History > 2007 > USA > Politics > Congress

House of Representatives (III)

House Approves Funds for Military,

With Strings

November 15, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 — The House on Wednesday approved $50 billion of the nearly $200 billion that President Bush had requested for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but attached many strings to the measure, virtually guaranteeing that Senate Republicans would block it.

The strings included a requirement that troop withdrawals begin within 30 days, a narrowing of the mission to focus on counterterrorism and on training Iraqi security forces, and a goal of full withdrawal by mid-December 2008.

The bill would also require all American personnel, including C.I.A. operatives, to follow Army Field Manual rules on torture, among them a ban on waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning without causing death.

In two hours of rancorous debate on the House floor, Republicans stressed the recent progress in Iraq while Democrats said that the political situation remained bleak and that it was time to pull out American troops.

“The sacrifice of our troops was simply not met by the actions of the Iraqi government,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California. “This legislation today offers something fundamentally different than what President Bush is proposing, a 10-year war, a war without end costing trillions of dollars. It provides the tools to our troops so they can get the job done. It also presents a strategy that will bring them home, responsibly, honorably, safely and soon.”

The bill was approved by 218 to 203, with 4 Republicans joining 214 Democrats in favor in a vote just before 10 p.m.

The fight over supplemental war spending is the latest rerun of a well-worn routine: Congressional Democrats, unable to force Mr. Bush to change course in Iraq, push to vote on fruitless legislation to remind Americans that they want to end the war. The White House accuses the Democrats of undermining the troops, and Congressional Republicans express outrage as the House passes a bill.

If the pattern followed for much of this year holds, Republicans will use their muscle in the Senate, which is evenly divided on war issues, to block the bill. The Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has said he intends to do just that when the Senate considers the measure, perhaps this week.

The defense spending bill Mr. Bush signed Tuesday contains enough money to continue military operations through mid-February, because of a provision that lets the administration shift money to the war from other Pentagon accounts.

But in pushing for a vote on Wednesday on the Orderly and Responsible Iraq Redeployment Appropriations Act, Democrats sought to remind constituents of their continuing opposition to the war. They also sought to prevent Mr. Bush from accusing them of cutting off money for the troops should there be a showdown when the money really does start to run out in February.

The Democrats have said that they have a duty to try to end the war. But they have acknowledged that their efforts to change the course of the war have failed. “We’re frustrated by that,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader.

He blamed Mr. Bush for not recognizing that American voters elected a majority of Democrats in both chambers of Congress in 2006 because they wanted the war to end. “I think the American people see their government as not effecting the end they want and therefore they are frustrated and angry,” he said. “I don’t blame them. But we have been trying numerous times this year, through the authorizing process, the appropriations process and speaking to the American public to accomplish that objective. And we’re frustrated, but we’re not giving up.”

For Republicans, the debate provided another chance to accuse the Democrats of wasting time. “Today, if my calculations are right, we will have our 58th vote on trying to restrain the commanders in the field in Iraq,” said Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the Republican whip. “The Democrats appear to never get tired of foregone conclusions, to never get tired of doing the same thing over and over again with the same result — the ultimate Groundhog Day of legislation that doesn’t get us anywhere.”

The White House also hammered the Democrats in Congress. Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, promised a veto and accused the Democrats of ignoring gains in Iraq.

The House action on the supplemental war spending bill followed approval by 270 to 147 of a $105.6 billion spending bill, largely for the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. The House also authorized $5 million for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.

The debate over war financing also provided a forum for Republicans to praise recent developments in Iraq, including what they called a decline in violence.

“We have had a new strategy, and that strategy is working,” said Representative David Dreier, Republican of California.

    House Approves Funds for Military, With Strings, NYT, 15.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/washington/15cong.html

House Backs Tax Relief Bill,

but Fate in Senate Is Unsure

November 10, 2007
The New York Times
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 — The House passed a $78.3 billion tax bill on Friday that would shield about 21 million people from the alternative minimum tax next year, and pay for it in part by ending tax breaks for private equity funds, hedge funds and other partnerships.

But the bill, approved 216 to 193, faces a highly uncertain future in the Senate. Republicans are staunchly opposed to any tax increases, and some Democrats are torn between appealing to their party instincts and alienating some of their big contributors.

President Bush has already threatened to veto the bill, which also includes extensions of several other tax provisions, if it includes higher taxes that would shift more of the tax burden to the wealthy. He argues that Congress should freeze the alternative minimum tax without trying to make up the $50.6 billion revenue loss for the 2007 tax year.

