Are Republicans failing on purpose?

Friday, Sept. 8, 2006

Surprise Party: George Bush may have caught some in his own party off guard with Wednesday's September surprise challenging Congress to pass legislation to help him put the 9/11 masterminds on trial. Some Republicans are still using the GOP's 2004 talking points, when Bush ran ads insisting that only wimps think terrorism is a law enforcement matter. Others—like Sens. John Warner, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham—have been busy drafting an alternative because they think the administration's approach won't stand up in court.

Most congressional Republicans have a more fundamental objection to the president's challenge: The last thing they want to do is stick around here debating constitutional niceties when they need to wrap up this session of Congress and rush home to save their seats. Republicans already knew the Bush administration was running a secret prison: For embattled incumbents, the Republican Congress has become one.

But Republican members who don't want to spend the last "working" month of the 109^th Congress actually working can relax: The Bush White House probably doesn't want them to get a bill done, either. According to the Rove playbook, this legislation will do more to motivate the conservative base if Republicans can blame Democrats for obstructing it.

As Ron Brownstein suggests in the Los Angeles Times, the White House may want to reprise its 2002 September surprise, when Republicans refused to reach agreement over an obscure civil service provision of the Democrats' homeland security bill so they could run attack ads claiming Democratic incumbents were against homeland security.

Mustn't Pass: In years past—especially election years—September and the first part of October have been the congressional equivalent of finals week: a brief flurry of frenzied activity after an otherwise wasted year. This trend intensified in the last few years of the 1990s, when the Republican Congress grew so tired of losing policy debates to Bill Clinton that it refused to take up anything all year except the must-pass annual appropriations bills required to avoid another government shutdown.

Ironically, this strategy put Republicans in the weakest possible bargaining position, trying to enact their conservative wish list just weeks before members had to face an electorate that wanted Congress to do just the opposite. After caving to Clinton's demands right before the 1998 midterms, Republicans figured out a way in 2000 to avoid the voters altogether, by putting off the must-pass bills until a brief lame-duck session after the election. Conservatives weren't kidding about government efficiency: Why spend a whole year on a do-nothing agenda when you can finish it in one day?

Even with one of their own in the White House, the Republican Congress seems determined to seek still greater efficiencies. Republican leaders spent August holding field hearings designed to prevent an agreement on immigration. They're advertising their own internal differences on domestic surveillance, perhaps to lay the groundwork for gridlock on that front. They'll probably postpone any tough must-pass appropriations until after the election—when a lame-duck session may have more lame ducks than usual.

Bush's Wednesday gambit was the latest adlib in this year's improvisational conservative comedy, "Whose Fault Is It, Anyway?" For the last several months, most Republican incumbents in tough races have worked diligently to distance themselves from the Bush White House. From Bush's troubles abroad to his agenda at home, the Republican message to voters is, "Don't blame me—I just work here."

Understandably, the White House has a different approach. Never mind that Republicans in Congress are the biggest obstacles to Bush's agenda on immigration and military tribunals. This White House wants voters to believe that if illegal immigration has ballooned on its watch, and Republicans can't pass a bill to address the problem, it must be Democrats' fault.