'No' Shouldn't Be Dems' No. 1 Word

By: Jon J. Rosenwasser 
June 07, 2001
Reprinted from Newsday

WHEN Democrats took control of the Senate yesterday, it was the first time in more than eight years that their standard bearer was neither Bill Clinton nor Al Gore. Members of both parties probably sighed in relief. 

A new generation of Democrats, spearheaded by Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, assumes center stage with a heavy opportunity to redefine their party and renew the dynamic center of American politics. Their charge is to restore the party's image that has been tarnished by the numerous scandals of the Clinton years, most notably impeachment. Democrats must demonstrate through word and deed that they are serious legislators who care deeply about the national interest. 

While Democrats will have greatly enhanced power to set the Senate's agenda and determine the all-important procedures by which legislation is considered, their biggest risk is in overplaying their hand. Democrats did not assume the majority through the ballot box, but through the decision of one senator, Jim Jeffords of Vermont, to leave the Republican Party. They must remember that their majority can evaporate in a second through a number of unfortunate ways: a plane crash, a terminal illness, a criminal indictment or political defection of one of their own. Newt Gingrich and the House Republicans badly overreached their mandate in 1995, even after their success in the 1994 midterm elections, and handed Bill Clinton a second term in 1996. 

On any individual piece of legislation, Democrats' power has not changed: temporal coalitions of 60 senators will still be necessary to prevent filibusters and pass bills. The Democrats' biggest challenge will be determining what bills to bring up. With the two biggest pieces of President Bush's agenda, tax cuts and education reform, all but complete, a spirited battle will ensue over what the next priorities should be. The Bush tax cut of at least $1.35 trillion has probably gobbled about two-thirds of the budget surplus projected for the next decade. Will the balance be used to pursue Bush's conservative agenda of pro-business environmental policies and Social Security privatization? Or will it bolster liberal Democrats' hopes for increases in the minimum wage and universal health-care coverage? With their one-vote margin, Senate Democrats have few alternatives but to identify issues of bipartisan concern that can secure an overwhelming majority. 

A patients' bill of rights, Medicare prescription drug coverage, campaign-finance reform and reasonable gun control measures are among them. 

Senate Republican leader Trent Lott's recent bombast to conservative public opinion leaders calling for an ideological war shows the GOP's tin ear for what Americans want: moderation in Washington. It is time for President Bush to follow through on his campaign pledge to "unite, not divide." Nominees for federal judgeships and high-level executive positions will be the first test. Bush and Senate Democrats need to resist their radical impulses and focus their energies on finding common ground. If Bush picks a fight over an ideological judge akin to Robert Bork, relations with the Senate on all fronts will quickly sour. If Democrats turn confirmation hearings into "show trials," they will lose authority to shape a progressive agenda. If either chooses confrontation rather than principled cooperation, bitter, partisan gridlock will follow-at their mutual peril. 

The one Bush priority that Senate Democrats seem ready for a bloody-nose brawl is the president's national missile defense proposal. Primed by congressional Republicans, the Clinton administration had pumped billions into developing a limited system to counter potential threats from rogue states such as North Korea or a potential unauthorized or accidental launch from an established nuclear power such as Russia. But in repeated tests, the defense technology has not passed muster so far. 

Our European allies are skittish about the decoupling of America's security from theirs. The Russians are balking at amending the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to allow the deployment of the new missile defense system. 

Meanwhile, the Bush team has sailed full-steam ahead with a Reaganesque vision to erect this ground-, sea-, air- and space-based system. 

Senate Democrats have a key role to play in slowing the Bush administration down, and unpacking the strategic, political, technological and budgetary logic of his nuclear missile defense proposal. But Democrats must not become the "No" party. The missile threat is coming and the technology has matured significantly since Reagan's day. Democrats' canned rhetoric about the ABM treaty as the "cornerstone of strategic stability" and NMD as a "shield of dreams" rings hollow. 

The Cold War arms-control regime based on the ABM treaty and the principle of mutual assured destruction is outdated. But it needs to be updated, not scrapped, as the Bush administration would prefer. 

The newly aligned Senate has an opportunity to help the Bush administration build a successor arms-control regime based on sound principles of security, diplomacy, technology and affordability, not glib campaign rhetoric. How Bush navigates this thorny issue with Senate Democrats will likely heavily affect the broader changes at the Pentagon that he has vowed to make. It may very well also be the bellwether for Washington conduct for the remainder of Bush's term. 

A new chapter in national politics begins this week. Whether it advances the interests of the American people will depend on the maturity of both parties to recognize issues on which they share common views. During the campaign, Bush touted his ability to change the tone inside the Beltway. With help from Senate Democrats, now is his chance. 

 J. Rosenwasser, a staff member of the Senate Budget Committee in 1995-1999, is a doctoral student at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.