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As Seats in Congress Shift,

Redistricting Looms Large

December 24, 2010
The New York Times
By MICHAEL COOPER and SABRINA TAVERNISE

The political jockeying over how to draw new Congressional districts began in earnest this week after new census data showed almost a dozen seats shifting to the South and West, leaving Republicans poised to build on their gains from November’s midterm elections and forcing several northern Democratic incumbents to begin plotting to save their jobs.

The biggest immediate danger to incumbent Democrats will be in the Rust Belt, where Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio are all losing Congressional seats and Republicans now control the state governments, giving them the power to draw the new political maps. Politicians liken this process to a game of musical chairs, wondering who will be left without a seat. With Ohio losing two seats, political analysts expect the Republicans to eliminate a Democratic seat from the Cleveland area — possibly the one now held by Representative Dennis J. Kucinich.

“My Aunt Betty called me after the news report, and she says, ‘Dennis, what are we going to do — are they putting you out of Congress?’ ” Mr. Kucinich said in an interview, explaining that he would try not to worry about it right now, since it is beyond his control. But he added that “the fundamental rule of politics is you have to have a district to run.”

Republicans, meanwhile, are preparing for the more enviable task of drawing up new Congressional districts in states where they are strong. Their victories in statehouse elections gave them control of redistricting in five of the eight states that are gaining seats, including the two biggest winners, Texas, which is adding four, and Florida, which is adding two.

That has made Don Gaetz, the chairman of the Florida State Senate’s Reapportionment Committee, a popular man. There was the friendly hug he got from a member of Congress, who offered that his district’s current lines were just fine, and the ambitious fellow lawmaker who sidled up to him at a meeting, saying that he had a great idea for a possible district.

“I’m just a lowly state senator from the panhandle of Florida, but I have all sorts of new friends,” Mr. Gaetz marveled. “Members of Congress who didn’t know I existed, and people who would like to be in Congress who I didn’t know existed.”

The next step comes in February, when the Census Bureau will begin releasing detailed local demographic data, allowing the actual redrawing of districts to begin. In states losing Democratic seats, this will be the moment party elders start asking veteran lawmakers if they might like to retire, and younger lawmakers if they might want to seek other offices or accept comfortable positions somewhere else. This will also be the moment that tenacious Democrats quietly commission polls to see how they might fare against their ostensible Democratic allies.

Some of this is already beginning to play out in Massachusetts, where the all-Democratic House delegation will shrink to 9 seats from 10. Even before the demographic data, which will give officials a better idea of which districts might be merged, is in, there is talk of trying to get a member to run for the seat of Senator Scott P. Brown, a Republican.

Republicans also stand to gain ground in states that are not adding or losing seats, thanks to their victories in state elections this year. When Republicans won control of both houses of the North Carolina legislature in November for the first time since Reconstruction, they also gained control of the redistricting process. By state law they will draw the maps, and the Democratic governor, Beverly Perdue, will have no veto over them. Some Republican lawmakers there believe they can draw lines that would allow them to pick up at least two seats.

The most likely immediate impact of the coming redistricting, political analysts said, is that Republicans will be able to use their new power in the nation’s statehouses and governor’s mansions to draw new districts that will help the party strengthen its hold on the 63 seats in Congress that it picked up in November. When the new data comes in, both parties will use sophisticated computer software to begin carving up districts through politically creative cartography. But Republicans will have the upper hand, giving them the opportunity to add Republican voters to many districts where the party’s candidates won by narrow margins this year, making it easier for them to be re-elected.

“The Republicans are going to have their hand on the computer mouse, and when you have your hand on the computer mouse, you can change a district from a D to an R,” said Kimball W. Brace, president of Election Data Services, who has worked on redistricting for state legislatures and commissions.

Redistricting, it is often said, turns the idea of democracy on its head by allowing leaders to choose their voters, instead of the other way around. The new lines are drawn once a decade, after every census, to make sure that all Congressional districts have roughly the same number of people, to preserve the one-person, one-vote standard. But as a practical matter, both Democrats and Republicans often use it as an excuse to gerrymander districts for their own political advantage. This time, Republicans are better positioned to do it.

Tim Storey, an expert on redistricting at the National Conference of State Legislatures, said that Republicans were in their strongest position to draw lines in decades. Of the districts drawn by state legislatures, he said, Republicans have the power to unilaterally draw 196, four times as many as the Democrats. A decade ago, he said, Democrats had the advantage.

Texas will test the hopes of both parties. Democrats said that since much of the population growth was among minorities that traditionally support Democrats, they should benefit when Texas’s four new Congressional districts are drawn. Republicans, who control the process, said that much of the growth took place in Republican areas, so they will be able to draw more Republican seats. Tension lingers from the state’s redistricting in 2003, when Representative Tom DeLay, then the House majority leader, helped Republicans gain a large advantage in Texas’ House delegation.

Martin Frost, a former Democratic congressman whose district in the Fort Worth area was split during that redistricting, said he thought the Democrats would have a good chance of getting two of the four new seats, especially given the federal Voting Rights Act, which is supposed to ensure that the new lines do not dilute the voting power of minorities. And he said that the first order of business for Republicans would likely be to consolidate the gains they have made in recent elections by strengthening the districts of the party’s incumbents.

But Representative Joe L. Barton, a senior Republican from Texas who has been involved in redistricting for years, said that most Republican officeholders in Texas needed little help. He speculated that three of the four new seats would go to Republicans. “We, the Republicans, don’t feel we have to do anything radically partisan, primarily because the current map basically reflects the demographics of the state,” he said. “But if we’re going to have a fight, I’m glad I’ve got an R by my name.”

Of the 10 states losing seats, Democrats will draw the maps in only two: Massachusetts, where a Democrat will of necessity lose a seat, and Illinois, where they will try to eliminate a Republican seat. New York is losing two Congressional seats, and since the Democrats just lost control of the State Senate, they will have to come up with a compromise plan. In the past, that has meant eliminating one seat in each party; now, some lawmakers are pushing to create an independent redistricting commission.

Both parties also have experienced lawyers working on their redistricting efforts, since the courts will inevitably play a big role in the end. The Voting Rights Act limits how districts can be drawn in many states. Republicans have turned it to their advantage in the past, by packing so many Democratic voters into some minority districts that their power was diluted in neighboring districts. And where new lines are drawn, court challenges often follow.

Political analysts said that Republicans were poised to add anywhere from a net of 3 to a net of 15 Republican-leaning seats. But they note that the impact can be short-lived.

In times of upheaval, said Michael Barone, who covers redistricting exhaustively as a co-author of “The Almanac of American Politics,” it can be hard to predict how voters in some districts will behave. “When opinion changes,” he said, “it turns out some of those 53-percent districts aren’t yours anymore.”

    As Seats in Congress Shift, Redistricting Looms Large, NYT, 24.12.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/25/us/politics/25redistrict.html

After Bruising Session, Congress Faces New Battles

December 22, 2010
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON — The 111th Congress ended as it began two years ago, with a burst of legislative productivity, as Democrats forced through a historic social change by lifting the ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military and a major foreign policy achievement in approving the New Start arms control treaty with Russia.

Along the way, they enacted a landmark health care law and a sweeping overhaul of Wall Street rules, bookended by a $787 billion economic stimulus package at the start of 2009 and an $858 billion tax-cut package at the end of 2010.

It was a dizzying, maddening, agonizing, exhilarating, arduous, bruising and, for scores of Democrats, ultimately career-ending journey from the stimulus to Start — and the party paid a devastating price for its accomplishments, losing control of the House and six Senate seats.

It is a period that will no doubt be pored over by historians for years.

But it is already clear that much of the next two years will be spent fighting over what was done in the past two.

“They have been enormously successful in one sense in passing their legislative agenda,” Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said of Democrats. “The problem is the country just doesn’t like it very much.”

The Democrats’ biggest victories were secured on party-line or near-party-line votes, and some lawmakers predicted partisan animosity would spill over into the 112th Congress, raising a question of whether it would be characterized by deal-making or deadlock.

As many Democrats cast their last votes on Wednesday, top lawmakers said that most of them considered their defeat well worth the price considering the legislative victories they wrote into the history books, accomplishments that have prompted comparisons to the progressive glory days of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society.

“Almost every member who lost, without fail, has said, ‘I am proud of the work,’ ” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader. “They say, ‘If it cost me my election, I can point to the fact that I was a member of the productive Congress that did health care, did credit cards, did student loan reform, just go through the entire list.’ ”

Democrats also disputed that the election results were a repudiation of their agenda and pointed instead at the hard times many Americans are suffering through. “The economy has been awful all over the country,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader. “The economy is the reason you had the uproar from the Tea Party. That’s all it was.”

At a news conference on Wednesday, just as the House and Senate were wrapping up, President Obama — the catalyst for much of what happened, substantively and politically — called the 111th Congress the most productive in generations and said the postelection legislative blitz proved that the two parties could work together.

“If there’s any lesson to draw from these past few weeks, it’s that we are not doomed to endless gridlock,” Mr. Obama said. “We’ve shown in the wake of the November elections that we have the capacity not only to make progress, but to make progress together.”

The ability of Congressional Democrats, in concert with Mr. Obama, to push through a string of major initiatives in some sense conflicted with the notion that Congress is broken and dysfunctional.