Following Mr. Bush’s prescription, however, would increase the budget deficit, something Democrats have vowed to avoid. Because it is not adjusted for inflation, and because of the way it interacts with Mr. Bush’s tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, the alternative tax has exploded in the last six years and is set to hit people with incomes as low as $50,000.

Congress has prevented that expansion by passing a series of one-year “patches,” but the cost of those patches has exploded. House Democrats said their bill was both fiscally responsible and fair, protecting middle-income families without additional borrowing by repealing tax breaks that benefit the wealthiest people in the world.

“This is not a tax increase,” declared Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. “This is the closing of a tax loophole, and you should be proud to participate in that.”

Republicans charged that Democrats were simply raising taxes, because Congress never seriously intended to impose the alternative minimum tax on anybody but a handful of millionaires.

“The A.M.T. is crazy; it was never meant to apply to middle-class taxpayers,” said Representative Jim McCrery, Republican of Louisiana. “Why are we trying to collect it?”

But President Bush and his Republican allies have been dodging this issue for years. All of Mr. Bush’s budget plans have counted on a rising torrent of revenue from the alternative minimum tax, and his most recent plan assumes $1 trillion in such revenue over the next decade.

Democrats, for their part, are torn between trying to tame the tax and keeping their promises about fiscal discipline.

If Congress fails to act within the next few weeks, the alternative minimum tax will hit 21 million families with an average tax increase of $2,000 on their 2007 tax returns.

But if Democrats pass a tax cut without trying to make up for the missing revenue, they would be undermining their signature tool for enforcing fiscal discipline: the “pay as you go” rules, which require that any new tax cut must be offset with tax increases or spending cuts in other areas.

The alternative tax, first imposed in 1969 to make sure that tax deductions and loopholes did not allow very wealthy people to escape paying income taxes altogether, is a parallel tax calculation that blocks many tax breaks for individuals.

Congress and President Bush have prepared their budget proposals on the assumption that the A.M.T. revenues would soar each year, hitting $50 billion in 2007 and totaling about $1 trillion over the next decade. The fight is over how — or whether — to make up for the cost of restraining the tax, which tends to hit particularly hard at two-income families with children in states with comparatively high state income and local property taxes.

Senate Democrats have such a narrow majority that many pivotal lawmakers are doubtful they can satisfy the pay-as-you-go rules and still muster the 60 votes needed to shut down any Republican filibuster. On top of that, Democrats like Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York have been hesitant to endorse raising taxes on managers of private equity funds like the Blackstone Group and Carlyle Group.

“I don’t know what will happen,” said James Manley, a spokesman for the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada. “Republicans have made it crystal clear that they will block passage of the House bill in the Senate, because they don’t believe the A.M.T. relief should be paid for — even by closing tax loopholes.”

Mr. Reid told reporters this week that the Senate would not take up the issue until December.

Private equity funds have spent millions lobbying in defense of the tax break for “carried interest,” which is the share of profits that fund managers receive as a fee for their work on behalf of their investors.

Under current law, carried interest is taxed as capital gains, at 15 percent. Under the House bill, carried interest would be taxed at individual rates of up to 35 percent.

Douglas Lowenstein, president of the Private Equity Council, defended the tax treatment of carried interest as a longstanding practice that was not a special loophole.

“The premise of the question is that you have this big tax loophole that is providing unearned and unwarranted tax relief,” Mr. Lowenstein said. “But it’s part of the tax code that’s been there for the better part of a century.”

To reinforce that argument, the Blackstone Group, one of the world’s biggest private equity buyout firms, paid the Ogilvy Group $3.74 million for lobbying work this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a group that monitors money in politics.

The Private Equity Council, an industry trade group, has hired numerous well-connected Democratic lobbyists. Among them are Vic Fazio, a former member of Congress from California, and John Talisman, a former assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy under President Bill Clinton.

    House Backs Tax Relief Bill, but Fate in Senate Is Unsure, NYT, 10.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/washington/10tax.html

Democrats Divided as House Passes Peru Trade Bill

November 8, 2007
The New York Times
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 — Defying appeals from labor leaders, environmentalists and foes of free-trade, nearly half the Democrats in the House joined today with the Bush administration’s backers to support a trade liberalization agreement with Peru that the White House hopes will lead to the approval of future trade deals.

