Congress Gearing Up for a Legislative Sprint

WASHINGTON —  Congress returns from its August recess today vowing to rush through a bundle of important bills before the November election.

Measures to carry out recommendations from the Sept. 11 commission and to increase domestic security are on the agenda. So is legislation on transportation, energy, education, health and jobs programs and extending President Bush’s tax cuts. There is also likely to be a huge omnibus spending bill laden with federal projects considered dear to the hearts of local voters.

After eight months of partisan gridlock, lawmakers say they are ready to make up for lost time.

Even though Republicans and Democrats feel pressure to show voters they can be productive, many concede it will be hard to accomplish in a brief election-eve session what could not be done previously.

Some analysts warn that legislating under such pressure may not yield good results -- especially in high-profile but complex areas such as anti-terrorism and intelligence reform.

“They’re going to try to get more done in the next month than they’ve accomplished in the last year,” said Keith Ashdown, vice president of policy for Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group.

“If it is a rush in the 11th hour of the legislative session to get a bill passed that’s very important, it definitely leads to opportunities for bad legislation,” he said.

That concern is particularly acute where domestic security and the Sept. 11 commission’s reforms are concerned.

“The political pressures on homeland security are going to be huge, and everyone will have the need, at least, to be seen to be doing something,” University of Pennsylvania political scientist Don Kettl said. The result could be action that “looks good in the short run and makes things worse in the long run.”

“This is precisely the wrong time, given the political pressures, to try to solve the long-term problems,” he said.

Some analysts say the session may end up being mostly politically charged window dressing, despite the importance of some of the pending bills.

The pace of legislative action is likely to quicken in the next several weeks, said Patrick Basham, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, but “most of it will be carefully packaged, focus-group-tested, window-dressing stuff designed to appeal to swing voters in closely contested congressional races, such as they exist.”

He predicted that the Republican leadership would bring bills to the floor “for the sole purpose of embarrassing or flushing out the Democrats on emotive or wedge issues. Between now and election day, the action on Capitol Hill will be more symbolic than substantive.”

Already, House Republicans are planning to bring up the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, according to Stuart Roy, spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas). And one House Republican aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the leadership planned to schedule a bill to keep the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.

If the coming session does not go beyond political gestures, the 108th Congress would have a slender record for the year. And polls show voters have noticed: A recent Gallup survey found that 42% of respondents approved of the way Congress was doing its job, while 52% disapproved.

Thus far, Congress has passed one of 13 spending bills -- to fund Pentagon programs -- for the 2005 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

Bush has signed into law legislation toughening penalties for identity theft and making it a separate crime to harm a fetus during the commission of a violent federal crime. A number of trade agreements also have been approved.

So has legislation protecting turtles, a slew of bills renaming post offices and scores of other uncontroversial measures.

In the meantime, Congress has yet to pass the overall budget resolution for fiscal 2005, and few think it will do so now, relying instead on continuing resolutions to keep the government operating.

The Senate’s record this year has been so bleak that Minority Leader Tom Daschle’s office put out a news release in July calling it “The Seinfeld Senate: A Session About Nothing.”

The House, where Republicans command a solid majority and the rules give the controlling party greater freedom, has approved more bills. But many of the measures had such a partisan cast that they had little chance of winning Senate approval.

The subjects most likely to get serious attention in coming weeks are domestic security and the reform recommendations of the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission.

The first order of business next week is expected to be funding domestic security programs. The House has approved a $32-billion bill; the Senate Appropriations Committee has recommended $32 billion, which must be approved by the Senate.

Differences between the two versions would have to be reconciled by House and Senate negotiators.

Among the items in the bill, which is expected to come before the Senate next week: $663 million for federal air marshals; $210 million for procuring explosive detection systems; $15 million for rail security; $75 million for screening and research and development on cargo security; and $3.7 billion in federal aid to local police, firefighters and other “first responders.”

“There will be great pressure to pass the Homeland Security appropriations bill so that members can assure voters they have done their duty in keeping America safe,” said Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, an Arlington, Va., budget watchdog group.

“In some ways, it amounts to political inoculation against the risk of election-related terrorism.”

But Bixby expressed concern that Congress would use “legitimate concerns about domestic security as a cover for dispensing election-year goodies.”

Acting on the commission’s recommendations was also considered critical. “The eyes of the nation will be on the Congress,” said Todd Webster, a spokesman for Daschle, “and Congress cannot fail.”

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Daschle (D-S.D.) have set an Oct. 1 deadline for the Governmental Affairs Committee to propose ways to carry out the recommendations.

Sens. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) plan to introduce a bill today that would put nearly all of the commission’s recommendations into legislative language.

Many of the proposed reforms are politically sensitive and involve complex policy issues -- especially the restructuring of the intelligence community to meet the needs of the post-Cold War world, most notably counter-terrorism.

Congressional aides say pieces of reform, including the creation of a national intelligence director and a counter-terrorism center, may be passed before the election. But they say Congress is unlikely to complete the top-to-bottom reform of the intelligence community and congressional oversight of intelligence operations that the commission has recommended.

For one thing, there is debate over how much authority a national intelligence director should have. The commission suggested the director have two main jobs: overseeing the national intelligence centers and the agencies that “contribute to the national intelligence program.”

The White House, Pentagon, CIA and some key lawmakers have taken issue with investing so much power in one person.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), whose position as chairman of the Appropriations Committee makes him a powerful voice on most legislation, has promised to oppose preelection reform of the intelligence community.

Continuing disagreements within the Republican majority also dog plans to extend three of Bush’s tax cuts. Some Republicans are eager to give the president a victory for his reelection campaign.

Yet voting to extend the cuts -- an increase in the tax credit for families with children, an expansion in the number of taxpayers in the lowest 10% tax bracket and relief for married couples -- poses a challenge for those in both parties who have been trying to rein in the deficit by insisting on offsets for tax cuts and new spending.

“If a bill comes up to extend these tax cuts without offsets, members who vote against it because they believe tax cuts should be offset to help control the ballooning deficit risk being portrayed as ‘opponents of middle-class tax relief,’ ” Bixby said.

“It would be a false accusation, but one that many won’t want to risk on the campaign trail, where legislative subtitles get trampled.”

Quicker agreement may be possible on a handful of lower-profile bills that confer direct benefits on constituents.

A $500-billion bill to fund education, jobs and health programs was bitterly contested last year but may pass now. Asked why, a House GOP leadership aide said simply: “Pork.”

Similarly, Republican divisions over costs have stymied the massive highway bill, but one congressional staffer was optimistic that a compromise could be reached.

“It’s the bill of a million press releases,” he said, referring to the scores of local transportation projects packed into the measure that could generate favorable publicity for incumbents.

For equally political reasons, broad agreement is also possible on a measure that would increase fines for violations of the Federal Communications Commission rulesagainst broadcasting indecency. The bill has been discussed since Janet Jackson’s breast-baring performance at the Super Bowl in February.