But the advent of divided government next month will test the ability of Congress anew. Even Democrats happy with the outcome of the past two years say the process was often ugly and allowed Republicans to cast much of the legislation as flawed.

Measures that have almost become afterthoughts — pay equity for women and the new power of the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco, for instance — could have been signature achievements in other Congresses. And the Senate confirmed two of Mr. Obama’s nominees to the Supreme Court — both women, one Hispanic.

“You’re president of the United States and you get two women on the Supreme Court? Bang, bang,” said Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington. “That’s historic.”

But the fights over the stimulus, health care, financial regulation and, most recently, tax policy, dominated the landscape and obscured how Congress failed in other respects.

Because of the time those fights consumed — and the eagerness of lawmakers to avoid tough votes in a charged partisan atmosphere — the Congressional spending and budget process completely collapsed this year for the first time in a quarter-century and Congress did not fulfill its most basic responsibility, allocating money to federal agencies.

That lapse sets up a spending fight early in the next Congress over financing the government for the remainder of the fiscal year while House Republicans try to carry out their plan to cut $100 billion in domestic spending.

Returning for the lame-duck, Democrats put an exclamation point on the session, squeezing through a raft of priorities despite concerted Republican resistance, particularly in the Senate where Democrats were forced to thread the procedural needle time after time.

Republican leaders discovered that the power of the minority only extended so far if Democrats were tenacious and were able — as with the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the Start treaty — to lure decisive numbers of Republicans away from the leadership’s opposition.

Many Republicans complained bitterly in recent days that Democrats were ignoring their rejection in the election and abusing their last weeks of Congressional control to jam through a final flurry of expensive, intrusive programs. And they said efforts by Democrats to score political points by forcing a vote on an immigration measure they knew would fail had angered Republicans and diminished their interest in a major immigration overhaul in the next Congress.

“I think it has hurt,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina.

Republicans did score some some victories of their own in the final days. The compromise that extended Bush-era tax cuts even on the highest incomes and provided a generous exemption for the estates of affluent families was embraced by wide Republican majorities. And they managed to derail a giant $1.2 trillion spending plan that was stuffed with tens of millions of dollars of pet spending projects, delaying crucial spending decisions until early next year when they will run the House and have more clout in the Senate.

At the same time, House and Senate Republicans have pledged to work to repeal the health care law and deny financing for other newly passed initiatives, like the tighter financial regulation.

But Republicans also say the new dynamic on Capitol Hill will put them in a much stronger position to take the offensive and challenge Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats by initiating conservative bills in the House and pushing for Senate floor votes. Even if they fail on some bills, Republicans say, they will make the case to expand their control from the House to the Senate and the White House in 2012.

“The big part is showing America what we stand for,” said Senator Jim DeMint, the conservative South Carolina Republican.

Even as he celebrated the successes, Mr. Obama acknowledged the obstacles ahead. “I’m not naïve,” he said. “I know there will be tough fights.”

    After Bruising Session, Congress Faces New Battles, NYT, 22.12.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/us/politics/23cong.html

Congress Sends $801 Billion Tax Cut Bill to Obama

December 16, 2010
The New York Times
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON — Congress at midnight Thursday approved an $801 billion package of tax cuts and $57 billion for extended unemployment insurance. The vote sealed the first major deal between President Obama and Congressional Republicans as Democrats put aside their objections and bowed to the realignment of power brought about by their crushing election losses.

The bipartisan support for the tax deal also underscored the urgency felt by the administration and by lawmakers in both parties to prop up the still-struggling economy and to prevent an across-the-board tax increase that was set to occur if the rates enacted under President George W. Bush had expired, as scheduled, at the end of the month.

Administration officials said Mr. Obama would sign the package into law on Friday.

The final vote in the House was 277 to 148 after liberal Democrats failed in one last bid to change an estate-tax provision in the bill that they said was too generous to the wealthiest Americans and that the administration agreed to in a concession to Republicans. The amendment failed, 233 to 194.

Supporting the overall measure were 139 Democrats and 138 Republicans; opposed were 112 Democrats and 36 Republicans.

The bill extends for two years all of the Bush-era tax rates and provides a one-year payroll tax cut for most American workers, delivering what economists predict will be a needed lift. The Senate approved the package on Wednesday by 81 to 19.

The White House and Republicans hailed the deal as a rare bipartisan achievement and a prototype for future hard-bargained compromises in the new era of divided government.

But the accord also showed that policy-makers remain locked in an unsustainable cycle of cutting taxes and raising spending that has proven politically palatable in the short term but could threaten the nation’s fiscal stability in years ahead.

Some Republican critics of the deal had said the Bush-era rates should be extended permanently, complaining that to do otherwise would create economic uncertainty. But some analysts said that such certainty was an illusion, given the longer-term problem with the deficit.

“Republicans are talking a lot about certainty,” said Matthew Mitchell, a research fellow and tax policy expert at George Mason University. “But even if they had won some sort of a victory where they got the current tax rates written in stone, spending is on such an unsustainable path in terms of entitlements, it really isn’t certain at all.”

The temporary nature of the deal, however, could lend momentum to broader efforts to overhaul the tax code and tackle the deficit. With the tax debate now scheduled to resume at the height of the 2012 presidential election, some lawmakers said they hoped the fiscal landscape could be redrawn and the cycle of lower taxes and higher spending brought to a halt.

Throughout the debate in recent weeks, lawmakers in both parties expressed unhappiness with the tax agreement, and that there seemed to be an increasing recognition of a need to tackle the long-term problems.

In recent days, 22 senators — 12 Democrats, 9 Republicans and 1 independent — signed on to a resolution pledging to “devise a comprehensive plan for addressing the fiscal concerns of our nation” by focusing on “tax reform, spending restraint and debt and deficit reduction” in 2011.

That pledge suggested lawmakers might want to avoid repeating this debate in two years, and instead focus on proposals to clean up the tax code and potentially reduce rates for individuals and corporations alike, while simultaneously trying to bring spending in line.

“The era of deficit denial is over,” said Bruce Reed, the executive director of Mr. Obama’s bipartisan commission on reducing the national debt. “They’re just having a big year-end close-out.”

Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, for example, voted against the tax deal on Wednesday even though he is a champion of lower taxes. But Mr. Coburn, as a member of the debt commission, voted in favor of its blueprint for reducing the debt through 2020.

Mr. Coburn had proposed an alternative to the tax deal on Wednesday, seeking to reduce its cost using a number of strategies endorsed by the commission.

As the House moved toward approving the tax package, liberal Democrats railed against it and delayed the final vote by several hours after briefly objecting to the terms of debate.

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, accused Republicans of forcing Democrats “to pay a king’s ransom in order to help the middle class.”

Many of the Democratic opponents said the package would do too much for the wealthy, and warned that the payroll tax cut could undermine the stability of Social Security.

“It’s a huge giveaway to the super-rich in tough economic times,” said Representative Jim McDermott, Democrat of Washington, who called the plan “craziness.”

Representative Peter Welch, Democrat of Vermont, said, “This legislation creates too few jobs and too much debt.”

Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, said he feared the one-year cut in the Social Security payroll tax, to 4.2 percent from 6.2 percent on income up to $106,800, would weaken Social Security because Republicans would insist on it being made permanent, and Democrats would relent. “We know that politically once you make that tax cut it will be impossible to restore it,” Mr. Nadler said.

Some Republican critics said the package would add too much to the deficit, and they objected to maintaining extended jobless aid without offsetting the cost with spending cuts elsewhere.

But most Republicans said they supported the deal.

“We are crawling out of the worst economic downturn in generations,” said Representative Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia, who will be the majority leader next year. “The choice is to act now or impose a $3.8 trillion tax increase.”

Mr. Cantor also reminded Republicans to recognize the limits of their new House majority. “We could try to hold out an pass a different tax bill, but there is no reason to believe the Senate would pass it or the president would sign it if this fight spills into next year,” he said.

Even some fierce conservatives said they were putting aside reservations about the overall cost to back the plan. “I am going to fight to put this nation back on the road to fiscal sanity,” said Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas, announcing that he would vote aye.

In the Senate, Democrats on Thursday night abandoned efforts to pass a $1.2 trillion spending bill to finance the federal government through Sept. 30, and said they would accede to Republicans demands for a short-term stop-gap measure instead.

Senators said the stop-gap bill would run through the early part of next year, at which point Republicans will have greater leverage over spending decisions.

Senate Republicans had pledged to stop the spending measure, even though it included millions of dollars for projects that they had requested, and had threatened to force the entire bill, which is more than 1,900 pages, to be read aloud on the Senate floor.

Mr. McConnell, in floor remarks, praised the Appropriations Committee, of which he is a member, for its work on the spending bill that he and other Republicans blocked.

Carl Hulse contributed reporting.

    Congress Sends $801 Billion Tax Cut Bill to Obama, NYT, 16.12.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/us/politics/17cong.html

Patrick Kennedy Packs Up 63 Years of Family History

December 16, 2010
The New York Times
By ABBY GOODNOUGH

WASHINGTON — Nightfall on the Kennedy era in Washington looks like this: Representative Patrick J. Kennedy’s office space surrendered to a Republican, his family memorabilia in boxes, and Mr. Kennedy yearning for a role away from the public eye.

