When he took the job, Republicans searched for a diplomatic way to ask: Are you crazy?
After 16 years as a Republican senator from New Hampshire, Judd Gregg has a lot of friends among GOP lawmakers, and in the past two weeks, many of them — perhaps most of them — have been wondering why he chose to accept Barack Obama’s offer to become Commerce Secretary. Their objections intensified in the last week, as Republicans grew more worried about the Obama administration’s plan to move control of the politically-sensitive 2010 Census from the Commerce Department to the White House. For Gregg himself, concerns about having the Census taken away from Commerce dovetailed with more general fears that a Democratic White House would restrict his freedom to run the Department. Finally, on Thursday afternoon, Gregg formally withdrew.
“I think he had buyer’s remorse,” one GOP senator told me. “After he looked into it more, he said, ‘Whoa, this was a mistake.'”
“He’s been getting Republicans walking up to him saying, ‘Are you going to let the White House circumvent you, are you going to let them do this to you?'” one GOP aide who is aware of those conversations told me Thursday night. “This was a natural conflict that was going to arise, and on a personal level, politics aside, people were saying ‘Hey, are you sure you want to do this?'”
The answer was no. “I’ve been my own person for 30 years,” Gregg told reporters late Thursday. “I’ve been a governor and I’ve been a congressman. I’ve been a senator, made my own decisions, stood for what I believe in.” As he explained himself, Gregg made clear that, as a member of the Obama cabinet, he would have been called on to take actions that violated his principles. “I have a core set of political and philosophical beliefs,” Gregg said. “In the context of what was going on this week, and in the context of what I saw coming…it would be virtually impossible for me to do this job.”
And what was going on this week? In a written statement released before his news conference, Gregg explained that “on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census there are irresolvable conflicts for me.” A short time later, in front of the press, Gregg played down both issues, but a number of observers believed his original statement was the more accurate. On the stimulus, his decision to stay out of the debate had put him in an awkward position; as a longtime fiscal conservative, he couldn’t vote his conscience, because it would conflict with the president who offered him a place in the cabinet, and as the Commerce Secretary-designate, he couldn’t vote with the president, because it would violate his conscience. So he chose not to vote at all. On the Census, Gregg told reporters that it “was not a major issue,” but he appeared to protest too much when he said the Census “wasn’t a big enough issue for me to even discuss what the issue was.” If that were the case, then why did he specifically mention it in his written statement?
At the very least, the Census issue would have made for a very uncomfortable confirmation hearing. Gregg’s fellow Republicans on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee would certainly have asked him what he thought of a plan that would move control of the Census from professionals in the Commerce Department to Rahm Emanuel, the hyper-partisan White House chief of staff. What would Gregg have said? It was the stimulus problem all over again; Gregg couldn’t have said what he believed, but he probably couldn’t have brought himself to support the president, either.
So now Gregg is out. His fellow Republicans are delighted to have him back; it’s likely his informal role in the party’s leadership will not be affected by his flirtation with the Obama cabinet. For its part, the White House is back to the beginning in its snakebit search for a Commerce Secretary. And the Census issue is likely to intensify, with Republican senators Susan Collins and Kay Bailey Hutchison now exploring the question, joining several members of the House who were first to express concern. The Gregg nomination is dead, but the Census controversy might just be coming to life.
