[Mb-civic] GOP Sees Disturbing Reflection in The Mirror - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

GOP Sees Disturbing Reflection in The Mirror
Democrats Fell in '94 After Abuses of Power

By Jim VandeHei and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, April 9, 2006; A03

The Tom DeLay era is ending much as it began. An entrenched majority, 
battered by ethical scandals involving its top leaders, is running what 
many see as a politically polarized and profligate House of Representatives.

What is most remarkable, according to more than a dozen GOP lawmakers 
and aides, is that it took a little more than a decade for DeLay and 
House Republicans to succumb to many practices they railed against in 
the 1990s. From stifling congressional dissent to the raw use of power, 
they say, Republicans have become like the Democratic barons they ousted 
in 1994.

Former House majority leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) said that former 
majority leader DeLay (R-Tex.) was largely to blame for leading 
Republicans away from their core values. "DeLay, as much as anybody, was 
responsible for putting the party on the wrong track," Armey said last 
week. "He always wanted his place in the sun."

Yet many others said the problem was much bigger -- and more complicated 
-- than the excesses of DeLay. They said it was a general sense of 
hubris and self-preservation that prompted GOP leaders to gradually 
abandon the tenets of the 1994 revolution: smaller government, 
accountability, and a new and cleaner way of doing business in Washington.

"It is a little like a reformed alcoholic taking little drinks -- pretty 
soon, you have a real problem on your hands," said John S. Czwartacki, 
who served as a key communications strategist for House Republicans in 
the 1990s. Czwartacki was talking about the Republicans' embrace of big 
government spending in particular, but others said the idea applies to 
the undoing of the entire revolution.

DeLay's career tracks the rise and fall of the Republican Revolution. He 
was a little-known conservative backbencher in the early 1990s agitating 
for change. And he was part of a broader movement led by then-Rep. Newt 
Gingrich (R-Ga.), who sought to take down not only the Democratic Party 
but also the more moderate and compromise-minded leadership led by 
Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.).

The parallels between the Democrats that DeLay and Gingrich abhorred 12 
years ago and the Republicans of today are striking. In 1994, Democrats 
who had been the majority for more than four decades were heavily 
favored to remain so. But the public was discontent with their 
performance. Polls then showed that about one in three Americans 
approved of the Democratic-controlled Congress; polls today show that 
about one in three respondents approve of the Republican-control Congress.

Democrats were increasingly perceived by the public as corrupt and 
unethical. Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) had become the first man in that 
office to resign because of ethics charges, while then-Rep. Tony Coelho 
(D-Calif.), who pioneered many of the money-for-access techniques DeLay 
would later adopt, had stepped aside after his financial dealings came 
under scrutiny. Then the House Bank scandal erupted, and reports that 
members had routinely kited checks served as a symbol of Democratic abuse.

DeLay, Gingrich and other conservatives mounted a national campaign 
based on a promise to end corruption and enact a new "Contract With 
America," which promised institutional restructuring, tax cuts and a 
reduction in government red tape.

After the Republicans toppled the Democrats that fall by picking up 52 
seats in the House, they promised big changes -- and often delivered. 
With Gingrich as speaker, Armey as majority leader and DeLay as whip, 
the Republicans instituted a series of reforms aimed at curbing some of 
the Democrats' worst excesses. They applied federal workplace laws to 
Congress, so lawmakers had to comply with the same rules as other 
federal employers, and eliminated proxy voting so members had to 
actually show up and vote when committees were in session.

GOP leaders abolished bastions of patronage, such as the House mailroom, 
and eliminated perks including daily ice delivery to House offices. 
These changes, along with decisions to eliminate 621 committee staff 
jobs, saved taxpayers $50 million in 1995, according to the House 
Oversight Committee. The Republicans cut taxes, eliminated many 
regulatory restrictions on business and took aim -- unsuccessfully -- at 
eliminating the Departments of Education and Commerce.

But as the Republicans became more entrenched and accustomed to their 
position of power, leaders shifted their emphasis from reforming 
government to consolidating their power and self-preservation. "I do 
think for both parties -- and it has happened for Republicans now -- 
there is a risk of majority fatigue where you run out of new ideas," 
said Ari Fleischer, who worked in Congress in the 1990s before becoming 
White House spokesman. "The other risk is people's zest for reform 
yields to their desire to maintain power."

Gingrich said the party became too preoccupied with creating and 
maintaining safe GOP districts as part of an effort to cement a lasting 
majority. Gingrich, who originally championed the idea, said he now 
thinks the tactic has had the effect of undermining democracy and 
distancing House members from their roots.

Democrats "get to rip off the public in the states where they control 
and protect their incumbents, and we get to rip off the public in the 
states we control and protect our incumbents, so the public gets ripped 
off in both circumstances," Gingrich said. "In the long run, there's a 
downward spiral of isolation."

During their decades in the minority, Republicans lambasted Democrats 
for excluding them from decision-making in drafting major legislation 
and denying them the opportunity to amend bills on the floor using 
arcane House rules.

After having vowed to eliminate the "closed rules" Democrats used to 
quash GOP ideas, Republicans used the same tactics to stifle debate. 
During the past Congress -- the 108th -- only 22 percent of legislation 
was considered with an open rule allowing the minority to offer 
amendments from the floor, compared with 30 percent under the Democrats' 
103rd Congress. When Democrats offered 29 amendments to a medical 
malpractice bill last Congress, GOP leaders blocked all of them from 
coming to a vote.

"Here we are fighting for democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we have 
more and more closed rules here," Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-Minn.) said. "We 
don't want democracy to flourish on the floor of the House of 
Representatives."

DeLay and others also grew increasingly focused on campaign fundraising, 
especially how much others were raising for the party and fellow 
members. They abolished the seniority system that controlled 
chairmanships and committee assignments, and replaced it with 
ideological and financial litmus tests. Those who raised the most money 
for the party often had the best chance of snaring a top committee 
assignment.

DeLay "had a tremendous influence making [money] a consideration, and 
once you have adopted those criteria, other members take note and say 
'Gosh, I better do whatever it takes to get the nod for the job,' " 
Michel said.

The Republicans built a powerful legislative machine that rarely 
faltered. House Republicans were highly effective at passing 
legislation, especially tax cuts and measures benefiting businesses. The 
GOP leaders rarely lost floor votes, and since President Bush took 
office in 2001, they have shaped and pushed the Republican agenda. But 
along the way, the core conservative principle of shrinking the size of 
government was jettisoned, according to some Republican members. During 
the past six years alone, government spending has increased by more than 
25 percent under their watch.

Rep. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.) said the party has compromised away its 
commitment to smaller government. "The moderates went along with us on 
policy as long as we gave them more money at the end of the year," 
Souder said. "We got addicted to spending." Souder, who first won office 
in 1994, said that it is no longer clear what the party stands for.

"This is a campaign where we're each fighting on our own, hoping we can 
survive with a bare majority," Souder said. "Even if we had a unified 
vision, I don't know exactly what our vision would be."

Of all of the examples of backsliding, it is the ethical ones that 
Republicans fear could hurt them most in the fall election. Rep. Randy 
"Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) recently resigned after pleading guilty to 
taking bribes. Last week, DeLay announced he will resign from Congress 
this spring, just as the investigation of his former top aides in 
money-for-favors scandals is heating up. Many members said they expect 
at least one more GOP member to be indicted this year. A new AP poll 
shows 60 percent of Republicans now disapprove of the Republican Congress.

"If it's about your power, you lose," Armey said, quoting one of his own 
favorite axioms. "If it's about you, you lose."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/08/AR2006040801031.html
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