As soon as Friday, when the lame-duck session of Congress could wrap up, Mr. Kennedy, 43, will return to Rhode Island, settling into his recently renovated farmhouse in Portsmouth. When his eighth term ends early next month, no member of his family will hold national office for the first time since 1947, when John F. Kennedy became a congressman from Massachusetts.

With Mr. Kennedy’s father, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, dead for more than a year now and no one else in the family voicing plans to run for office, Capitol Hill will be left with ghosts and memories. The only politician left among them is Bobby Shriver, whose mayoral term in Santa Monica, Calif., just ended but who still sits on the City Council there.

“This is a family that once had the presidency and two Senate seats, and they’re now down to the mayor of Santa Monica,” said Darrell M. West, a Brookings Institution scholar. “It’s a pretty dramatic fall, and it’s symbolic of the decline of liberalism.”

In an interview here last week, Mr. Kennedy seemed caught between two urges: to disappear into a quiet life, and to keep trying, as a private citizen, to fill what he called the enormous shoes — “too big to ever imagine,” he said — of his father and uncles.

“My family legacy was never just about government service,” said Mr. Kennedy, who talked for more than two hours in an empty room at the Cannon House Office Building, where John F. Kennedy also worked as a House member from 1947 to 1953. “It was about giving back, and the branding of President Kennedy’s call for Americans to give back to their country.”

And yet it was politics that made the Kennedys a de facto royal family, giving them a vein of power in Washington that spanned generations. The Kennedys have been woven prominently through the political and social history of the last half-century, from the assassinations of John and his brother Robert, to Edward’s 1969 car accident on Chappaquiddick Island, Mass., that killed Mary Jo Kopechne, to the 1999 plane crash that killed John F. Kennedy Jr.

Recent forays into politics by younger family members, like Caroline Kennedy’s brief run for the Senate in New York in 2009, have also fascinated the nation.

“It’s not as if a Kennedy presence in Washington is an indispensable ingredient for the survival of the republic,” said Ross K. Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University. “But for people whose memories harken back to the earlier Kennedys, especially as American politics got more fractious and contentious, there was something reassuring about the element of continuity.”

Mr. Kennedy was 21 when he was elected to the Rhode Island House of Representatives in 1988, winning on his name alone. He never considered a life outside politics, he said, because he was so intent on emulating his father.

But he always struggled in the legislative shadow of one of the most influential senators in history. The younger Kennedy had his own signature achievement with a 2008 law that requires equal insurance coverage for treatment of mental and physical illness, and he became a strong proponent of removing American troops from Afghanistan. In recent months, he has advocated for more research and treatment for veterans suffering from traumatic brain injury. Still, he was as well known for his family name and brushes with addiction as for his legislative work.

“Whereas his uncles and father were people whose footprints were indelible on the terrain of American politics,” Mr. Baker said, “Patrick was not.”

Other Kennedys may yet enter politics — Victoria Reggie Kennedy, Edward Kennedy’s widow, is seen as a possible Democratic Senate candidate from Massachusetts, and Joseph P. Kennedy III, 30, a grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, briefly considered running for an open House seat there this year — but to date, most of Patrick Kennedy’s cousins have pursued different kinds of public service.

Timothy Shriver, a son of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, runs the Special Olympics, for example, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an environmental activist.

“I know it fits some narrative that, ‘Oh, I’m the last Kennedy,’ ” Patrick Kennedy said, his tone verging on sardonic. “But any one survey of what my family is doing out there in a million different ways fits with my family legacy.”

His way of giving back, Mr. Kennedy said, would be to continue as an advocate for ending the stigma of mental illness. He will draw attention and resources to brain research, he said, hopefully improving how disorders from addiction to Parkinson’s disease are treated and understood.

His interest is personal, not least because he himself was treated for cocaine addiction as a teenager, was given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder after he got to Congress in 1994 and then became addicted to painkillers. In 2006, he crashed his Mustang convertible into a barricade outside the Capitol in the middle of the night, after which he went public with his addiction and sought treatment.

He is planning to detail his struggles in a memoir, “Coming Clean,” to be released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt late next year.

“Ultimately, I see telling my own story as a more palatable way to get out the story of the neuroscience,” Mr. Kennedy said. “I don’t want to be talking about salacious details for the purpose of salacious details, but for the purpose of fitting it into a context to describe a bigger story.”

Mr. Kennedy said he was closing down his campaign committees and not keeping any campaign money. He might keep an office in Washington, he said, but would consider Rhode Island home.

After leaving the Hill, his immediate goal will be organizing a brain research conference in Boston in May. Not by coincidence, it will be the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s speech to Congress proposing to send a man to the moon. He is enlisting scientists and sponsors, and stressing that the initiative could prove as historic as the race to space.

He has set up a Web site, www.moonshot.org, and singled out veterans as urgently needing the kind of scientific breakthroughs he envisions.

Mr. Baker said it was hard to imagine Mr. Kennedy’s research initiative’s having anywhere near the impact of his uncle’s call to put a man on the moon.

“That kind of pledge carries much further and with much greater resonance from the rostrum of a presidential address” he said, “than from a retiring member of the House.”

Norman J. Ornstein, a political scientist at the American Enterprise Institute, said that while Mr. Kennedy’s departure was minor in the scheme of things, that he and his father were being replaced as the only father-son team in Congress by Representative Ron Paul of Texas and Senator-elect Rand Paul of Kentucky, who hail from the libertarian Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, was indicative of “the kind of sea change we’re going through” on Capitol Hill.

“To go from the Kennedys to the Pauls,” Mr. Ornstein said, “I would say that’s a pretty big difference.”

    Patrick Kennedy Packs Up 63 Years of Family History, NYT, 16.12.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/us/politics/17kennedy.html

Tax Deal Hits Procedural Snag in the House

December 16, 2010
The New York Times
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON —The $858 billion tax cut package negotiated by the White House and Republican leaders hit a procedural snag on Thursday, as liberal Democrats skirmished with party leaders over its estate-tax provisions. At issue was whether the House would vote on an amendment to tax a larger proportion of wealthy estates and to apply a higher rate than was provided for in the compromise package.

An aide to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, described the setback as temporary, and said that it would probably delay an overall vote on the tax plan until Thursday evening.

Liberal Democrats, many of them angry about the prospect of continuing the tax policies of President George W. Bush, complained that party leaders had structured the debate so that they could not vote in favor of amending the estate tax provision without also voting in favor of the entire package.

Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, said he supported the change in the estate tax, which he said would save $23 billion. But he complained, “In order to do that, I would have to accept the remainder of the Senate bill.”

As a result, House Democratic leaders postponed a vote on the proposed rule laying out how the floor votes on the tax plan would be taken, to negotiate an alternate plan. Republicans, who are expected to vote for the overall tax plan in large numbers, were unlikely to support the rule, largely because Democrats control the entire process.

Many Republicans would like the opportunity to vote on a proposal to extend all of the Bush-era tax rates without the compromise provisions negotiated by the White House.

As the House opened debate on the tax plan on Thursday, lawmakers in both parties expressed unhappiness with aspects of it, but House leaders nonetheless said they expected the bill to be approved and sent to President Obama for his signature.

The Senate overwhelmingly approved the measure on Wednesday by a vote of 81 to 19. But if the House were to amend it by changing the estate tax provision or any other part, the bill would have to be approved anew by the Senate.

House Democrats had planned two votes on the tax bill in their chamber. The first would have been to approve the bill while altering it to tax more wealthy estates and at a higher rate. And if that failed, as expected, the House would have then voted to approve the package unchanged.

Republicans have said they will not accept any changes, and Mr. Obama has urged Congress to approve the bill as quickly as possible as is.

As debate began on the House floor, Democrats complained that the bill would give too many tax breaks to the wealthy and do too little for working-class Americans or for the economy as a whole. Republicans complained that the package was too expensive and would add to the nation’s debt, which they say is already rising to dangerous levels.

“We can do better than this,” said Representative James P. McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts. “We must do better than this.”

Representative Thaddeus G. McCotter, Republican of Michigan, said, “This bill will not end the suffering of the unemployed and economically anxious Americans, it will prolong it.”

But with the Bush-era income tax rates due to expire at the end of the month, thereby effectively raising taxes on everyone, the House seemed to see little option but to follow the Senate in adopting the measure, and accepting tough concessions for both sides.

With the Senate vote on Wednesday, Democrats yielded in their long push to end the lower tax rates on high incomes enacted under Mr. Bush, and Republicans agreed to back a huge economic stimulus package, including an extension of jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed and a one-year payroll-tax cut for most workers, with the entire cost added to the federal deficit.

It was the first concrete product of a new era of divided government and acid compromise.

In the House, some lawmakers said they recognized the need to act. “If we don’t pass the extension of the tax cuts now, every American will see smaller paychecks and higher taxes in January,” Representative Gerry E. Connolly, Democrat of Virginia, said on Thursday.

House Democratic leaders predicted that the package would be approved one way or another. Speaking on MSNBC, Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, said that while he though the proposal to modify the estate-tax provisions had “a decent shot,” if the tax plan is put to a vote as is, “I think my best guess is that it passes.”

