Norm's no flaming liberal... _________________ . . . And Mischief By Norman Ornstein Wednesday, November 26, 2003; Page A25 One of the most disgraceful moments in American sports came in the 1972 Olympics, when officials gave the Soviet Union's basketball team three chances to shoot the ball after the clock had apparently run out -- allowing it to defeat the U.S. team. American politics now has its own version of that infamous game. Early last Sunday, starting at about 3 a.m., the House of Representatives began its roll call on the Medicare prescription drug plan -- the most significant vote of the year. The House votes by electronic device, with each vote normally taking 15 minutes. After the allotted time, the bill, supported by the president and the Republican leadership, was losing. The vote stayed open. Before long it became clear that an absolute majority of the House -- 218 of the 435 members -- had voted no, with only 216 in favor. But the vote stayed open until Republicans were able to bludgeon two of their members to switch sides. It took two hours and 51 minutes, the longest roll call in modern House history. This was not, technically speaking, against the rules. House Rule XX, clause 2 (a) says that there is a 15-minute minimum for most votes by electronic device. There is no formal maximum. A vote is not final until the vote numbers have been read by the speaker and the result declared. But since electronic voting began in January 1973, the norm has been long established and clear: Fifteen minutes is the voting time. In the 22 years that Democrats ran the House after the electronic voting system was put in place, there was only one time when the vote period substantially exceeded the 15 minutes. At the end of the session in 1987, under Speaker Jim Wright of Texas, the vote on the omnibus budget reconciliation bill -- a key piece of legislation -- was one vote short of passage when one of the bill's supporters, Marty Russo of Illinois, took offense at something, changed his vote to no, and left to catch a plane to his home district in Chicago. He was unaware that his switch altered the ultimate outcome. Caught by surprise, Wright kept the vote tally open for an extra 15 to 20 minutes until one of his aides could find another member, fellow Texan Jim Chapman, and draw him out of the cloakroom to change his nay vote to aye and pass the bill. Republicans went ballistic, using the example for years as evidence of Democrats' autocratic style and insensitivity to rules and basic fairness. In 1995, soon after the Republicans gained the majority, Speaker Newt Gingrich declared his intention to make sure that votes would consistently be held in the 15-minute time frame. The "regular practice of the House," he said would be "a policy of closing electronic votes as soon as possible after the guaranteed period of 15 minutes." The policy was reiterated by Speaker Dennis J. Hastert when he assumed the post. But faced with a series of tough votes and close margins, Republicans have ignored their own standards and adopted a practice that has in fact become frequent during the Bush presidency, of stretching out the vote when they were losing until they could twist enough arms to prevail. On at least a dozen occasions, they have gone well over the 15 minutes, sometimes up to an hour. The Medicare prescription drug vote -- three hours instead of 15 minutes, hours after a clear majority of the House had signaled its will -- was the ugliest and most outrageous breach of standards in the modern history of the House. It was made dramatically worse when the speaker violated the longstanding tradition of the House floor's being off limits to lobbying by outsiders (other than former members) by allowing Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson on the floor during the vote to twist arms -- another shameful first. The speaker of the House is the first government official mentioned in the Constitution. The speaker is selected by a vote of the whole House and represents the whole House. Hastert is a good and decent man who loves the House. But when the choice has been put to him, he has too often opted to abandon that role for partisan gain. Democracy is a fragile web of laws, rules and norms. The norms are just as important to the legitimacy of the system as the rules. Blatant violations of them on a regular basis corrode the system. The ugliness of this one will linger. The writer is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He will answer questions about this column during a Live Online discussion at 2:00 p.m. today at www.washingtonpost.com.