The vote came this morning and followed several hours of debate that exposed a deep fissure among Democrats. On one side were veterans from declining industrial areas of the Northeast and Midwest and younger critics of globalization.

On the other was the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and other leaders arguing that trade brings benefits to many Americans and that the deal was worthy of Democratic support because it requires Peru to protect labor rights and the environment.

Voting for the trade agreement were 109 Democrats and 176 Republicans. Voting against it were 116 Democrats and 16 Republicans. (Eight members from each party did not vote.)

The Senate is expected to take up the agreement soon and is likely to approve it.

The Bush administration was elated by the outcome in the House.

“The conventional wisdom last fall was that the president and Congress could not come together to make progress on a pro-trade agenda,” said Susan C. Schwab, the United States trade representative. “Today, the hard work and risk-taking of many are bearing fruit.”

The large number of Democrats voting for the Peru deal does not necessarily pave the way for other agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea that President Bush is seeking. Ms. Pelosi and the Democratic leadership have not endorsed these deals, arguing that they have defects.

The House vote for the Peru deal was seen as significant because it came a year after Congress was recaptured by the Democrats following a campaign in which many Democratic candidates criticized the Bush administration’s trade policies.

Since Mr. Bush took office in 2001, Democrats have been extremely reluctant to support trade agreements negotiated by his administration. Organized labor argues that since 2000, the United States has lost 3 million manufacturing jobs, though some labor officials concede that it is difficult to tell whether these jobs were lost because of cheap imports, technology or other factors.

The labor movement also argues that trade and the export of jobs overseas has flattened American wages.

The administration, on the other hand, says that only about 300,000 unemployed Americans can trace their loss of jobs to trade and that wage stagnation cannot be countered by raising barriers to trade.

The requirement that Peru adopt labor and environmental protections was negotiated last May by Ms. Pelosi and two senior Democrats, Representatives Charles B. Rangel of New York and Sander M. Levin of Michigan, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and the committee’s trade subcommittee respectively.

While some Democrats concede that trade has cost some American jobs and perhaps flattened the wages of some workers, they also argue that it is impossible to reverse the trends of companies looking for cheaper labor overseas and that the United States must respond by trying to negotiating lower tariff barriers and exporting more overseas.

Democrats from the prosperous areas of the East and West Coast have become especially responsive, many Democrats say, to the desire of Wall Street and the high technology, health, pharmaceutical and entertainment industries to expand their sales overseas. These industries have also become major Democratic contributors.

    Democrats Divided as House Passes Peru Trade Bill, NYT, 8.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/washington/08cnd-trade.html?hp

House Approves Broad Protections for Gay Workers

November 8, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 — The House on Wednesday approved a bill granting broad protections against discrimination in the workplace for gay men, lesbians and bisexuals, a measure that supporters praised as the most important civil rights legislation since the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 but that opponents said would result in unnecessary lawsuits.

The bill, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, is the latest version of legislation that Democrats have pursued since 1974. Representatives Edward I. Koch and Bella Abzug of New York then sought to protect gay men and lesbians with a measure they introduced on the fifth anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, the brawl between gay men and police officers at a bar in Greenwich Village that is widely viewed as the start of the American gay rights movement.

“On this proud day of the 110th Congress, we will chart a new direction for civil rights,” said Representative Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat and a gay rights advocate, in a speech before the vote. “On this proud day, the Congress will act to ensure that all Americans are granted equal rights in the work place.”

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat and a longtime supporter of gay rights legislation, said he would move swiftly to introduce a similar measure in the Senate. Some Senate Republicans said that, if worded carefully, it would have a good chance of passing, perhaps early next year.

Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, has said that she would be the lead co-sponsor of the Senate bill. Ms. Collins, in a statement, said that the House vote “provides important momentum” and that “there is growing support in the Senate for strengthening federal laws to protect American workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation.”

President Bush threatened to veto an earlier version of the bill, but a White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, said the administration would need to review recent changes before making a final decision. Few Democrats expect Mr. Bush to change his mind.

The House bill would make it illegal for an employer “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to the compensation, terms, conditions or privileges of employment of the individual, because of such individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation.”

While 19 states and Washington, D.C., have laws barring discrimination based on sexual orientation, and many cities offer similar protections, federal law offers no such shield, though it does bar discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity, sex, age, disability and pregnancy.

