Hard Right Turn by Bush, GOP Flattens Democrats

By JANET HOOK

March 8, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON — President Bush came to power talking like a conciliatory centrist, but this week in Congress has shown him ready and willing to join Republican lawmakers in charging hard to the right.

With little pretense of reaching out to Democrats, Bush and congressional Republicans are flexing their political muscle in service of two core conservative aims--cutting taxes and rolling back regulations. In the process, they have used hardball political tactics that have left Democrats fuming.

With Bush’s support, the House on Wednesday followed the Senate’s lead and voted 223 to 206 to wipe out federal regulations to reduce repetitive stress injuries at work. In pressing the repeal, congressional Republicans deployed a little-used fast-track procedure that crippled the ability of Democrats and their labor allies to mount an effective fight.

Today, Bush and his congressional allies are poised to grab another legislative trophy: House passage of a $1-trillion tax cut bill. The measure--the cornerstone of Bush’s overall tax reduction package--was whisked to the floor after scant committee review.

These aggressive tactics may not work in all cases for the GOP. The tax cut proposal, for instance, will move far more slowly in the Senate. But the week’s events have provided an early glimpse of how far Republicans will go to seize any opportunity to press their agenda.

Such efforts are alienating even some conservative Democrats, once considered potential allies for Bush. “What we see is great cause for pause and concern,” said Sen. John B. Breaux (D-La.), a leading centrist who has been courted by Bush.

Some Republicans also worry that the House’s handling of the tax cut and workplace regulations could squander an opportunity to make good on Bush’s promise to change Washington’s partisan tone.

“If it was up to me, we’d be doing things differently,” said Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.). “This is not exactly the way to build good esprit de corps.”

Indeed, if the last few days are any indication, Bush has made little progress toward thawing the thick hoarfrost that has chilled relations between the parties for years. There seems little trace of the coalition-building that led bipartisan majorities in the past to enact such major laws as President Reagan’s massive tax cut in 1981, Social Security reform in 1983 or the balanced-budget act of 1997.

The exception may be on education, as a Senate committee appears on track to give bipartisan support today to key elements of Bush’s reform plan. But the bipartisanship was maintained only by postponing action on the more contentious issues in the education debate, such as voucher payments that could be used for private school tuition.

The key to the GOP push for fast action on the ergonomics and tax cut issues has been rock-solid unity among the Republican rank-and-file. In taking advantage of GOP control of both the White House and Congress for the first time since the mid-1950s, the party so far has demonstrated extraordinary discipline.

To be sure, a few Democrats are expected to support the tax cut bill in today’s House vote. And in both the House and Senate, a handful voted for overturning the ergonomics regulations.

But for the most part, Democrats are playing their own brand of hardball. Party leaders, for example, are using delay tactics to stall a bankruptcy reform bill that just months ago enjoyed broad bipartisan support. And the leaders have been working for weeks to keep their rank-and-file from straying to support Bush’s tax cut.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

When the year began with Bush pledging to change the partisan tone in Washington, some dismissed it as lip service. But there were some grounds to think it was not mere rhetoric. For instance, Bush had worked well in Texas with Democrats, who held great power in the state Legislature. And immediately after Inauguration Day, he brought dozens of congressional Democrats to the White House for friendly, get-acquainted meetings.

Ever since, however, it has become increasingly clear that behind Bush’s bipartisan talk is an unyielding commitment to his agenda. He is trying to win Democrats not by offering to make changes to address their concerns, but by applying political pressure. He has spent the last two weeks traveling the country to push his tax cuts, concentrating on states where Democratic senators could face tough reelection fights in 2002. Those Democrats, in turn, are not amused.

“Congress is not going to be stampeded into rubber stamping his [tax cut] bill,” said Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), one of the potentially vulnerable incumbents.

By the same token, Baucus was one of six Democrats who broke with his party to join all 50 Senate Republicans in voting Tuesday to repeal the ergonomics regulations.

If anything, the week’s developments raise a basic question about the relationship between Bush and congressional GOP leaders--namely, who is leading and who is following. The big push for repealing the ergonomics rules came from top Senate Republicans. The plan to put tax rate cuts on a fast track came from House GOP leaders.

Bush, however, made a point of publicly embracing both initiatives.

Thomas Mann, an expert on Congress at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution think tank, warned that Bush may have undone the goodwill he initially engendered among some Democrats.

“Bush has done more to dispel the era of good feelings by signing onto some very hardball maneuvers, signaling he has no intention of making any concessions on policy,” Mann said.

But Bush’s allies say that he is simply showing a strong commitment to his campaign promises--while continuing to hope he might eventually attract more Democrats.

“The president has said right from day one that he was going to fight for the tax plan on which he ran,” said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. “This is just the beginning . . . and we’ll keep building support.”

House Republicans have said expedited action on the centerpiece of the Bush tax cut--reducing income tax rates--is needed to speed relief to the ailing economy. And House Ways and Means Chairman William M. Thomas (R-Bakersfield) dismissed Democratic objections over the tactic as the predictable complaint of a minority party.

But some Republicans caution that acting so quickly undercut the conciliatory tone Bush set in his speech last week to a joint session of Congress. “I do believe our leadership missed an opportunity to build on Bush’s terrific speech and reach out,” said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.).

On the ergonomics repeal, Republicans defended the way the legislation was handled by noting the issue had been debated repeatedly in the recent past. A measure to block the rules passed the House and Senate last year, but failed to clear Congress in time to prevent President Clinton from issuing the rules shortly before he left office.

“What’s to talk about?” said Rep. Thomas M. Davis (R-Va.). “We’ve voted this before. This is a no-brainer.”

Still, such explanations did little to assuage anger among Democrats. And in a telling example of the bruised relations between the parties, many House Democrats have decided to boycott this weekend a retreat held each year to build bridges of “civility” among lawmakers.

“The [attendance] numbers are way down,” said LaHood, one of the organizers of the retreat. “It doesn’t bode well.”