Still, on Wednesday evening, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, was not ready to concede on the estate tax issue.

“We will make our point,” Ms. Pelosi said at a news conference, repeating her opposition, shared by many Democrats, to the provision granting a tax exemption to estates of up to $5 million per person, or $10 million per couple. Republicans have said they will not accept any change.

Meanwhile, Representative Joseph Pitts, Republican of Pennsylvania, deplored the earmarks — more than 6,000 of them — in the Senate omnibus spending bill, calling it “a legislative travesty.” Saying that Americans were tired of paying taxes “so $165,000 can pay for maple-syrup research,” he added, “We don’t need to be growing the federal government, we need to be shrinking it.”

Other Democrats predicted that the tax plan would be passed as is on Thursday, making clear that their initial fury at the prospect of extending Bush-era tax rates even on the highest incomes had given way to acceptance that the White House, its leverage weakened by midterm election losses, had negotiated the best compromise it could. President Obama urged Congress again on Wednesday to pass the bill unchanged and without delay.

Mr. Obama praised the Senate action, calling the bill “a win for American families, American businesses and our economic recovery,” even as he nodded to the tough bargain he had struck, adding, “It includes some provisions that I oppose.”

Some Democrats said they had concluded that the administration had won important concessions to help middle-income Americans as well as the unemployed while giving a short-term jolt to the struggling economy. Others said they simply could not be held responsible for allowing all of the Bush-era tax cuts to expire at the end of the month, raising taxes on everyone.

The Senate’s overwhelming approval of the tax plan was a brief flash of bipartisan cooperation amid the deep partisan acrimony in the waning days of the 111th Congress. The tax plan was supported by 43 Democrats, 37 Republicans and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut. Opposed were 13 Democrats, 5 Republicans and Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont. Mr. Lieberman and Mr. Sanders caucus with the Democrats.

“A tremendous accomplishment,” the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, declared shortly before the vote on Wednesday. “Whether you agree with all the contents of the bill or not, everyone should understand this is one of the major accomplishments of any Congress where two parties, ideologically divided, have agreed on a major issue for the American people.”

The two-year tax measure will touch virtually every American — poor and rich, old and young, married or single, with children or living alone, and even those who die. And, with a reprise of this year’s contentious debate now slated for the height of the 2012 presidential campaign, the bill is likely to be a precursor to a broader effort by Mr. Obama to overhaul the nation’s labyrinthine tax code and begin tackling the long-term deficit.

The tax plan would extend all of the lowered income tax rates enacted under President George W. Bush, as well as the 15 percent rate on capital gains and dividends, which were due to expire at the end of this month.

And it would set new estate tax parameters, including the exemption of $5 million per person, or $10 million per couple, and a maximum rate of 35 percent. All these provisions would last for two years. The estate tax lapsed entirely this year, but was set to return on Jan. 1 with an exemption of $1 million per person and a maximum rate of 55 percent.

The bill would also keep jobless aid flowing to the long-term unemployed for 13 more months, maintaining extended limits, which now range from 60 weeks in states with less than 6 percent joblessness to 99 weeks in states where the unemployment rate is more than 8.5 percent. Benefits normally last for 26 weeks.

The one-year payroll tax cut would reduce to 4.2 percent the 6.2 percent Social Security tax levied on income up to $106,800. For a family with $50,000 in annual income, the cut would yield tax savings of about $1,000. For a worker paying the maximum tax, it would provide savings of $2,136.

The bill also contains an array of other tax breaks for individuals and businesses, aimed at pumping up the economy. It continues a college tuition credit for some families, an expanded child tax credit and the earned income tax credit. It also includes a two-year adjustment to the alternative minimum tax to prevent as many as 21 million more households from being hit by it, and it contains a provision allowing businesses to write off certain expenses more quickly.

The tax deal was sealed in back-channel talks between Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. It offered a glimpse of a new power dynamic that is likely to characterize the next two years, as Republicans take control of the House and occupy six more seats in the Senate.

Democratic opponents of the plan said it would overly benefit the wealthiest Americans and not do enough for the working class and the poor, and that the money used to continue reduced tax rates on the highest incomes could be better spent on other steps to stimulate the economy. Before the vote on Wednesday, Mr. McConnell denounced the effort by Democrats to approve a $1.1 trillion spending bill that would finance the government through the end of the federal fiscal year on Sept. 30.

Mr. McConnell called on Democrats to approve a stop-gap spending measure that would last only through the early part of next year instead, and to abandon everything else on their agenda and adjourn for the year.

Democrats, however, are refusing to back down on any of their priorities, which include the omnibus spending bill, the New Start arms control treaty with Russia, a bill to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy barring open service by gay men and lesbians, and an immigration measure that would create a path to citizenship for certain illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children.

The spending bill in particular has incited a contentious battle. Senator Daniel K. Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii and chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said he believed he had the votes to pass it. Senate Republicans have denounced the bill, which includes hundreds of lawmaker-directed spending items known as earmarks, only to face blistering questions about earmarks they themselves had requested.

Aides to Mr. Reid said they had mapped out a path to securing votes on all of the legislation, which would mean staying in session until next Thursday, two days before Christmas, and potentially returning the week before New Year’s Day.

Brian Knowlton and Janie Lorber contributed reporting.

    Tax Deal Hits Procedural Snag in the House, NYT, 16.12.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/us/politics/17tax.html

Voting for an Odious Tax Deal

December 7, 2010
The New York Times

Liberal Democrats are in revolt at the tax deal that President Obama struck with Republicans on Monday, and it is not hard to understand why. By temporarily extending income tax breaks for the richest Americans, and cutting estate taxes for the ultrawealthy, the deal will redistribute billions of dollars from job creation to people who do not need the money.

But the Democrats should vote for this deal, because it is the only one they are going to get. Mr. Obama made that case — strongly — on Tuesday, summoning an eloquence that is often elusive, as it was on Monday when he first announced the deal. Without this bargain, income taxes on the middle class would rise. Unemployment insurance for millions of Americans would expire. And many other important tax breaks for low- and middle-income workers — including a 2 percent payroll tax cut and college tuition credits — would not be possible.

If angry Democrats blow up the deal, they will be left vainly groping for something better in a new Congress where they will have far less influence than they have now. The middle class and the unemployed would be seriously hurt.

The president, and particularly Congressional Democrats, might not be in this bind if they had fought harder against the high-end tax cuts before the midterm elections. But that moment has passed. The real responsibility for what’s wrong with the tax deal lies with Republicans. They coldly insisted on the high-end tax cuts at all costs, no matter the pain they might inflict further down the income ladder or what staggering cost they might impose in years to come.

President Obama was right to use the metaphor of hostage-taking to describe the Republicans’ tactics. Using the parliamentary rules of the Senate, 42 Republican senators threatened to raise middle-class taxes if Democrats let tax cuts expire on the richest 2 percent of Americans. That left the White House and the Democrats little room to maneuver. “I think it’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage-takers, unless the hostage gets harmed,” Mr. Obama said at his news conference on Tuesday.

Some of the provisions won by the president could act as a new stimulus to the economy, particularly the extension of the unemployment benefits for 13 months and the cut to the payroll tax, though the full stimulative effect is uncertain. The cut only applies to wages and salaries up to $106,800 — people who really need it.

There remains much to dislike in the package, including the pressure that its deficit spending will create to cut important programs in the years to come. Mr. Obama was clearly not thrilled at the compromises he had to make, and neither are we. But at least he acted in what he believed are the best interests of the country.

When are the Republicans going to step up and do the same? There is no legitimate national interest in opposing the New Start nuclear arms treaty with the Russians, which most military and foreign leaders agree would make the world a safer place. There is no legitimate national interest in clinging to the discrimination against gay members of the military, which the Pentagon’s leaders want to end. There will be no sound economic reason to make the tax cuts for the top 2 percent of taxpayers permanent in two years.

The only reason for Republican recalcitrance on these issues is to deny the Democrats an accomplishment, to stymie Mr. Obama’s re-election and appeal to the most retrograde elements of the party’s base.

President Obama will face a liberal whirlwind for the compromise he made on taxes. It is time for Republicans to show that they are strong enough to take on their base for their country’s benefit.

    Voting for an Odious Tax Deal, NYT, 8.12.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/opinion/08wed1.html

Energy and the Lame Duck

November 22, 2010
The New York Times

This Congress’s record on energy and environmental issues is shameful. The Senate, paralyzed by Republican opposition and indifferent Democratic leadership, could not muster the 60 votes to pass legislation to reduce carbon emissions. It even failed to respond to the gulf oil spill.

The next Congress is sure to be worse. The Democratic majority in the Senate will be smaller. And the House — which has led the way in recent years — and its committees will be dominated by Republicans who are loudly skeptical about the science behind climate change and determined to cripple President Obama’s authority to use regulation to tackle the problem.

There is little chance of a major breakthrough in Congress’s remaining weeks, but it is still possible to get some important legislation through.

One bill worth pressing is a creative measure with bipartisan support in both houses that would ramp up the use of natural gas in heavy-duty trucks and create a pilot program for building a network of recharging stations for electric vehicles. Converting trucks to natural gas could save 1.2 million barrels of oil by 2035; electric cars could eventually be a real game-changer.

