Changing the Guard
It's a new day on Capitol Hill, and Democrats say they have a plan. Now they have to make it work
The Democrats swooped into Washington last week for their first week in power in 12 years. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to lead the House, hoisted the gavel, was serenaded by Tony Bennett and the former members of the Grateful Dead, and had a hometown Baltimore street named after her. In the House of Representatives, the party passed a set of ethics and earmark reforms in the first two days of the session and now embarks on a 100-hour legislative sprint to show it can govern. In the coming days, President Bush will deliver his much-anticipated speech on Iraq policy, and Democrats have plans to haul Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the nation's top intelligence officials before Congress.
There's no mistaking the shift in tone and power on Capitol Hill. Elected with a mandate to clean up Washington by a deeply disgruntled public, Democrats have a mighty task ahead and a plan to move quickly in the first few weeks. But their efforts are fraught with any number of challenges: holding the progressive and centrist wings of the party together, turning legislation into law with the slimmest of Senate majorities, and working with a president who has seen little resistance from Capitol Hill during his six years in office. How Democrats fare in the next few months-before the presidential election begins to overwhelm Washington-will help determine whether the party maintains control in 2008 and beyond. And for political junkies, it should be quite a show.
Beginnings. First up, Democrats plan to pass their 100-hour agenda through the House before the president's State of the Union address on January 23. "It's not the specifics of what they pass that matters," says Mickey Edwards, a former Republican representative from Oklahoma. "What matters is that when Bush stands up in front of Congress, the people in front of him have already sent notice to him that they're in charge."
The Democrats' agenda, known as the Six for '06, encompasses six politically appealing bills. Those measures would hike the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, increase federal funds for embryonic stem cell research, implement most of the 9/11 commission's still-outstanding recommendations, repeal tax breaks for oil companies, halve interest rates on student loans, and allow the government to negotiate the price of Medicare prescription drugs. "We view these first 100 hours as essentially a mandate of the American people," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. "We said to the American people that if you elect us, this is what we'll do." Democrats have decided to proceed with their agenda without an opportunity for Republicans to add amendments to the bills or to let the bills pass through the normal committee hearing procedure. Republicans immediately cried foul, but Democrats counter that the bills have been subject to congressional hearings in the past and were supported in the election.
The six bills may very well sail through the House, since the Democrats hold a 233-to-202-seat majority there. That's the easy part. "Passing the four items out of the House is training camp," says Brad Woodhouse of the Change America Now coalition, a group of labor unions and progressive groups that is lobbying for the agenda. "Getting them through the Senate is the regular season. Getting them signed by the president is the Super Bowl." Take embryonic stem cell research, for example: In 2005, Bush used the sole veto of his presidency to override a bill that would have increased such funding.
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