Bush's Allies Plan to Block Effort to Ease Ban on Cuban Travel

The New York Times ^ | November 13, 2003 | CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS

[Cincinatus' Wife]

WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 - President Bush's allies in Congress quietly eliminated a widely supported provision easing restrictions on American travel to Cuba from a major appropriations bill to save him from embarrassment over his political designs in Florida, officials from both parties said Wednesday evening.

Leaders of a House-Senate conference committee removed the provision on Wednesday before the bill reached the president, who had threatened to veto any legislation that lifted sanctions against Cuba, the officials said.

"You're not going to put a bill on the floor that potentially embarrasses the president," said a senior Republican staff member. Referring to the Cuba provision's bipartisan supporters, he added, "I'm sure there will be some gnashing of teeth."

The provision, which would bar Treasury Department authorities from enforcing a ban on travel to the island, was approved by the House in September 227 to 188, and by the Senate last month 59 to 38. Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 13 to 5 to scrap the ban outright.

Since the language of the Cuban travel provision approved by the House and Senate was identical, it would not ordinarily have been subject to action by the conference committee, which sought to reconcile differences in bills that finance the Treasury and Transportation departments, advocates say. But Republican committee leaders, including Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska and Representative C. W. Bill Young of Florida, were determined to remove the Cuba measure, aides said.

The legislation might have drawn Mr. Bush's first veto, and risked derailing important appropriations for highway construction, Amtrak, election reform and other programs.

Some Congressional officials said they were appalled that the will of Congress could be thwarted in the back-room negotiations that drive conference committees. Republican leaders have removed Cuba-related language at the same juncture in previous years, though never against such an overwhelming mandate from their colleagues.

"The fact that it could be undermined is mind-blowing, and more reminiscent of the Politburo than Congress," said Steven C. Schwadron, the chief of staff of Representative Bill Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat, who has been a driving force behind lifting the travel ban. "It suggests that a handful of people can vaporize the will of the majority."

Some conservatives were troubled as well. Steven Johnson, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation, said the administration was missing an opportunity to fine-tune tough sanctions that have failed to bring change in Cuba. "The administration takes a hard line meant to please a certain crowd in Miami," he said.

The president's political strategists attach huge importance to Florida, which was crucial to Mr. Bush's narrow victory over Al Gore in 2000. The state's 833,000 Cuban-Americans were especially loyal to Mr. Bush, with about 80 percent of them voting for him.

"Cubans believe their vote determined the last president of the United States," said Lisandro Perez, a Miami sociologist. "People in Miami are pretty confident that Bush won't let anything past him on this."

In August, 13 Republican state legislators, including 10 Cuban-Americans, warned the president that Cuban-Americans would rethink their support of Mr. Bush unless the Justice Department indicted Mr. Castro and took other hard-line steps.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

"The fact that it could be undermined is mind-blowing, and more reminiscent of the Politburo than Congress," said Steven C. Schwadron, the chief of staff of Representative Bill Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat, who has been a driving force behind lifting the travel ban. "It suggests that a handful of people can vaporize the will of the majority."

The Senate wouldn't know anything about that, now would they?