.
The second was Senate veteran John Warner (R-VA). Warner openly criticized Frist for stalling the military’s budget bill. For a man known to prefer backdoor channels to bare-knucked politics, the senator’s words rang like an air raid siren through the halls of Congress.
"Sure as I'm standing on this floor right here, we're gonna have that bill up" for debate, the angular 78-year-old senator charged.
And on Wednesday, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) joined in, saying President Bush’s choice for the Court was “clearly not” the most qualified person for the job.
While hardly all-out rebellion, the three senators’ comments may presage unrest to come. As Senate leader, Frist sets the timetable for when legislation is voted on; he is the gatekeeper of the President’s agenda.
Frist has prevented a vote on the military budget because he is certain to lose a battle over an amendment authored by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) which prohibits the Administration from employing torture -- a measure that President Bush has threatened to veto.
The defense bill has passed without fanfare every year for the last forty years. A veto from the President during wartime would set the Republicans’ disagreement in sharp relief.
In the House, the hardnosed Republican leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) has seen his stature erode since December, when the bipartisan House Ethics Committee admonished him for violating House rules. In April, a pair of newspaper articles questioning DeLay’s ethics led the conservative Drudge Report to question the viability of the Texan’s tenure.
DeLay – whose consummate skill finagling votes from undecided congressmembers ensured his swift rise among House Republicans – managed to keep hold of the reins. During a July vote on the Central American trade agreement, the onetime exterminator was the quintessential DeLay, holding the vote open late into the night and cajoling reluctant Republicans to change their vote. The agreement passed, 217-215.
That all changed last Wednesday. Served with an indictment that alleged campaign finance “conspiracy,” DeLay was forced to relinquish his leadership post. An ensuing battle over his successor – pitting the suave handpicked David Dreier against ambitious Missourian Roy Blunt – further demonstrated that DeLay’s reign had come to an abrupt end.
Blunt seems to have only a tenuous hold on his 232-strong caucus.
“The credibility of the House leadership has not been this low since 1998,” a Republican lobbyist told The Hill Thursday, referring to the period that spawned an attempted coup against then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA). Blunt faces a leadership challenge from Ohio Republican John Boehner (R-OH).
Bush’s nomination of his trusted counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court has further illustrated the growing divide in his party. Miers received an “underwhelming” rating from many grassroots conservatives; Brownback is not alone in concerns that Miers may not be the best conservative the President could have selected.
The party is also restive about the budget. Fiscal conservatives are aghast that Bush has presided over the largest increase in government spending in U.S. history. Even the American Conservative Union – on whose board sits Rove ally Grover Norquist – slammed Bush and the Republican Congress for reckless spending in mid-September.
“Conservatives throughout the United States are increasingly losing faith in the President and the Republican Leadership in Congress to adequately prioritize and rein in overall federal spending," ACU chairman David Keene quipped.
Where Democrats have struggled to maintain party unity, it has been the Republicans’ ability to ensure party fealty that drove President Bush’s aggressive legislative agenda through Congress. Like Democrats, Republicans hold a panoply of differing views on social and fiscal issues, but their ability to vote along party lines has given them the mantle of certainty.
What was once a hairline fracture in party cohesion is now a broken bone. Whether Republicans in Congress can reform a disciplined cavalcade behind the party’s agenda and its leadership – as the Democrats did on Social Security – may be the difference between holding onto the presidency and Congress and losing control in the years to come.
And as for the fourteen senators who held together the filibuster and marked the first crack in Republican hegemony: they’re meeting today at 4:30.
Correction: The first edition of this article incorrectly identified Sen. Trent Lott's home state. He is from Mississippi.