In the House on Wednesday, 35 Republicans joined 200 Democrats voting for the bill, which was approved 235 to 184, perhaps reflecting polls showing that a plurality of Americans believe homosexuality should be accepted as an alternative lifestyle, though a majority still oppose same-sex marriage. Voting against the bill were 25 Democrats and 159 Republicans.

Among the Democrats opposed, many said the bill should have also outlawed discrimination based on gender identity.

And while the Democrats fell far short of the 280 votes that would be needed to override a presidential veto, many of them, including the majority leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, spoke about the vote in exuberant tones, calling it “historic” and “momentous.”

For more than 30 years, outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation has been a cause of liberal Democrats, who have fought many partisan battles with Republicans but have always come up short. In 1996, the Senate came within one vote of passing a bill; the House did not vote on the bill that year.

The twist this year is that the measure has emerged as an example of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s pragmatism in trying to make headway on leading issues by granting concessions, even at the risk of angering her party’s base.

To ensure passage of the bill, Ms. Pelosi and other Democrats, including Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who is openly gay, removed language granting protections to transsexual and transgender individuals by barring discrimination based on sexual identity, a move that infuriated gay rights groups.

The Democrats also carved out a blanket exemption for religious groups, drawing the ire of civil liberties advocates who argued that church-run hospitals, for instance, should not be permitted to discriminate against gay employees. The civil liberties groups wanted a narrow exemption for religious employers.

On the House floor, Ms. Pelosi acknowledged challenges. “History teaches us that progress on civil rights is never easy,” she said. “It is often marked by small and difficult steps.”

Ms. Pelosi did maintain the support of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay rights group in the country, even though it was disappointed that gender identity protections were not included in the bill.

“Today’s vote in the House sends a powerful message about equality to the country, and it’s a significant step forward for our community,” said Joe Solmonese, the group’s president.

Others were not so upbeat. “What should have been one of the most triumphant days in our movement’s history is not,” said Matt Foreman, the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “It’s one of very mixed reactions.”

But many longtime supporters of the legislation cheered its passage. “It’s wonderful,” said Mr. Koch, a former mayor of New York City. “Even though it is a vote that was delayed too long.”

Much of the debate Wednesday was taken up by Republicans complaining, somewhat oddly, that they could not hold a vote on a Democratic amendment to restore gender identity language.

Democrats suggested that these Republicans were not hoping to protect transsexuals from discrimination but to restore provisions to the bill that would have made it easier to rally opposition.

Representative Doc Hastings of Washington, who led the Republican effort to get a vote on the amendment, said he opposed the overall bill in part because many states already had similar laws and because he viewed it as intrusive. “I do not think it is the place of the federal government to legislate how each and every place of business operates,” Mr. Hastings said.

Other opponents said the law would result in spurious lawsuits.

“It would be impossible for employers to operate a business without having to worry about being accused of discriminating against someone based on their ‘perceived’ sexual orientation,” said Representative Ginny Brown-Waite, Republican of Florida, who raised two fingers on each hand to flash quotation marks over her head as she said “perceived.”

Mr. Kennedy, who is chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, issued a statement praising the House vote. He could introduce a measure identical to the House bill or a new version, which might restore language about gender identity.

    House Approves Broad Protections for Gay Workers, NYT, 8.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/washington/08employ.html?hp

House Panel Raises Furor on Armenian Genocide

October 11, 2007
The New York Times
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 — A House committee voted on Wednesday to condemn the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey in World War I as an act of genocide, rebuffing an intense campaign by the White House and warnings from Turkey’s government that the vote would gravely strain its relations with the United States.

The vote by the House Foreign Relations Committee was nonbinding and so largely symbolic, but its consequences could reach far beyond bilateral relations and spill into the war in Iraq.

Turkish officials and lawmakers warned that if the resolution was approved by the full House, they would reconsider supporting the American war effort, which includes permission to ship essential supplies through Turkey and northern Iraq.

President Bush appeared on the South Lawn of the White House before the vote and implored the House not to take up the issue, only to have a majority of the committee disregard his warning at the end of the day, by a vote of 27 to 21.

“We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915,” Mr. Bush said in remarks that, reflecting official American policy, carefully avoided the use of the word genocide. “This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings, and its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror.”

The resolution was introduced early in the current session of Congress and has quietly moved forward over the last few weeks. But it provoked a fierce lobbying fight that pitted the politically influential Armenian-American population against the Turkish government, which hired equally influential former lawmakers like Robert L. Livingston, Republican of Louisiana, and Richard A. Gephardt, the former Democratic House majority leader, who backed a similar resolution when he was in Congress.