The bill would spend $5.5 billion over 10 years in tax credits and other incentives to encourage manufacturers to produce natural gas vehicles and companies and consumers to buy them. The bill would also encourage research and development on electric cars. It would be paid with a small increase in the per-barrel fee oil companies pay into the oil spill liability fund. Oil companies are screaming, even though it would mean a tiny, one-thirteenth-of-a-cent increase in the price of a gallon of gasoline. Big Oil should not be allowed to kill off this bill.

Both houses must also renew tax subsidies for renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. Unless Congress acts, they will expire at year-end. Here, the big enemy is sloth, not any special interest.

Renewable energy sources are not yet ready to compete with cheaper and dirtier fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. But there has been real progress in recent years, and past experience shows that when the tax credits are allowed to expire, investors disappear.

Then there is the oil spill bill, languishing in the Senate. A series of reports in recent weeks have highlighted a host of failures by both industry and regulators.

Like the House version, a Senate bill would require the oil industry to adopt new safety measures on deep-water rigs and would also upgrade training of rig workers and government inspectors. It would mandate independent inspections of drilling operations and reorganize government agencies, with a goal of ending, at last, the conflicts of interest that led the Interior Department to fast-track drilling projects at the expense of safety.

The department has issued rules that seek many of these same ends, but Congressional action would give the force of law to reforms that could be reversed by future administrations.

This does not relieve the White House and the Democrats of the responsibility to press forward with broader legislation to combat climate change. The threat is too big to allow the ideologues and professional skeptics to stop the country from doing what it needs to do. Even so, there is time in the remaining weeks of the lame-duck session to take small but still important steps.

    Energy and the Lame Duck, NYT, 22.11.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/opinion/23tues1.html

States Out of Balance

November 9, 2010
The New York Times

The Republican Party’s most visible triumph last week was in the House of Representatives, but the more lasting — and possibly more destructive — result was in statehouses across the country. Republicans won more than 690 new legislative seats, taking back at least 19 state chambers and 10 governor’s seats from Democrats. Republicans previously had been in full control of nine states; now they will fully control at least 20.

There is no way that these newly elected Republican lawmakers and governors can follow through on their promises to erase huge deficits without raising taxes — except by making irresponsibly draconian cuts in critical state services, particularly for the poor and for education.

The states, like the federal government, need to get control of spending. That may mean dealing with out-of-control pensions. It may mean careful cuts in services combined with, yes, higher taxes. But with millions of people out of work, this is the worst possible time for the states to try to solve all their problems by simply slashing health care spending, spending on higher and elementary education, and services for the elderly and the poor. It would lead to tens of thousands of layoffs and even lower state revenues.

State budget cuts over the last two years have already been deep and painful, the biggest declines in three decades. High-spending states like New York, New Jersey and California can still find waste and fraud in programs like Medicaid. They are among the states that must make an aggressive effort to bring spiraling pension costs down to earth.

Many other states have little left to cut in government services. Nonetheless, as Monica Davey and Michael Luo reported in The Times this week, many newly elected Republican governors say they will balance their budgets that way. In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry and several state lawmakers have even floated the idea of dropping out of the Medicaid program and creating a low-cost insurance program for the poor.

That is an irresponsible, and counterproductive, way to try to close the state’s $25 billion deficit. It would mean giving up the federal government’s 60 percent share of the Texas program’s $40 billion annual cost. And for nearly four million participants, it would reduce the level of health care far below a minimum standard.

No matter what the politicians have promised, there is no sound way to balance budgets, protect the most vulnerable people, and the states’ own economies, without some tax increases.

The Republicans’ big wins in Washington will make the states’ plight even worse. As part of their campaigns, Republican members of Congress have vowed to cut discretionary spending, much of which goes to state capitols. Meanwhile, federal stimulus money — decried by the Republicans — is drying up.

The changes in state government will have another long-term effect as states begin the redistricting process to comply with the population changes documented in the 2010 census. This means that Republicans will be in a position to consolidate this year’s gains by redrawing Congressional and state legislative district lines to their advantage.

These highly partisan exercises in self-aggrandizement go on every 10 years, but the unusually large number of states with both Republican legislatures and governorships will sharply reduce the ability of Democrats to bring a little balance to the process.

States have long been in the paradoxical position of being closer to the lives of voters than the federal government, while receiving far less scrutiny and attention. But if Republicans begin abusing the privilege they have been handed, imposing unconscionable cuts and claiming an unfair partisan advantage, they may find the public’s outrage turning back on them in a hurry.

    States Out of Balance, NYT, 9.11.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/opinion/10wed1.html

Plenty of Work for the Lame Duck: The $4 Trillion Question

November 6, 2010
The New York Times

The Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire at year end. That means the lame duck Congress has tough choices to make and not a lot of time to make them.

Punting, with the assumption that the next Congress will restore some or all of the cuts, will only intensify the uncertainty for individuals and businesses. Making the wrong choice could drive up the deficit disastrously or stall the recovery. Now that the campaign is over, lawmakers need to put aside the posturing and politicking and do what is right for the country.

The Republicans want to permanently extend all of the tax cuts, including those for the richest Americans. Before the midterm election, President Obama called for permanently extending the cuts for the 98 percent of households earning less than $250,000 a year, and letting most of the cuts expire for those who make more than that. Last week, he said he was open to negotiation.

What should happen? What would it mean to your tax bill? To the deficit?

Permanent cuts would bust the budget. Extending all of them would cost nearly $4 trillion over the next decade — $3.2 trillion for the so-called middle-class cuts and $700 billion for the richest Americans. There is no plausible level of spending cuts to offset the damage; the result would be chronic deficits and debilitating debt.

That is why we believe that for the sake of fiscal sanity any extensions of the Bush tax cuts must be temporary and focused on spurring consumer spending while the economy is weak. We support a one- or two-year extension of the cuts for low-, middle-, and upper-middle-income taxpayers, who spend most of their income.

Under this approach, unless you are at the top of the ladder, you will keep your Bush tax cuts in the near term. The top 2 percent of households would take a hit, but hardly a body blow. A married couple making $325,000 a year, with two school-age children, would see their taxes rise by $7,400, from $63,600 to $71,000, according to estimates by Deloitte Tax. If the couple made $1 million, their taxes would rise from $236,200 to $289,400.

A one-year extension of the cuts for the lower 98 percent would add about $140 billion to the deficit, but the support to the economy is more important right now. Revenue from letting the high-end tax cuts expire — an estimated $40 billion in 2011 alone — could be used for job-creating measures in the near term and deficit reduction later on.

Politics being as they are, what lawmakers should do is not what they probably will do.

One compromise that President Obama is reportedly considering would extend all of the Bush tax cuts for a year or two. That is a dangerous step, because lawmakers could face the same decision in 2012 — in the middle of another campaign — and would probably make the same choice. Serial extensions would be tantamount to a permanent extension.

To complicate things further, Bush-era income taxes are not the only taxes on the table for the lame duck Congress. Lawmakers must also decide on new rates and exemptions for the estate tax, which reverts to its pre-2001 level in 2011.

Most Democrats have called for restoring the estate tax to its level in 2009, which would exempt 99.8 percent of estates from ever facing the tax. The tax would not kick in until an estate is worth more than $3.5 million ($7 million for couples), with a rate of 45 percent on property above those levels. The proposal — which could cost $250 billion over 10 years — is more than generous.

Republicans and some Democrats want to raise the exemptions to $5 million ($10 million for couples), and lower the rate to 35 percent. That would be a huge break for mega estates, an unconscionable giveaway that would cost $130 billion more than the Democrats’ plan over 10 years.

At the other end of the spectrum, several tax breaks from last year’s stimulus law — focused on middle- and low-income working families — will expire at year end unless extended. Mr. Obama has called for making the low-income breaks permanent, at a 10-year cost of nearly $100 billion. Republicans have not mentioned keeping the low-income tax cuts. Their silence speaks volumes.

If the lame duck Congress is responsible — a big if — it will require the wealthy to pay more and shield the vulnerable from increases.

Everyone else would keep their tax breaks in the near term, but be put on notice that fixing the budget will require tax increases and spending cuts as the economy recovers. Then the next Congress must pick up where the lame ducks leave off, by undertaking broad tax-and-spending reform to bring revenues in line with outlays.

    Plenty of Work for the Lame Duck: The $4 Trillion Question, NYT, 6.11.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/opinion/07sun1.html

G.O.P. Plans to Use Purse Strings to Fight Health Law

November 6, 2010
The New York Times
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — As they seek to make good on their campaign promise to roll back President Obama’s health care overhaul, the incoming Republican leaders in the House say they intend to use their new muscle to cut off money for the law, setting up a series of partisan clashes and testing Democratic commitment to the legislation.

Republicans, who will control the House starting in January but will remain in the minority in the Senate, acknowledge that they do not have the votes for their ultimate goal of repealing the health law, the most polarizing of Mr. Obama’s signature initiatives.

But they said they hoped to use the power of the purse to challenge main elements of the law, forcing Democrats — especially those in the Senate who will be up for re-election in 2012 — into a series of votes to defend it.

Republican lawmakers said, for example, that they would propose limiting the money and personnel available to the Internal Revenue Service, so the agency could not aggressively enforce provisions that require people to obtain health insurance and employers to help pay for it. Under the law, individuals and employers who flout the requirements will face tax penalties.

