Bush Reaps Praise From New York’s Lawmakers

Nearly six months after terrorists attacked New York City, lawmakers lauded President Bush on Thursday for giving the stricken metropolis billions of dollars in aid, and momentum grew for Congress itself to meet there for the first time in more than two centuries.

In effect, it was New York’s day in the nation’s capital.

On Capitol Hill, the House overwhelmingly approved a bill to extend jobless benefits that included $5 billion in tax relief to help rebuild the devastated business district surrounding the former site of the World Trade Center. Senate approval was expected today.

At the White House, Bush announced he would sign the bill and proposed additional aid that would bring the federal commitment to New York-area relief to more than $20 billion, exceeding the promise Bush made in the days following the Sept. 11 attacks.

These developments drew bipartisan cheers from New York’s congressional delegation, including some of the president’s sharpest critics, who gathered with him and city and state officials in the Rose Garden to mark the occasion.

“We’re hoping to have a joint session of Congress in New York,” Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) told Bush. “And perhaps you’ll consider coming up and speaking to such a joint session about America’s commitment to rebuilding New York and America’s commitment to fighting for freedom that you are leading today.”

The president had no immediate reply to the invitation. And plans for Congress to meet in New York, which have been kicking around since October, are still preliminary.

But House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) support the idea of taking the national legislature to the city where the 1st Congress convened in 1789.

Hastert gave the idea a further push Thursday. “There are some functions that probably are appropriate for the Congress to do in New York,” he told reporters. “We are taking a look at that. We have a lot of logistics that we need to take a look at.”

The speaker said security and cost issues would have to be cleared up before a decision can be made. But a majority of House members back the idea. Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) in October introduced a resolution calling on Congress to meet in New York; it has 242 cosponsors.

The 1st Congress met in the city from March 1789 to August 1790. Congress then moved to Philadelphia before settling in Washington in 1800.

Since then, according to Senate associate historian Donald A. Ritchie, Congress has met outside Washington only once. On March 2, 1989, it held a joint meeting in Philadelphia to mark the bicentennial of the 1st Congress.