Category: Riley Yates-Doerr
N.H. Delegation Relieved to be Done with Homeland Security
By Riley Yates
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19, 2002–After five months of debate on a bill to create a cabinet-level department of homeland security, members of the New Hampshire delegation said Tuesday they will be glad to have the issue behind them.
The Senate was expected to approve the House version of the bill late Tuesday or on Wednesday, after a Democratic amendment to remove seven provisions they charged favored special interests failed Tuesday afternoon by a mostly party-line vote of 52-47.
“I think this is a strong piece of legislation and an important piece of legislation . . .to deal with the national security threat of global terrorism,” said Sen.-elect John Sununu, who voted for the House version last week.
“Times have changed dramatically,” Sununu added, “and we need to restructure government to plan for and respond to terrorist threats.”
Rep. Charlie Bass, who also voted last week for the bill, weighed in with his support. “A single Department of Homeland Security will help reduce duplication, end confusion about responsibilities and provide focus, direction and flexibility to help protect Americans,” he said in a statement.
Sens. Judd Gregg and Bob Smith also praised the bill’s passage, with each of them touting an amendment he introduced that will be included in the final bill.
Gregg successfully had the Office of Domestic Preparedness, which gives grants for counter-terrorist training and equipment to state and local jurisdictions, moved from the Justice Department to the new department.
The move “ensures that our first responders – the men and women who put their lives on the line every day in their hometowns and across the state – receive the attention and assistance they need to carry out their duties,” Gregg said in a written statement.
Smith’s amendment will allow pilots to carry guns on their flights in an effort to protect themselves in an event of an attempted plane hijacking.
“He is very pleased that all his hard work in the last year for arming pilots is going to pass,” said Erin Witcher, Smith’s spokeswoman.
Neither Smith’s nor Gregg’s office would comment on the Democrats’ opposition to the provisions that were added in the eleventh hour in the House.
Some of the more contentious provisions included liability protections for makers of airport screening equipment and the overturning of a ban that prevents companies that set up offshore tax havens from obtaining government contracts through the new department.
Sununu, however, said the additions should not stop the passage of the final bill. “I’m sure that there are people who want to make political hay. . . . I think that this bill is more important than any one provision.”
Sally Tibbets, Bass’s spokeswoman, while saying that she had not talked to the congressman specifically about the added provisions, said that “certainly you never get everything you want. Compromise is part of the legislative process, and the Republican House put forth the best bill they could.”
Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.
Bradley Adjusts to Congress
By Riley Yates
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17, 2002--He introduces himself as Jeb - not Congressman Bradley or, more casually, Congressman Jeb Bradley - just Jeb. He apologizes for being late, in a city where, as he readily admits, "if you are on time, then they say you've wasted a good 15 minutes."
Sitting at a restaurant in crowded Union Station near the Capitol, Bradley, in Washington last week to attend congressional freshman orientation, looked every bit the smooth politician, dressed in the typical Washington suit: blue jacket and pants, light blue shirt, setoff with a dark red tie.
But he has an element of self-confession that sets him apart from many of his soon-to-be colleagues in Congress.
"There's an awful lot to this job, and we have to put the pieces of the puzzle into place pretty quickly," he said between bites of a portobello mushroom sandwich. "There's a lot of times when I don't know what's going to happen. I'm learning every day, and I'm going to have to adjust my attention."
It is not that Bradley cannot assume the role of the golden-tongued, firm-handshake, yes- that-issue-is-one-of-my-priorities politician.
After all, he defeated seven other Republican candidates in the 1st District primary in September and won an often-bitter campaign on Nov. 5 against Democrat Martha Fuller Clark, an opponent with much greater name recognition, to take Sen.-elect John Sununu's House seat.
He answers the bread-and-butter questions - how do you stand on issue X, what are your priorities in Congress - with ease and has the requisite sound bite on hand.