Moreover, Republican leaders said, they plan to use spending bills to block federal insurance regulations to which they object. And they will try to limit access to government-subsidized private health plans that include coverage of abortion — one of the most contentious issues in Congressional debate over the legislation.

Those are just a few examples of the ways in which newly empowered House Republicans plan to use spending bills to pressure Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats to accept changes in the law.

Given their slim majority, Senate Democrats must stick together if they want to avoid sending Mr. Obama spending bills and other legislation that he would feel compelled to veto, setting up the prospect of a broader deadlock and, in an extreme situation, a government shutdown.

The House Republican whip, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, described the strategy this way: “If all of Obamacare cannot be immediately repealed, then it is my intention to begin repealing it piece by piece, blocking funding for its implementation and blocking the issuance of the regulations necessary to implement it.”

“In short,” Mr. Cantor said, “it is my intention to use every tool at our disposal to achieve full repeal of Obamacare.”

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said he, too, wanted to shut off money for the new law.

Mr. Obama has made clear that he will fight to preserve all the fundamental elements of the law. When asked if the president would veto legislation to cut off money, his spokesman, Robert Gibbs said, “I don’t think we’ll get to that.”

Both sides said they were determined to avoid a government shutdown like the one in 1995 that, by many accounts, did political damage to House Republicans and Newt Gingrich, who was then speaker.

Anticipating the Republican assault, White House officials said Mr. Obama would emphasize how the law protects consumers and gives them more control of their insurance. Administration officials are working with Senate Democrats to arrange hearings at which consumers would explain how they have already benefited from the law.

One of the president’s strongest allies is Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, an architect of the law. Mr. Harkin said he would “fight any attempt to defund the law or repeal its consumer protections.” He is well placed to lead such resistance. He is chairman of the Senate’s health committee and of its Appropriations subcommittee responsible for health programs.

The number and variety of restrictions Congress can impose in spending bills is almost unlimited. A bill passed by the House last year, for example, stipulated that no federal money could be used to buy light bulbs unless they met certain energy efficiency standards. The same bill said, “No funds appropriated in this act may be used for the transportation of students or teachers in order to overcome racial imbalance in any school.”

House Republicans could easily pass similar provisos stating that no federal money could be used to carry out specific sections of the new health care law.

By attaching the restrictions to appropriations bills, House Republicans can force negotiations with the Senate. The Hyde amendment, restricting the use of federal money to pay for abortion, began as such a rider more than 30 years ago.

House Republicans said their efforts were inspired, in part, by the words of Senator Robert C. Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who died this year. Mr. Byrd described the power of the purse as “one of the most effective bulwarks ever constructed” to shackle the hands of an overreaching executive.

Even if judges uphold the constitutionality of the law, federal officials will still need money to administer and enforce it. And that is where House Republicans see an opportunity to assert their influence, with a real possibility of a stalemate.

The White House has provided money to states to help them get ready — to scrutinize increases in insurance premiums and to set up regulated markets known as insurance exchanges. In addition, the law provided $1 billion for “federal administrative expenses.” But that is far less than will be required.

The Congressional Budget Office says the Internal Revenue Service will need $5 billion to $10 billion over 10 years to determine who is eligible for tax credits and other subsidies intended to make insurance affordable. The Department of Health and Human Services will need at least that much to carry out changes in Medicaid, Medicare and the private insurance market, the budget office said.

The law provided $11 billion for community health centers to serve 20 million more low-income people, including many expected to gain coverage under the law. Many Republicans, including President George W. Bush, have supported such clinics.

But Daniel R. Hawkins Jr., senior vice president of the National Association of Community Health Centers, said, “It’s unclear how we will fare in the new climate.”

The House Republicans’ campaign manifesto proposed “strict budget caps” that would cut spending for most domestic programs subject to annual appropriations.

The conflict over health care may be the biggest obstacle to cooperation between Mr. Obama and Republicans in Congress.

“House Republicans cannot enact legislation the president won’t sign,” said R. Scott Lilly, a former Democratic staff director of the House Appropriations Committee. “But the president cannot force them to appropriate money they don’t want to appropriate.”

    G.O.P. Plans to Use Purse Strings to Fight Health Law, NYT, 6.11.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/health/policy/07health.html

Black and Republican and Back in Congress

November 5, 2010
The New York Times
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

WASHINGTON — For the first time in over a decade, the incoming class of Congress will include two black Republicans, both of whom rode the Tea Party wave to victory while playing down their race.

One of them, Allen West, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Army, prevailed in a tough fight in a South Florida district. The other, Tim Scott, is the first black Republican to be elected to the House of Representatives from South Carolina in over a century. They will be the first black Republicans in Congress since J. C. Watts of Oklahoma retired in 2003.

“I did not want to run as a black candidate; I did not want to run as a military candidate,” Mr. West said in a telephone interview. “I wanted to run as an American candidate and win the respect of the people.”

While the number of African-Americans in Congress has steadily increased since the civil rights era, black Republicans have been nearly as rare as quetzal birds.

For Mr. Watts, a former college quarterback, the job came with a significant spotlight and significant challenges — as an African-American he was a minority among Republicans, and as a Republican he was a minority among blacks on Capitol Hill. While his time in office overlapped the tenure of another black Republican, Gary A. Franks, who represented a Connecticut district from 1991 until 1997, Mr. Watts is in the one who came to represent the perks and travails of his position.

“I was smart enough to not allow Republicans to compel me to play the role of the ‘black Republican,’ ” Mr. Watts said in a telephone interview. “But I never felt compelled to ignore real issues of the black community either.”

He did not join the Congressional Black Caucus because it was dominated by Democrats, he said, a decision that Mr. West said was a mistake that he would not repeat.

“I think you need to have competing voices in that body,” Mr. West said. “I think that is important.” (Mr. Scott has not decided if he will join the caucus.)

African-Americans found a place in Congress in the latter decades of the 19th century, particularly during the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, when 16 black men served, all of them Republicans. The first was Hiram R. Revels, of Mississippi, who was in the Senate from 1870 to 1871. Joseph H. Rainey from South Carolina was the first black member of the House, serving from 1870 to 1879, according to Congressional Quarterly’s “Guide to U.S. Elections.”

There were no blacks in Congress from 1900 to 1929, but since then, their numbers have increased bit by bit, especially after the civil rights movement, this time with Democrats leading the way, a reflection of the changed dynamics of each party and the shifts of power in state legislatures. Of all the blacks ever to serve in Congress, 98 have been Democrats and 27 have been Republicans; there are 42 African-American members in the current lame-duck Congress.

The yield of black Republican winners on Tuesday was small considering that 32 African-Americans ran in Republican primaries this year. “If two is the highest number of black Republicans to win since Reconstruction, it’s hard to call that a breakthrough,” said Tavis Smiley, a prominent talk show host who has repeatedly criticized Republicans as not doing enough to court black voters.

Mr. Scott and Mr. West represent the more conservative wing of their party — each had some Tea Party backing, including the support of Sarah Palin — but followed different paths to Congress.

Mr. Scott, who was born in North Charleston, S.C., grew up poor with a single mother until a Chick-fil-A franchise owner took him on as a protégé, he said, and imbued him with conservative principles. “Coming from a single-parent household and almost flunking out of high school,” Mr. Scott said, “my hope is I will take that experience and help people bring out the best that they can be.”

Mr. Scott, 45, was elected to the Charleston County Council in 1995 and the South Carolina House of Representatives in 2008. In the Congressional primary, this year he defeated both Carroll Campbell III, the son of a former South Carolina governor, and, in a runoff, Paul Thurmond, the son of former Senator Strom Thurmond, to take the seat in the First Congressional District, which hugs the South Carolina coast.

Mr. West, 49, has never held public office. Born and raised in a military family in Atlanta, he rose to battalion commander in Iraq. His 22-year military career came to an end during the war when he was relieved of his command after using a gun to coerce information from an Iraqi police officer during an interrogation. After retiring from the military in 2004, he moved to Florida, taught high school for a year and then went to Afghanistan as an adviser to the Afghan army.

John Thrasher, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party, said Mr. West won the battle to represent the 22nd Congressional District, which includes the coast of South Florida, because “he’s a great American patriot that resonated with people.”

“His opponent was Pelosi-Obama liberal,” Mr. Thrasher added, “and Allen gave them a different understanding of how government could be.”

Mr. West said he was more surprised that he won as a Republican in a district carried by the Democratic presidential nominee three elections in a row than as an African-American in a district with a white majority. But, he added, “I am honored to be first black Republican congressman from the state of Florida since Reconstruction. There is a historic aspect of it.”

Kitty Bennett contributed reporting.

    Black and Republican and Back in Congress, NYT, 5.11.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/06/us/politics/06house.html

For G.O.P., Big Ambitions Face Daunting Obstacles

November 4, 2010
The New York Times
By JACKIE CALMES

WASHINGTON — Republican leaders in Congress are preparing to take power in two months with ambitious and sometimes contradictory goals for economic and fiscal policies, leaving little common ground with President Obama and much uncertainty about the potential impact on the nation’s problems.

