A Congress of Milestones Exits

WASHINGTON -- A weary Congress is trudging to the exits knee-deep in unfinished business, ranging from homeland security to health legislation, with partisan tensions almost as taut as when the session began after the disputed 2000 presidential election.

But what may be more remarkable -- and easily obscured by the mountain of stalled bills -- is how much far-reaching legislation this divided Congress managed to produce, almost in spite of itself.

The authorization of a possible war in Iraq is just the most recent example. Significant changes were made in campaign finance laws, corporate accounting standards, trade policy and farm subsidies. In each of those areas, lawmakers passed what amounted to legislative milestones, capping some debates that had lasted years, even decades.

Driving Congress to act in many of those cases was an unpredictable series of events that buffeted and bruised the nation. From the war in Afghanistan to a threat of war with Iraq; from an epidemic of corporate scandals to a spectacular stock market plunge; from recession to drought and wildfires in the West, Congress’ agenda has been set by forces far beyond its control.

But underlying partisan differences became harder and harder to bridge as lawmakers drew closer to an election day that could be a watershed for one party or the other.

The result has been a Congress that has shown flexibility in responding to extraordinary circumstances but little creativity in dealing with more enduring long-term quandaries.

“Congress has been reactive, rather than addressing some long-standing problems, like Social Security and Medicare,” said Burdett Loomis, a professor of political science at the University of Kansas.

This mixed record of accomplishment and impasse is the report card that lawmakers will be taking home to voters as the Nov. 5 elections approach.

But the last chapter of this Congress will not be written until after the elections, when lawmakers return for a lame-duck session. They will have to finish writing the must-pass appropriation bills needed to fund government agencies and programs for the 2003 fiscal year.

Stymied on these basic spending bills and many other issues, House leaders last week sent their members home for the rest of the campaign season. The Senate remains nominally in session, and House leaders say they would reconvene before the elections if there is a breakthrough on a major issue. But many lawmakers believe they have effectively begun their preelection recess, not to return until the week of Nov. 11.

As the focus grows on the elections, each party is blaming the other for impasses on such issues as helping the economy, creating a department of homeland security and providing prescription drug coverage through Medicare.

“I believe that in many respects this was a very disappointing Congress, disappointing in the sense that so much more could have been accomplished,” Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said Friday. He complained about “Republican obstructionism” and laid a good deal of the blame on President Bush. “The president came to Washington promising to change the tone, and he did: It’s worse.”

Republicans, not surprisingly, depict a starkly different dynamic. In a typical comment, Rep. George P. Radanovich (R-Mariposa) said: “Daschle and the Democrats would have had to produce something for us to obstruct, which of course they did not.”

A review of the year’s odd melange of results -- some major bills whizzing through while others languish -- provides a window into how this Congress’ output was shaped by the often-dizzying shifts in political, economic and international developments.

Take, for example, concern about corporate accounting and business scandals. The issue burst onto the political scene early this year, after the collapse of the Enron Corp., whose bankruptcy cost investors -- including company employees -- billions of dollars in pension funds and other savings.

Because Enron officials were well-connected political donors to both parties, the company’s collapse helped propel legislation to ban the national political parties from receiving the unlimited contributions from corporations, unions and wealthy individuals known as “soft money.” Many skeptics thought reformers would forever lose this battle, but in March the soft-money ban became the first major campaign finance law enacted in a generation.

Enron and the subsequent spate of corporate scandals also catapulted to the fore an array of business-related issues that previously had received little attention. The bill that toughened oversight of the accounting industry and increased criminal penalties for corporate fraud cleared Congress in July with head-spinning velocity. It was widely hailed as the most far-reaching corporate reform bill since the Great Depression.

But now, after the Iraq issue dominated Congress for weeks, corporate reform seems to have lost its political sizzle. Pension protection legislation has fallen off the table. Efforts to crack down on offshore tax havens have come to naught.

Through all the vicissitudes of this year in Congress, one trend remained fairly constant: Bush’s dominance of Capitol Hill on issues related to national security. That is a remarkable shift from when he came to office and critics regarded his foreign policy leadership as untested at best, amateurish at worst.

But following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Democrats have been loath to challenge Bush on foreign and defense policies. That reluctance -- coupled with Bush’s aggressive efforts to assert and expand his presidential authority -- has tipped the balance of power toward the White House.

“We have a president who is really asserting presidential powers in a forceful way,” said Catherine Rudder, a professor of public policy at George Mason University. “This is a Congress marked by following presidential leadership” on foreign policy.

The most striking demonstration of Bush’s command came during the debate on Iraq. Many Democrats and Republicans initially expressed serious reservations about Bush’s push to confront Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. But after making only relatively modest concessions, Bush won strong support for the measure authorizing the use of force against Iraq.

One major security issue on which Bush has not gotten his way is his plan to create a homeland security department. Once considered unstoppable, it has stalled in the Senate over Bush’s proposal to scale back civil service protections for employees in the new agency. Labor unions, a core Democratic constituency, are vehemently opposed to the provision.

“The closer you get to the election, legislation loses its value as public policy and gains value as a campaign issue, and there is no better example of that than homeland security,” said Ross K. Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Bush’s failure to triumph -- at least so far -- on the homeland security bill is just one example of the limits of his ability to translate his preeminence in foreign policy into domestic policy victories. Although he won passage of his big tax cut and education reform bills last year, other domestic initiatives have become bogged down this year.

Among the bills expected to die is Bush’s proposal to extend the 1996 welfare reform law. Also stalled is his initiative to expand federal support for social services provided through faith-based institutions. Energy legislation could pass during the lame-duck session, but it would lack the cornerstone of Bush’s proposed policy: expanded oil drilling in part of Alaska’s protected wilderness.

Other bills that have made it through Congress’ political minefield tend to be on issues that do not break along traditional party lines.

That’s part of the reason why Bush was able to win approval of legislation giving him broader authority to negotiate international trade agreements, restoring a presidential power that lapsed in 1994. Trade is an issue that tends to split lawmakers on regional rather than partisan lines, because international economic pressures vary in different areas and industries.

Helping Bush win what President Clinton could not was the argument that the bill was needed to shore up the sagging economy -- and to strengthen his hand abroad at a time when lawmakers were wary of undercutting him on that front.

Bipartisan momentum also was behind the big farm bill -- costing $171 billion over 10 years -- that passed in May. It was a landmark, albeit rued by conservatives and budget watchdogs, because it essentially repealed a 1996 law designed to wean farmers from federal subsidies and make U.S. agriculture more market-oriented.