Strategy Puts GOP Squarely on Team Bush

President Bush’s back-to-back legislative successes on energy and patients’ rights last week signaled a determination by congressional Republicans to avoid the party divisions that derailed former President Clinton’s first term.

Probably more important than the individual victories was the larger message that House GOP moderates do not intend to consistently provide Democrats enough votes to achieve operational control of the lower chamber--as a series of earlier House decisions rejecting Bush environmental priorities seemed to threaten.

Bush’s dramatic victories on the energy and managed health care bills suggest that House Republicans, at least for now, have decided that, on the biggest issues, hanging together gives them the best chance of maintaining their slim majority in the 2002 elections.

This strategy isn’t without risk for Republicans. It forces members from swing districts to cast votes that could provide tempting targets for their challengers. And it increases the odds that the Republican House and Democratic Senate may simply stalemate on issues such as patients’ rights, reinforcing a dangerous image of Washington gridlock.

But against those dangers, congressional Republicans have appeared more concerned about the prospect of imposing high-profile defeats on Bush. That reverses the calculation made by many congressional Democrats during Clinton’s first two years in office.

Back then, these Democrats looked to minimize their individual exposure by voting against Clinton initiatives they perceived to be unpopular in their districts. The result was a series of legislative crack-ups--on issues from crime to health care--that undermined confidence in the administration and Congress as a whole and triggered the GOP landslide in 1994.

That debacle was precisely what moderate Republicans seemed determined to avoid by accepting Bush administration compromises on issues such as expanded oil drilling in Alaska or limited lawsuits against health maintenance organizations, even though Democratic alternatives might be more popular in their districts.

“These are very important signs that, unlike the Democrats in 1994, everybody in the party knows that our success as a party--and [GOP candidates’] success in their elections--have to do with having a viable, successful Republican presidency,” GOP pollster Bill McInturff said. “That means maintaining the discipline so we do not become a center-left coalition where Democrats and defecting Republicans are controlling the agenda.”

That doesn’t mean Bush is guaranteed lock-step support from moderate Republicans in the House or Senate. Earlier this year, moderates in both chambers repeatedly showed themselves to be willing to cross the White House, particularly concerning environmental issues. And it remains possible that enough House Republicans will sign a special discharge petition to force a floor vote on the campaign finance reform legislation the administration is cool toward.

But operatives in both parties saw last week’s White House victories on energy and patients’ rights as a rude wake-up call for Democratic hopes that they could build enough common cause with House GOP moderates to isolate Bush and narrow his public support.

Since taking control of the Senate in the spring, Democrats have envisioned a legislative two-step on key issues. With their control of the Senate agenda, they could push through Democratic priorities such as a sweeping patients’ bill of rights or an increase in the minimum wage. Then, in the House, they could peel off enough Republican moderates from swing districts to force their ideas to Bush’s desk. That would leave Bush with the dilemma of either signing legislation more liberal than he prefers or vetoing bills with substantial popular support--and potentially alienating swing voters in the process.

But while those opportunities may still intermittently arise--a minimum-wage hike is one possibility--last week’s votes illustrated that Democrats can’t depend on the votes of enough GOP moderates to routinely implement that strategy.

“I think it’s unusual for [the Republican moderates] to take on their leadership, and I don’t think over time they are going to be able to sustain it,” admitted Steve Elmendorf, chief of staff for House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.).

Last week’s votes also suggested that, as the stakes rise for Bush, the inclination of GOP moderates to defect drops. In 1999, with Clinton in the White House, 68 House Republicans voted for the version of managed health care reform that Democrats offered again last week. But in the critical House vote on the issue Thursday, just six Republicans voted against Bush’s proposal to amend the bill to significantly scale back the right to sue health plans.

And while 34 Republicans voted against Bush to bar drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, that was only half the number that opposed him earlier this year to block drilling off the Florida coast, a lower administration priority.

Last week’s events followed near-unanimous support among House Republicans a few days earlier for Bush’s initiative to encourage more government cooperation with faith-based charities--despite initial grumblings about administration-favored language exempting religious organizations from local antidiscrimination statutes.

In different ways, the moderates forced Bush to scale back his plans and move closer to the center on all three of these issues. The administration, for instance, was compelled to limit the area that would be opened for drilling in Alaska and to radically reduce the size of the tax incentives in its faith-based plan. But ultimately the moderates gave Bush the votes to prevent potentially devastating defeats.

Several distinct political and policy factors may have encouraged the GOP solidarity:

* Greater engagement from Bush: White House aides, and Bush himself, lobbied House Republicans much more aggressively than they did on many of the votes the administration lost in the chamber this spring. Just as important, the White House made concessions on the key issues that provided more political cover for the moderates. In essence, the moderates decided to cut their legislative deals inside the GOP rather than negotiate with House Democrats.

* Continuing grass-roots GOP support for Bush: Although his overall job approval ratings have fluctuated, public opinion polls show Bush has enjoyed almost unshakable support from nearly 90% of rank-and-file Republicans. Even GOP lawmakers from swing districts may be reluctant to vote consistently against a Republican president so popular with their own base voters.

* The need to hang together: Clinton’s chaotic first two years bitterly taught congressional Democrats that when a president in your party sinks, he takes down many of those around him. Republicans this week showed a clear willingness to cast votes that might raise eyebrows in their own districts in the hope of creating an image of success for Bush that carries into the 2002 campaigns.

“I don’t think we can afford to get members too dissonant from their districts,” said Rep. Thomas M. Davis (R-Va.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “But basically there is a team spirit in the House that recognizes people . . . can take it out against their representatives” in the midterm elections if they are dissatisfied with Bush.

The big risk in this approach may be that the House has taken positions so disparate from the Senate that stalemate cannot be avoided when members of each chamber meet in committees designed to produce compromise legislation.

As of now, however, most Republicans think that Bush’s ability to prevail in the House will give him a stronger hand to negotiate final versions of these bills--if any emerge--more amenable to the broad range of Republicans.

“There will still be compromises when we walk into the conferences,” Davis acknowledged. “But at least now we have something to talk about.”

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