Backers of the resolution said Congressional action was overdue.

“Despite President George Bush twisting arms and making deals, justice prevailed,” said Representative Brad Sherman, a Democrat of California and a sponsor of the resolution. “For if we hope to stop future genocides we need to admit to those horrific acts of the past.”

The issue of the Armenian genocide, beginning in 1915, has perennially transfixed Congress and bedeviled presidents of both parties. Ronald Reagan was the only president publicly to call the killings genocide, but his successors have avoided the term.

When the issue last arose, in 2000, a similar resolution also won approval by a House committee, but President Clinton then succeeded in persuading a Republican speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, to withdraw the measure before the full House could vote. That time, too, Turkey had warned of canceling arms deals and withdrawing support for American air forces then patrolling northern Iraq under the auspices of the United Nations.

The new speaker, Nancy Pelosi, faced pressure from Democrats — especially colleagues in California, New Jersey and Michigan, with their large Armenian populations — to revive the resolution again after her party gained control of the House and Senate this year.

There is Democratic support for the resolution in the Senate, but it is unlikely to move in the months ahead because of Republican opposition and a shortage of time. Still, the Turkish government has made it clear that it would regard House passage alone as a harsh American indictment.

The sharply worded Turkish warnings against the resolution, especially the threats to cut off support for the American war in Iraq, seemed to embolden some of the resolution’s supporters. “If they use this to destabilize our solders in Iraq, well, then shame on them,” said Representative Joseph Crowley, a Democrat from New York who voted for it.

The Democratic leadership, however, appeared divided. Representative Rahm Emanuel, the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, who worked in the Clinton White House when the issue came up in 2000, opposes the resolution.

In what appeared to be an effort to temper the anger caused by the issue, Democrats said they were considering a parallel resolution that would praise Turkey’s close relations with the United States even as the full House prepares to consider a resolution that blames the forerunner of modern Turkey for one of the worst crimes in history.

“Neither of these resolutions is necessary,” a White House spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, said Wednesday evening. He said that Mr. Bush was “very disappointed” with the vote.

A total of 1.5 million Armenians were killed beginning in 1915 in a systematic campaign by the fraying Ottoman Empire to drive Armenians out of eastern Turkey. Turks acknowledge that hundreds of thousands of Armenians died but contend that the deaths, along with thousands of others, resulted from the war that ended with the creation of modern Turkey in 1923.

Mr. Bush discussed the issue in the White House on Wednesday with his senior national security aides. Speaking by secure video from Baghdad, the senior American officials in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, raised the resolution and warned that its passage could harm the war effort in Iraq, senior Bush aides said.

Appearing outside the West Wing after that meeting, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates noted that about 70 percent of all air cargo sent to Iraq passed through or came from Turkey, as did 30 percent of fuel and virtually all the new armored vehicles designed to withstand mines and bombs.

“They believe clearly that access to airfields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would be very much put at risk if this resolution passes and the Turks react as strongly as we believe they will,” Mr. Gates said, referring to the remarks of General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker.

Turkey severed military ties with France after its Parliament voted in 2006 to make the denial of the Armenian genocide a crime.

As the committee prepared to vote Wednesday, Mr. Bush, the American ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson, and other officials cajoled lawmakers by phone.

Representative Mike Pence, a conservative Republican from Indiana who has backed the resolution in the past, said Mr. Bush persuaded him to change his position and vote no. He described the decision as gut-wrenching, underscoring the emotions stirred in American politics by a 92-year-old question.

“While this is still the right position,” Mr. Pence said, referring to the use of the term genocide, “it is not the right time.”

The House Democratic leadership met Wednesday morning with Turkey’s ambassador to Washington, Nabi Sensoy, and other Turkish officials, who argued against moving ahead with a vote. But Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, who now holds Mr. Gephardt’s old job as majority leader, said he and Ms. Pelosi would bring the resolution to the floor before Congress adjourned this year.

In Turkey, a fresh wave of violence raised the specter of a Turkish raid into northern Iraq, something the United States is strongly urging against. A policeman was killed and six others were wounded in a bomb attack in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey on Wednesday, the state-run Anatolian News Agency reported.

The Associated Press reported from the town of Sirnak that Turkish warplanes and helicopters were attacking positions along the southern border with Iraq that are suspected of belonging to Kurdish rebels who have been fighting Turkish forces for years.

