Homeland Security Bill Is Nearly DeadOctober 17, 2002
WASHINGTON — Negotiations over the homeland security bill have ground to a halt and finger-pointing took on an unforgiving quality Wednesday that left scorched any common ground between Republicans and Democrats.
The Senate remains tied in knots over how much flexibility to give President Bush over hiring and firing employees of the new Department of Homeland Security, with Republicans blaming Democratic allies for bogging the bill down.
"We have one of the most powerful special interest groups in America -- the public employee labor unions -- who are adamantly opposed to giving the president the power to hire the right person and put them in the right place at the right time to protect the lives of our people," said retiring Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas.
The Republican plan would give the president whatever authority he wants, and they accuse Democrats of denying them a fair vote.
"We said last week that Senate leadership strategy was to kill this bill softly, in effect, and that's what we're still seeing playing out. They don't want to admit that they have killed it or are killing it. They want to pretend to keep it alive, for obvious reasons, while at the same time they're making sure that nothing happens," said Republican Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee.
Democrats argue that it is the Republicans who are bottling up the bill because they refuse to expose the president's plan to Democratic amendments that could pass the Senate.
"I would say that they have no desire to finish this bill, that indeed they want to politicize homeland security before the election," said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. "That is the only message that can be drawn from this. They don't want to resolve it because they'd like to blame the Democrats."
Daschle has said that Democrats want measures in the legislation to prevent the nearly 50,000 union workers expected to join the new department from losing protections currently guaranteed in their existing jobs.
Democrats have also said that they would permit the president to waive collective bargaining if a worker is asked to substantially change his or her job duties and most workers in that unit are working on a terrorism-related investigation or intelligence work related to national security.
But the Republicans say the president should be allowed to have the same authority to lift out dead weight that has been granted to every president since John F. Kennedy, and they say Democrats are taking the opportunity to pull a bait-and-switch on the president's authority.
On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., for the first time blamed Daschle directly for the stalemate, accusing him of tying the hands of key negotiators, Sens. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and John Breaux of Louisiana.
"Maybe we can still find a way to do it. But the answer is, he has been told by Senator Daschle, 'don't do that.' I don't think that Sen. Lieberman or Sen. Breaux have the latitude to work out an agreement that we could get passed," Lott said.
Daschle denied the charge, saying Republicans can't protect the president's bill and are using delay tactics to hide its weaknesses.
"I've always suspected that they really didn't want homeland security, now we have the proof," Daschle said.
The entire spectacle continues to mystify even those participating in the debate.
"How we can sit here and fiddle while Rome is burning beats me," the retiring Thompson wondered aloud.
Democrats have the votes to defeat the president's bill and aren't going to budge. They say privately that the issue of homeland security is generating zero political heat. Democrats have concluded the vote on Iraq was the key security vote this year, and every vulnerable Democrat except Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota voted for the war resolution. So, they're not afraid of the White House on this issue and they're going to stick with their union base from now until Election Day.
Fox News' Major Garrett contributed to this report.
Link to Article Source
|
|
