GOP solidarity softens in Congress

[almaty 19]

WASHINGTON—The nearly airtight solidarity that Republicans in Congress have shown President Bush on the Iraq war is developing leaks when it comes to domestic issues.

Democrats believe those cracks, illustrated by votes this week on health care and hate crimes, will grow to include Iraq as the 2008 elections near.

Members of both parties were stunned when 45 House Republicans voted this week for a children's health insurance plan that Bush strenuously opposes and vows to veto.

On Thursday, an even larger percentage of Senate Republicans voted for the same bill. That same day, GOP senators provided crucial votes to clear the way for passage of a hate-crimes bill that Bush also promises to veto.

Clear majorities of House and Senate Republicans still back Bush on most major issues, and they appear confident the House will sustain his expected veto on the children's health bill—even if the Senate will not. Many Republicans also vow to keep backing Bush's handling of the war, despite its unpopularity.

Still, some were struck by the week's events, and speculated on what they might portend.

"As we get closer to the election, I think you're going to see some seismic shifts in our conference," said Rep. Ray LaHood, an Illinois Republican who urged colleagues to support the State Children's Health Insurance Program expansion that Bush opposes.

When 45 House Republicans did so on Tuesday, he said in an interview, "I was shocked. I

I thought it would be 30."

The House voted to approve the proposed $35 billion expansion of SCHIP, 265 to 159. The Senate approved the bill 67-29, with 18 Republicans voting for it. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush told her in a phone conversation Friday he still intends to veto it.

Republican leaders noted the 159 negative votes in the House, which included eight Democrats, are more than enough to prevent a veto override there. An override requires a two-thirds majority in both chambers.

House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said he and other party leaders could have corralled more Republican votes against the bill, but they stopped trying once they had enough to uphold a veto.

Blunt, acknowledging the SCHIP expansion's popularity in many districts, told reporters: "I'm not going to break somebody's arm who thinks this is a hard vote back home."

He and others said talk of GOP dissent is exaggerated.

"We are not falling apart," said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Tex., who denounced the $35 billion spending increase for the health insurance program as too costly and too government-dependent. "We've got plenty of votes to uphold the veto," he said.

The 45 House Republicans who backed the measure included many moderates from competitive districts that Democrats routinely target. But they also included veteran members from reliably Republican districts, such as Don Young of Alaska, Bill Young of Florida and Mike Simpson of Idaho.

Also defying the president on SCHIP were four House Republicans who will not face voters again because they plan to retire: LaHood, Deborah Pryce of Ohio, Jim Ramstad of Minnesota and Rick Renzi of Arizona.

Their votes reflect the sentiments of mainstream Republicans "when they're removed from the White House stranglehold," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Rep. Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland, one of the 45 Republicans supporting the SCHIP expansion, said he did so because "it was fundamentally the right thing to do." He seemed exasperated by Bush's opposition.

"I don't have the time, the energy or the inclination to psychoanalyze the president's thought process," Gilchrest said.

GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio thinks Republicans are smart to challenge Democrats on spending issues in general. But he said Bush and his congressional allies blundered by creating a showdown over the popular SCHIP program.

"We need to pick things where people say, 'You know, we shouldn't be spending money on that,'" Fabrizio said. "How did we allow ourselves to be put in a position where our members are going to vote not once, but twice, on children's care?"

Democratic pollster Geoff Garin predicted more Republican lawmakers will feel pressure to break from Bush to save their careers in the 2008 elections.

"For most Republicans, from virtually any part of the country, the price of voting with him is often much higher than any price of voting against him," Garin said.

Republicans who have backed Bush's Iraq policy, he said, will find it "all the more important to vote against him on some domestic issues."

Even on Iraq, where Republican solidarity has frustrated Democratic efforts to force troop withdrawals, "there will be a tipping point," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters Thursday.

Polls indicate trouble for many Republicans who have voted to sustain Bush's Iraq policies, Reid said.

"I don't know how much more of this they can take," he said.