Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 2, 1993 TAG: 9312100277
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ray L. Garland
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
With Clinton's budget plan passed and Congress mercifully in recess, it's a good time to review the votes of Virginians in Congress since April Fool's Day.
The words "mercifully in recess" are used advisedly. By assaying all the floor votes cast these past five months, you understand the march of insidious busybodyism and lust for collectivization that is now the stock-in-trade of the Democratic Party.
In the Senate, the point can be illustrated by pulling out a few votes dealing with campaign finance and gutting the venerable Hatch Act.
To see how close we're getting to regulated speech in political campaigns, consider an amendment offered by Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., requiring a candidate to file an exact copy of any advertisement or "public communication" referring "directly or indirectly" to his opponent with the Federal Elections Commission and the secretary of state in his state. It passed 47 to 45 with Robb voting yes and Warner voting no.
Then, there was the amendment offered by Sen. David Durenberger, R-Minn., imposing a 35 percent tax on all funds raised by candidates exercising their constitutional right to refuse voluntary spending limits and taxpayer funding, which passed 52 to 47. Again, it was Robb yes and Warner no.
For years, Democrats have itched to gut the Hatch Act, which for more than 50 years has prohibited partisan political activity by federal employees. Their purpose, always cloaked in the lofty rhetoric of civil rights, is obvious. They gave the game away by refusing to extend the same privilege to members of the armed forces, suspected of harboring Republican sympathies.
Wait, you say, partisan political activity would be disruptive of the chain of the command, and so it would. But there are a host of similar situations among civilian workers. When the Ohio mountebank, Sen. John Glenn, moved to kill an amendment keeping tax auditors, examiners and revenue agents of the IRS under the old restrictions, Robb voted yes and Warner voted no. This reasonable safeguard was struck on a virtual party-line vote of 51 to 48.
In the House, a similar pattern emerges. On high-profile votes such as the budget plan, Democrats like Pickett, Sisisky and Payne must squirm or actually dissent from party orthodoxy. But on procedural questions setting up the big vote and most smaller issues, they generally fall in line.
Pickett was the sole Virginia Democrat who actually voted against the motor-voter bill on final passage, but look at the vote instructing House conferees to make the requirements optional to the states rather than mandatory. The motion was rejected 192 to 222, which meant a number of House Democrats voted for it. But not a single Virginia Democrat.
This bill, now signed into law, requires states to register voters by mail and at all motor-vehicle offices and agencies dispensing public assistance. On the question of allowing states to require proof of citizenship, all Virginia Democrats voted no.
Democrats like Payne have made a big deal over the sham line-item veto bill which has passed the House. For two years, the president can delete individual items from an appropriations bill, but Congress can override with a simple majority. When Republicans offered a true line-item veto, requiring a two-thirds vote to override a recission, it was defeated 198 to 219. Some 25 House Democrats voted for it, but no Virginia Democrat was among them.
On spending issues you have two types of votes. The first on amendments offered by Republicans to reduce appropriations for Congress and other federal agencies not universally beloved, which are generally voted down along party lines. The second are genuine bipartisan efforts to terminate costly programs such as the space station and the supercollider.
On the amendment eliminating the seven-year authorization of $12.7 billion to build the space station, rejected 215 to 216, three House Republicans (Bateman, Bliley and Wolf) joined Democrats Pickett, Scott, Boucher and Byrne in voting to keep the program alive. That was almost reversed on the motion to kill the supercollider, which passed 280 to 150. Here, Bateman, Pickett, Scott, Payne, Goodlatte, Moran and Boucher voted to preserve this budget-buster, while Sisisky, Bliley, Wolf and Byrne wanted to kill it.
But these are old programs on which billions already have been invested or wasted, according to your view. The time to kill one of these monsters is in its cradle. Two new potential budget-busters have prospered at this session.
On the House side, the National Service Act was passed with an initial appropriation of only $389 million to redeem a tiny portion of Clinton's promise to let people earn pocket money performing good works while qualifying for federal grants to attend college. The National Competitiveness Act, funded at only $1.5 billion in its first two years, is perhaps more insidious. It allows the Commerce Department to offer grants and subsidized loans to companies deemed to be pioneering new technologies, even take stock in them.
In Virginia's House delegation, support for these new programs divided strictly along party lines: all Democrats in favor, all Republicans against.
But when it came to choosing between the demands of the Democratic leadership and the sentiments of aroused businessmen at home on the striker- replacement bill, Sisisky, Payne and Pickett joined the Republicans in opposition. Even Boucher took refuge by not voting. Still, it passed the House 239 to 190. It would prohibit employers from hiring permanent replacements for striking workers.
It is in bills like this that we see the grand design of the Democratic Party to institutionalize its power. When you ignore the rhetoric and examine the record, you'll find nary a genuine conservative among Virginia Democrats in Congress.
\ Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB