Although Texas Gov. George W. Bush and many leading Republicans are talking about the need for bipartisanship in the aftermath of this year's close election, Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) sees the prospect of GOP control of Congress and the White House as the opportunity of a lifetime.
"You're going to think I'm crazy, but I didn't see this as a tie election," DeLay said in an interview yesterday. "This is something I've been working for 22 years. I mean, we got it. The Republicans are the majority party in this country."
"We have the House, we have the Senate, we have the White House, which means we have the agenda," DeLay told reporters yesterday.
Conservative Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.), for example, said he hoped a Bush administration would beat back efforts at campaign finance reform and gun control while dramatically cutting federal regulation. The power of the presidency, coupled with a Republican Congress and conservative control of the Supreme Court, is nothing short of awesome," said Doolittle, one of DeLay's closest allies. "This is the implementation of the rest of the 'Contract With America.'"
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Mr. Cheney gave congressional Republicans their first taste in eight years of what it will be like to work with a Republican administration.
He greeted House Republicans in the morning and ate lunch with Republican senators, who encouraged Mr. Cheney in a free-wheeling discussion to have Mr. Bush overturn a long list of executive orders signed by President Clinton.
Republicans have long chafed at what they view as Mr. Clinton's excessive use of this executive power to circumvent Congress on a variety of issues, from protecting homosexuals from discrimination to declaring new national monument areas.
Majority Leader Trent Lott ... has sent a signal to his fellow GOP Senators: bipartisanship is dead on arrival.
Lott was quoted as saying "Somebody has to be in charge."
Concerned about the fairness of the federal death penalty system, President Clinton tonight delayed the execution of Juan Raul Garza for six months, leaving it to the next president to decide whether Mr. Garza, a confessed murderer, should be the first federal prisoner executed since the 1960's.
Conservative groups that quietly supported Gov. George W. Bush during his presidential campaign are preparing to call in their chits.
They are pushing for appointment of strong conservatives to lead key agencies, especially the departments of Justice and Health and Human Services. They are prodding Bush to stock the lower levels of the bureaucracy with people likely to tack to the right in such key areas as family planning policy, welfare and civil rights.
Conservatives are hoping that in areas where the administration can act unilaterally--through executive orders, regulations and litigation--it will lean a little farther to the right. If conservatives control even a few influential positions, they believe that many Clinton administration policies will be moderated over time or in some cases reversed outright.
The Senate approved a major overhaul of the nation's bankruptcy laws today, passing legislation by an overwhelming margin that makes it harder for people to seek legal protection from payment of their debts. The vote was 70 to 28.
But the bill's prospects for becoming law are uncertain at best because Congress may not get the opportunity to override President Clinton's threatened veto before lawmakers adjourn for the year. Even so, it is unclear whether an override, which would require a two-thirds vote, would succeed.
The legislation, a compromise hammered out by House and Senate negotiators, was adopted by voice vote by the House on Oct. 12, and enjoys broad bipartisan support in that chamber, as well as from credit-card companies, banks and retailers.
| Total | R | D | Yes | 70 | 53 | 17 | No | 28 | 0 | 28 |
Joe Lieberman voted no.
Other nos: Russ Feingold, Paul Wellestone, Dick Durbin, Ted Kennedy, Tom Harkin, and many more.
Little Progress Reported in Budget Agreement , New York Times, December 9, 2000
Congressional leaders reported little progress in reaching agreement with the White House on a budget for the current fiscal year, now more than 10 weeks old.
[T]he key issue remains a huge domestic spending measure that finances labor, health and education programs.
In October, White House and Republican negotiators agreed to provide nearly $114 billion for those programs. But that deal fell apart over an unrelated issue involving requirements that employers act to protect workers from illness and injury from lifting heavy objects and repetitive motion.
Republicans offered a $107 billion deal. The White House rejected it but would consider a $112 billion deal.
(Ed: The Supreme Court, in a sharp split along ideological and some say partisan lines, voted 5-4 to halt hand recounts of ballots in Florida counties.)
Justice Antonin Scalia explained Saturday, the court had no choice but to stop the hand counts, which if legally unsound would threaten "irreparable harm" to the country "by casting a cloud upon" the legitimacy of the election.
