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A Failure of Leadership
| Article
# : |
19769 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1991 |
2,410 Words |
| Author
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William W. Pascoe
William W. Pascoe is chairman of Pascoe, Norquist, Jones &
Jones, a Washington government affairs and political
consulting firm. |
Early on October 6, 1990, months of confusion, intrigue, back-room deal-cutting, intra-party squabbling, and partisan and ideological war-fare came to a conclusion: In a stunning rejection of both the president and the congressional leadership of both parties--who together had spent the previous five months behind closed doors, fashioning a "hold your nose and vote for it" compromise budget accord combining tax increases with alleged spending cuts--an overwhelming majority of the House of Representatives rejected the deal and forced the budget summiteers back to the drawing board.
Only in retrospect can the enormity of that vote be understood. The House's No. 2 Republican, Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia), led the insurrection from the right wing of his party. Republicans were furious that the president had abandoned his "no new taxes" pledge and refused to renege on their own pledges--especially so close to an elections. By the time of the vote, only three of the GOP caucus' seven elected leaders supported the deal; the rest were leading the opposition to it. And the huge majority of GOP House members voted against the package.
Democratic leaders fared no better: On the final vote, more than half the committee chairmen spurned the package. Even a majority of the subcommittee chairmen of the powerful Appropriations Committee--men dubbed the "College of Cardinals" due to their extraordinary influence over the course of legislation--voted against the package. Rank-and-file Democrats revolted against the higher charges to Medicare recipients. The leaders had not even been able to keep their own colleagues in line. As with the Republicans, a majority of the Democrats rejected the budget deal.
Better than any other vote in recent memory, that vote is a microcosm reflecting all the myriad pressures that come to bear on congressional decision making. The stew contained equal parts of the conflicts pitting Congress against the president, ideology against pragmatism, bare-knuckled partisanship against harmonious bipartisanship, grass-roots pressure (such as electoral imperatives) against inside-the-Beltway pulls, and special interest groups against taxpayers in general. Each of these conflicts played a role in determining the outcome, which stands as the best example in a generation of a revolt against the congressional leadership.
What drove rank-and-file members of Congress from both parties to repudiate their leaders? What role do the conflicts named above--pragmatism versus ideology, self-sacrifice versus the electoral imperative,
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