The Turkish government continued to prepare to request Parliament’s permission for an offensive into Iraq, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggesting that a vote could be held after the end of Ramadan. Parliamentary approval would bring Turkey the closest it has been since 2003 to a full-scale military offensive into Iraq.

Sedat Laciner, from the International Strategic Research Institution, said that the Turkish public felt betrayed by what was perceived as a lack of American support for Turkey in its battle against the Kurds.

“American officials could think that Turkish people would ultimately forget about the lack of U.S. support in this struggle,” Mr. Laciner said, using words that could apply equally to views about the Armenian genocide. “Memories of Turks, however, are not that easy to erase once it hits sensitive spots.”

Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting from Istanbul, and Sabrina Tavernise from Baghdad.

    House Panel Raises Furor on Armenian Genocide, NYT, 11.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/washington/11prexy.html?ref=europe

House Passes a Stopgap Bill to Pay for Programs

September 27, 2007
The New York Times
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — Deferring a showdown with President Bush, the House on Wednesday approved a stopgap spending bill to finance the operations of the federal government, including the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, through mid-November.

Lawmakers of both parties said the step was necessary because Congress had not finished work on any of the 12 annual appropriations bills for the fiscal year that starts Monday.

The House has passed all the bills, and the Senate has approved four, with amendments that need to be reconciled with the House measures.

Democratic leaders of the two chambers have yet to formulate a strategy to deal with Mr. Bush, who has threatened to veto most of the domestic spending bills on the ground that they exceed his budget requests.

The stopgap bill, which the House approved, 404 to 14, would continue spending at current levels, with few policy changes. The Senate is expected to pass the bill in a day or two.

Republicans said the bill, known as a continuing resolution, showed that Democrats could not complete their work on time.

A recent report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said: “Continuing resolutions date from at least the late 1870s, and have been a regular part of the annual appropriations process for over 50 years. In fact, with the exception of three fiscal years — 1989, 1995 and 1997 — at least one continuing resolution has been enacted for each fiscal year since 1954.”

At the insistence of House Republicans, the latest measure was revised to include a statement praising Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of American troops in Iraq. In the statement, the House said it “condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the personal attacks made by the advocacy group MoveOn.org impugning the integrity and professionalism” of General Petraeus.

MoveOn has challenged the general’s credibility and asked whether he should be called “General Betray Us.”

The stopgap bill provides money for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, including $5.2 billion for mine-resistant vehicles.

The battle over the Children’s Health Insurance Program moved into high gear on Wednesday as the Senate prepared to vote on a bipartisan compromise that would expand the program to cover nearly 4 million children, in addition to the 6.6 million already on the rolls.

The House passed the children’s health bill on Tuesday, 265 to 159, with support from 45 Republicans. Supporters fell short of the two-thirds majority that would be needed to override a threatened veto.

Representative Heather A. Wilson, a New Mexico Republican who voted for the bill, said she doubted that supporters could switch enough votes to override the veto.

A rabbi, a Roman Catholic priest and a Baptist minister joined Senate Democrats in making a moral argument for the legislation.

“In St. Luke’s Gospel, we are told that Jesus instructed his disciples to ‘let the little children come unto me, and do not hinder them,’” said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. “We urge Congress and the president to support our bipartisan legislation and let little children have health care.”

Senator John Ensign of Nevada, chairman of the campaign committee for Senate Republicans, denounced the bill as “a step toward the Democrats’ ultimate goal of a single-payer, government-run health care system.”

Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, responded: “That’s a nice, sweet, cute little argument, but it does not solve the problem of how you help these kids. I am not about to allow these children to go without health care.”

The bill would increase the federal money available to every state next year. The Congressional Research Service estimated that five states — Alaska, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island — would receive at least three times as much under the bill as they would under a simple continuation of current law.

House Passes a Stopgap Bill to Pay for Programs, NYT, 27.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/washington/27budget.html

House Votes

to Expand Insurance for Kids

September 26, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:13 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House voted Tuesday to expand health insurance for children, but the Democratic-led victory may prove short-lived because the margin was too small to override President Bush's promised veto.

Embarking on a health care debate likely to animate the 2008 elections, the House voted 265-159 to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, by $35 billion over five years. Bush says he will veto the bill due to its cost, its reliance on a tobacco tax increase and its potential for replacing private insurance with government grants.