GOP pulled no punches in struggle for Medicare bill November 27, 2003 BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Advertisement During 14 years in the Michigan Legislature and 11 years in Congress, Rep. Nick Smith had never experienced anything like it. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, in the wee hours last Saturday morning, pressed him to vote for the Medicare bill. But Smith refused. Then things got personal. Smith, self term-limited, is leaving Congress. His lawyer son Brad is one of five Republicans seeking to replace him from a GOP district in Michigan's southern tier. On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat. The bill providing prescription drug benefits under Medicare would have been easily defeated by Republicans save for the most efficient party whip operation in congressional history. Although President Bush had to be awakened to collect the last two votes, Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Majority Whip Roy Blunt made it that close. ''DeLay the Hammer'' on Saturday morning was hammering fellow conservatives. Last Friday night, Rep. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania hosted a dinner at the Hunan restaurant on Capitol Hill for 30 Republicans opposed to the bill. They agreed on a scaled-down plan devised by Toomey and Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana. It would cover only seniors without private prescription drug insurance, while retaining the bill's authorization of private health savings accounts. First, they had to defeat their president and their congressional leadership. They almost did. There were only 210 yes votes after an hour (long past the usual time for House roll calls), against 224 no's. A weary George W. Bush, just returned from Europe, was awakened at 4 a.m. to make personal calls to House members. Republicans voting against the bill were told they were endangering their political futures. Major contributors warned Rep. Jim DeMint they would cut off funding for his Senate race in South Carolina. A Missouri state legislator called Rep. Todd Akin to threaten a primary challenge against him. Intense pressure, including a call from the president, was put on freshman Rep. Tom Feeney. As speaker of the Florida House, he was a stalwart for Bush in his state's 2000 vote recount. He is the Class of 2002's contact with the House leadership, marking him as a future party leader. But now, in those early morning hours, Feeney was told a ''no'' vote would delay his ascent into leadership by three years -- maybe more. Feeney held firm against the bill. So did DeMint and Akin. And so did Nick Smith. A steadfast party regular, he has pioneered private Social Security accounts. But he could not swallow the unfunded liabilities in this Medicare bill. The 69-year-old former dairy farmer this week was still reeling from the threat to his son. ''It was absolutely too personal,'' he told me. Over the telephone from Michigan on Saturday, Brad Smith urged his father to vote his conscience. However, the leadership was picking off Republican dissenters, including eight of 13 House members who signed a Sept. 17 letter authored by Toomey pledging to support only a Medicare bill very different from the measure on the floor Saturday. That raised the Republican total to 216, still two votes short. The president took to the phone, but at least two Republicans turned him down. Finally, Bush talked Reps. Trent Franks of Arizona (a ninth defector from the Toomey letter) and Butch Otter of Idaho -- into voting ''yes.'' They were warned that if this measure failed, the much more liberal Democratic bill would be brought up and passed. The conservative Club for Growth's Steve Moore, writing to the organization's directors and founders, said defeat of the Medicare bill ''would have been a shot across the bow at the Republican establishment that conservatives are sick of the spending splurge that is going on inside Washington these last few years.'' Hammering the conservatives to prevent that may have been only a short-term triumph.
Democracy is a fragile web of laws, rules and norms. The norms are just as important to the legitimacy of the system as the rules. Blatant violations of them on a regular basis corrode the system. I wish people understood the truth of this statement. And it's more than just this Medicare drug bill - With the recall elections, contested presidential election (and a sitting president who may not have actually won), campaign "donations", $1000 plate fundraisers, and so on, we're in serious danger of permanently damaging the only system that gives the average person any say in government. And when that's gone, democracy is over. If history is any source for a standard, it seems that the minor infractions are cumulative - in the sense that each tiny violation of the norms makes the next violation even easier, and often bigger - and they add up over time to one massive kick in the crotch to the ideals of a civilization.