Republicans are standing by their campaign vows to slash spending for domestic programs immediately by at least one-fifth — $100 billion in a single year — even as many mainstream economists say such deep cuts could further strain the economy and should await its full recovery. Republicans also say they will try to deny money to put Mr. Obama’s new health care law into effect, though they have not made clear what they would do to make up the cost savings that would be lost if they succeeded in repealing the law.

In policy documents, including a blueprint this week from Representative Eric Cantor, the likely Republican majority leader in the new Congress, the party has made clear that its main proposals for creating jobs are to cut regulations and taxes — in particular to make the Bush-era tax cuts permanent for all incomes. Extending the tax cuts, however, would add nearly $4 trillion to the debt by 2020, and hundreds of billions more in interest owed for the additional government borrowing, greatly complicating another Republican goal: balancing the budget.

With the Bush tax rates due to expire Dec. 31, that fight between Republicans and Mr. Obama, who favors extending the rates only for income below $250,000, will play out in Congress’s lame-duck session this month. On Thursday, the White House served notice that Mr. Obama, who a day earlier signaled a willingness to compromise, would not sign on to any deal making permanent the lower rates for income above $250,000.

“The president does not believe, and I think would not accept, permanently extending the upper-end tax cuts,” said his press secretary, Robert Gibbs.

The two sides could settle for something less than a permanent extension of the top rates, Mr. Gibbs suggested. Democrats say they might agree to a one- or two-year increase, and longer for the middle-income rates.

But Republicans say they will insist that, whatever the duration, all rates must be extended in tandem — the easier to extend them together again in the future. Both sides recognize that, politically, Republicans would have a harder time in the future trying to extend only the rates that benefited the richest Americans, about 2 percent of taxpayers.

Republicans’ pledge to “defund” the health care law portends another battle. Mr. Obama could veto such legislation, though Republicans could package such moves in larger bills he wants, making a veto problematic. It is unclear whether federal agencies could perhaps reprogram money intended for other purposes to make up for any money blocked by Congress.

Mr. Obama and Republicans appear to agree on one thing: a continued moratorium on spending earmarks, which are the designations in each year’s budget bills for projects sought by individual lawmakers for their constituents or for special interests.

The blueprint circulated by Mr. Cantor, of Virginia, to incoming Republicans endorsed the moratorium. Mr. Obama quickly agreed on Wednesday, saying, “That’s something I think we can — we can work on together.”

But eliminating all earmarks would hardly dent annual deficits. In the 2006 fiscal year, when Republicans last controlled Congress, they approved nearly 10,000 earmarks, a record; the $29 billion cost was about 11 percent of the year’s deficit. But now deficits are much larger, swollen by the recession.

In Republicans’ overall policy statements, they have not specified exactly how they would fulfill the promise to cut more than $100 billion from the budget for domestic discretionary programs. That would be the largest reduction in such spending from one year to the next since it began to be tracked in 1962.

Once they take control of the House in January, however, Republicans will have to begin work on their alternative to the annual budget Mr. Obama will outline soon after Congress convenes, an exercise that will test Republicans’ unity once the scale of such reductions sinks in for them, for their allies among business lobbyists and for constituents back home.

“Neither party dealt with this in the campaign, particularly with asking the middle class to face up to what costs it may have to bear,” said C. Eugene Steuerle, an economist at the Urban Institute and a Treasury official in the Reagan administration.

Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats also have promised to work to reduce projected deficits, lest they inflate the already high federal debt to an unsustainable level. But Democrats do not favor major spending reductions until the economy recovers, perhaps by 2012, and even then they would not consider anything near the $100 billion in one-year cuts that Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House speaker-in-waiting, has proposed.

“To have cuts that deep — cutting nondefense spending on average by a fifth — will require deep cuts in programs that most Americans think are very important,” said James R. Horney, the director of federal fiscal policy at the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Reductions inevitably would hit education, the national parks, health research and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, just to name a few, Mr. Horney said. “And if you start saying you’re going to protect certain popular programs,” he said, “then the cuts in everything else become really draconian.”

The cuts in discretionary programs would not apply to the so-called entitlement programs — chiefly Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — whose rising costs, along with inadequate tax revenues, are driving the deficit projections.

Domestic discretionary programs account for about 15 percent of the annual budget, a portion that is not growing. Entitlement programs are 40 percent and national security spending 23 percent; both are expanding.

Mr. Cantor, in his document to other Republicans this week, has acknowledged that the debt problem could not be solved without reining in the growth of the entitlement programs. But he said that would be hard to do because Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats “have made it abundantly clear that they will attack anyone who puts forward a plan that even tries to begin a conversation about the tough choices that are needed.”

Yet Republicans have done the same. In campaigns this year, they assailed incumbent Democrats for voting to slash Medicare as part of the new health care law, though the projected reductions save money through insurance changes, not reductions in basic Medicare benefits.

Republicans have promised to offset any new spending with additional spending cuts. They have not said they would require such offsetting savings for new tax cuts. Mr. Obama signed a pay-as-you-go law that applies to new spending and tax cuts, but Republicans in Congress could seek a vote to waive it.

    For G.O.P., Big Ambitions Face Daunting Obstacles, NYT, 4.11.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/us/politics/05policy.html

Tight Deadline for New Speaker to Deliver

November 3, 2010
The New York Times
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

In leading his party to midterm triumph, Representative John A. Boehner, the next speaker of the House, is not at the endgame. He is at the beginning of the next and harder fight.

Relying on his decades of experience with the inner workings of the House, Mr. Boehner, of Ohio, now has less than two years to show that the Republican Party is the antidote to what ails Washington, with a discordant caucus, a stagnant economy, a hostile White House with veto power and the long shadow of 1994 all looming before him.

His promises on behalf of the new House majority — reducing the size of government, creating jobs and fundamentally altering the way the Congress conducts its business — are mostly as lofty as they are unspecific, and his efforts to legislate them into reality must be done with ambitious upstarts within his own party and a fresh crop of Tea Partiers, some of whom seem to believe that it is they, not he, now running the show.

The demands on Mr. Boehner from voters are many and not all consistent. There is a craving, polling shows, to see the current system upended, but preferably without gridlock or rancor. Voters want federal spending curtailed, but jealously guard costly entitlements. They angrily reject what is, but have no clearly articulated vision for what should be.

Indeed, Mr. Boehner and his party were delivered no clear mandate from voters, who, polls suggested, were rejecting a policy agenda more than they were rallying around one. One demand resonated loudly: the reduction of federal spending immediately, a daunting goal. Yet, among the first things that Mr. Boehner has said he will seek to accomplish are reversing cuts to the Medicare program and extending the expiring Bush-era tax cuts, steps that are hard to reconcile with a commitment to reining in the national debt.

Mr. Boehner, who will become second in line to the presidency in January, has responded to the contradictory forces that led to Republican victory with equally mixed messages.

He has given speeches about inclusiveness, then written Twitter messages denouncing compromise. He is specific about the amount of spending cuts he seeks — $100 billion — but says little about how he will get there. In speeches during a whirlwind tour of Ohio over the weekend, he promised things would be “different” in Washington, but then returned to the two-year theme of denigrating President Obama.

The best guiding documents for understanding what Mr. Boehner seeks to accomplish are the House Republican policy document titled “A Pledge to America” and his recent speech to the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. The former is a short collection of goals, some of them near-impossible in the near term (like ending government control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the giant mortgage companies) and a few small-bore but relatively easy to accomplish, like repealing paperwork rules imposed on small businesses.

Mr. Boehner and his party have also made it clear that they will immediately try to unravel the new health care law, either by repealing pieces of it, some of which have already gone into force, or by using the appropriations process to remove financing from its key provisions.

Mr. Boehner will also be tested — perhaps as early as during the lame duck session this month, when Democrats may be eager to put the issue to bed — on the tax cut front. Democrats would like to see tax cuts extended for all but the highest income levels, while Republicans seek to make them permanent for all taxpayers.

Dragging this battle out would create tremendous headaches for the Internal Revenue Service, and the issue might be settled in the lame duck session. But Mr. Boehner learned this year, when he indicated a willingness to work with Democrats to hammer out a middle ground solution and was excoriated by some party mates, that not all Republicans cotton to compromise on the issue.

Mr. Boehner, in his speech and in the pledge, also seeks to overhaul much of the way Congress does its business, including eliminating sprawling bills that are filled with items that have nothing to do with the legislation’s main intent, as well as requiring bills to cite constitutional authority and ensuring more bipartisan debate on bills.

There is no doubt that Mr. Boehner, who was among the so-called Gang of Seven in 1994, when Republicans took control of the House and then became entangled in missteps and feuds, does not want a repeat of history.

For instance, in 1994, when Republicans captured both the House and the Senate, Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Senate leader, Bob Dole, both harbored presidential aspirations and worked less in tandem than as adversaries. That division between House and Senate Republicans played to President Bill Clinton’s advantage.

In contrast, Mr. Boehner’s relationship with his Senate counterpart, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, with whom he has worked closely in the past two years to oppose Mr. Obama’s agenda, remains strong.

Finally, there is some opportunity for bipartisan lawmaking, as Democrats and Republicans alike recognize, often privately. The pursuit of alternative energy sources, modest trade agreements, changes to the Bush administration’s signature education act and even adjustments to the tax code are all within reach.

