As Republican incumbents and challengers alike run away and claim independence from the failed policies and priorities of the Bush administration, there is an important strategic imperative from every Democratic politician to use to their advantage. That is--that every single election in the House and the Senate between a Republican and a Democrat isn't just a choice between two candidates but a choice between a Republican majority or a Democratic majority. Particularly in the wake of Bill Frist's 'retreatist' Taliban statements and the ongoing furor over Dennis Hastert's foreknowledge of Mark Foley's improper behavior, now more than ever is the time to hammer away at the failed Republican leadership in both the Senate and the House.
In any number of close races around the country, Republicans are running away from President Bush and even the record of the Republican-led US Congress, with the empty promise that they'll bring change to Washington. It's all done under the guise of being a moderate or independent Republican. Along with the policy positions is a noted willingness to cross party lines and act in a bi-partisan manner. In many cases, it's the only hope some challengers have of being elected. Well, it's a sham and Democrats ought to call a spade a spade.
As Harold Meyerson wrote in his WaPo piece, The 'Moderate Republican' Scam:
Chafee and Maine's Olympia Snowe and such deathbed converts to moderation as Ohio's Mike DeWine are seeking reelection to the Senate by claiming that they represent a Republicanism less rabid than the Bush-Rove strain. They point to individual votes in which they broke with the president and flouted the party line. But those votes have been negated a hundred times over by their votes to make Bill Frist the majority leader, just as they would be negated when the new Senate takes office in 2007 if the moderates backed any Republican unwilling to make a fundamental break with Bush and Bushism.
This is an issue each and every 'moderate Republican' should have to answer for. Let's not forget that the NRSC flat out loves Chafee. They love him because he gives them a better chance at keeping hold of the seat and because, when push comes to shove, he's just another Republican who insures that they stay in the majority. He could be a socialist for all they care, he votes for a Republican majority leader--end of story.
Meyerson continues:
Problem is, Chafee and his moderate band are an ever weaker force in a party whose very essence is extreme, whose electorial strategy is solely to mobilize its base, whose legislative strategy is never to seek votes across party lines. And unless these moderates boldly go where they have not gone before and cast their vote for majority leader (and I don't mean in caucus, I mean on the Senate floor) for someone other than the nominee of their party caucus, they are not moderates at all. They are loyal and indispensable foot soldiers in the Republicans' continuing campaign to drag the nation rightward and backward.
And guess what. The moderates will vote for the extremist. "Moderate," after all, is only an adjective; "Republican" is a noun. Chafee, Snowe, the whole lot of them, are moderate enablers of an extremist party. That leaves those voters in Rhode Island, Maine, Ohio and other states where these self-proclaimed Republican moderates are running only one choice if they seek a Congress to check and balance the president, if they want a more moderate nation: Vote for the Democrat.
This holds even more true in the House. I've witnessed a number of debates wherein the Republican challenger spoke of bringing change to Washington and listed many policy priorities that are more commonplace among Democrats---like health care, alternative energy, Iraq, etc.
But, as Meyerson noted, every single one of these priorities will be negated by their vote for an extremist Republican leadership. It's very well and good to have health care as a policy priority but it is meaningless when you vote for extremist Republicans whose mission it is to do nothing of service for their country other than to act as a rubber stamp for Bush, consolidate their own power and have legislation written from them by industry lobbyists.
The structure of the House is even more prone to one-party rule, as we've seen time and again when Republicans bar any Democratic-offered amendments to bills and push through legislation which members have had absolutely no time to read and consider.
As Robert Kullner wrote in the American Prospect back in early 2004:
Along with shifting coalitions and weak party discipline, there was usually reasonable comity between majority and minority party....