Blame Bush if it passes... blame him if it doesn't. It's the Democratic way. What's a leader to do... sit back and not QB his own sideline?
that was my thought exactly...if it passes, you slam him by saying it doesn't do enough (and therefore it would be better to do nothing at all, i guess)...if it doesn't you slam him for not passing it...even though he doesn't hold office in the legislative branch. classic. partisanship blows. i'm moving to ireland. huh? ok...mars.
that was my thought exactly...if it passes, you slam him by saying it doesn't do enough Nice try. You're partisanship or unconcern with seniors and drug benefits shows. If he hasn't done enough, he hasn't done enough. If you aren't convered by the new drug benefit or it costs too much so your choice is spend down to zero or go without prescription drugs , you just don't care about "nice try" or partisan politics. You just want to be able to get access to medicines.
Medicare reform fiasco is worse than 'insidious' 12/1/2003 By DOUGLAS TURNER WASHINGTON - In a memorable speech before the Senate passed the Medicare prescription drug bill, the senator who knows more about health care than any other, Hillary Rodham Clinton, called parts of the legislation "insidious." Clinton's term was an understatement. She might have said "diabolical." To evaluate her words, it helps to understand the setting in which they were said. The gaily wrapped MedicaRX program triggers a massive transfer of taxpayer assets - money Americans pay into the Medicare Trust Fund via their payroll taxes - into well-connected private hands. These wealthy special interests spent $1 billion over three years in hammering the new program to their liking. Their expenditures include campaign gifts to the president and candidates for the House and Senate. The brand-name drug makers, insurance companies, doctors and hospitals also created fake "seniors" groups, conducted media campaigns and lobbied Congress so effectively they actually helped write the bill. This program was supposed to help the elderly poor. President Bush insisted in 2001 he didn't want senior citizens having to choose between food and prescriptions. It didn't quite work out that way because of the growing economic and social gulf that exists between our strutting leaders and their powerless led. One measure of the impunity, the vast carelessness of this island of privilege, is what Congress and the president demand from the lowest income senior citizens before they can take part in the program's benefits. The bill contains a miserly "means test" of the poorest of the poor. They get nothing if they own household goods that exceed $2,000; or if they have set aside more than $1,500 for burial expenses, or if they have life insurance valued at more than $1,500, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Families USA. Those with total assets of more than $6,000 get no help even though their income is less than $12,123 a year. And so forth. Now contrast this with the wall-to-wall health care and pensions that members of Congress grant themselves. Contrast this with the incomes of those driving the creation of this bill - the brass hats of the pharmaceutical industry. Here are some examples: The head of Merck, one of the biggest spenders on lobbying, made $3 million in salary and bonuses in 2002, plus pension compensation worth $2.9 million and tens of millions in stock options. In 2001, the head of Bristol-Myers-Squibb made $4.2 million. Johnson & Johnson's boss made $5.2 million the same year. Pfizer's top dog got $1.8 million in 2002, a raise of $300,000 from the year before. The millions their companies invested in drafting this legislation were peanuts compared to what they earn in profits, and what they are likely to gain. This year Pfizer reported profits of $2.86 billion, Glaxo Smith Kline $2.84 billion and Johnson & Johnson $2.1 billion. The bill stimulates spending on prescription drugs, while banning any restraints on the prices of the drugs themselves. The Medicare Trust Fund monies will be channeled to the brand-name drug makers through insurance companies that are getting huge government subsidies to offer a marginal benefit to seniors. This sets up an eye-popping increase in the prices prescription drug makers will impose - probably after the next election - as a result of increasing patient use and more pill peddling by doctors and hospitals. Members of Congress are back home harvesting the praise of hospital conglomerates, medical colleges, home care groups, rural health centers and emergency physicians who were quietly awarded a bigger bite into the Medicare Trust Fund to build support for passage. But these groups don't pose a mortal threat to the entire Medicare system. Their slice of the Medicare pie can be quickly adjusted downward by Congress. The insurance company subsidies and the ravenous tiger of prescription drug usage and prices loosed by Congress can bleed Medicare literally to death. This is where Clinton's apt description of the bill as "insidious" comes into play. The law makes the drug