Republicans chew on DeMint
By: Manu Raju
January 27, 2009 09:13 AM EST
Just after November’s election, Republican senators huddled in a closed-door meeting to consider a package of rules that would have tossed Ted Stevens out of their conference, imposed term limits on party leaders and otherwise changed the way the Senate Republican Conference does business. South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, who proposed the rules, saw quickly that they weren’t going to be popular with his colleagues. So one of his staffers urged him to withdraw the proposal setting term limits on the GOP leader, and DeMint hoped the others would remain packaged together so they could be considered in a single vote. But Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander of Tennessee took issue with the staffer and quickly called a vote on the term-limit proposal before DeMint decided to withdraw it. Then party leaders proceeded to call up each of DeMint’s other proposals separately, creating a long series of votes that DeMint lost badly. “No doubt,” DeMint said, Republican leaders were “trying to humiliate” him. But some Senate Republicans say privately that DeMint has done plenty to humiliate himself. As Republicans seek a way forward after two disastrous elections, social and fiscal conservative activists off Capitol Hill are rallying behind DeMint because of his unrelenting style to force his party to return to its small-government, free market roots. DeMint, 57, said in an interview that he’s not dwelling on his previous battles with the GOP leadership and sees areas where his party’s leaders and the Obama administration can work together to solve the country’s problems. But DeMint is less willing to compromise with Democrats than many in his party, and some Senate Republicans doubt his fiery tactics can lead their party out of the political wilderness when the public is seeking an end to legislative gridlock. DeMint’s critics, including senior Republican senators and top aides in the Senate, say his refusal to work within the norms of the body — by showing deference to party leaders and chairmen and building support behind closed doors without airing concerns first to the news media — undermines his ability to draw support for his cause.
Just after November’s election, Republican senators huddled in a closed-door meeting to consider a package of rules that would have tossed Ted Stevens out of their conference, imposed term limits on party leaders and otherwise changed the way the Senate Republican Conference does business. South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, who proposed the rules, saw quickly that they weren’t going to be popular with his colleagues. So one of his staffers urged him to withdraw the proposal setting term limits on the GOP leader, and DeMint hoped the others would remain packaged together so they could be considered in a single vote. But Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander of Tennessee took issue with the staffer and quickly called a vote on the term-limit proposal before DeMint decided to withdraw it. Then party leaders proceeded to call up each of DeMint’s other proposals separately, creating a long series of votes that DeMint lost badly. “No doubt,” DeMint said, Republican leaders were “trying to humiliate” him. But some Senate Republicans say privately that DeMint has done plenty to humiliate himself. As Republicans seek a way forward after two disastrous elections, social and fiscal conservative activists off Capitol Hill are rallying behind DeMint because of his unrelenting style to force his party to return to its small-government, free market roots. DeMint, 57, said in an interview that he’s not dwelling on his previous battles with the GOP leadership and sees areas where his party’s leaders and the Obama administration can work together to solve the country’s problems. But DeMint is less willing to compromise with Democrats than many in his party, and some Senate Republicans doubt his fiery tactics can lead their party out of the political wilderness when the public is seeking an end to legislative gridlock. DeMint’s critics, including senior Republican senators and top aides in the Senate, say his refusal to work within the norms of the body — by showing deference to party leaders and chairmen and building support behind closed doors without airing concerns first to the news media — undermines his ability to draw support for his cause.
say privately that while they believe he is fighting for a worthy cause, the drama he creates between GOP leaders and himself is designed to project his image as an unyielding reformer — even though he agrees with his leaders on most issues. Asked in early December for his thoughts on DeMint, Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah — a close adviser to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky — said: “I have no comment. That should be a comment in and of itself.” After learning of the Utah Republican’s comments, DeMint said that Bennett is “a good guy, but I think sometimes he’s part of the problem.” DeMint, up for reelection in 2010, is genial by nature and says he tried to work within the Capitol’s seniority system during his three terms in the House and his first two years in the Senate. But he has learned, he said, that lawmakers in both parties “only respond to pain.” “They don’t respond to good policy, persuasion, being nice. I’ve tried it all,” he said. “There’s nobody nicer than I am.” In a chamber where relationship building is seen as paramount to legislative successes, DeMint said that “club friendships [have become] more important than the party and where we’re going as a country.” DeMint has also tried to build support from within the party, as chairman of the Senate’s conservative Steering Committee, which holds weekly lunches. DeMint, however, says his approach to build pressure off Capitol Hill is most effective. He claims credit for drumming up grass-roots anger through blogs and radio talk shows that led to Barack Obama’s support for a one-year ban on earmarks, the defeat of the immigration bill in 2007 and GOP leaders’ rejection of the auto bailout last month. And he plans to take the same approach to derail the proposed economic stimulus package. But GOP leaders don’t always respond well to DeMint’s sometimes uncompromising tactics. For instance, members in both parties criticized DeMint last summer for forcing a Friday vote on a Global AIDS bill and then a Saturday vote on a housing rescue bill after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would not allow his amendments to come forward for a vote. Adding to frustration from his party, DeMint insisted on his amendments even though they were likely to fail, and he missed the Friday vote because of a family wedding he had to attend.
