Partisan Wrangling Stalls House Anti-Terrorism Bill

The House ground to a halt Thursday in a partisan standoff that underscored how thoroughly Congress has been pulled into the political riptide of the fall elections.

The crosscurrents have made it increasingly difficult for lawmakers to deal with legislation--even the routine, popular bill the House has been discussing this week that would finance anti-terrorism efforts and the military operation in Afghanistan.

House approval of the bill was delayed, probably until early today, because of political maneuvering by both sides on matters that have little to do with fighting terrorism.

Democrats forced a raucous debate on an issue they want to put squarely before the voters this November: GOP tax and fiscal policies.

Deriding those policies as irresponsible and reckless, the Democrats spent hours criticizing a GOP-backed provision slipped into the spending bill that would clear the way for increasing the legal limit on federal borrowing--without Congress taking a direct vote.

Democrats attacked that as a GOP evasion of the consequences of last year’s big tax cut.

“When it comes time to pay the bills for that tax cut, you don’t want to be seen, you don’t want to have a vote,” said House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.).

GOP leaders brought a political agenda of their own to the debate: They laced the spending bill with provisions targeted to help vulnerable Republicans facing reelection. This included the debt-limit maneuver that would shield lawmakers from casting a politically risky vote to increase government borrowing.

The two sides battled throughout Thursday as Democrats sought--ultimately without success--to force a vote on the debt-limit increase.

The emergency spending bill, expected to clear Congress eventually with broad bipartisan support, is one of many issues that have been stalled or slowed in the increasingly polarized Congress.

A full year since President Bush asked Congress to pass an energy bill, differences on the legislation are far from being resolved. Efforts to craft a compromise bill to impose new regulations on health maintenance organizations have languished. And Congress is so polarized over fiscal issues that it is unlikely to adopt a budget resolution that sets the parameters for spending.

Each side blames the other for self-serving intransigence.

“The Republican majority [in the House] views everything as, ‘My way or the highway,’” Gephardt said. “They are unwilling to really have an honest compromise on major issues.”

Republicans return the complaint. “The Democrats feel no obligation to govern, just gripe,” said House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas). “We must not let our work be undermined by those intent on putting politics before people.”

The bill before the House on Thursday would provide $29 billion for defense and homeland security initiatives, mostly in response to the attacks of Sept. 11. There was little dispute about these core provisions.

But slowing the measure’s progress was the wrangling over the national debt.

The Bush administration months ago asked Congress to approve legislation raising the $5.95-trillion statutory limit on government borrowing. That is necessary because, as a result of last year’s tax cut, the recession and spending increases spurred by the Sept. 11 attacks, the federal budget is running a deficit and the government must borrow more than was expected when the current debt ceiling was set.

The Treasury Department has told Congress the debt-limit increase must pass by June 28, or else there would be an unprecedented default on payments to holders of government bonds.

But House Republican leaders say they don’t have the votes to pass an increase.

Many of the party’s fiscally conservative members are loath to vote for more government debts.

The provision slipped into the emergency spending bill is designed to sidestep the need for a separate roll call on the debt limit. It clears the way procedurally for a debt-limit increase to be added to the bill when House and Senate negotiators write the final version of the bill.

Democrats tried to block that maneuver but were defeated on a largely party-line vote, 213 to 203. Still, they continued to delay a final vote on the bill by offering a barrage of amendments and speeches.

Late Thursday, Republicans laid plans for using parliamentary procedures to force an end to debate and set the stage for final passage early today.

That would clear the way for the House to begin a weeklong Memorial Day recess.

House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-San Dimas) said the labored progress of the emergency spending bill does not bode well for the rest of this session of Congress, during which lawmakers must pass 13 appropriation bills to fund the government for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.

“This is just the beginning,” Dreier said. “We have 13 bills to go.”