Recess Rhetoric: What a Difference a Majority Makes

Some things don't change after kindergarten: Here in Washington, the name-calling peaks during recess.

Congress may be on break for another 10 days, but the rhetoric over war funding ratchets up by the day. President Bush is promising a veto of the Democratic plans; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he'll bring up even more-stringent legislation if the current bill isn't signed into law.

Whatever the recess rhetoric, though, with lawmakers out of town, it seems a good time to look back at just how far the debate over the war has come in the past year or so and just how much more willing Democrats are to oppose Bush, notes U.S. News reporter Silla Brush. Democratic challengers in the hottest congressional races last year were wary about supporting even nonbinding resolutions challenging Bush's Iraq policies, and a majority of them were opposed to withdrawal deadlines.

That seems like a long time ago on Capitol Hill. Consider the following timeline of recent legislation on Iraq:

• June 2006: Before the fall election results came into better focus, U.S. News sampled some of the closest congressional races to see how Democratic challengers would have voted on an Iraq bill. Back then. the matter was a nonbinding resolution in the House to stay in Iraq without setting a plan for withdrawal. After several days of impassioned debate, the House voted 256-to-153 in support of President Bush's policies. Some 42 Democrats broke ranks and sided with Republicans. And in the close congressional races that we polled, four of the party's most highly touted candidates--Tammy Duckworth, Baron Hill, Mary Jo Kilroy, and Ron Klein--said they too would have voted with the GOP on the resolution. Also in June, Sens. Russell Feingold of Wisconsin and John Kerry of Massachusetts had a plan to withdraw U.S. troops by this July. Only 13 Democrats supported the plan; Reid opposed it.
• August 2006: The Washington Post polled 59 Democrats in tight House and Senate races and found that "a majority agree with the Bush administration that it would be unwise to set a specific schedule for troop withdrawal, and only a few are calling for substantial troop reductions to begin this year."
• Nov. 7, 2006: Democrats win control of Congress beginning in January 2007.
• February 16: The House passes a nonbinding resolution by a vote of 246-to-182 to oppose Bush's "surge" plan, with 17 Republicans in favor. Two Democrats voted against the resolution.
• March 23: The House votes 218-to-212 on an emergency supplemental appropriations bill that includes a timeline for a withdrawal of U.S. troops by September 2008. The bill passed with 14 Democrats against and two Republicans in favor.
• March 29: The Senate votes 51-to-47 (with two Republicans in favor and one Democrat opposed) to pass its version of the appropriations bill that calls for withdrawal of most U.S. troops by March 2008. President Bush threatens to veto any appropriations bill that includes a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. forces.
• April 2: Reid announces that if the appropriations bill is indeed vetoed, he'll push a plan in the Senate co-authored with Feingold that would cut off most Iraq war funds within the year. The bill would prohibit funds past March 31, 2008, for anything but counterterrorism, security, and training operations. It's the most stringent bill to date.