With Free Parking in Peril, Senate Shifts Out of Neutral : Member’s call to give up reserved airport lots fails as lawmakers rise in passionate defense of the perk.

For years, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has risked pariah status in the Senate by quietly trying to end the decades-old practice of giving members of Congress free, reserved parking privileges at airports near the capital.

On Wednesday, he brought the issue to the Senate floor and endured slings and arrows of protest from some of his colleagues. In the end, his sense-of-the-Senate resolution failed, by a margin of 54 to 43, and even some lawmakers who voted with him breathed a sigh of relief.

As McCain saw it, the special parking lots at nearby National and Dulles airports are “a perfect example of how out of touch the Congress often is with the overwhelming majority of Americans.”

Just as the Senate ended its free health care, free gym privileges and bargain-priced haircuts, McCain argued, it should give up access to the 124 parking spaces at National and 51 places at Dulles that are reserved for members of Congress, the nine Supreme Court justices and scores of diplomats.

The Senate, however, erupted in passionate defense of the parking perk. Sen. John C. Danforth (R-Mo.), for example, described McCain’s proposal as part of a “corrosive cynicism” that disparaged lawmakers’ efforts and actually was “bad for the country.”

Senators work 100-hour weeks, Danforth suggested, and often have to dash from the Capitol to the airport to catch a plane to return home for more weekend work with constituents.

“This does not represent some rip-off of the American people,” added Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-Ill.). “A parking space allows me to do my job. . . . When is this Congress-bashing going to stop?”

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who chairs a Senate appropriations subcommittee on appropriations for the legislative branch, argued that ending the parking privilege would wind up costing the government more money than it would save by renting out the spaces to the public. Lawmakers are entitled to government reimbursement for the cost of parking in public lots or for the cost of transportation to and from airports for trips they make on official business.

“This is a cosmetic change,” Reid contended, while acknowledging that it would take “intestinal fortitude” or just plain guts to vote against McCain.

California’s two Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, voted with McCain.

“It is impossible to explain . . . why elected officials deserve or warrant the special perk of being able to pull into a special parking lot at Dulles or National airport and get free parking at any hour of the day,” Feinstein said in a statement.

In the end, 21 of the 25 senators who are running for reelection this year voted to end the perk. The decisive votes, as it happened, were cast by the eight lawmakers who are leaving the Senate and will not face the voters this fall.

Danforth, one of the three Republicans and five Democrats who won’t return next year, put it succinctly: “I don’t have much to lose--my political days are over.”