Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 1, 1991 TAG: 9104010049
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: HELEN DEWAR and KENT JENKINS THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
At issue are party divisions over fiscal policy and the Persian Gulf War, which together figure prominently in early maneuvering by both parties for the 1992 presidential and congressional races.
For Robb, who is at odds with Democratic leaders and most other Democratic senators on both the fiscal and war issues, the situation also poses an early test of his potential as a presidential contender in 1996 or thereafter.
A former governor who sometimes seems to have trouble adjusting to being a junior team player in the Senate, Robb was elevated to a leadership role when he was tapped by Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, to head the Democrats' fight to retain control of the Senate next year.
But in dwelling publicly on what he describes as "tender spots" of sensitivity within the party while performing one of the Democratic leadership's most politically critical jobs, he is walking a fine line.
Initial reviews of his performance are mixed, ranging from angry complaints from some of his more liberal Senate colleagues to cheers of encouragement from Democrats outside the Senate who are trying to steer the party onto a more conservative track.
Both the budget and war disputes surfaced March 10 in responses by Robb during a televised interview. Since then, the principal players, including Robb, have tried to minimize the friction. But others have stoked the embers to keep the fire alive.
Asked in the interview about reports that he was being forced off the Senate Budget Committee, Robb at first appeared reluctant to answer but did so in a way that piqued further curiosity.
"It had to do with my unwillingness to report out a meaningless budget resolution. . . . I've been fairly intractable on that issue. . . . I vote my conscience," he said. Later, he told reporters he had served notice after last year's budget fight that he would "not be able to vote for a resolution that does not require meaningful deficit reduction."
Budget Committee officials said Robb was being dropped under a bipartisan move to reduce the size of the 23-member panel, second largest behind the Appropriations Committee, by eliminating one seat from each side of the aisle. But Robb's reluctance to compromise on some issues, especially in his first year on the committee in 1989, also had strained the patience of other Democrats, especially committee Chairman Jim Sasser, D-Tenn.
However, neither Sasser nor Mitchell, who supported Sasser's move to pare the committee, was pleased by the implication that they would punish an excess of fiscal restraint, colleagues said.
During the same interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Robb, appearing in his capacity as new chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, gave what many of his colleagues regarded as a less-than-compelling defense of their January votes against authorizing use of force in the gulf.
While rejecting as "ridiculous" the suggestions of some Republicans that votes against the gulf-force authorization were unpatriotic, Robb, one of only 10 Democratic senators who voted for the authorization, devoted most of his war-related responses to a defense of his own position.
He talked about the "devastating impact of failing to support the president at that critical time" and said he had tried to persuade other Democrats to join him. "I was arguing very strongly on the merits as well as the politics," he said. "I said the politics are going to hurt you on this one. And I didn't get very many takers."
Some of his colleagues later described themselves as "livid" and "furious" at Robb's handling of the war issue on the show, although several said they were pleased with Robb's other televised and written expressions of defense for their votes as a matter of conscience.
"People are very, very concerned" about the "Meet the Press" interview, said one Senate Democrat who voted against the resolution and faces re-election next year. "He was promoting himself, not protecting them [Democrats who voted against going to war]," added the senator, who asked not to be identified.
Uniting in a desire to end the embarrassing episode, Robb and other key figures in the controversy, including Mitchell and Sasser, insist that the dispute has been overblown and its political implications exaggerated.
"No one paid any attention when I was bumped off the Budget Committee" when Democrats lost a seat after Republicans took control of the Senate in the 1980 election, noted Mitchell, apparently in jest. Robb denies being angry with Sasser. Sasser denies being angry with Robb, and Mitchell denies being angry with either and asserts his confidence in both.
But recently the controversy continued to be fanned by others, ranging from conservative Democrats who see it as an opportunity to promote Robb's pro-defense, anti-"big spending" views and to Republicans who want to exploit it as a way of portraying the Democrats as the party of appeasement abroad and profligacy at home.
For example, in a guest column in The New York Times and in a subsequent interview, Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, said Robb was bounced from the budget panel "for espousing a heretical doctrine: fiscal responsibility." The institute is an offshoot of the moderate-to-conservative Democratic Leadership Council, which Robb chaired in the mid-1980s.
Describing the ouster as an "act of hypocrisy," Marshall said Democrats had picked Robb for the campaign job "because he is not a stereotypical liberal, but a mainstream Democrat with the ability to reach out to disaffected voters [and contributors] who constantly scan the party for signs of change."
Marshall also said the issue had been "blown out of proportion," but stuck by his central point that the Democrats' war votes and Robb's removal from the budget panel "offered a reminder of what keeps the party from becoming competitive again in the national political process."
"It is wrong substantively and wrong politically to punish someone who represents the party's future," said Marshall, who was policy director for the DLC while Robb was its chairman.
The whole episode has delighted Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, Robb's counterpart as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
"Any time a party has to punish a member to induce him to vote with its position, it's in trouble," said Gramm, noting that he left the Democratic Party in the early 1980s after he was kicked off the House Budget Committee for fiscal apostasy.
by CNB