Workload Is Backing Up in Congress

Congress returns today to a backlog of major issues--including U.S. policy toward Iraq, homeland security and the federal budget--a pile of unfinished business so vast that many lawmakers are resigned to holding a lame-duck session after the November elections.

The crushing workload has twin sources: partisan tensions that have slowed basic budget decisions, and bipartisan determination to tackle such time-consuming initiatives as creating a vast new Department of Homeland Security.

What’s more, Congress immediately will be drawn into an escalating debate about whether to go to war with Iraq--an issue that has been catapulted to new prominence during the month Congress has been on summer recess.

Campaigns Come First

Many crucial decisions may be put off until after election day because congressional leaders are eager to send vulnerable incumbents home to campaign in races that could determine which party controls the House and the Senate next year.

Even if final decisions are deferred, debate in Congress over the coming weeks will influence which of two sets of issues are foremost in voters’ minds when they go to the polls Nov. 5: concerns about the economy and corporate scandals--which Democrats want to spotlight--or anxieties about terrorism and national security, which play to Republican strengths.

And the decisions left facing lawmakers this session have consequences that will be felt far into the future. The homeland security agency could give the president broad new powers for years to come.

The emerging budget, with its big increases for defense and homeland safety, will affect how long the government will run a deficit. And any decision to go to war with Iraq will require a huge financial, military and political commitment.

Although the legislative legacy of this session includes accomplishments--a new law cracking down on corporate corruption, for one, and major anti-terrorism initiatives--some incumbents facing reelection worry that it will reflect badly on them if Congress does not finish its work before the elections.

“It will add to the perception that we can’t get our work done,” said Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who is in a tough fight for reelection.

Sessions More Common

Lame-duck sessions are historically rare, but becoming less so. There have been six postelection sessions since 1971, three of them since 1994. The last one was in 2000, when Congress finished budget work under a cloud of uncertainty about who won the presidential election. Before that, the House met after the 1998 election to vote on President Clinton’s impeachment.

When the Senate reconvenes today, and the House returns Wednesday, it will be for a session opening deep in the shadow of the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Members of Congress will travel Friday to New York City for a special session to commemorate the tragedy that leveled the twin towers.

The first issue before the Senate is legislation to create the new Homeland Security Department. The bill has been approved by the House, but the Senate version has been slowed by Democrats, led by Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, who object to rushing action on such a significant change in government.

Central to the debate is the Democrats’ refusal to exempt agency workers from civil rights protections, as President Bush has proposed.

He has threatened a veto on the issue, saying the administration needs more flexibility to manage the security agency.

“I refuse to accept a bill which ties my hands or the hands of future presidents,” Bush said. But Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) has accused the administration of “dragging this common cause into the quicksand of controversy” in order to seize more power for the executive branch.

Congressional debate concerning Iraq will be spotlighted in the House International Relations Committee, where chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) is lining up administration witnesses for hearings this month. Other committees are expected to weigh in with hearings, but it is not clear when--and in what form--Congress will bring the issue of what to do about Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to a vote. Some lawmakers say they hope it is not anytime soon, because their constituents do not seem prepared for a U.S. attack on Iraq.

“My calls are overwhelmingly negative,” said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice). “People are baffled.”

Democrats will be trying to ensure that the focus on national security issues does not eclipse concerns about the economy and corporate accounting scandals--which they made the topic of their Labor Day weekend radio address.

“Our economic prosperity has disappeared on the Republicans’ watch,” said Rep. Martin Frost (D-Texas). “We must pull together to get our economy back on the right track.”

The Senate’s Democratic leaders plan to bring up legislation to increase protections for people who participate in 401(k) retirement plans--to avoid some of the troubles caused by this year’s collapse of Enron Corp.

Republicans also are planning an initiative to demonstrate further concern for the victims of corporate malfeasance and the roiling stock market. Bush and House Republicans are considering a new round of tax cuts to provide relief for people who suffer heavy investment losses, and to give people more leeway in deciding when to withdraw money from their 401(k) plans.

Anti-Corporate Feelings

Those measures are given little chance of passing the Democrat-controlled Senate, but Republicans’ interest is a sign of political concern about anti-corporate sentiment among voters.

“People are still very angry out here about corporate corruption,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

An enormous challenge facing Congress is its year-end budget debate. Lawmakers are way behind schedule, having passed none of the 13 appropriations bills needed to finance the government after Oct. 1, when the 2003 fiscal year begins.

There is broad bipartisan support for increasing spending for defense and homeland security, despite recent reports of a large and growing budget deficit. To compensate, Bush and conservative House Republicans want to clamp down on spending in other areas, but they may not have enough votes to curb spending in politically popular programs such as education right before an election.

Bush gave a preview of the kinds of tough choices to come when he announced in August that, in the name of fiscal discipline, he would refuse to spend $5 billion of the $29 billion Congress provided in a midyear spending bill--including funds for such popular programs as aid for local firefighting forces and the Coast Guard.

The longer it takes Congress to finish those must-pass spending bills, the more time they will have to get other pending legislation across the finish line, including a measure to rewrite federal energy policy. Lawmakers say the bill probably will emerge from a House-Senate conference committee if Bush gives up on his proposal--vehemently opposed by Senate Democrats--to expand oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Another major bill on the brink of final action is a rewrite of the bankruptcy code, which is facing eleventh-hour opposition because of abortion-related provisions. Gaining momentum is a long-stalled bill to make the federal government an insurer of last resort for damage caused by terrorist acts.

Also likely to clear is a bill to beef up security in the nation’s ports and an election-reform measure to help states update aging voting equipment.

Less certain is whether the Senate will have the time to finish a rewrite of the landmark 1996 welfare reform law; if not, it will be put off to next year.