DeMint recognizes that his style may cost him the support of leadership when it comes to some things he wants — such as a seat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee. Nowhere was the tension between DeMint and the leadership clearer, however, than at the Nov. 18 Republican Conference meeting in the Capitol’s Mansfield Room. According to people who attended the meeting, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) argued that the adoption of term limits for leadership could be perceived as an attack on McConnell, even though the rules would have taken effect after McConnell’s tenure as minority leader ended. The argument caused DeMint to reconsider the motion. But when one of DeMint’s staffers stood up to remind his boss he had the right to withdraw it, Alexander took strong exception, scolding the aide because only senators are typically allowed to address such meetings. Alexander then called for a vote before DeMint withdrew the motion — and Republican senators overwhelmingly crushed his proposal. DeMint says that he wanted senators to be able to vote for eight other motions at once, so the vote could be concluded quickly. (He previously withdrew the motion to kick Stevens out of the conference until after the Alaskan’s reelection race was called, promising a vote at another meeting later that week — but that never occurred.) By holding the votes one by one, DeMint said, party leaders were sending him a message about how little support he had within the conference. “It’s part of the whole display [to say], ‘Here’s what happens, guys, if you buck the tide,’” DeMint said. “It’s the milieu, it’s the Senate, and we don’t do that.” GOP leadership aides said the votes were spread out so each motion could be considered on its own merits, including one that was actually adopted: to require that all internal secret ballot elections be conducted by the party’s secretary. “Discussion time had been requested for each proposal, so there was going to be a significant period of debate regardless of the vote process,” one GOP leadership aide said. A senior GOP aide rejected DeMint’s contention that it was the leadership who tried to embarrass him. The aide said that while the senator has “certainly contributed to leadership policy positions, the rejection of an amendment to the rules was a rejection by the caucus as a whole, not by any faction — leadership or otherwise.” Yet Florida Sen. Mel Martinez told Politico at the time of the meeting the session had been “terrible” and “caused consternation” within the conference. DeMint says he’s sympathetic to McConnell, who has to reconcile views of a diverse caucus, and he says that on most issues, the GOP leaders “actually appreciate somebody going out there ... and loosening the ground up, where they can’t necessarily go in the beginning.” Indeed, Alexander says that his relationship with DeMint is “terrific.” He’s hosted DeMint and his wife at his home in Knoxville, Tenn., and has given him a spot on the conference’s advisory board. Alexander declined to comment on the Nov. 18 conference deliberations, saying such meetings are intended to be private. Don Stewart, a McConnell spokesman, called DeMint a “valuable member of our conference and among the strongest advocates for the American taxpayer.” And DeMint’s home-state colleague, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) praised DeMint for fighting for what he believes — even though the two backed different Republican presidential candidates and Graham backed an immigration plan that DeMint derided as “amnesty” for lawbreakers. “People that I’ve even been at odds with — I didn’t think they’d speak to me again,” DeMint said. Singling out former GOP Sens. Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico and John Warner of Virginia, DeMint said that “a lot of them will whisper in my ear: ‘Keep fighting.’”
DeMint recognizes that his style may cost him the support of leadership when it comes to some things he wants — such as a seat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee. Nowhere was the tension between DeMint and the leadership clearer, however, than at the Nov. 18 Republican Conference meeting in the Capitol’s Mansfield Room. According to people who attended the meeting, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) argued that the adoption of term limits for leadership could be perceived as an attack on McConnell, even though the rules would have taken effect after McConnell’s tenure as minority leader ended. The argument caused DeMint to reconsider the motion. But when one of DeMint’s staffers stood up to remind his boss he had the right to withdraw it, Alexander took strong exception, scolding the aide because only senators are typically allowed to address such meetings. Alexander then called for a vote before DeMint withdrew the motion — and Republican senators overwhelmingly crushed his proposal. DeMint says that he wanted senators to be able to vote for eight other motions at once, so the vote could be concluded quickly. (He previously withdrew the motion to kick Stevens out of the conference until after the Alaskan’s reelection race was called, promising a vote at another meeting later that week — but that never occurred.) By holding the votes one by one, DeMint said, party leaders were sending him a message about how little support he had within the conference. “It’s part of the whole display [to say], ‘Here’s what happens, guys, if you buck the tide,’” DeMint said. “It’s the milieu, it’s the Senate, and we don’t do that.” GOP leadership aides said the votes were spread out so each motion could be considered on its own merits, including one that was actually adopted: to require that all internal secret ballot elections be conducted by the party’s secretary. “Discussion time had been requested for each proposal, so there was going to be a significant period of debate regardless of the vote process,” one GOP leadership aide said. A senior GOP aide rejected DeMint’s contention that it was the leadership who tried to embarrass him. The aide said that while the senator has “certainly contributed to leadership policy positions, the rejection of an amendment to the rules was a rejection by the caucus as a whole, not by any faction — leadership or otherwise.” Yet Florida Sen. Mel Martinez told Politico at the time of the meeting the session had been “terrible” and “caused consternation” within the conference. DeMint says he’s sympathetic to McConnell, who has to reconcile views of a diverse caucus, and he says that on most issues, the GOP leaders “actually appreciate somebody going out there ... and loosening the ground up, where they can’t necessarily go in the beginning.” Indeed, Alexander says that his relationship with DeMint is “terrific.” He’s hosted DeMint and his wife at his home in Knoxville, Tenn., and has given him a spot on the conference’s advisory board. Alexander declined to comment on the Nov. 18 conference deliberations, saying such meetings are intended to be private. Don Stewart, a McConnell spokesman, called DeMint a “valuable member of our conference and among the strongest advocates for the American taxpayer.” And DeMint’s home-state colleague, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) praised DeMint for fighting for what he believes — even though the two backed different Republican presidential candidates and Graham backed an immigration plan that DeMint derided as “amnesty” for lawbreakers. “People that I’ve even been at odds with — I didn’t think they’d speak to me again,” DeMint said. Singling out former GOP Sens. Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico and John Warner of Virginia, DeMint said that “a lot of them will whisper in my ear: ‘Keep fighting.’”
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