Congress ready to make up for lost time

By Richard Simon and Mary Curtius
Los Angeles Times

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Measures to carry out recommendations from the Sept. 11 commission and increase domestic security are on the agenda. So is legislation on transportation, energy, education, health and jobs programs and extending President Bush's tax cuts. There is also likely to be a huge, omnibus spending bill laden with federal projects considered dear to the hearts of local voters.

After eight months of partisan gridlock earlier in the year, lawmakers say they are ready to make up for lost time.

But even though Republicans and Democrats alike feel pressure to show voters they can be productive, many privately concede it will be hard to accomplish in a brief pre-election session what could not be done earlier.

And some analysts warn that legislating under such pressure may not yield good results, especially in high profile but complex areas such as anti-terrorism and intelligence reform.

"They're going to try to get more done in the next month than they've accomplished in the last year," said Keith Ashdown, vice president of policy for Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group. "If it is a rush in the 11th hour of the legislative session to get a bill passed that's very important, it definitely leads to opportunities for bad legislation."

That concern is particularly acute where domestic security and the Sept. 11 commission reforms are concerned.

"The political pressures on homeland security are going to be huge, and everyone will have the need at least to be seen to be doing something," University of Pennsylvania political scientist Don Kettl said. The result could be action that "looks good in the short run and makes things worse in the long run."

In fact, some analysts say, the coming session may end up being most of all about politically charged window dressing, regardless of the importance of some of the pending bills.

House Republicans are planning to bring up the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, said Stuart Roy, spokesman for House Majority leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. And one House Republican aide said the leadership also plans to schedule a bill on keeping the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

If the coming session does not go beyond such political gestures, the 108th Congress will have a slender record to show for this year. And polls show voters have noticed: A recent Gallup survey found that 42 percent of respondents approve of the way Congress is doing its job, while 52 percent disapprove.
 
The subjects most likely to get serious attention in coming weeks are domestic security and the reform recommendations of the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission.

In fact, the first order of business is expected to be funding of domestic-security programs. The House has approved a $32 billion bill; the Senate Appropriations Committee also has recommended $32 billion, which still must be approved by the Senate.

"There will be great pressure to pass the Homeland Security appropriations bill so that members can assure voters they have done their duty in keeping America safe," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a budget-watchdog group.

Acting on the reform recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission is also considered critical. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.C., have set an Oct. 1 deadline for the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee to propose ways to implement the recommendations.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., plan to introduce a bill today that would put virtually all the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission into legislative language.

Many of the proposals are politically sensitive and involve complex policy issues as well — especially the restructuring of the intelligence community.

Congressional aides say pieces of reform, including the creation of the position of national intelligence director and creation of a counterterrorism center, may be passed before the election. But, they say, Congress is unlikely to complete the top-to-bottom reform of the intelligence community and congressional oversight of intelligence operations that the Sept. 11 panel recommended.

And continuing disagreements within the Republican majority dog plans to extend three of President Bush's tax cuts. Some Republicans are eager to give the president a victory on an issue for his re-election campaign.

Yet voting to extend the cuts — an increase in tax credit for families with children, an expansion in the number of taxpayers in the lowest 10 percent tax bracket and relief for married couples — poses a challenge for those in both parties who have been trying to rein in the deficit by insisting on offsets for tax cuts and spending.