program, which is supposed to be funded from general revenues, a burden on the financial stability of the entire Medicare Trust Fund, a universal social insurance fund already financed by payroll taxes. If overall costs of the new drug program and the existing Medicare program are projected to require more than a 45 percent contribution from general revenues - personal income, corporate, excise and other taxes - then a cost cutting-mechanism is set in motion. This promises cutbacks in the entire existing Medicare program, as it has existed since 1965. This is the snake in the basket of apples. The 45 percent bar, Clinton explained in her speech, means regular "Medicare benefits will be squeezed into tighter and tighter fiscal constraints. If they can't fit those constraints, this bill forces those existing benefits onto the chopping block year after year." This is the dream of hard-line conservatives who rule the House majority, who have been claiming Medicare is insolvent (which it isn't). The full lethal effect of this bill on Medicare won't be seen for years. By that time, most of those who voted for this program will cycle into lobbying jobs, languish in gold-plated nursing homes or won't remember what they did. link
From Slate... _____________ Who Tried To Bribe Rep. Smith? Stop protecting him, Congressman. By Timothy Noah Posted Monday, Dec. 1, 2003, at 3:17 PM PT Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., says that sometime late Nov. 21 or early in the morning Nov. 22, somebody on the House floor threatened to redirect campaign funds away from his son Brad, who is running to succeed him, if he didn't support the Medicare prescription bill. This according to the Associated Press. Robert Novak further reports, On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, [Rep.] Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat. Speaking through Chief of Staff Kurt Schmautz, Smith assured Chatterbox that Novak's account is "basically accurate." That means Smith was an eyewitness to a federal crime. United States Code, Title 18, Section 201, "Bribery of public officials and witnesses," states that under federal law, a person commits bribery if he directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official or person who has been selected to be a public official, or offers or promises any public official or any person who has been selected to be a public official to give anything of value to any other person or entity [italics Chatterbox's], with intent to influence any official act. … Promising to direct $100,000 to Rep. Smith's son's campaign clearly meets the legal definition of bribery. The only question, then, is who to prosecute. The AP had Smith attributing threats to support his son's opponent to "House GOP leaders," but that was a paraphrase, and it is possible Smith meant someone else when he spoke of an actual offer of $100,000. We know House Speaker Dennis Hastert spent a lot of time that night trying to win over Smith. The trade publication CongressDaily spotted Hastert around 4 a.m., about an hour into the extended Medicare roll call, placing his arm around Smith and gesturing. Twenty minutes later, CongressDaily saw Hastert work Smith over again, this time with Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. At 5:30 a.m., with less than half an hour left until the final tally, CongressDaily saw Hastert and Thompson give it one final try. The Washington Post's David Broder, in his Nov. 23 column, wrote that House aides "recounted that Hastert said Smith's help was vital to the party and the president—a fitting gift at the end of a long career—and suggested it would also help Smith's son, who plans to run for the seat." That's pretty close to Novak's version. But according to Hastert spokesman John Feehery (as quoted by the AP), Hastert merely said "that a vote on this would help him and help his son because it would be a popular vote." Ordinarily, Chatterbox would consider that a laughably weak denial. But Feehery told Chatterbox that Smith had personally assured the speaker that he wasn't the individual he'd complained about. Schmautz, Smith's chief of staff, said Smith had further clarified that the perpetrator not only wasn't Hastert; it wasn't Thompson or House Majority Leader Tom "the Hammer" DeLay, either. Obviously Smith doesn't want to alienate the GOP establishment by hurling criminal accusations at whoever this phantom bribe-giver may be. But it's a little late for that. If Smith witnessed an attempted bribery, he has an obligation as a citizen—and even more so, as member of Congress—to make that person's identity known to law enforcement officials. Marc Miller, a Washington attorney who advises clients on ethics issues, told Chatterbox that what Novak described not only looked like "a slam-dunk violation of the bribery law" but probably also included "a smorgasbord of other criminal violations." Rep. Smith, Miller said, "should really be sharing the specifics with the Justice Department." So, Congressman. Enough with the guessing games. Who tried to bribe you?