At lunch, for instance, he deftly reeled off a several-minute discourse about the widening of Interstate 93, ending with every pol's go-to line: "I would hope that the parties [involved] could sit down around a table and negotiate."
What is unusual is that Bradley on occasion slips out of that mode. Asked how the orientation was going, he talked of a successful vote on a procedural motion that would allow the Republican leadership a greater hand in overseeing appropriations measures.
"Not really knowing the ins and outs and the people [involved] it makes sense to me," Bradley said. No 10 facts to support his vote. No this-is-what's-best-for-the-nation-and-New-Hampshire spiel.
Just that it made sense to him.
"I've always felt I don't know all the answers," Bradley said later in the lunch.
The role Bradley sees himself playing as a freshman reflects his apparently unassuming nature. A pro-abortion rights Republican who has also supported gay rights and environmental issues in the past, he said he does not envision making waves by battling it out with the GOP leadership or with Democratic members on the other side of the aisle.
"My style is not going to be to butt heads," Bradley said. "I'm going to focus on national security and economic security. Those are issues the Republican Party agrees on."
Given his lack of seniority, Bradley said he hopes for now to secure a seat on either the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee or the Armed Services Committee. "Probably not both," he said. "They're attractive committees to be on."
Other possible committee assignments he mentioned were Education and the Workforce, Science, Small Business and Veterans' Affairs.
But before committee placements are decided Bradley has more than a few basic housekeeping items to attend to. Finishing orientation in Washington this week, he also needs to set up his Manchester-based district office, rent an apartment here, get his Capitol office assignment and hire his congressional staff.
He said he did not mind being stuck on the top floor of a House office building, generally seen by lawmakers as unappealing property. "If I have a window, I'll have a view," he joked.
Regardless of where his office is located, Bradley said, he hopes it will have windows that open. As a mountain climber who has conquered 28 of New Hampshire's 48 peaks of 4,000 feet or higher, "I like my fresh air," he said.
As for a staff, he said, it will take some time to sort through applications and even more time to get used to having so many aides working for him.
During his six terms as a state representative from Wolfeboro, Bradley shared about a dozen aides with New Hampshire's 399 other House members, and had only seven paid workers on his election campaign staff. Sen.-elect Sununu and Rep. Charlie Bass, by comparison, each have more than 15 aides on their payroll.
His campaign manager, Debra Vanderbeek, will be his chief of staff in the next Congress, but beyond that, he said, he has made no decisions and is looking at "numerous" resumes.
"There's a lot to do," Bradley said as he glanced at the cell phone he also uses to tell time. Noticing that he was already five minutes late to his next orientation meeting -
"I'm not certain [what it's about], just doing what the schedule tells me" - he paid his bill and walked the three blocks to the Capitol building.
He was probably about 15 minutes late to the meeting. Maybe he is getting used to being a congressman after all.
Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.
Veterans’ Benefits Partially Increased
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Veterans’ Benefits May Lead to Fight Between Bush, Congress
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Republicans May Dictate Lame Duck Session
By Riley Yates
WASHINGTON, Nov. 06, 2002--Tuesday's election saw a shift of power in the Senate, which in the upcoming lame duck session may propel New Hampshire's senators to the chairmanships of two key committees and give Republicans control of the legislative agenda.
"I am heartened by the knowledge that the GOP will once again be in the majority in both chambers" because Bush's agenda has a better chance of success then, Sen. Bob Smith, who leaves the Senate after the lame duck session, said in a statement.
Sen. Judd Gregg, on the other hand, focused on what he will do as chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee - if not in the lame duck session, then in the 108th Congress.
Gregg said in a statement that he would focus on passing a Medicare prescription drug benefit bill that includes access to generic drugs. Another big priority is ensuring that the United States is prepared in the event of a bioterrorism attack by allowing citizens access to the smallpox vaccine and medicine to treat other biological attacks, he said.
