Congress’ Brief Legislative Fever Has Broken

Almost nine months after Congress defied its reputation for dithering with a quick response to the Sept. 11 attacks, stalemate is back--with a vengeance.

Major bills affecting energy policy, trade agreements, managed health care, bankruptcy law and anti-terrorism insurance have stalled short of the legislative finish line, with no certainty that a polarized Congress can break the logjams as the November elections near.

As lawmakers return this week from a weeklong recess, the result may be a season of legislative Kabuki theater: a performance that is long on political gestures and short on producing major laws in a Congress narrowly divided between the two parties.

So, for example, Democrats who run the Senate plan action on a bill to crack down on hate crimes, even though the measure is expected to die in the Republican-controlled House. For their part, House GOP leaders plan to push for more tax cuts, despite bleak prospects the plan will gain approval from the Senate.

And while leaders of both parties say they want to create a prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients, few on Capitol Hill think they will bridge differences on key details and produce a law this year.

It’s a far cry from the post-Sept. 11 days of whirlwind legislating, when with uncharacteristic dispatch lawmakers passed major bills to fund military operations in Afghanistan, giving the government new tools to combat terrorism and tighten airport security. That experience with a resolute Congress may mean voters are less tolerant of the gridlock expected to hamper the rest of this session.

“The cat is out of the bag. People saw after Sept. 11 that Congress could, working with the president, get things done,” said David Winston, a GOP pollster. “People now know that the only reason things won’t happen is that partisan interests are taking a higher priority over the people’s interest.”

There is still plenty of time to finish major bills before Congress adjourns, probably in October; lawmakers often wait until the end of a session to strike their deals. But the key question is whether they have the political will to compromise on health, energy and other pending issues--or whether they want to take their differences to the voters.

“Most of these [disputes] are a combination of ... deeply held views and politics, which reinforce each other to push both sides away from an agreement,” said Barbara Sinclair, a professor of political science at UCLA. “I wouldn’t expect this to be a session in which we talk about a lot of landmark legislation.”

Republicans blame Democrats who control the Senate, especially Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, for the backlog. House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas, in a memo to fellow Republicans, said Daschle “epitomizes the phrase ‘do-nothing Democrat.’”

But Daschle is unrepentant. “Some people want to call our refusal to rubber stamp the Republican agenda obstructionism,” he said in a recent speech. “I see it as rejecting failed ideas in the name of real solutions. And I call that progress.”

On one front, Congress has no choice but to act: It has to approve 13 annual appropriation bills to keep the government running after the fiscal year ends Sept. 30.

A core issue in that debate will be funding the war on terrorism and domestic security measures. Indeed, the first issue facing the Senate when it returns today is a bill to provide emergency appropriations for the military operation in Afghanistan and increased homeland security. That measure poses the first test of President Bush’s ability to keep congressional spending within limits in this budget cycle: He has requested $27 billion, the House approved $29 billion and the Senate version would increase the total to $31 billion.

Bush has warned the Senate against producing a budget-busting bill. “The [emergency bill] shouldn’t be viewed as an opportunity to load up ... with special projects,” Bush said last week.

Congress also will have to act quickly on increasing the legal limit on federal borrowing, which the Treasury Department says must be approved by June 28. Some House Republicans don’t want to be on record supporting an increase of the national debt. So GOP leaders are trying to slip the measure into another bill, which would avoid a direct vote on the debt limit hike. Daschle, however, may try to block that maneuver.

Still, everyone agrees the debt limit needs to be raised because inaction would cause an unprecedented default on payments to holders of government bonds.

The fate of other issues is more uncertain.

For example, Bush has urged Congress to renew and strengthen the landmark 1996 welfare reform law. The House has approved such a measure, but it is unclear whether the Senate will act quickly enough for a final compromise to be struck. Senate Democrats remain divided over proposals to make work requirements more strict for welfare recipients.

Both the House and Senate have passed energy bills, but they require a conference committee to resolve their vast differences. The House bill stresses increasing domestic energy production and includes Bush’s controversial proposal to increase oil drilling in Alaska. The Senate version emphasizes conservation measures; an effort to include the Alaska proposal was rejected.

Ultimately, the lawmakers may balk at having any bill at all.

Such an outcome would be “a flinch on both sides,” said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank. “No one wants to make the kinds of strenuous changes needed to promote energy independence.”

A major bill to expand presidential power to negotiate trade agreements also has passed the House and Senate; but again, major differences remain. The Senate included provisions that may thwart a compromise with House Republicans. One would provide new aid to workers who lose their jobs because of international trade; another would give Congress power to alter parts of trade pacts.

On another front, lawmakers are close to agreement on a major overhaul of the bankruptcy code. But negotiations have stalled on a single emotional issue: a provision to crack down on antiabortion activists who file for bankruptcy to dodge fines levied for violent protests clinics. The dispute threatens to sink the entire measure.

Bills addressing other issues face even :

Tax cuts: House Republicans want to speed up implementation of the sweeping 10-year tax cut enacted last year. Democrats have resisted, but the Senate is slated to vote this month on the most popular element of the GOP tax agenda: a push to make permanent repeal of the estate tax.

Health: Both parties support in principle a prescription drug benefit for Medicare beneficiaries. Many House Republicans made it a central theme of town hall meetings they conducted in their districts during last week’s recess. But Republicans have insisted on linking a new drug benefit to broader reform of the Medicare program--a subject about which there is little consensus between the parties.

The principal sticking point involves how much to expand a patient’s right to sue an HMO. Senate Democrats and Bush administration officials have conducted informal negotiations to break the impasse, but months of talks have come to naught.

Cloning: Daschle has promised action on legislation, already passed by the House, to ban human cloning. The Senate will face a choice between two competing approaches. One, backed by Bush and the House, would ban all human cloning. A narrower bill would ban only reproductive cloning. The outcome of this debate is in doubt, and it is not certain whether either approach would have enough support to clear the Senate.