By
Sheila Bapat
Congress is going to be one big, raging chess match for the next two years. Members of our legislative body really ought to figure out the art of compromise.
But they won't.
Both parties are figuring out strategies to maintain their power. Congressional Republicans are going to take full advantage of what's left of their reign.
Moreover, Congressional Democrats smell blood in 2002. According to them, the race isn't over-it's still in the works. Democrats are determined to be in the majority in two years.
The United States Congress is exactly half-and-half, save the nine Republicans in the House that tip the scale just a tad.
Given the vast differences in the agendas of the two major parties, gridlock seems to be inevitable. Not only are their policy agendas very different, but they just can't stand each other.
Maybe it's because of the GOP coup in 1994 that left Democrats with their boxers in a wad. Maybe it's because of committee chairmen like Orrin Hatch, a hardcore Utah Republican Senator who, as judiciary committee chair, failed to give hearings to President Clinton's appointments. It went so far that Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, a prominent conservative himself, pled with Hatch to hear the appointments so the country would have some federal judges. Not that it helped.
Maybe it's because billion-dollar tax cuts were passed and a bunch of Democratic agenda items didn't even see the light of day.
Maybe it's because President Clinton was impeached.
"The partisanship is extremely high, worse than at any time since the Vietnam War," Brown University professor Wendy Schiller told the New York Times.
So how the hell are they going to get anything done?
Congress ought to follow the example of the Arizona State Senate. Evenly split between the parties, Republican Randall Gnant of District 28 will serve as President of the Senate. Democrats Ruth Solomon of District 14 and Elaine Richardson of District 13 will serve as Appropriations Committee and Judiciary Committee Chairs, respectively.
A nice separation of power.
It would be stunning to see the United States Congress pull it off that smoothly. According to Sunday's New York Times, Democrats are demanding chairmanships to committees and no parliamentary restrictions to legislation on the floor. Pretty unlikely that GOP leadership would let that happen.
The public deserves decisive decision-making. But the parties see it differently. For the Republicans, it's about keeping the power they have gotten used to in the past six years. For the Democrats, it's about using the close margins to gain some turf in the house, and to win it with a clear majority in 2002.
Not all Democrats smell the blood, of course- heaven forbid the party actually be united. There are a few rogues like Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana who are known for working with Republicans. Breaux works with them so much that he helped the early-90s Clinton health care package fail by proposing his own and splitting Democratic support.
They call these rogue Democrats the "blue dogs." The moniker makes as much sense the "House whip." But blue dogs refers to the Democrats that may vote Republican on key votes. Perhaps in exchange for committee seats or chairmanships, these Democrats will support more moderate, even conservative, policies that the GOP brings to the floor.
La. Rep. Chris John, a Democrat and one of the blue dog crew, believes the coalition building opportunity will be a good thing.
"I think we're sitting in a great position," John told the New York Times. "I believe 'moderation' is going to be a key word as we move through this process."
But people like Breaux and John are not the majority of Democrats. Their moderate positions are likely to divide the party a bit, forcing liberals to work harder at gaining a majority in 2002.
So the GOP will continue to wield Congressional power for at least two more years, and Democrats will strategically try to figure out how to slip it from their fingers and declare checkmate for 2002.
Let the games begin.
