The Senate on Thursday twice defied veto threats from President Bush, voting to amend a major defense policy bill with a hate crime provision, and passing expansive children’s health insurance legislation that far exceeds the president’s proposal.
Both measures prevailed with significant Republican support, which Democrats say is a signal that GOP party loyalty to Bush is beginning to deteriorate.
“Democrats have a strong upper hand and Republicans are beginning to break ranks,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Thursday.
Nine Republicans helped Democrats reach a 60-vote threshold needed to debate an amendment to the defense bill that would create federal penalties for hate crimes based on characteristics including race, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity. The Senate then passed the amendment by voice vote.
The Senate also cleared a bill that would fund the State Children’s Health Insurance Program known as SCHIP, which aims to increase the program from $25 billion to $60 billion over five years and would add approximately 3.3 million children to the program that now enrolls 6.6 million.
Bush, who has proposed a $5 billion increase in the SCHIP program over five years, said he will veto the legislation because it is too expensive and would edge the federal government toward socialized health care by moving higher-income children onto the program.
Administration officials say he has been advised to veto the hate crimes legislation because it duplicates current state law, though it is also opposed by many in his conservative Christian base who fear it will encroach on their freedom to preach against homosexuality and other practices.
But Bush faces potential political repercussions if he follows through with his veto threats.
By blocking the two bills, Bush could be left vulnerable to Democratic attacks that paint him as a president opposed to children and the fight against hate crimes, not to mention many of the provisions in the defense bill benefiting troops that would be lost if he attempts to block that measure.
“As we head toward these confrontations, especially the one on SCHIP, the president is setting himself up for a bad problem here,” said Norman Ornstein, a political scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
Ornstein said Bush’s weakened status has forced him to fall back on positions that appeal to his more conservative political base.
“But it puts his Republican party in a tough position,” Ornstein said. “They are up for re-election and he is not.”
Democrats, who still lack enough Republican votes in the House to override a presidential veto on SCHIP, are trying to use GOP vulnerability to collect more support for the bill.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on Thursday warned that Republicans who do not vote to override the SCHIP veto, “are taking a big risk by following the president because they could be walking right off a cliff.”
