[Mb-civic] After DeLay, a New Approach? - David S. Broder - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

After DeLay, a New Approach?
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By David S. Broder
The Washington Post
Wednesday, April 5, 2006; A23

Symbolically as well as practically, the departure of Tom DeLay from 
Congress signals the end of an era of Republican dominance. The question 
now is whether the retreat that clearly has begun will turn into a rout.

The former House majority leader's decision to abandon what increasingly 
appeared to be an uphill fight for reelection in his Texas district and 
retire from the House was the latest and by far the largest consequence 
of a widening probe of corruption on Capitol Hill.

It is one thing to see a Randy "Duke" Cunningham go to jail for bribery. 
Few outside his San Diego district had ever heard the name of the former 
Navy "Top Gun" before his spectacular downfall. Tom DeLay is a target of 
far larger size.

As prosecutors have extracted guilty pleas from lobbyists close to DeLay 
and former members of his staff, the ripples of scandal have threatened 
to spread through Republican ranks in the midterm election. Month after 
month, surveys are showing Democrats with a double-digit lead over the 
GOP in the voters' preference for which party should control Congress.

Whether that translates to the specific victories needed to give 
Democrats an extra 15 seats and a narrow House majority cannot be 
guessed. But the relief his fellow Republicans expressed that they can 
now recruit a fresh and presumably unscarred candidate in DeLay's 
Republican-leaning district shows how nervous they are about holding on 
to the House.

It is almost as if they hope that by sacrificing their erstwhile 
commander, they can appease the public demand for change.

As much as Newt Gingrich embodied the aggressive strategy that enabled 
Republicans in 1994 to break the Democrats' 40-year grip on the House, 
DeLay was the man who showed them how to consolidate -- and use -- their 
new power. As whip and then as majority leader, he built the GOP 
fundraising and policy alliance with the business lobbies and social 
conservative movements, then used that leverage to impose party-line 
discipline on almost every key vote.

It was a commanding performance, and one that yielded a series of policy 
victories for President Bush. By putting the House Republican majority 
in lock step with the White House, DeLay made it possible for Bush to 
prevail, not only over the outnumbered Democrats but also over the 
doubts harbored by some Senate Republicans about his agenda.

But DeLay also paid a price for his hardball tactics -- and his tendency 
to push against the legal limits. He was admonished repeatedly by the 
House ethics committee. He faces prosecution in Texas over the financing 
of campaigns that delivered the Texas House of Representatives to his 
allies, who in turn engineered a redistricting plan that gave 
Republicans five more seats in Congress. His palling around with 
convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff is still under investigation.

With DeLay's departure, the Democrats lose their most convenient symbol 
of abuse of power by the Republican majority -- but they have not lost 
the issue. DeLay's successor as majority leader, John Boehner of Ohio, 
continues to manage the House on the same partisan basis, looking for 
votes almost exclusively on his own side of the aisle and declining to 
offer Democrats any incentives to cooperate.

And that raises an interesting challenge for the new White House chief 
of staff, Josh Bolten. If he is the realist that his admirers believe, 
he has to acknowledge the odds that there will be fewer Republicans in 
Congress after November than there are today -- and perhaps not a majority.

In the House, Speaker Dennis Hastert is headed into what is probably his 
final term before retirement, shorn now of the support and day-to-day 
managerial muscle of the man who installed him as speaker, Tom DeLay. 
That means that if the Republicans maintain control, a lame-duck speaker 
will be working to deliver votes for a lame-duck president.

That could spell an awfully difficult -- and unproductive -- final two 
years for the Bush presidency, unless the White House finds a different 
approach to Capitol Hill.

The old game of muscling bills through by rounding up Republican votes 
through a combination of political and financial force -- the game at 
which Tom DeLay excelled -- is over. The question for the White House is 
whether it can come up with a different strategy that looks for support 
from at least some Democrats.

It needs that already in the Senate. And it will probably need it in the 
House.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/04/AR2006040401273.html
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