Smith also might briefly take control of the Environment and Public Works Committee, of which he is currently the ranking minority member, but Smith's office did not want to comment on what his priorities would be if that were to occur.
On the eve of the 2002 elections, Democrats held a one-seat majority in the Senate, having 50 votes to the Republicans' 49, with one seat vacant because of the Oct. 25 death of Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota.
The race for Wellstone's seat, as well as for a Missouri Senate seat to be filled immediately because the incumbent had been appointed to the seat, were decided in favor of the GOP. While neither result had been certified as of Wednesday, those victories were expected to give Republicans at least the same number of votes as Democrats in the lame duck session, with Vice President Cheney breaking any ties.
Normally, general elections do not affect the political makeup of a lame duck session, as the winners of the contests are not sworn in until January.
The Missouri race, however, determined who would serve the remainder of Democratic Sen. Jean Carnahan's term, to which she was appointed after her late husband, Gov. Mel Carnahan, posthumously won his election bid two years ago.
With Republican challenger Jim Talent defeating Carnahan, control of the seat will switch parties as soon as the result are certified, reportedly not until several days after the lame duck session begins.
The Minnesota race also saw a winner who could take office early to fill the Wellstone seat.
Republican Norm Coleman, who defeated former Vice President Walter Mondale in that race, will take his seat as soon as his victory is officially certified. In the meantime, Gov. Jesse Ventura's temporary appointee, Dean Barkley, an independent who has not said which party he will vote with, would be seated. Without his--or Coleman's--vote, the Senate would probably be split,with neither party having a majority of the votes, making Cheney's vote the tiebreaker. But if Talent is qualified in time, the GOP would have a clear majority of the Senate.
"There are some conflicting scenarios here," said John Fortier, a political analyst for the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. "But by all rights, Republicans are going to take the chairmanships and make the rules."
Republicans have two equally compelling options in the lame duck session, Fortier said. They could wait until Talent takes his seat and then use the momentum generated in the elections to try to pass the homeland security bill, which has been stalled for months.
They could also decide to wait until the dust settles and the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3, he said, when they are assured of having at least a bare majority of seats.
The potential makeup of the new Senate is 51-46 in favor of Republicans, with one independent, Jim Jeffords of Vermont, voting with the Democrats. One race was undecided Wednesday and another was subject to an automatic recount.
Republicans' decision on how to approach the lame duck session will probably be based on their ability to reorganize the Senate, said Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, another Washington think tank.
"My sense is that they're not going to go through all that," she said.
But GOP lawmakers are unlikely to know yet what they are going to do, Fortier said, having been caught off guard by such favorable election results. "They probably didn't consider having as good of a night as they did," he said.
Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.
Lebanon – Highest Crime Rate in N.H.
By Riley Yates
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2002--Lebanon, in west-central New Hampshire near the Vermont border, had the highest crime rate of any city in the Granite State last year, according to the annual FBI crime report released this week.
Lebanon saw 42.4 crimes per 1,000 people in 2001, compared to an average of 23.4 per 1,000 in other New Hampshire cities with populations above 10,000. Concord and Nashua were not included in the study because they did not submit complete data.
Of the 544 crimes reported in Lebanon, 449 of them were cases of theft or larceny, such as cashing bad checks. There were many fewer violent crimes reported in the city - five rapes, one robbery and nine cases of aggravated assault - giving Lebanon a lower violent crime rate than the rest of the state. New Hampshire ranks in the lowest five in the nation in that category.
Jim Alexander, a spokesman for the Lebanon police, said Thursday that the city's high number of property crimes are probably attributable to the large number of people who pass through it each day.
Lebanon has the biggest retail base of all the North Country, Alexander said. The number of people in the city swells during the day as Vermont residents shop there to avoid paying their state's sales tax. By all estimates, he said, the city's population of 13,000 at least doubles during business hours.
"If you are going to burglarize, you're going to come here," Alexander said. "We have a huge group of people during the day, and that brings a lot of crime. Where there [are] more people, there is more opportunity."