The bill contains a miserly "means test" of the poorest of the poor. They get nothing if they own household goods that exceed $2,000; or if they have set aside more than $1,500 for burial expenses, or if they have life insurance valued at more than $1,500, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Families USA. I don't necessarily agree with providing prescription drug benefits to seniors at government expense at all; HOWEVER, if you're going to have one, these rules are somewhat ridiculous. How many people do you know who don't have household goods that are worth more than $2,000? I know my grandmother, whose income was limited to social security when she was in her 80s and 90s, had furniture that was probably worth more than $2,000. Heck, she probably could've sold her clothes for more than $2,000 if she had a huge garage sale (she was a pack rat and accumulated a good deal of clothes over the course of her lifetime). If she were alive today, she probably wold have a bunch of crap she could sell on eBay for far more than $2,000 (she worked at Dr. Pepper in the relatively early days and had a lot of memorabilia from the era). That just seems like an amazingly low standard, so much so that it makes the program virtually worthless to the vast majority of those it is supposed to help, if the rules are followed (and if this is an accurate interpretation of the law. I admit that Medicare bills don't blow my skirt up and I don't usually pay much attention to the details of them).
The Medicaid bill was par for the course. The Omnibus Spending bill... necessary because Congress couldn't pass all the individual appropriations bills, is now in trouble because the Repubs went back and changed a bunch of stuff previously agreed upon and now Byrd is stating firmly he will block it. This Congress is lax in it's basic charges. ________________ Byrd to Block Omnibus Funding Bill Senator Says He'll Oppose GOP Bid for Passage With No Roll Call By Helen Dewar Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, December 4, 2003; Page A15 The already dim prospects for final congressional action next week on a huge catchall funding bill for the government faded further yesterday when Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) signaled that he will block a Republican move to pass the measure without a roll-call vote. Byrd's move makes it even more likely that the $328 billion package will not be approved before Congress opens its 2004 session in late January. Under Senate rules, it would take unanimous consent -- the approval of all 100 senators -- to bring the contentious "omnibus" spending bill up for a vote. Byrd said in a statement issued by his office that he will withhold his consent. Under the Republican plan, the bill would be passed without a roll-call vote, which is customary but not required for major legislation. Only last month, the Senate approved legislation providing $87.5 billion for military and rebuilding operations in Iraq and Afghanistan without a roll call. Other senators, including many Democrats and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), have criticized the omnibus spending bill and indicated they might object. But Byrd, the Senate's senior Democrat and the ranking minority member on the Appropriations Committee, was the first to publicly state an intention to do so. Before recessing for Thanksgiving, both chambers agreed to return early next week to try to complete action on the catchall bill, which combines seven spending measures that Congress was unable to enact individually, covering most major domestic departments and agencies. The House is to meet Monday, the Senate on Tuesday. "Instead of sending 13 fiscally responsible appropriations bills to the president, we are being force-fed a bad piece of legislation dictated to the Congress by the Bush administration," Byrd said. "This is no way to govern. This is no way to serve the American people." After a bipartisan start to negotiations on the bill, Republicans "took a balanced package and at the eleventh hour insisted on changes that were never considered when the individual bills passed the House and Senate," Byrd said. As examples, Byrd cited the elimination of provisions overturning regulatory and administration actions on overtime pay and the outsourcing of federal work to the private sector. Senate Republicans could still force the issue by ordering all members back to town to vote on a procedural move aimed at forcing a quick final vote, but Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has shown no enthusiasm for this approach. "Senator Frist is not inclined to bring senators back, but a final decision has not been made," said Frist spokeswoman Amy Call.