Justice John Paul Stevens, joined by the three more liberal justices, accused the majority of acting "unwisely" and inevitably placing "a cloud on the legitimacy of the election" with its decision to stop the counting. His dissent indicates his support of the Florida Supreme Court's ruling, which he said "reflects the basic principle, inherent in our Constitution and our democracy, that every legal vote should be counted."
The pace of executions in America slowed this year, after hitting a modern record in 1999, according to a report from the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The report released Sunday said that 98 prisoners were executed last year — the most since 1951 — compared to 68 in 1998.
Eighty-four people have been executed so far this year, with nearly half of those, 40, dying in Texas, a state that has bucked the national trend, setting a record for executions carried out in one state in a year.
Affirmative action in university admissions is the best example of a question that will probably be settled by the composition of the Supreme Court...The current court usually splits five-to-four on affirmative-action cases. The Michigan cases could come before it toward the end of the next Presidential term, after its composition may have changed just enough for the balance to swing one way or the other. The future of affirmative action lies in the hands of the next President.
Other reading: "Putting a Radical Right Team on the Bench", Ralph Neas, The Nation
The Observer discovered that Harris's office had ordered the elimination of 8,000 Florida voters on the grounds that they had committed felonies in other states. None had. Harris bought the bum list from a company called ChoicePoint, a firm whose Atlanta executive suite and boardroom are filled with Republican funders. ChoicePoint, we have learned, picked up the list of faux felons from state officials in - ahem - Texas.
Florida is the only state to hire an outside firm to suggest who should lose citizenship rights. That may change. 'Given a new President, and what we accomplished in Florida, we expect to roll across the nation,' ChoicePoint told me ominously.
Hunt for fraudulent voters triggered anger, Pal m Beach Post, December 11, 2000
The [Choice Point] employee also complained that the Pinellas County Elections Office had given Nickerson [a wrongfully-removed voter] her office phone number.
"The Supervisors and/or the staff should be calling us -- not handing out my name and number to irate voters," wrote the employee, Marlene Thorogood.
"This man was scary," she continued. "There are just some people that feel when you mess with their 'right to vote,' you're messing with their life."
ChoicePoint, Database Technologies' new owner, is a spinoff of the Atlanta-based credit reporting agency Equifax Corp.
What they will do is simple, really. The Republican plan, for which Bush is but the latest figurehead, can be understood in two broad strokes: kill off what's left of the New Deal social programs, and speed up the return of power to the states at the expense of the federal government.
The next two years promise to be dangerous for the splintered ranks of liberals, who increment by increment have lost seats both local and federal to the unified right. Ever since Richard Nixon bowed out of the clouded 1960 election, conceding victory to John Kennedy, Republicans have felt they were owed. Nixon's concession denied them the presidency, and it opened the door to what Republicans consider a disaster so great that 40 years later, they're just beginning to remedy it. Kennedy brought with him a renewed vision of an activist government, triggering four decades of right-wing resentment, as conservatives stood witness to the expansion of the Great Society. When Nixon surrendered, Republicans believed, he struck a silent and costly deal, and it was time for Gore to pay up.
n this new Congress, Big Oil will rule, and Big Money will rule, and if liberals are fool enough to place one of their feel-good initiatives—national health care, anyone?—before the public, it'll be smashed into pieces so tiny the Dems will need three administrations just to gather the scraps again.
The Clinton administration, maintaining that free trade and environmental protection can go hand in hand, put into place new rules Wednesday that subject future trade deals to environmental reviews.
The guidelines were developed under an executive order issued by President Clinton last year. They direct the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the president's Council on Environmental Quality to review agreements for their potential environmental impacts. Also consulted would be governmental agencies, Congress and environmental groups.
While the guidelines will not be binding on a new administration, U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky predicted that the next administration will choose to adopt similar environmental reviews.
Republicans have opposed including labor and environmental regulations in trade deals and the split with the Clinton administration has blocked congressional enactment of new trade negotiating authority for the past three years.
The next president will have the opportunity to appoint 72 new federal judges the day he enters the office, appointments held up by a Republican majority in the DC [? Judiciary Committee?] to deprive Clinton of the right to do that. You can bet, under Bush, these 72 new federal judges will be clones of Scalia, Rhenquist and Thomas. And they will be with us for the next 50 years. They will be the ones to become the new Supreme Court justices.
That Mr Bush finally prevailed, and not Al Gore, is a cause for celebration in the tobacco giants of America and Britain. The hostility from Washington over the past eight years should begin to ease.