SCHIP is a state-federal program that provides coverage for 6.6 million children from families that live above the poverty level but have trouble affording private health insurance. The proposed expansion, backed by most governors and many health-advocacy groups, would add 4 million children to the rolls.

The bill drew support from 45 House Republicans, many of them moderates who do not want to be depicted as indifferent to low-income children's health needs when they seek re-election next year. But 151 Republicans sided with Bush, a move that Democrats see as a political blunder.

It hardly matters that the expansion would be expensive or a step toward socialized health care, Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said during the House debate. When lawmakers go home, he said, ''the question is, Were you with the kids or were you not?''

To overturn a presidential veto, both chambers of Congress must produce two-thirds majorities. The 265 yes votes in the House are two dozen fewer than Democrats would need to override Bush's veto, and House leaders expect few members to switch positions.

The Senate appears poised to pass the SCHIP expansion by a large margin later this week, but a Senate bid to override a veto would be pointless if the House override effort falls short.

Despite the expected veto, many congressional Democrats welcomed the SCHIP debate as a way to open a second political front -- in addition to Iraq -- on which they feel Bush and his allies are out of step with voters. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., said the president willingly pours billions of dollars into the war but resists a significant expansion of a health program for modest-income children.

''It's no surprise the president finds himself isolated,'' Emanuel said at a Democratic event that included a Maryland mother who relied on SCHIP coverage when two of her children were badly injured in a car wreck.

Some Republicans agreed that the debate over a greater government role in health care will resonate far beyond Capitol Hill this week.

''This vote is huge for the next president, regardless of who it is,'' Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., said in an interview during the floor debate. ''I don't think anybody underestimates the philosophical importance.''

Eight Democrats opposed the bill. Some, from tobacco-growing districts, object to raising the federal cigarette tax to $1 a pack, a 61-cent increase. Some Hispanic members complained that the bill would make legal immigrant children wait five years to qualify for SCHIP, but voted for it anyway.

A Republican-controlled Congress and President Clinton created SCHIP in 1997 to provide health coverage for families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid but not high enough to pay for private coverage. Under the expansion proposal, states could seek federal waivers to steer funds to some families earning at least triple the official poverty-level income, provided the states showed progress enrolling the main target: children in families earning up to double the poverty rate. That would be $34,340 for a family of three, or $41,300 for a family of four.

The Bush administration says the legislation could qualify some New York families of four making about $83,000 a year, or four times the poverty level. Such a scenario is unlikely, the bill's proponents say, because it would require waivers the administration has rejected.

Bush proposes a smaller increase in SCHIP -- $5 billion over five years -- although some Republican lawmakers say he might agree to a larger increase later.

In a statement of administration policy Tuesday, the White House said the bill ''goes too far toward federalizing health care.'' Republicans said a veto was certain. In his nearly seven years in office, Bush has vetoed three bills. One would have withdrawn troops from Iraq, and two would have expanded federal research involving embryonic stem cells.

After the vote, White House press secretary Dana Perino issued a statement saying: ''Unfortunately, the House of Representatives today passed SCHIP legislation that pushes many children who now have private coverage into a government-run system, part of the Democrats' incremental plan toward government-run health care for all Americans.''

SCHIP is set to expire Sunday. To avert that, congressional Democrats plan to extend it temporarily with a larger spending bill to keep the government running when the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1. The strategy would prevent Democrats from being blamed for letting the health program lapse by not reaching an accord with Bush, lawmakers said.

House Republican leaders berated Democrats for including several targeted spending items, known as ''earmarks,'' in the 299-page SCHIP bill, which was not available for public review until Monday night. Democrats had declared the bill earmark-free. But Republicans found language directing funds to programs in Tennessee, California and Michigan.

After the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she was disappointed that Bush ''has issued a veto threat against a bill that has so much bipartisan, indeed nonpartisan, support.''

------

The bill is Senate amendments to HR 976.

House Votes to Expand Insurance for Kids, NYT, 26.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Childrens-Health.html

House, 411-8,

Passes a Vast Ethics Overhaul

August 1, 2007
The New York Times
By JEFF ZELENY and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

WASHINGTON, July 31 — The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved sweeping ethics rules that would require lawmakers to disclose the names of lobbyists who gather more than $15,000 in political contributions for them within a six-month period. The measure would also impose new restrictions on accepting gifts, discounted airfare and other long-held perquisites of office.

