GOP girds for battle over Pelosi's agenda

WASHINGTON -- As Democrats take control of Congress today with ambitious plans for a new agenda, early signs of bipartisan cooperation have all but evaporated on Capitol Hill, shattering Democrats' hopes for a smooth transition into power.

Even before House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi takes over as House speaker, Republicans have begun an assault on her leadership decisions. They blasted Pelosi's decision to hold votes on a series of bills in the first 100 legislative hours of the new Congress, saying that her decision to circumvent the committee process and prohibit Republican amendments undercuts her vows of a more open lawmaking process.

"Half of the Congress has been cut out of the process," Representative Adam H. Putnam of Florida, chairman of the House Republican Conference, said yesterday. "The American people were promised a new way of doing business in the United States Congress. . . . This is a missed opportunity."

Pelosi and her top aides have planned a busy first few weeks in power, as they seek to make good on a set of campaign promises before President Bush delivers his State of the Union address Jan. 23.

By tomorrow, they plan to have passed a series of lobbying and ethics reforms and restricted the practice whereby congressmen can anonymously insert special-interest projects known as earmarks into the budget. The new provisions are intended to signal an end to the permissive rules that allowed congressional scandals to flourish under Republican control.

Starting next week, Democrats also plan votes on hiking the minimum wage; boosting funding for embryonic stem cell research; cutting student loan interest rates; and enacting 9/11 Commission recommendations that call for enhanced cargo screening and better emergency communication systems, among other proposals.

In each case, Democratic leaders are bringing bills directly to the House floor, short-circuiting the time-consuming committee process that allows members of both parties to offer alternative proposals at multiple stages.

While in control of Congress, Republicans regularly used procedural mechanisms to prevent Democrats from offering amendments or getting votes on their bills. Democrats blasted such practices and promised to lead in a more open manner that would ensure minority input.

Democrats said they are taking such extraordinary steps only while they seek to deliver on their "Six for '06" broad campaign promises during the first 100 hours of the new legislative session. Defending the plan, House Democratic leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, Pelosi's top deputy, said yesterday that each issue had been thoroughly vetted by Congress in the past.

After those 100 hours are over on Jan. 18, Republicans will enjoy more rights and power than they allowed Democrats during 12 years of GOP control of the House, Hoyer said.

"We view the first 100 hours essentially as a mandate from the American people," he said. "We told everybody, 'If you elect us, this is what we're going to do immediately.' "

But Republicans scoffed at the notion that they should trust Democrats to include them in deliberations after they've sidelined them in the first days of the new session. Their complaints echoed the oft-repeated charge by Democrats that Republicans didn't allow full participation when they were in charge.

Indeed, a group of GOP House members yesterday unveiled a "minority bill of rights" designed to ensure input from members of both parties on all legislation -- a measure crafted directly from a proposal Pelosi herself wrote as House minority leader in 2004.

"Speaker Pelosi thinks that then-Minority Leader Pelosi was wrong," said Representative Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican. "The key tenet of what the Democrats said in the campaign is they want openness and fairness in the legislative process. And if on their opening moment of power they close out the process, imagine what more they're going to do to go back on their promises."

Democrats, who will have a 31-vote margin in the House, are facing pressure from within their party as well, with some liberals upset that congressional leaders aren't willing to go further to boost spending on social programs and end the war in Iraq.

Yesterday, a press conference Democrats organized to highlight their ethics reforms was disrupted by anti war protesters. About a dozen protesters -- including anti war activist Cindy Sheehan -- drowned out Democratic leaders by chanting, "Deescalate, investigate, troops home now."

"We are the ones who put them in power," said Sheehan, speaking in front of microphones set up for Democrats. "Our brothers and sisters or children are being killed for lies. Congress can stop this nightmare."

Democrats are waiting for Bush to outline his plan for Iraq next week before taking any substantive actions to influence war policy. Top party leaders have ruled out even considering a controversial move to cut off funding for the war, an action that would be certain to end US involvement in Iraq.

Despite the partisan bickering, today's swearing-in ceremonies will vastly reorder the Washington landscape for the next two years. For the first time in Bush's tenure in office, he will have to contend with House and Senate leadership of the opposing party, which is pushing a new agenda and armed with subpoena power to investigate his administration.

The president yesterday wrote a rare op-ed piece to welcome Democrats to power with a challenge to rise above partisanship.

"If the Congress chooses to pass bills that are simply political statements, they will have chosen stalemate," Bush wrote in a piece published in The Wall Street Journal.

After a meeting with his Cabinet yesterday, Bush called for Democrats to work toward a balanced budget and dramatically reduce the number of earmarked special projects in spending bills.

Hoyer warned yesterday that reducing the number of earmarks, rather than simply requiring fuller disclosure by their sponsors, could "undermine the independence" of Congress by freeing the administration to make more spending decisions.

The early criticism from Republicans points out a peril for Democrats as they come into power: After running on pledges to clean up the way Congress does business, they expect to be held to a higher standard than Republicans were, said Representative James P. McGovern, a Worcester Democrat.

"This is not about payback or doing to them what they did to us. If that's the way this unfolds, we're no better than they are," said McGovern, a member of the House Rules Committee. "The Democrats are going to run this place differently. If people want to judge the openness, and whether this is going to be an open process, judge the first 100 days of this Congress, not the first 100 hours."

Democrats also assume control of the Senate today, though leaders there have not scheduled any legislative business until next week. Instead, senators this morning will convene in a rare, closed-door caucus for members of both parties, as they seek to find ways to increase bipartisan cooperation.

That meeting reflects the more collegial nature of the Senate, as well as the reality of the bare 51-49 margin by which Democrats will control the body. That margin will be even thinner so long as Senator Tim Johnson, a South Dakota Democrat who is recovering from brain surgery, is unable to conduct Senate business.