A FEW YEARS AGO, three senators chatted amiably on the floor of the Senate about their desks. By long tradition, members have carved something in the wood, so a senator who sits there decades later will know who’d used the desk before. The first senator said his desk had once been Daniel Webster’s. Webster had etched, “Liberty and Union, now and forever.” Not to be outdone, the second senator said Henry Clay had used his desk to record his most famous line, “I’d rather be right than president.” Finally, the third senator, chuckling, said his desk had belonged to Gary Hart. On it was inscribed, “For a good time, call 224—-.” Why mention this apocryphal story? Note the chumminess, the civility, the seeming air of trust on the Senate floor. Such a mood–which, by the way, the late Sen. Paul Wellstone sought to promote–is not the most important aspect of Senate life. But it is essential if senators are to return to the work of making deals, passing bills, and, as often as possible, aiding the president. True, comity is not always possible, given ideological differences between parties. But except for fleeting episodes like the few weeks after September 11, it is never possible with Majority Leader Tom Daschle in charge of the Senate. And that would change if Republicans were to gain Senate control in the November 5 midterm election. Not that a raft of conservative legislation would swiftly be enacted were Republican Trent Lott to supplant Daschle as majority leader. But a handful of critical bills (involving the budget, energy, homeland security, making tax cuts permanent) probably would pass, and many of President Bush’s impressive–and conservative–judicial nominees would be confirmed. Also, conservative measures passed by the House but shunted aside by Daschle (cloning and partial-birth abortion bans, the faith-based initiative) would at least come up for a vote. And after compromises were reached, so would a prescription drug benefit, which is not dear to the hearts of conservatives, but whose passage is inevitable given the way medical care is now dispensed in America. Lott and Daschle have fundamentally different visions of how a Senate majority leader should operate. Lott believes there’s an obligation to pass legislation, shaped to the liking of Republicans and conservatives wherever possible. When the president belongs to the other party, that obligation still holds. Thus Lott found common ground with President Clinton on the two most important domestic issues of the 1990s, welfare reform and a balanced budget agreement. Daschle’s take is strikingly at odds with Lott’s. He is a hyper-partisan who deeply distrusts Bush and the conservatives who influence him, especially White House adviser Karl Rove. Unless Democratic interest groups such as trial lawyers, unions, minorities, and feminists go along, Daschle rarely is willing to compromise. Sometimes Daschle unwittingly obstructs to the disadvantage of Democrats. A reasonable compromise with Bush and Republicans on a prescription drug benefit has been available for months, but Daschle has balked because the liberal segment of the senior citizens’ lobby objects and Democrats want to campaign on the issue. In fact, if the bill passed, the elderly would get everything they want over time. A limited drug program would gradually morph into a universal benefit, if only because the elderly and everyone else sees doctors less these days and takes prescription medicines more. Should a bill pass now, Democrats would get credit. But Daschle seems to begrudge Bush a signing ceremony at the White House. On creating a homeland security department, Daschle risks political trouble in the election campaign to serve the narrow interest of federal workers’ unions. Bush wants a bill that gives him the same flexibility in switching workers from job to job that he has with employees of other Cabinet agencies. Democrats are champions of so-called workers’ rights. Three senators–Democrats John Breaux and Ben Nelson and Republican Lincoln Chafee–devised a compromise, only to have it blocked by Daschle. Nor would Daschle allow a vote on whether to attach the flexibility Bush wants to the Democratic bill that has emerged as the chief legislative vehicle for homeland security. Too many Democrats, especially those running this year, would have to vote with the president. The result: no bill at all. Then there’s the partisan fiasco over judges. Yes, Republicans prevented some liberal Clinton nominees from getting a full hearing and a vote. But fewer than Daschle and Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy are blocking now, and mostly in the dying days of Clinton’s presidency. Leahy has allowed some committee votes on nominees opposed by the liberal lobby. And as majority leader, Daschle could have brought those who lost in committee to the Senate floor. He’s refused, even spurning a personal plea by Lott to have the nomination of his friend Charles Pickering considered by the full Senate. More recently, Leahy has reneged on a personal promise to Sen. Strom Thurmond to bring up the nomination of Dennis Shedd, a conservative rated “well-qualified” by the American Bar Association. Why? Because Shedd actually has enough support to be approved by the committee. Daschle has been heavy-handed in squashing compromises worked out in Senate committees, notably ones with potential majority support. He rewrote the farm bill, which Bush ultimately signed but shouldn’t have. He blocked a bipartisan deal on terrorism insurance opposed by trial lawyers. He refused to allow the finance committee to draft prescription drug legislation, fearing a compromise version would emerge, and instead sent his own bill to the floor. But his most egregious act was to pull energy legislation from the energy committee when it was on the brink of approving oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as part of a bipartisan bill. The most powerful tool of a majority leader is control of the agenda, and it’s safe to say Lott would have handled things differently. The fate of the world does not hang on the outcome of this year’s Senate races. But some things do. Imagine the treatment a conservative Bush nominee for the Supreme Court will receive in a Daschle-led Senate. In the 1980s, a GOP-controlled Senate overwhelmingly confirmed Antonin Scalia, but a Senate in Democratic hands treated Robert Bork so badly a new verb–“to bork”–was coined for the unfair trashing of a nominee. Now Republicans are within striking distance of capturing the Senate. The tragic death of Paul Wellstone and the likely victory of whoever replaces him on the ballot doesn’t change anything since Wellstone was likely to be reelected anyway. And the message to those who say it doesn’t really matter who wins the Senate is still quite simple: You are very, very wrong. Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.
