Word: congressmen
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Alas, Washington has gone all partisan on the President. The new mood stems not just from Congressmen's crankiness over fumbling their pay raise. Capitol Hill does not want to take the rap for the irreconcilable differences between what Bush is promising in his budget and what the Treasury will allow him to do. Nor is the Senate Armed Services Committee going to rubber-stamp the nomination of former Senator John Tower as Secretary of Defense...
...definition of a safe district. The traditional levers of incumbency, augmented by the largesse of political-action committees, have created this modern version of a rotten-borough system. In the four House elections since 1980, a total of 1,740 seats were at stake, yet only about 30 sitting Congressmen were defeated for reasons other than redistricting and ethics. Old-fashioned democratic reasons, that is, like having a strong opponent or taking stands unpopular with the voters...
...issue was, of course, the proposed pay raise that would have lifted congressional wages from $89,500 to $135,000 a year and far more equitably compensated federal judges and top Executive Branch officials. After weeks of public posturing against the Great Salary Grab, while privately coveting the raises, Congressmen had been hopeful that their Machiavellian maneuvers would pay off -- literally. If House Speaker Jim Wright just held firm against a vote, the salary increase would automatically take effect at midnight last Tuesday night. But Wright wavered; the House quavered and overwhelmingly killed the salary hike by a vote...
Such are the rewards of cynicism and cowardice. The passions aroused by the pay fray may have been extraordinary, but the duplicitous behavior it spawned is typical. Running for cover has become such natural behavior that Congressmen will go to extremes to duck accountability. The only way Congress could muster the moxie to close 86 outmoded military bases was first to appoint a commission whose recommendations will automatically take effect in April unless rescinded by both houses. To mask its inability to confront the deficit, Congress created the Gramm-Rudman guillotine, which arbitrarily cuts the budget if compromise fails...
...series of small but telling snafus sent the White House scrambling. The day after Bush telephoned a cheer to right-to-life advocates massed nearby on the Ellipse, the New York Times reported that Louis Sullivan, the nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, had privately told some Congressmen that he still believes in a woman's right to an abortion. Sullivan, who had sent mixed signals on abortion prior to his nomination in December, was summoned to Sununu's West Wing office, then hurriedly dispatched to reassure conservative Senators. The President, whose changing views on abortion have been...