“The big, interesting question is ‘What message does Obama take out of this election? What path does he choose?’ ” said Mr. McConnell, who said spending and debt were potential areas of common ground.

“There will be plenty of Republicans willing to help reduce both,” the senator said. “There are places where he has expressed interest in the past that would be similar to our own interests.”

    Tight Deadline for New Speaker to Deliver, NYT, 3.11.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/us/politics/03boehner.html

G.O.P. Captures House, but Not Senate

November 2, 2010
The New York Times
By JEFF ZELENY

Republicans captured control of the House of Representatives on Tuesday and expanded their voice in the Senate, riding a wave of voter discontent as they dealt a setback to President Obama just two years after his triumphal victory.

A Republican resurgence, propelled by deep economic worries and a forceful opposition to the Democratic agenda of health care and government spending, delivered defeats to House Democrats from the Northeast to the South and across the Midwest. The tide swept aside dozens of lawmakers, regardless of their seniority or their voting records, upending the balance of power for the second half of Mr. Obama’s term.

But Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, narrowly prevailed and his party hung onto control by winning hard-fought contests in California, Delaware, Connecticut and West Virginia. Republicans picked up at least six Democratic seats, including the one formerly held by Mr. Obama, and the party will welcome Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky to their ranks, two candidates who were initially shunned by the establishment but beloved by the Tea Party movement.

“The American people’s voice was heard at the ballot box,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, who is positioned to become the next speaker of the House. “We have real work to do, and this is not the time for celebration.”

The president, who watched the election returns with a small set of advisers at the White House, called Mr. Boehner shortly after midnight to offer his congratulations and to talk about the way forward as Washington prepares for divided government. Republicans won at least 56 seats, not including those from some Western states where ballots were still being counted, surpassing the 52 seats the party won in the sweep of 1994.

The most expensive midterm election campaign in the nation’s history, fueled by a raft of contributions from outside interest groups and millions in donations to candidates in both parties, played out across a wide battleground that stretched from Alaska to Maine. The Republican tide swept into statehouse races, too, with Democrats poised to lose the majority of governorships, particularly those in key presidential swing states, like Ohio, where Gov. Ted Strickland was defeated.

One after another, once-unassailable Democrats like Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Representatives Ike Skelton of Missouri, John Spratt of South Carolina, Rick Boucher of Virginia and Chet Edwards of Texas fell to little-known Republican challengers.

“Voters sent a message that change has not happened fast enough,” said Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Republicans did not achieve a perfect evening, losing races in several states they had once hoped to win, including the Senate contests in Delaware and Connecticut, because some candidates supported by the Tea Party movement knocked out establishment candidates to win their nominations. But they did score notable victories in some tight races, like Pat Toomey’s Senate run in Pennsylvania.

Senator Reid said in a speech that he was “more determined than ever” after his victory. “I know what it’s like to get back on your feet.”

The outcome on Tuesday was nothing short of a remarkable comeback for Republicans two years after they suffered a crushing defeat in the White House and four years after Democrats swept control of the House and Senate. It places the party back in the driver’s seat in terms of policy, posing new challenges to Mr. Obama as he faces a tough two years in his term, but also for Republicans — led by Mr. Boehner — as he suddenly finds himself in a position of responsibility, rather than being simply the outsider.

In the House, Republicans found victories in most corners of the country, including five seats in Pennsylvania, five in Ohio, at least three in Florida, Illinois and Virginia and two in Georgia. Democrats braced for the prospect of historic defeats, more than the 39 seats the Republicans needed to win control. Republicans reached their majority by taking seats east of the Mississippi even before late results flowed in from farther West.

Throughout the evening, in race after race, Republican challengers defeated Democratic incumbents, despite being at significant fund-raising disadvantages. Republican-oriented independent groups invariably came to the rescue, helping level of the playing field, including in Florida’s 24th Congressional District, in which Sandy Adams defeated Representative Suzanne Kosmas; Virginia’s 9th Congressional District, where Mr. Boucher, a 14-term incumbent, lost to Morgan Griffith; and Texas’s 17th Congressional District, in which Mr. Edwards, who was seeking his 11th term, succumbed to Bill Flores.

Democrats argued that the Republican triumph was far from complete, particularly in the Senate, pointing to the preservation of Mr. Reid and other races. In Delaware, Chris Coons defeated Christine O’Donnell, whose candidacy became a symbol of the unorthodox political candidates swept onto the ballot in Republican primary contests. In West Virginia, Gov. Joe Manchin III, a Democrat, triumphed over an insurgent Republican rival to fill the seat held for a half-century by Senator Robert C. Byrd. And in California, Senator Barbara Boxer overcame a vigorous challenge from Carly Fiorina, a Republican.

But Democrats conceded that their plans to increase voter turnout did not meet expectations, party strategists said, and extraordinary efforts that Mr. Obama made in the final days of the campaign appeared to have borne little fruit.

The president flew to Charlottesville, Va., on Friday evening, for instance, in hopes of rallying Democrats to support Representative Tom Perriello, a freshman who supported every piece of the administration’s agenda, but he was defeated despite the president’s appeals to Democrats in a state that he carried two years ago.

In governors’ races, Republicans won several contests in the nation’s middle. They held onto governorships in Texas, Nebraska and South Dakota, and had seized seats now occupied by Democrats in Tennessee, Michigan and Kansas. Sam Brownback, a United States Senator and Republican, easily took the Kansas post that Mark Parkinson, a former Republican turned Democrat, is leaving behind.

Though Democrats, who before the election held 26 governors’ seats compared to 24 for the Republicans, were expected to face losses, there were also bright spots. In New York, Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo easily defeated the Republican, Carl P. Paladino, even as Republicans were expected to pick up seats in the state legislature and the congressional delegation. In Massachusetts, Gov. Deval Patrick won a second term.

As the election results rolled in, with Republicans picking up victories shortly after polls closed in states across the South, East and the Midwest, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and other party leaders made urgent appeals through television interviews that there was still time for voters in other states to cast their ballots.

But the mood in Democratic quarters was glum, with few early signs of optimism in House or Senate races that were called early in the evening. Surveys that were conducted with voters across the country also provided little sense of hope for Democrats, with Republicans gaining a majority of independents, college-educated people and suburbanites — all groups that were part of the coalition of voters who supported Mr. Obama two years ago.

“We’ve come to take our government back,” Mr. Paul told cheering supporters who gathered in Bowling Green, Ky. “They say that the U.S. Senate is the world’s most deliberative body. I’m going to ask them to deliberate on this: The American people are unhappy with what’s going on in Washington.”

The election was a referendum on President Obama and the Democratic agenda, according to interviews with voters that were conducted for the National Election Pool, a consortium of television networks and The Associated Press, with a wide majority of the electorate saying that the country was seriously off track. Nearly nine in 10 voters said they were worried about the economy and about 4 in 10 said their family’s situation had worsened in the last two years.

The surveys found that voters were even more dissatisfied with Congress now than they were in 2006, when Democrats reclaimed control from the Republicans. Preliminary results also indicated an electorate far more conservative than four years ago, a sign of stronger turnout by people leaning toward Republicans.

Most voters said they believed Mr. Obama’s policies would hurt the country in the long run, rather than help it, and a large share of voters said they supported the Tea Party movement, which has backed insurgent candidates all across the country.

The Republican winds began blowing back in January when Democrats lost the seat long held by Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, with the victory of Scott P. Brown serving as a motivating force for the budding Tea Party movement and a burst of inspiration for Republican candidates across the country to step forward and challenge Democrats everywhere.

On Tuesday, the president did not leave the grounds of the White House, taking a respite from days of campaigning across the country, so he could meet with a circle of top advisers to plot a way forward for his administration and his own looming re-election campaign. The White House said Mr. Obama would hold a news conference on Wednesday to address the governing challenges that await the new Congress.

“My hope is that I can cooperate with Republicans,” Mr. Obama said in a radio interview on Tuesday. “But obviously, the kinds of compromises that will be made depends on what Capitol Hill looks like — who’s in charge.”

But even as the president was poised to offer a fresh commitment to bipartisanship, he spent the final hours of the midterm campaign trying to persuade Democrats in key states to take time to vote. From the Oval Office, Mr. Obama conducted one radio interview after another, urging black voters in particular to help preserve the party’s majority and his agenda.

“How well I’m able to move my agenda forward over the next couple of years is going to depend on folks back home having my back,” Mr. Obama said in an interview with the Chicago radio station WGCI, in which he made an unsuccessful appeal for voters to keep his former Senate seat in Democratic hands.

There was little Democratic terrain across the country that seemed immune to Republican encroachment, with many of the most competitive races being waged in states that Mr. Obama carried strongly only two years ago. From the president’s home state of Illinois to neighboring Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio — all places that were kind to the Democratic ticket in 2008 — Republicans worked aggressively to find new opportunities.

For all the drama surrounding the final day of the midterm campaign, more than 19 million Americans had voted before Tuesday, a trend that has grown with each election cycle over the last decade, as 32 states now offer a way for voters to practice democracy in far more convenient ways than simply waiting in line on Election Day.

Megan Thee-Brenan, David M. Herszenhorn and Michael Luo contributed reporting.

    G.O.P. Captures House, but Not Senate, NYT, 2.11.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/us/politics/03elect.html