Burglaries, another category in the FBI report, appear to be on the increase in 2002, Alexander said. From January through September 2002, Lebanon police reported 54 burglaries, he said. For all of last year, there were 51.
The city also saw a murder in 2002, when 19-year-old Corey Brink was shot and killed in an apartment parking lot on Sept. 22.
But in many crimes, Alexander said, Lebanon appears to be seeing a decrease. In the first 9 months of 2001, there were 495 thefts and cases of larceny. During the same period in 2002, those crimes had dropped to 466, he said.
"Some crimes are rising, others falling," Alexander said. "It seems about the same overall."
Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.
Violent Crime Down in N.H.
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Sununu Attends ‘Historical’ Signing
By Riley Yates
WASHINGTON, Oct. 16, 2002--As Rep. John Sununu watched President Bush sign the resolution authorizing U.S. use of force against Iraq, he reflected on what a historical moment it was, he said later.
Very rarely, Sununu said in an interview after the White House ceremony, is Congress asked to debate whether to allow the country to go to war. He said he was glad Congress had made the decision to support the president's efforts to disarm Iraq.
Sununu, who was sitting offstage, just to the right of the president, was one of about 100 legislators attending the ceremony.
"This will send an unmistakable message to our allies and Iraq," Sununu said, reiterating comments Bush made before he signed the resolution. "I think it is a step forward in an effort to secure world peace."
Congressional support of Bush is important, Sununu said, because it makes the United Nations realize how committed the United States is to eliminating Iraq's biological and chemical weapons capabilities and denying it any nuclear capacity.
The United Nations General Assembly Wednesday held its first meeting on Iraq since the resolution passed the House, 296-133, and the Senate, 77-23, last week. All four members of the all-Republican New Hampshire delegation voted for it.
Bush must be credited with the resolution's smooth passage, Sununu said. "I think the president made a strong case."
Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, Sununu's Democratic opponent in their closely contested Senate race, has also been a vocal supporter of Bush's efforts to contain Iraq.
"[The resolution] was very important," Colin Van Ostern, her spokesman, said Wednesday. "All options must be on the table."
"The next step," Van Ostern added, "is for the president to proceed on the path he's begun."
Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.
Daniel Webster’s Desk Switches Hands
By Riley Yates
WASHINGTON, Oct. 10, 2002--From the galleries, it could be any of the desks lining the second row of the Senate floor. But carved inside the drawers of the Daniel Webster desk is a long history of the representatives of New Hampshire.
In recent decades, the senior senator from New Hampshire has used the desk. With Sen. Bob Smith leaving the Senate, the desk will be passed on to Sen. Judd Gregg, who, as the chief deputy whip, will move it to the front row of the Senate floor, alongside desks belonging to other members of the Republican leadership.
Gregg will become the 19th senator to carve his name in the desk's drawer, joining the likes of fiery Webster, the first known owner of the desk, who was born in New Hampshire but became a senator from Massachusetts; the Massachusetts abolitionist Charles Sumner; and every modern senior New Hampshire senator starting with Sen. Norris Cotton, who served from 1954 to 1975.
It was Cotton who guaranteed that the desk would remain in New Hampshire hands. In 1974, he authored the legislation that made the desk the right of the senior New Hampshire senator.
Others who have sat at the desk include New Hampshire Sens. Warren Rudman, Gordon Humphrey and John Durkin.
There are only two other such desks, Henry Clay's, which goes to the senior senator from Kentucky, and Jefferson Davis's, which goes to Mississippi's senior senator.
The desk meant very much to Smith, its most recent owner. It is "near and dear to [Smith's] heart," his spokeswoman, Lisa Harrison, said in a recent e-mail, and in speeches and editorials Smith has often mentioned the desk.
"This desk reminds me every day that we are but temporary stewards of our great nation," Smith said in a statement.
