CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Jan. 27, 2012 – 10:34 p.m.
Election Year Politics a Challenge for Leaders
By Richard E. Cohen and Alan K. Ota, CQ Staff
House Speaker
The two leaders have said they hope for a quick deal on a yearlong extension of the current Social Security payroll tax reduction, long-term unemployment benefits and reimbursement rates for Medicare physicians.
The House and the Senate might also agree to ban insider stock trading by lawmakers (
But the leaders’ hopes of advancing an agenda that responds to the nation’s economic anxiety could be thwarted by internal dynamics in each chamber. Some conservative House Republicans remain averse to compromise, and the Senate’s unwieldy procedures can halt anything backed by fewer than 60 senators.
Such obstacles are likely only to expand during an election year in which the Democrats’ hold on the Senate could be overturned and the House Republicans’ majority could be trimmed.
As each leader focuses on retaining his majority and working with his party’s presidential standard-bearer, he will press rank-and-file lawmakers to retain party unity — a task that was challenging for Boehner during the first session of this Congress.
And when the opportunity arises, Boehner and Reid may also want to show independent voters that they can work with the other party.
Hours before President Obama’s State of the Union address Jan. 24, House and Senate negotiators convened the conference committee on the payroll measure (
But it was clear that the partisan divisions that stymied a yearlong payroll tax cut extension in December remain, including whether to pay for the legislation by imposing an upper-income surtax and whether to expand the package to include extensions of other tax breaks meant to spur economic growth.
A Delicate Balance
Reid, of Nevada, and Boehner, of Ohio, both face delicate tasks as they attempt to help their party’s presidential nominees.
“Senate Democrats need to be careful not to push issues that divide the party,” said Steven W. Smith, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis. “The best thing that they can do is go home.”
Boehner risks alienating some voters if he rejects any compromise approach to addressing the economy. And he could trigger further rebellion within the House Republican Conference if he gets out in front of his troops by trying to cut any sort of deal.
Election Year Politics a Challenge for Leaders
“House Republicans need to be careful and muddle through without more chaos. Their party is perceived as too radical,” Smith said. “It doesn’t take much for some tea party Republicans to ignore Boehner’s guidance,” he added, particularly if they fear pressure from the right in re-election campaigns.
As Senate Democrats lay down an agenda meant to support the economic proposals Obama outlined in his State of the Union address, Reid is trying to strike a conciliatory note. “We know that . . . from creating jobs to tax fairness, we have to move toward the center,” Reid said. “We want [Republicans] to do that with us.”
Sen.
Reid is also trying to reduce tensions over four recess appointments Obama made earlier this month. He is holding off on asking for votes on some nominations, looking to make deals on them individually.
For now, the majority leader has no plans to try to push through any of the Senate rule changes Obama suggested, including guaranteed up-or-down votes on some nominations within 90 days and restrictions on some filibusters.
GOP Plans a Strategy
House Republicans hope to counter Obama’s proposals with a renewed emphasis on job creation through a tax code rewrite and by scaling back government regulation.
“We need to fundamentally change our tax code. We need to stop the regulatory onslaught,” Boehner said Jan. 25. “We’ve got to create more certainty here in Washington. . . . We don’t need a bigger government and a more intrusive government, which is exactly what the president called for.”
House Republicans are discussing a fiscal 2013 budget resolution that would lay out their vision of a tax code overhaul and changes in domestic entitlement programs.
Boehner also plans to show voters that his GOP majority wants to provide incentives for domestic energy production that would generate additional revenue for infrastructure.
But Senate Democrats are unlikely to accept Boehner’s plan to link the infrastructure spending that Democrats favor to the expanded drilling sought by the GOP.
That might be just as well for the Speaker. Boehner is mindful that working with the Democratic Senate runs counter to preserving unity in his conference. He angered some House Republicans in December, when he forced them to accept a short-term payroll tax extension hatched in the Senate.
“We must pick our fights better and follow through with them,” said freshman Rep.
Election Year Politics a Challenge for Leaders
But Obama sounded a warning about continued deadlock in his Jan. 24 address to a joint session and the nation, calling last summer’s standoff over increasing the debt limit a “fiasco” and “the greatest blow to confidence in our economy.”
The administration has signaled that further confrontation — or what Obama calls Republican “obstruction” — will give the president fresh ammunition for his re-election campaign.