Maine Moderates Yield Power in Homeland Security Debate
WASHINGTON, Sept. 25–The fate of a proposed Department of Homeland Security may depend on a handful of moderate senators, including Maine Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, political experts say.
The Senate, which is debating legislation to create the new Cabinet-level department, is divided almost along strict party lines over a provision in the bill that would allow President Bush to eliminate union protections for federal employees. The president has said he would veto any bill not granting him such authority.
Earlier in the week moderate Republican Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee of Rhode Island became the lone member of his party to have crossed party lines to endorse a Democratic plan that limits the president’s authority in labor issues. Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia is the lone Democrat to announce his support of Bush’s demand. Political experts predicted the move would give Democrats sufficient support to pass their version of the bill.
Chafee’s defection has brought to the forefront the role of moderate senators, including Collins and Snowe, in a Senate where Democrats hold a one-seat majority.
“When you have a virtual tie in the Senate you’re not going to get anything done unless you can somehow keep everyone together for the Democrats or persuade one or two individuals to cross party lines,” said Norman Ornstein, congressional expert for the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. “So the critical players in this become the moderates.”
Ornstein estimated there are a halfdozen moderate Republicans and Democrats, including both Maine senators, who could change the fate of the Homeland Security Act.
Collins publicly expressed concerns about the Republican version of the bill late last week, prompting Republican leaders to slightly amend their proposal to include greater employee protections. The first-term senator now says she stands united with the Republicans.
“She has made up her mind and says she’ll support the president,” Felicia Knight, a Collins’ spokesperson, said Wednesday.
Snowe, however, has openly met with Republicans and Democrats to discuss the issue, but her spokesman, Dave Lackey, said Wednesday: “She has not taken a final position on it. She is still very open to both sides.”
Snowe met last week with a group of Senate moderates to discuss the labor provision and has been working with Sens. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and John Breaux, D-La., who helped draft a Democratic compromise to the bill.
“She’s trying to bridge the differences,” Lackey said. “Thus far she has kept an open mind.”
Political experts say moderates like Snowe and Collins get extreme pressure from each of their parties, but that their open-mindedness puts them in a position of power.
“Being undecided is potentially a powerful position to be in,” said J. Mark Wrighton, assistant professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire.
He said that party leaders often make concessions to accommodate their moderate members. “You can gang up on someone and lobby them, but you have to have something to give,” he said.
Snowe spokeswoman Knight said that Republican leaders apply pressure on occasion, but are generally respectful of her position. “They understand that the people of Maine want someone like her who is open-minded,” she said. “But because she is a moderate they understand that her vote is not taken for granted by either side.”
Wrighton said the timing of elections also could help push a moderate in one direction or the other.
He said that Collins, who will face off against Democratic challenger Chellie Pingree in November, is aware of the political ramifications of her decisions. “This is all taking place in the environment of the election,” Wrighton said. “And so Susan Collins is thinking fairly closely of the politics of this and how it’s going to play out in Maine.”
Wrighton said such political pressure could be a good thing.
“In thinking about their own re-elections they’re forced to think about their constituents,” he said. “It forces them to do their jobs, which is to be representatives.”
But Ornstein said that above political or party pressure, most moderates value substance. “These are people who genuinely struggle with the substance of these issues and often face substantial political pressure from their parties to support issues they sometimes don’t agree with.”
Snowe spokesperson Lackey agreed. “(Snowe) makes her decisions based on factual merits, not party pressure,” he said. “This is not a party issue. This is a matter of national security.”
A vote on the proposed Homeland Security Department could come as early as Thursday.
The department would have a $40 billion budget, combining two dozen federal agencies and nearly 200,000 employees.
Published in Foster’s Daily Democrat, in New Hampshire.
