A Tougher Strategy Leads to Surprise Bush Victories

Six months after President Bush unleashed a charm offensive on Capitol Hill, his velvet glove has turned into a clenched fist.

When Bush late Thursday eked out one of the most hard-won political victories of his presidency--House approval of a patients’ rights bill he can support--it wasn’t because of giving lawmakers nicknames, horsing around or other hallmarks of his much-vaunted personal charm. He got his way by browbeating a key Republican while sticking resolutely with his threat to veto the Democrat-backed version of the bill.

And when Bush triumphed Wednesday night in persuading the House to pass key elements of his energy plan, including his controversial call to expand oil drilling in Alaska’s wilderness, his winning coalition was built by one of the House’s toughest political operatives, Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

What these much-needed Bush victories have in common is they were much harder to come by than Congress’ early approvals of his tax cut and education bills. “This was heavy lifting and involved a more aggressive approach and more direct presidential involvement,” said Rep. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), a key Bush ally.

Indeed, as Bush has settled into the White House--and confronted more politically volatile issues--his style of dealing with Congress has undergone major changes. “This has been six months of a steep learning curve,” Portman added.

To be sure, the results remain mixed for Bush as Congress prepares to head out for a monthlong summer recess. He has unfurled unambiguous veto threats against legislation that imposes strict safety limits on Mexican trucks in the U.S. and provides more farm assistance than he requested. But the Senate openly defied him this week on both issues.

And while Bush’s two big House victories were good news for his presidency, the bad news is it’s doubtful a smoother path lies ahead. His energy bill faces much tougher sledding in the Democrat-controlled Senate. House Republicans will have to reconcile their patients’ rights bill with a Senate version that sparked Bush’s veto threat. And the fall legislative agenda is littered with issues--including a measure to give the president expanded trade power and appropriation bills that routinely threaten to bust budget constraints--that will continue to test Bush’s ability to put together winning coalitions.

James Thurber, a presidential scholar at Washington’s American University, cautions that this will be especially challenging given the political realities of a closely divided Congress.

“The tax-initiative coalition was very different from the education-initiative coalition,” Thurber noted. “On every issue, he has to start over and build a new one.”

Still, Bush’s ability to avoid embarrassing House defeats on the patients’ rights and energy legislation served as a stark reminder for congressional Democrats that, like other Bush adversaries before them, they underestimate him at their peril.

Stakes Were Huge for President

The stakes for Bush in the week’s House votes were enormous. If he had lost either, it would have dealt a huge blow to his standing just as congressional Republicans were poised to go home and face their constituents.

“We would have gone into August with a terrible message,” Portman said.

Bush also needed a big win in the wake of a series of recent events that have underscored strains in his relationship with Congress--even with members of his own party.

The most obvious was the decision by Sen. James M. Jeffords of Vermont to leave the GOP and become an independent--in part because he thought Bush was leading his party in the wrong direction. Bush sought to change Jeffords’ mind but seemed powerless to stop him, and the defection handed control of the Senate to the Democrats.

That left the Republican-controlled House as Bush’s principal source of strength in Congress. But during much of the late spring and summer, he seemed to be playing a weakened hand there as well.

The House passed Bush’s high-priority initiative to provide federal money to faith-based institutions that provide social services, but only after GOP leaders and the White House labored mightily to put down a rebellion by liberal and moderate Republicans who wanted more antidiscrimination guarantees in the bill.

Bush’s energy and environmental policies seemed especially vulnerable because of a series of House votes that ran counter to his effort to expand energy production. Bipartisan majorities approved amendments to ban drilling on public lands, in the Great Lakes and off the Florida coast.

But when GOP leaders presented their comprehensive energy package this week, the dynamic was different. DeLay poured the resources of his leadership post into pushing the energy bill with a fervor he did not apply to blocking the earlier amendments on drilling bans. He and Bush also benefited from powerful allies in the ranks of organized labor, who supported expanded drilling in Alaska as a source of new jobs.

“It’s a tough coalition to beat: oil and gas, the Republican conference, a president and vice president--and the AFL-CIO,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.).

But Markey said it was a “one-in-a-kind” coalition that Bush would not be able to replicate on other issues.

It was certainly not replicated in the House debate on a bill providing patients with new rights in dealing with their managed health care plans, co-sponsored by Reps. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) and Charlie Norwood (R-Ga.).

In opposing the bill in its original form, Bush seemed on the losing side of the issue. Early and often he threatened a veto, but to prevail he needed to persuade some Republicans who had backed the bipartisan bill to change their position.

Bush’s strategy hinged on the credibility of his threat: Lawmakers had to believe he meant it when he told them that, despite polls showing broad public support for patients’ rights legislation, he would veto a bill not to his liking.

Eventually, his lobbying zeroed in on Norwood, a former dentist whose experiences with health insurance fueled his years-long crusade on the issue. Bush ultimately was able to convince Norwood that ceding to his demands for changes in the bipartisan bill was the only way any form of patients’ rights legislation would become law.

The changes Norwood reluctantly agreed to, which are now in the House-approved bill, would place some restrictions on patients’ ability to sue health plans. The Senate-passed bill does not contain these limits.

As they doggedly wooed Norwood, Bush and his aides essentially abandoned any effort to attract Democrats to their side.

Thus, a key question for Congress when it reconvenes in September is whether Bush will pursue the kind of bipartisan coalition-building that gave him victory on energy or the one-party focus of his strategy on patients’ rights legislation.

He is expected to retain bipartisan support for his education bill, as House and Senate conferees finish work on the final version of the measure. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), emerging from a White House meeting on the bill Thursday, said he did not expect bitterness from the patients’ rights debate to hamper his dealings with the White House on other issues.

Bush Still Must Court Democrats

Bush also will need to build bridges to Democrats if he wants to win legislation giving the president broader power to negotiate trade agreements. House GOP leaders had hoped to bring that bill to a vote before the summer recess, but they pulled it back when it was clear they lacked the votes to pass it. House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) acknowledged that more Democratic votes were needed to make up for the cadre of Republicans who tend to vote against free-trade measures.

“We’re not seeing Democrats step up to the plate” on the issue, Armey said.

Meanwhile, members of both parties could prove nettlesome to the administration as Congress finishes work on the annual appropriation bills that fund the government.

Bush has pledged to veto any spending bill that exceeds strict budget limits that Congress agreed to earlier this year. But chronic pressures to exceed those limits for favored programs or home-state projects will surely test his resolve.

But for now, Republicans are ebullient that they can head home to their constituents on a high note. “We’re proud to say,” DeLay said at a GOP rally Thursday, “Mr. President, mission accomplished!”