Mr Gore would surely have kept up maximum pressure on the companies, both through policy action and legal assaults. But Mr Bush is expected to treat the industry with "benign neglect". Shares in most of the big companies have risen sharply on that prospect.
Most important, a Bush administration is expected to allow a potentially devastating anti-racketeering lawsuit now being pursued by the Justice Department against the industry to fade away. The suit was to have gone to trial in about two years' time.
President-elect Bush's first priority may be healing wounds and reuniting the country, but that's not the aim of conservatives who backed him. Having finally wrested the Oval Office from the Democrats, some finally see an opening for their agenda.
The attorney general's post is a top priority. Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore and defeated Missouri Sen. John Ashcroft head conservatives' list of candidates. They're also pushing for one of their own at the helm of the departments of Health and Human Services, Interior, Education and Labor, and for appointments to the dozens of White House and sub-cabinet level positions that influence social and economic policy. And they are looking for Bush to reverse controversial policies such as the Food and Drug Administration's approval of the pill that allows women to abort early pregnancies without surgery.
Top advisers to President-elect George W. Bush declared on Sunday there would be no retreat from his conservative policy agenda.
Cheney said the massive $1.3 trillion across-the-board tax cut, opposed by Democrats for benefiting the wealthy at the expense of the middle class, would remain the top priority "partly for economic reasons, partly because we have this growing surplus and some of it ought to be returned."
President-elect George W. Bush (news - web sites) signaled that his proposed $1.3 trillion tax cut was nonnegotiable, calling it "an insurance policy" against an economic downturn in an interview published Sunday.
"Well, I'm not prepared to compromise," Bush told this week's Time Magazine which named him Person of the Year. "I think it's the right size."
Energy lobbyists working to open a huge chunk of Alaska to drilling are chewing their fingernails waiting for President-elect Bush to choose an Energy Secretary. The stakes are enormous: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) has 19 million acres with from 5.7 billion to 16 billion barrels of oil. The Clinton Administration agreed with the arguments of environmental groups that drilling in the ANWR would hurt wildlife, and killed all efforts by GOP members of Congress from Alaska to open the acreage. Bush campaigned on allowing drilling there, but Al Gore opposed it. Now, the energy lobbies hope Bush chooses a secretary that will actively push legislation to allow development. They like Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) or former Sen. Bennett Johnston, also a Democrat from Louisiana. The lobbyists want fast action because of soaring natural gas and home heating oil prices and the prospect of blackouts in California. Cam Toohey, executive director of the pro-drilling lobby Arctic Power, says, "One thing we have is a lot of oil. When the winter gets cold and it gets darker, people will appreciate that more and more, including politicians." However, President Clinton could probably kill any development by designating the area as a national monument before he leaves office.
President Clinton on Wednesday announced sweeping new rules to protect the privacy of patients, requiring doctors and hospitals to keep sensitive medical records private and punishing firms that improperly sell them for profit.
Currently, insurers can pass on private health information to lenders, who in turn can deny home mortgages or credit cards to patients, or use the information for underwriting purposes or market research.
The White House urged Congress to pass legislation next year to expand the protections and to stiffen penalties for privacy violations.
It remains to be seen, however, whether President-elect George W. Bush and Republican congressional leaders will take up the initiative.
Michael Powell, Colin's son, is first in line to be the next chairman of the commission. Media big shots won't be disappointed.
Powell crusades for a minimalist FCC [and] for a shrinking of the agency's investigation of mergers in the media and telecommunications sectors
To consumer advocates, Powell's words sound like a regulatory holiday benefiting big business. Says Peggy Charren, the godmother of requirements for children's educational TV: "He is a pleasant enough individual but has not been a strong supporter of what I worry about."
Ann N. Veneman is the Bush nominee for Secretary of Agriculture. She had served as deputy secretary of agriculture under his father.
Representatives of farming, timber and mining groups applauded her selection, characterizing Ms. Veneman as a centrist willing to balance the interests of all sides in any policy debate.
But as a possible prelude to conflict, environmental groups and organizations representing small farmers called her a troubling choice.
They complained that as a strong proponent of free-market trade and multiple-uses for public lands — and as a chairwoman of Mr. Bush's campaign in California — Ms. Veneman would favor a larger role for business and a retreat from policies that have helped family farms and protected national forest lands.
