Under the Shadow of War, Congress Declares a Truce

A band of terrorists has achieved in war what President Bush was unable to accomplish in peace: transform the corrosive political bickering that long has dominated Washington into a display of harmony that crosses party lines.

In response to last week’s assault on America, a remarkable truce has been declared between House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.). Virtual strangers who went for years without meeting in private, the two men were so alienated that they even battled over whom to name as House chaplain. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, however, they have conferred every day and formed a powerful alliance to give Bush much of what he has sought to deal with the crisis.

That’s emblematic of how most members of Congress are acting: They are trying to bury their partisan hatchets and close ranks behind Bush, who before the terrorism had little to show for his much-touted bid to change Washington’s tone.

Senate Democrats have backed away from a fight with Bush over his signature national security initiative, a missile defense system. Members of the House Ways and Means Committee, deeply split along party lines for decades, quickly produced a bipartisan bill to provide tax relief for the families of crash victims. And members of both parties gave Bush a rousing bipartisan ovation when he addressed a joint session of Congress Thursday night.

This wave of conciliation reflects, in part, the spirit of patriotism and unity that has swept the country. But for the nation’s political class, it has not been easy. Bipartisanship is extremely hard work for this generation of politicians, who are being asked to break lifetime habits of mistrust and animosity toward members of the opposite party.

Lapses are inevitable. In a recent meeting, House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) revived an ugly, months-old personal dispute. Democrats have accused some Republicans of political profiteering on a national tragedy in pushing for a capital gains tax cut that is beloved by the GOP and anathema to the Democrats.

How long will this political truce last? Clear differences and vigorous debate are sure to surface when, months hence, Congress returns to work on issues of health care and other social programs that dominated much of its agenda before Sept. 11. And in the weeks to come, sharp disputes may emerge over what measures are needed to keep the terrorist attack from devastating the already weak economy.

But for now, lawmakers are struggling mightily to stick together. They are coming to grips with the reality that just as their legislative priorities have abruptly shifted to the center on war and national security, so too must their attitudes toward members of the other party.

“We’re in a new world, and we have to act anew and think anew,” Gephardt said Wednesday after congressional leaders met with Bush.

Earlier this week, Rep. J.C. Watts Jr. (R-Okla.) said, “It would be extremely bad for us to be having our partisan bickering over the protection of the American people.”

Bickering has been practically second nature to most of those currently in Congress. Long gone are the days when many federal legislators were backslapping members of an insiders club, when a Democratic icon like former House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) could be a golfing buddy of the House’s top Republican, former Rep. Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.).

Most of today’s lawmakers cut their political teeth in the 1980s and 1990s, years marked by escalating partisan--and at times personal--battles that increasingly polarized the two parties.

Democrats were angered when then-House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Texas) resigned in 1989 under fire from Republicans, led by Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), then little known. And Republicans were enraged in the late ‘80s when Democrats deep-sixed the nominations of Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court and former Sen. John Tower (R-Texas) to be secretary of Defense.

The antagonism grew after Gingrich rode to power on a fiercely partisan anti-government platform in the mid-’90s. And a tsunami of hostility washed over Washington when Republicans pushed for the impeachment of President Clinton.

Even the notion of politics ending at the water’s edge eroded. The 1991 Persian Gulf War opened deep divisions in Congress; the resolution authorizing the use of force passed the Senate by a mere 52-47 vote.

But the attacks on New York City and the Pentagon were different--a direct hit on U.S. soil that drove members of both parties into one another’s arms, sometimes literally. Among the day’s unusual sights on Capitol Hill was Armey, one of the House’s most conservative members, draping his arm around a leading liberal, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles).

When congressional leaders were whisked away from their offices to a secure location, Watts was squeezed into a helicopter in the unfamiliar company of Gephardt and House Minority Whip David E. Bonior (D-Mich.).

After spending hours together in a bunker, Watts said: “I saw a side of all of us that I probably have never seen before.”

Democrats and Republicans praise Hastert for a willingness to accommodate Democrats and stand up to fellow Republicans during negotiations on the $40-billion emergency funding bill for attack cleanup and national security that Congress quickly passed last week.

When Gephardt told a meeting of House Democrats that they owed a lot to the leadership of Hastert and Byrd--a senator viewed as imperious even by members of his own party--one House member quipped: “You want us to thank Hastert and Byrd? This really must be war!”

In another example of the new coalitions, debate on how much latitude to give Bush in waging war on terrorism found liberal Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.) on the same side as conservative Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.). “It was like Madonna and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing together,” said Eric Ueland, a top aide to Nickles.

Reflecting on Capitol Hill’s new mood, Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento) said: “This doesn’t mean we’re going to be holding hands for six years. Eventually we’re going to have to fight the battle of the 2002 elections and sharpen our differences.”

But he added, “Certainly, now is not the time.”