Burnt Orange Report

A Pattern of Abusing Power

By Byron LaMasters

Today, Republicans in California succeeded in an unprecidented recall election of an unpopular, but fairly elected Democratic governor. Last week the House Ways and Means Chairman Thomas called the Capitol Police to have Democrats removed from a committee library. Of course, we know the story here in Texas, where Republicans, unhappy with the 2002 Congressional results in our state, decided that they want to change the rules too, and pushed though an unprecidented mid-decade redistricting map in the Senate Jurisprudence Committee. Today, it was the Republicans in the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. Senate's turn to take a swing.

Pryor's nomination to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was approved 10-9 after an acrimonious debate that included an especially angry exchange over a conservative group's contention that Democrats were opposing Pryor because of views arising out of his Catholic faith, which Democrats furiously denied.

The vote to approve the nomination followed a similar party-line roll call on an effort by Democrats to delay a vote until they could complete an investigation into Pryor's political fund raising for the Republican Attorneys General Association and whether he misled the committee about it.

Democrats contended Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah and committee chairman, violated committee rules in forcing the vote, but Hatch overruled them. Democrats then cast their votes on the nomination under "protest" that the process was out of order.

"We have had a shabby injection of unseemly ads relative to religion, we have an unfinished investigation raising serious ethical questions, and, as icing on the cake, we're going to strong-arm a vote out of this committee," Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., complained as the committee prepared to vote.

Does anyone else see a very disturbing pattern of behavior here? I might be able to shrug off just one of these incidents alone, but when put together, the message is clear. This is how Republicans do business. This is what happens when Republicans control government. My hope is that the majority of Americans will see what is happening in the 2004 elections. Today's House Race Hotline from CongressDailyAM seems to suggest that events like those mentioned above, may just provide the tide for Democrats to retake the House. Likely? No. But possible? Yes. Take a look:

HOUSE RACE HOTLINE
Majority Rules
Thanks to redistricting, general consensus says this decade, Democrats just can't win back control of the House in a district-by-district fight. They will need some sort of national wave to bring them back into power. Could Democrats finally have found the theme to help them catch that wave in '04?
The state House Democrats who fled Texas earlier this year to block Republican efforts to redraw the state's congressional map made their Washington debut this week at fundraisers. For Democrats, the timing of this tribute could not have been better, coming just days after House Ways and Means Chairman Thomas called the Capitol Police to have Democrats removed from a committee library. Both incidents made for great political theater; but more important, both have a similar theme -- Democrats fleeing in protest at what they called an unfair, "majority rules" attitude, and Republicans perhaps taking their retribution a bit too far.
Former House Majority Leader Armey warns that Republicans might be turning into the Democrats they defeated almost 10 years ago. In the San Francisco Chronicle -- the hometown paper of a certain Democratic leader -- Armey warned that Republicans might have handed Democrats a readymade campaign theme. "The theme is, 10 years of one-party rule is enough. They (Republicans) have had control for 10 years, they've gotten arrogant, they demean the institution, they demean democracy by virtue of the heavy-handed way they run the House, minority rights are downtrodden, and it's time, Mr. and Mrs. America, to make a change," Armey said. "That isn't a whole lot different from the case we made in '94, after 40 years." Democrats have seized on the message.
A little historical footnote: One political party rarely controls the Big Trifecta (White House, Senate and House) for very long. In fact, the '94 House Republican surge was fueled partly by the fact that Democrats controlled everything at the time -- President Clinton was in the White House, and Sen. George Mitchell and Rep. Tom Foley were running things in the Senate and House. Before that, Democrats had held the trifecta for just four years, 1976-80. Bottom line, look back at history and note how long one party manages to control those three mega-institutions. The hard numbers might not look good right now for Democrats hoping to control the House, but the history of one-party control is in their favor. And with a few more incidents that get described as "power grabs," the Democrats might just find a message.
While Democrats continue to press on the incident of the Capitol Police, questions still loom about the roles the Texas Rangers and the Homeland Security Department played in the hunt for the missing Texas Democrats. The theme is developing early enough in the cycle that Democrats can begin to build their case; on the flip side, House Speaker Hastert still has time to bring his team back to the kinder, gentler days of their six-seat majority. It's hard to believe that a spirit of bipartisanship once existed in the Texas Legislature (candidate George W. Bush frequently would brag about his relationship with legislative Democrats) and the U.S. House (most notably, after Sept. 11, 2001).
House Republicans do have a reason to be bold after their stunning victory in 2002. The "six seats to a Democratic majority" mode had held for so long that Republicans' reaching six seats was a major victory. However, a number of close House votes (most notably, the Medicare vote, decided by just one vote and the subject of recent ads run by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) serve as a reminder that a 12-seat majority is hardly overwhelming.
Is the spat in the library and a manhunt for quorum-busting Texas Democrats enough for a 2004 Democratic Revolution? Most likely not. However, the two incidents should serve as a warning to Republicans.
Another test is looming for Democrats in Texas, as a second special session to handle congressional redistricting appears inevitable. During this session, Texas Republican leaders have hinted they will abandon the state Senate's tradition of a two-thirds vote to bring up a bill for consideration. Democrats have threatened to boycott the session, and speculation is already swirling over the Texas Rangers' role if a second quorum bust occurs. And for Democrats, it's easy to link anything "arrogant" to national Republicans, given House Majority Leader DeLay's role in the push for redistricting.
We doubt that any outcome -- either in Texas redistricting or in the national Democrats' push for a resolution condemning Thomas -- will be easy, bipartisan or pretty. However, if Republicans get their way, they could increase their majority by another six seats. Would that be enough to hold off a wave? By Charles Todd and Maureen Hurley Schweers

Posted by Byron LaMasters at July 24, 2003 03:17 PM | TrackBack