Though he has not yet been officially nominated, the pro-life Thompson's nomination has abortion-rights groups concerned. As governor [of Wisconsin], Thompson has supported a parental consent bill, a 24-hour waiting period and a bans on late-term abortions. Thompson's late-term ban mandated life imprisonment for doctors who perform the procedure.
Leaders of the health care industry said today that they would immediately ask President-elect George W. Bush to revise new rules issued by President Clinton to protect the privacy of medical records.
Senator John Ashcroft (R.-MO), a conservative favorite and ardent foe of abortion, was nominated for Attorney General.
And Mr. Ashcroft was at the center of a bitter Senate debate in October 1999 over President Clinton's nomination of Justice Ronnie White of the Missouri Supreme Court for a Federal District Court seat.
Senator Ashcroft lobbied hard against the nomination, calling Justice White "pro criminal and activist" and too reluctant to vote for the death penalty.
Bush, who oversaw a record 40 executions in Texas last year as governor and 152 over the course of six years, said he sees no reason for a moratorium on the death penalty at the federal level.
"If there is compelling evidence that the system is not swift and sure and just, I will listen" on any death penalty case, Bush said.
"His views are the correct views," Ashcroft said.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said on Saturday it will oppose President-elect George W. Bush's nominee for attorney general, outgoing senator John Ashcroft, because of his positions on civil rights and affirmative action.
"It is outrageous for President-elect Bush to select someone who has consistently opposed civil rights and affirmative action to be responsible for enforcing the nation's laws," NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said in a statement.
Mr. Bush threw a big bouquet to the ultraconservatives yesterday when he chose John Ashcroft for the post of attorney general.
His actions on racial matters alone are enough to give one pause.
Mr. Ashcroft has been one of the Senate's most adamant opponents of a woman's right to choose an abortion... Mr. Ashcroft has a poor record on church-state issues and on gay rights, and a dismal record on the environment.
The Clinton years are almost gone, and with them the best hope for strengthening the minimum wage.
Mr. Bush ... would sign a bill increasing the minimum wage. But he would require that the bill include a radical "opt out" provision. Any state would be allowed to opt out of the federal minimum and substitute its own, lower minimum if the legislature and governor decided that an increase in the federal minimum would be a "barrier to employment."
That would be a huge breach. A national standard 65 years old would be cracked, and the minimum wage would disappear.
When George W. Bush moves into the White House, thousands of rules that govern everything from the energy your dishwasher uses to the labels on your clothes are likely to be overhauled in ways that favor powerful industries and anger consumer groups.
Bush appointees could make it difficult to enforce regulations aggressively. "We expect them to systematically stop certain things and to underfund others," said Joan Claybrook, who headed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration under President Carter and now works for the Ralph Nader group, Public Citizen.
[R]enewed reports of anti-Indian crusader Slade Gorton as possible pick for secretary of Interior rattled American Indian leaders.
Even Bush's Republican Native American advisor John Wolf expressed concern over the mention of Gorton. "I have already advised the campaign staff that Slade Gorton would be a devastating choice and selection for the Department of Interior."
"What are we fishing for?" somebody asked.
"Snook," Bush replied. There was only one problem: It's a jailable offense to catch snook, which are protected under Florida law, from mid-December through January.
During his first campaign for Texas governor in 1994, Bush went on a dove hunt but wound up bringing down a protected plover called a killdeer. He escaped with a $130 fine.
"In selecting Governor Thompson to head HHS, President Bush has chosen one of this nation's staunchest opponents of a woman's right to choose to head the agency with the greatest impact on women's health. If he is confirmed, Thompson will become the President's top advisor on health-related matters — including abortion and contraception."
[Gale] Norton ... sees an opportunity to make better use of the two-thirds of the nation's lands in federal hands - and that includes access for business.
In Colorado, [environmentalists] say, Norton was not very aggressive on environmental issues and too willing to rely on local control and voluntary compliance. With disputes over air quality, oil drilling and other issues on the horizon, many environmentalists are worried.
The Occupational Safety and Health Act turns 30 today. We should be thankful for its existence, but America's workplaces are still too dangerous -- and they may get more so under the Bush administration.
George W. Bush already has announced he wants "less regulation" in general. Business groups and their political allies -- mainly a large bloc of Republican legislators -- have continuously tried to weaken enforcement, to give higher priority to business costs than worker health and to obstruct the development of new safety standards.