Senate OKs ‘Motor Voter’ Bill, but GOP Makes Point

The Senate, ending a marathon Republican filibuster, approved landmark legislation Wednesday to simplify and liberalize the nation’s voter registration laws.

The so-called “motor voter” bill finally passed, 67 to 32. Approval came after Senate Republicans--in a potent early signal to the Clinton Administration--succeeded in wresting several key concessions from Democrats in return for ending a filibuster that had locked the Senate in a legislative stalemate for nearly two weeks.

As passed by the Senate, the bill would seek to enfranchise millions of new voters by requiring state and local governments to offer voter registration by mail and at disability offices, military recruitment centers and motor vehicle registration offices--the provision for which the bill is named.

But in the major concession Republicans sought, unemployment and welfare offices were dropped from the list of locations where voter registration would be mandatory. As passed, the legislation leaves voter registration at those locations to the discretion of the individual states. The House already has passed a version of the legislation that would permit registration at unemployment and welfare offices.

Both sides claimed to have won most of what they wanted. But it was clear that the Republicans had emerged with a significant victory at the end of a fierce test of partisan wills that ultimately had little to do with the bill itself.

“We proved that, while we may be down, we’re by no means out,” said one GOP strategist, who noted that the Republicans, by maintaining party unity, were able to force the Democrats to stop and compromise on priority legislation that they had expected to steamroll through Congress.

Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) took issue with suggestions that the GOP’s success in forcing significant changes in the bill was a portent of the kind of trouble that Democrats could face over President Clinton’s budget proposals or other major planks in the Democratic agenda this year.

“Different bill, different issue, different circumstances,” he said in dismissing the GOP show of strength.

But party strategists on both sides of the aisle tended to agree privately that the Republicans had scored an important point by using Senate rules to demonstrate that, while the Democrats may now control both Congress and the White House, the minority party can still slow down, or even halt, Democratic initiatives if its views are ignored.

“It’s not that Republicans want to block things,” said a senior Republican leadership aide. “We’re not the guardians of gridlock, but we do want to be players and we do want to be heard.”

The aide added that the filibuster showed “we’re not going to stand for being steamrolled by the Democrats every time on every issue.”

Over the course of a long and bitter debate, Democrats had argued that extending voter registration to unemployment and welfare offices was important for low-income people who may not own cars and who might never come to other offices where the registration forms would be available.

Republicans, however, feared that this was a thinly disguised attempt by Democrats to gain partisan advantage by targeting for registration those lower income groups that might be expected to vote for Democrats.

The Republicans also objected that the bill’s estimated cost--$100 million over five years--was being passed along to local governments that in many cases have little interest in implementing the changes, let alone paying for them.

Mitchell dismissed these concerns as “really pathetic” and characterized the Republicans as “guardians of gridlock” who want to discourage low-income people from voting because they are more likely to vote Democratic.

While the floor debate was charged with impassioned rhetoric, most behind-the-scenes maneuvering centered on several key Republicans, who voted for a similar voter registration bill that President George Bush vetoed last year.

In the end, the pressure fell most heavily on Sen. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.), who last week voted with the Democrats to prevent Republicans from blocking consideration of the bill.

Durenberger, who acknowledged that he was under “enormous pressure from both sides,” later rejoined his party’s ranks in a procedural vote.

When it became clear that Durenberger would not support the Democrats again, they gave the Republicans the more permissive language that they sought on welfare offices.

“It was a choice between this bill or no bill,” conceded Mitchell, who maintained that the Democrats got “90% of what we wanted.”

Other supporters of the bill disagreed. Mary Brooks, a lobbyist with the League of Women Voters, said that the compromise “effectively guts the bill” by “discriminating against poor people.”

She added that supporters would fight to have the original provision restored when the bill goes to conference with the House, which passed the motor voter bill last month.