From The Hill... glad to see Bush is such a nice, sensitive guy who's changing the way Washington works and improving the tone of discourse. To top it off, his snappy comeback wasn't all that snappy. ___________ December 3, 2003 ‘Me too, pal,’ says Bush, hanging up By Jonathan E. Kaplan Conservative Republican frustration over the failure of the Bush administration and the House Republican leadership to restrain federal spending has boiled over in recent days, producing a rare confrontation between GOP lawmakers and party leaders. The internal conflict, fueled largely by recent passage of the $78 billion Iraq reconstruction effort and the $400 billion prescription-drug benefit for senior citizens that squeaked through the House on Nov. 22, came to a head last week when President Bush abruptly terminated a phone conversation with a Florida Republican who refused his plea to vote for the landmark bill. Well-placed sources said Bush hung up on freshman Rep. Tom Feeney after Feeney said he couldn’t support the Medicare bill. The House passed it by only two votes after Hastert kept the roll-call vote open for an unprecedented stretch of nearly three hours in the middle of the night. Feeney, a former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives whom many see as a rising star in the party, reportedly told Bush: “I came here to cut entitlements, not grow them.” Sources said Bush shot back, “Me too, pal,” and hung up the phone. At the same time, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) castigated former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) after he wrote an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal opposing the bill. Armey wrote that he opposed the bill even though he had voted for two similar bills as a member of Congress. House leadership aides said Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) felt blindsided by Armey’s op-ed, which came at a time when they were trying desperately to round up the necessary votes. “The Speaker is very disappointed about the article, especially because Mr. Armey voted for prescription-drugs bills that had even less reform than the conference report did when he was a member,” Hastert spokesman John Feehery told The Hill on Monday. But Armey, who said he called Hastert to sort out their differences, put a different spin on the exchange. “[Hastert] understood where I was coming from and that a lot of people felt the way I did,” Armey told The Hill. “I made the night longer than it ought to have been. One of things we do in our party is appreciate freedom of expression.” He added: “Everybody in the heat of the deal thinks things like that are bigger than life, but things cool down.” Armey, now a lobbyist at the Piper Rudnick law firm, said he was not worried that his access to the GOP leadership would be limited or that Hastert and others would penalize the clients whom he advises. House aides contrasted Armey with former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who was praised by Republicans for his support of the Medicare bill the week of the vote. Gingrich had fallen out of favor with the White House and many Republicans earlier this year when he attacked Secretary of State Colin Powell’s management of the State Department. A GOP aide said that, had lawmakers voted after Gingrich’s rousing speech to the GOP conference, the vote would not have lasted three hours. Gingrich also wrote a positive editorial in The Wall Street Journal. Republican aides said conservatives who voted against the bill, including Reps. Mike Pence (Ind.), John Culberson (Texas), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Roscoe Bartlett (Md.) and Jim Ryun (Kan.), would suffer for their votes against the Medicare bill. Leadership aides said those members “can expect to remain on the back bench” in the months ahead. “Health savings accounts are the most dramatic reform of health care in 30 years,” Feehery said. “Conservatives said they all loved it, but once in the bill they forgot about it.” The fallout over the conservative resistance included some lawmakers who are considered rising stars in the party, as well as a major conservative think tank that aided House Democrats in nearly derailing Bush’s top domestic initiative. Although the House GOP assembled a 400-member coalition in support of the bill, the Heritage Foundation opposed the bill and even held a briefing for members in the Dirksen Building the day before the vote. Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.), who voted against the bill when the Senate passed it by a 54-44 vote, allowed Heritage to use the room the day before the vote. That decision was made at a very low level in the office, according to Rachel Oliphant, Nickles’ press secretary. “So far, we’ve not seen any penalties coming our way,” said Stuart Butler, vice president for economic and domestic policy at Heritage. “[We have] quite a long history of taking issue with the Republican leadership and White House.” Butler said that Heritage had vigorously attacked Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush for raising taxes in 1982 and 1990, respectively.