All that has radically changed. Seeds of the change began appearing during the speakerships of both Democrat Jim Wright (1987-89) and Republican Newt Gingrich (1995-99), which produced more centralized leadership and party discipline. But the more radical changes, at the expense of democracy itself, have occurred since 2002 under Tom DeLay. Here are the key mechanisms of DeLay's dictatorship:
Extreme Centralization. The power to write legislation has been centralized in the House Republican leadership. Concretely, that means DeLay and House Speaker Dennis Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, working with the House Committee on Rules. (Hastert is seen in some quarters as a figurehead, but his man Palmer is as powerful as DeLay.) Drastic revisions to bills approved by committee are characteristically added by the leadership, often late in the evening. Under the House rules, 48 hours are supposed to elapse before floor action. But in 2003, the leadership, 57 percent of the time, wrote rules declaring bills to be "emergency" measures, allowing the[m] to be considered with as little as 30 minutes notice. On several measures, members literally did not know what they were voting for.
Sorry, No Amendments. DeLay has used the rules process both to write new legislation that circumvents the hearing process and to all but eliminate floor amendments for Republicans and Democrats alike. The Rules Committeee, controlled by the Republican leadership, writes a rule specifying the terms od debate for every bill that reaches the House floor. When Democrats controlled the House, Republicans complained bitterly when the occasional bill did not allow for open floor amendments. In 1995, Republicans pledged reform. Gerald Solomon, the new Republican chairman of the committee, explicitly promised that at least 70 percent of bills would come to the floor with rules permitting amendments. Instead, the proportion of bills prohibiting amendments has steadily increased, from 56 percent during the 104th Congress (1995-97) to 76 percent in 2003. This comparison actually understates the shift, because virtually all major bills now come to the floor with rules prohibiting amendments.
DeLay has elevated votes on these rules into rigid tests of party loyality, on a par with election of the speaker. A Republican House member who votes against a rule structuring floor debate will lose committee assignments and campaign funds, and can expect DeLay to sponsor a primary opponent.
How does this undermine democracy? As the recent Medicare bill was coming to a vote, a majority of House members were sympathetic to amendments allowing drug imports from Canada and empowering the federal government to negotiate wholesale drug prices. But by prohibiting floor amendments, DeLay made sure that the bill passed as written by the leadership, and that members were spared the embarrassment (or accountability) of voting against amendments popular with constituents.
And on and on--Kullner lists the full gamut of legislative abuses of DeLay's one-party rule in the House--from one-party conferences, the lack of hearings prior to votes on bills and the widespread abuse of the appropriations process to benefit campaign warchests and enrich themselves via lobbyist perks.
Tom DeLay may be done as Majority Leader and as a member of Congress, but the hard-nosed one-party rule is alive in well in the Republican-controlled House. That won't change by electing a small minority of 'moderate Republicans' from a handful of swing districts who will only be a rubber stamp for the same regressive House leadership. They will essentially be as powerless to change things individually as Democrats have been. (This line of thinking also insulates against anti-incumbent backlash since Democrats aren't the ones in positions to dictate what does and doesn't come up for vote, particularly in the House.) It's the Republican leadership who have failed utterly in areas of oversight, reform, and in their out-of-touch legislative priorities, both in the executive and in the legislature. That should be what the 2006 elections are a referendum on. Besides, the Republican-led Congress is even less popular than Bush. Why? The leadership--and from the looks of the Foley scandal, it's only going to get worse.
In short, the legislative process is much more complicated than these 'moderate Republicans' would have you believe. Their votes in favor of extremist Republicans for leadership positions will only serve the status quo and negate any independent rhetoric they may have used to get elected. (Just remember Rolling Stone's 'Four Amendments and a Funeral' piece--where one independent, Bernie Sanders, even with a cast of supporters couldn't single-handedly spearhead legislative change due to Republican leadership legislative strong-arm tactics.) Knowing the Republicans in Washington, truly independent leadership in Congress will happen under one circumstance only---by voting for the Democrat and bringing about a wake-up call to Republicans who have chosen to rule via a one-party system increasingly out-of-touch with the priorities of the American people. Anything else is just stay the course and will result in nothing but more of the same from Republican leadership who will remain in ultimate fealty to corporate interests, increasing party power and the Decider.