Much like the nation, the desk is surrounded in legends. Because the Senate Curator's Office did not record where Senators sat until 1985, the knowledge of who sat in the chair and when lies in the order of the names carved into it.
It may have been the desk where Sumner was beaten by Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina in 1856-an early indicator that the issue of slavery had polarized the nation.
Sumner had given a two-day, 112-page speech opposing the admission of Kansas into the Union as a slave state. Calling it "a crime against Kansas," Sumner condemned slavery, as well as pro-slavery advocate Sen. Andrew Butler of South Carolina.
Brooks, who was related to Butler, took offense and entered the Senate chamber after adjournment and beat Sumner repeatedly with his cane.
The beating outraged the North, but Brooks's office quickly was flooded with canes sent from the South. In the House, Southern members refused to vote for a motion to censure Brooks.
The division of the nation over slavery had been made painfully apparent.
Another tale surrounding the desk lies in its lack of a three-to-four inch writing box, which was added to the top of all the Senate desks beginning in the 1830s.
Webster supposedly refused to have the desk altered because he wanted to use the same version that senators before him had used.
"If the desk was good enough for his predecessors, it was good enough for him," Don Ritchie, associate historian of the Senate Historical Office, said.
Webster's decision to not to allow the alteration was typical of people born in an independent-leaning state whose motto is "live free or die," Ritchie said.
He was a maverick figure, Ritchie said, both in the Senate, where he served four terms starting in 1827, and as Secretary of State for Presidents William Henry Harrison, John Tyler and Millard Fillmore.
He was best known for his eloquent speeches, Ritchie said.
"He was the great orator of the Senate," Ritchie said, perhaps the great orator of his day.
"People would line up for hours to listen to him," Ritchie said.
And, Rudman wrote in his 1996 memoir, Combat: Twelve Years in the U.S. Senate, he was truly a native son of New Hampshire.
"[The] senior senator has the special privilege of carving his name in Daniel Webster's desk because, although Webster represented Massachusetts, he was a New Hampshireman," Rudman wrote.
Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.
Remaining N.H. Delegates Endorse Iraq Resolution
By Riley Yates
WASHINGTON, Oct. 10, 2002--Rep. Charlie Bass and Sen. Bob Smith reiterated their endorsement of President Bush's resolution allowing the use of force in Iraq. They were the last two members of the all-Republican New Hampshire delegation to air their views on the House and Senate floors.
With Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in power, America's security would be perpetually at risk, both said.
Because of the large volume of members wishing to speak on the issue, Bass submitted his statement for the Congressional Record Wednesday night. Smith was expected to speak late Thursday night but provided reporters with an advance copy of his speech.
Both said a preemptive strike against Iraq made sense in the post-Sept. 11 world.
Congress needs to "ensure that the citizens of America do not live in fear of another tragic terrorist attack or of harm from rogue nations," Bass said.
Smith said America must learn a lesson from the Sept. 11 attacks: that it must prevent these kinds of attacks before they occur.
U.S. officials knew that Osama bin Laden was dangerous, Smith said, but failed to act quickly enough to prevent him from killing Americans.
"We cannot afford to make miscalculations like this again. The price is simply too large to bear," he said. "We must be proactive, otherwise our very survival as a nation is at risk."
It is impossible to trust Saddam Hussein, both Bass and Smith said.
"After a decade of deceit and deception, in which we have permitted a hostile dictator to repeatedly violate every agreement we have in good faith put before him, the use of force has become a necessary option," Bass said.
Smith agreed, saying that "as long as [Saddam Hussein] remains in power, U.N. resolutions and weapons inspections will not contain Saddam, protect America, our friends and allies, nor the Iraqi people."
Sen. Judd Gregg and Rep. John Sununu, the other members of the New Hampshire delegation, gave speeches in support of the Iraq resolution earlier this week.
The House passed the resolution Thursday, and the Senate was expected to follow later Thursday or Friday.
Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.
