He May Be in Minority, but Daschle Has Majority Clout

On the frigid January day when George W. Bush ascended to the presidency, another transition occurred without pomp on Capitol Hill: Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) ended a brief reign as Senate majority leader and Republicans resumed control of the upper house of Congress.

Or did they?

At the time, Daschle’s 17-day stint at the helm was seen as a novelty caused by a quirk in the political calendar. In hindsight, however, it foretold a new dynamic in a Senate evenly split between the parties.

Even though his title is once again minority leader, Daschle frequently is heading majorities that thwart the goals of the Bush administration while advancing those of his own party. Time and again on crucial votes--from campaign finance to bankruptcy reform to the federal budget--Daschle has been able to hold his often-fractious troops in line while picking up enough breakaway Republicans to carry the day.

More tests await as the Senate, reconvening this week after its spring break, takes up an education reform bill and continues to haggle over tax and spending issues.

For now, however, Daschle’s profile has risen so sharply that the 53-year-old onetime Catholic altar boy is widely seen as the Democratic spokesman of post-Clinton Washington.

“His role is larger than the Senate,” said Thomas E. Mann, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution, a centrist think tank based in Washington. “He has become the de facto leader of the Democratic Party--the leader of the opposition.”

Daschle, who represents a state less populous than San Jose, has been thrust into this position more by circumstance than by design.

Perennially described as “soft-spoken,” “low-key” and “unruffled,” he would be viewed mainly as a loyal, influential and liberal-leaning legislator had Al Gore won the White House last year. But politics abhors a vacuum. And now, with Bill Clinton gone, Gore withdrawn and Democrats wondering who will carry their flag in 2004, Daschle’s name has even been drawn into the presidential mix.

He neither encourages nor discourages this chatter. Still, the talk raises his stature.

To be sure, Daschle frequently shares the Capitol Hill spotlight with House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), who is well-known around the country and ran for president himself (in 1988, supported by Daschle as a fellow “prairie populist”). The two coordinate the party’s message and strategy with many other prominent Democrats, several of whom harbor their own presidential ambitions. But the Senate--largely because of its 50-50 partisan split--is this year’s prime political battleground. And Daschle finds himself in the thick of every fight.

The numbers illustrate his legislative success. Roll calls analyzed by The Times show him on the winning side in two of every five of the year’s contested Senate votes; last year, by contrast, his success rate was less than one in four.

Republicans sense the difference. Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) praised Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi for making the best of a tough hand--a majority that rises or falls on GOP unity and the tie-breaking power of Vice President Dick Cheney. However, Gramm acknowledged, “Daschle is an effective leader for the Democrats, getting better from their point of view.”

Daschle, mindful that modesty makes good politics, prefers to downplay his role.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt [Lott] is in large measure the person who calls the shots,” he said in a recent interview. “I think we’re able to influence how those shots are called more frequently, given our numbers. But we still find ourselves on defense rather than offense more than I would like.”

Daschle is a career politician with a middle-American background. He was born in Aberdeen, S.D., the son of an auto-parts store owner. He attended state college on an ROTC scholarship and served three years as an Air Force intelligence officer stationed stateside during the Vietnam War. Politically active while in college, he headed to Washington in 1972 after his military service to work as an aide to one of his home state lawmakers.

Following a familiar career path for many aides, he tried his own hand at elective office, running for the House in 1978. Daschle won by about 100 votes; eight years later, he narrowly defeated a Republican incumbent for the Senate.

He is the father of three grown children by his first wife, from whom he is divorced. His second wife is a lobbyist for the aviation industry.

Although a relative unknown who had never chaired a committee, Daschle began campaigning in 1993 for the job of Senate majority leader, due to open up a year later with the retirement of Sen. George J. Mitchell of Maine. Daschle won, but he took the post under less than auspicious circumstances.

First, the job title had become minority leader after the 1994 elections in which Republicans wrested control of both houses of Congress. Also, Daschle won the leadership contest over a more senior Democrat, Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, by just one vote. And that deciding ballot was cast by a senator, Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado, who afterward jumped to the Republican Party.

Many wondered whether he could command his own party, much less hold his own against a GOP majority then led by veteran Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas. However, Daschle quickly dispelled such doubts; Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), one of the skeptics, said of him in 1996: “. . . I was totally wrong about this young man. He has steel in his spine, despite his reasonable and modest demeanor.”

Other Democratic colleagues say Daschle has retained their loyalty by relentlessly seeking their views and vetting key decisions with all elements of his caucus. It is no accident, they say, that Daschle’s handpicked leadership team spans the party’s ideological spectrum, from centrist Sen. John B. Breaux of Louisiana to liberal Sen. Barbara Boxer of California.

Daschle’s collegial style has been evident in his handling of the party’s main renegade, Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia. Miller noted that after he surprised party leaders in January by publicly embracing Bush’s tax cut plan, Daschle did not retaliate against him. Instead, Daschle asked only for a heads-up the next time Miller decided to bolt. “I have not heard any Democrat grumble about this man’s leadership,” Miller said. “All I’ve heard is praise.”

Daschle’s enhanced position was evident as soon as the Senate convened Jan. 3. That day, he was recognized as the majority leader during the 17-day interlude when Gore was finishing his term as vice president. Soon after, he reached an unprecedented power-sharing arrangement with Lott that gave Democrats and Republicans equal representation on Senate committees.

Initially, it was Lott who scored a string of victories. GOP senators united behind Bush’s Cabinet choices, including the controversial picks of Gale A. Norton as Interior secretary and John Ashcroft as attorney general. Daschle also watched helplessly as six Democrats joined the Republicans to repeal new rules aimed at reducing repetitive-stress injuries.

After that, however, the Democrats gained traction. Daschle and a majority of other party members voted with the Republicans for a bill to tighten bankruptcy rules for individual debtors--but only after the Democrats altered it with a handful of amendments.

He held Democrats together during the prolonged debate on campaign finance reform legislation. The coalition backing the bill written by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) threatened to splinter as Democrats wondered whether the measure would help or hurt them. But Daschle delivered on several gut-check votes to ensure passage of a bill that would ban unlimited “soft money” contributions to political parties.

On the federal budget resolution, Daschle and the Democrats thwarted Bush’s $1.6-trillion, 10-year tax cut plan--at least for now--by obtaining a solid majority vote to slice it to about $1.2 trillion.

Republicans note that with the lower figure, Democrats are backing a far larger tax cut than they were willing to accept only months before.

As the battles accelerate, the extent to which Bush will seek to deal with Daschle remains unclear.

As president-elect, Bush did pay a visit to Daschle’s office in December. At the meeting, Daschle said, Bush told him: “There’s only one thing that I ask you. I hope you never lie to me.” Daschle replied that he had two requests of his own. “I hope you never lie to me, and I hope we each can respect each other’s views.”

At the least, Daschle is making a case for respecting his clout.