WSJ on the current Congress

[jenk]

When the WSJ gets caustic about a R-controlled Congress, well, life is getting interesting. This is from Albert Hunt's Politics & People column.

The 108th Congress:
A Failure on Every Count
June 24, 2004; Page A17

The criticisms leveled by frustrated minority party members against the congressional majority went well beyond political posturing:

"He's a heavy-handed son of a bitch. . . . He will do anything he can to win at any price. . . . There is no sense of comity left."

"Deliberation, accountability and representation are no longer the distinguishing characteristics for the House. . . . Members are forced to vote on complicated legislation they have never seen."

The House is an ethical cesspool with numerous "crooks" in the majority party.

These all were made more than a decade ago. The first indelicate remark from Dick Cheney, then House GOP whip, talking about Democratic Speaker Jim Wright; the second was David Dreier, currently the House Republican Rules Committee Chairman; and the final was Newt Gingrich, before his own ethical transgressions surfaced.

Congressman Cheney was complaining about Speaker Wright holding a vote open for 10 minutes to muster a majority; the Republican leadership held the Medicare vote open for three hours last November to procure a win. David Dreier's Rules Committee routinely ignores such legislative traditions, denying votes on important measures and bringing bills to the floor sight unseen -- talk about no accountability or deliberation!

As for ethics, a Republican member -- Nick Smith of Michigan -- publicly declared that he'd been bribed during the Medicare deliberations late last year; seven months later nothing has been done. Tom DeLay, the ethically-challenged Republican majority leader, even tried to use a children's charity as a front to entertain fat-cat contributors.

In modern history there have been infamous Congresses, ranging from the "do-nothing" 80th that Harry Truman successfully assailed to the Democratic-controlled 103rd 10 years ago, which paved the way for the Republican takeover of both houses for the first time in 40 years.

But, the current 108th makes these earlier sessions look good. It's a do-nothing Congress, contemptuously arrogant and disdainful of long-established political and parliamentary procedures. The only priority is staying in power; the legislative process is a travesty. "I've never seen it more partisan," says Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.). "We're basically gridlocked on every issue."

The once collegial Senate now more resembles the House, which, as political scientist Nelson Polsby writes, has for a couple decades suffered an "era of ill-feeling." Sen. Bill Frist, a lawmaker of considerable capacity and courage, as majority leader, as one Senate insider notes, has turned into "a piñata -- whoever hits him the hardest wins."

That's usually the right wing, as the Tennessee Republican seems to care more about his future presidential ambitions than the institution he leads. Thus, much of the Senate calendar next month will focus not on the unpassed budget or Iraq, but a constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage.

In his effort to assuage the conservative base, Sen. Frist has practiced influential activist Grover Norquists's view that bipartisanship is akin to "date rape." The Republican and Democratic leaders' offices have a telephone hotline, used frequently when Bob Dole and Trent Lott were GOP leaders and Tom Daschle the Democratic leader; it hasn't rung since Bill Frist took over a year and a half ago.

(Sen. Daschle today will give a speech calling for a "politics of common ground," setting forth the ways to restore civility and bipartisan respect in the Senate next year, no matter who wins the election.)

Substantively, the record of the 108th is scandalous. The budget hasn't been passed (three months past the deadline), an energy bill languishes and the House repasses bills to score political points. On those rare occasions when a bipartisan consensus emerges, the political right -- or the White House -- usually quashes it.

A small, but telling example: The immensely respected chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar, is diligently trying to secure Senate passage of the international Law of the Sea treaty. It has been discussed and debated for more than a decade, is supported by the Departments of State and Defense, and cleared the Lugar panel by a unanimous vote. Yet Sen. Frist and the White House won't even permit a vote for fear of alienating right-wing critics.

If major legislation should clear both houses, the current congressional leaders have found a way to further prostitute the system. There then is supposed to be a conference committee with members of both houses and both parties -- more majority lawmakers than minority -- to reconcile any differences. Now, however, it's not unusual for Democrats to be denied any role in that process.

The other major function of Congress -- oversight -- is a joke in the 108th. With the sole exception of protecting its own political pork -- congressional leaders are a wholly owned subsidiary of the White House, and independent inquiry is viewed as sinister.

Scandals and egregious policy miscalculations are ignored. The administration deliberately misled Congress last year on the cost of the prescription drug benefit, but Congressman Dreier's once prized accountability has vanished. The same with the deceptions on going to war in Iraq; Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner is trying to examine the Abu Ghraib prison tortures, but getting considerable flak from some fellow Republicans.

It would be nice to believe the perpetrators or at least the enablers of this miserable record would face the wrath of voters this November. It also would be wrong.

Redistricting and incumbency prerequisites have taken most of the competition out of congressional races. Fewer than 40 House seats last time were decided by 10 points or less -- the customary indicator of a competitive race -- and not many more than half that number of seats are truly up for grabs this fall.

Someday, however, these members will have to tell their children or grandchildren they were a part of the sorry 108th.