On a vote of 411 to 8, Democrats moved closer to fulfilling their pledge to change the culture of Washington, after a series of corruption scandals that played a role in Republicans’ losing control of Congress in last November’s elections. The legislation, to be considered by the Senate later this week, also calls for greater disclosure of legislators’ special projects, or earmarks, which are often shrouded in secrecy.

Although advocates for tightened lobbying and ethics rules applauded the bill, some of its more onerous restrictions had been softened in recent weeks by House and Senate Democratic leaders, who worked in closed-door sessions to resolve its differing versions. Two Republican senators say they plan to try to stop the bill on the ground that it does not go far enough, but Senate leaders predicted that the measure would receive enough support to win passage, and President Bush is expected to sign it into law.

“The American people spoke clearly for change in the way business is done in Washington,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said after the House vote. “They demanded not just high ethical standards but also transparency, disclosure and accountability to make these standards effective.”

Still, lawmakers left themselves some loopholes.

For instance, in January the Senate voted overwhelmingly for a “revolving door” provision that would have barred former lawmakers from all lobbying “activities” — among them plotting strategy or advising clients — for two years after leaving office. The provision would have seriously cramped the ability of legislators to cash out for big paychecks at K Street law firms as soon as they left office, and many complained that it would unfairly deprive them of their most natural occupation.

The House refused to pass a similar measure, and the final bill dropped the restriction. As a result, departing lawmakers, as well as their senior aides, will still be able to sell influence-seekers their insights and expertise immediately.

“As much as anything, it is a bow to the reality of life after Congress,” said Marc E. Elias, a lawyer who represents many senators. “There has to be a limit to what behavior we are going to criminalize after people leave Congress.”

Democratic leaders noted that the final bill retained provisions doubling the current one-year ban on former senators’ direct lobbying contacts with onetime colleagues and that former senior Senate aides, already barred from lobbying their previous office for one year, would now be forbidden to do so anywhere in the chamber during that period. House members must continue to honor a one-year ban against directly lobbying their former colleagues.

But the most far-reaching element of the bill — and the one that caused the most contentious behind-the-scenes negotiations — was the provisions requiring the disclosure of campaign contributions that lobbyists gather up from clients and associates to give to political candidates and the parties’ Congressional campaign committees. The bill requires lawmakers and the committees to disclose the names of lobbyists who raise $15,000 or more within a six-month period.

“Trying to preserve those provisions was a sticking point in the negotiations all along,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who led the push for them.

Because campaign finance laws cap individual contributions, politicians have become increasingly dependent on so-called bundlers to fill their campaign coffers. And lobbyists hoping to curry favor have the greatest incentive to do the work of dunning clients, colleagues, family and friends for stacks of campaign donations.

Even with the new rules, a lobbyist could still bundle $14,000 every six months — $56,000 during a House member’s two-year term, a significant sum for a House re-election campaign — without any disclosure requirement.

And people involved in the final negotiations said House Democrats had blocked an effort by their Senate counterparts to weaken the rule by raising the threshold for disclosure to a significantly higher amount.

The overall package of rule changes was trumpeted by Democrats as a beam of sunlight on the murky ways in which lobbyists and interest groups influence legislation, but the process was hardly a model of open government. The final bill did not emerge until Monday, after a weekend of tense negotiations. Even as the House voted Tuesday to approve the rewritten legislation, lawyers and advocacy groups were still scrutinizing the text to decipher its implications.

The measure will require 67 votes to pass in the Senate, because it entails a change in Senate rules. At least two Republicans, Senators Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, oppose the bill, saying it is too weak on disclosure requirements for earmarks. But Republican aides said they expected it to be easily approved.

The legislation would for the first time require the disclosure of all earmarks — the pet projects lawmakers insert into spending bills — and their sponsors. It would also require that lawmakers certify that they are not adding a spending item intended only to provide a “pecuniary” benefit to themselves or their family.

The House has already adopted similar measures in its own internal rules. But while earlier bills had required a neutral Senate parliamentarian to validate the earmark disclosure in the Senate, the final bill shifted the enforcement authority to the Appropriations Committee chairman and the party leaders.

Democrats said they had made the revision to prevent bogging down the office of the parliamentarian with earmark inquiries, but some critics said putting enforcement in the hands of party leaders would dull much of the new rules’ bite.

“You have somebody who has a vested interest making the call,” said Steve Ellis, a vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, which tracks earmarks. “It is like an N.B.A. referee betting on games.”

House, 411-8, Passes a Vast Ethics Overhaul, NYT, 1.8.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/01/washington/01lobby.html