Posted on 12/15/2002 7:13:58 PM PST by ApesForEvolution
BUMP
Yes, but it seems that is the average grade, even for the GOP. Only Inhofe (my personal favorite for Leader) and Enzi get an "A".
Most Democrats support choice #2 because they get lots and lots of campaign money from the billion dollar abortion industry. This allows these Democrats to get reelected and keep their cushy offices and limousines and political power.
Ain't America great?
The GOA ratings for these five possible successors:
McConnell (KY): C
Nichols (OK): B-
Santorum (PA): C
Hutchison (TX): B-
Kyl (AZ): C
Lott, btw, received a C-
In 1994 Frist decided to run against Senator Jim Sasser, then Budget Committee chairman and a candidate for majority leader. He had tough primary opposition from east Tennessee businessman Bob Corker, who attacked him for not voting and for obtaining cats from animal shelters for experiments as a medical student. But Frist, spending liberally, carried the Nashville and Memphis media markets and beat Corker 44%-32%. In the general, Frist said he wanted to "give communities and individuals the freedom to solve problems and return to our basic conservative values," and backed welfare reform, federal spending cuts, school prayer and term limits; he follows Howard Baker in calling for citizen-politicians and pledged to serve just two terms--"Term limits for career politicians and the death penalty for career criminals," one ad said. Sasser emphasized school prayer, the balanced budget amendment and cracking down on illegal immigrants, and he ridiculed Frist as a bored, rich surgeon. Frist outspent Sasser, spending $3.7 million of his own money. Sasser led in polls up through October, but in November Frist won 56%-42%, carrying all the large metro areas and losing only scattered traditionally Democratic rural counties.
Frist is the first physician to serve in the Senate for 50 years; he points out that there were many more in the days of the citizen-politician. In September 1995 he resuscitated a constituent outside the Dirksen Office Building, and in July 1998 he ran over to the House and tended to those wounded in the shooting that killed two Capitol police officers. Naturally he got involved in health issues; the Senate ethics committee ruled that he is not prohibited from voting on any "legislation of general applicability to the health care industry." He played a key role on the 1996 health care bill on portability and pre-existing conditions, working to include Medical Savings Accounts. He also helped to write the provision guaranteeing insurance coverage for 48-hour hospital maternity stays. He worked to reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act for the treatment and support of AIDS patients. He put on the income tax form a box to check off for information on organ donor cards. He worked to make sure Tennessee was not penalized for extending TennCare to uninsured children.
On some health issues Frist has worked with Democrats. With Jay Rockefeller, he sponsored a law to allow physicians and hospitals to establish service provider organizations to contract directly with Medicare. He backed the 1997 Clinton bill to ban discrimination by insurers by genetic traits and to assure privacy of genetic information. He supported Surgeon General nominees Henry Foster and David Satcher. He has supported doubling NIH funding over five years. In 2000 he worked with Ted Kennedy to forge a compromise on organ transplants, to try to reduce regional disparities; but the House, which backed the United Network of Organ Sharing, with its 62 separate geographic regions, refused to compromise. In 2000 Frist and Kennedy steered through a $919 million authorization for public health laws, including $540 million for research on bioterrorism and $180 million to refurbish Center for Disease Control labs. He passed a law with incentives for primary care physicians in rural and inner city areas, and worked to reauthorize the bone marrow registry, with recruitment of minorities. He helped get both houses to pass a 1998 law for research on women's health problems. Frist sponsored the ban on human cloning and supported the partial-birth abortion ban, "because it is needlessly risky to the woman, because it is an unnecessary procedure, because it is inhumane to the fetus, and because it is medically unacceptable and offends the very basic civil sensibilities of people all across this country."
On HMO regulation and prescription drugs, Frist has been the lead man in forging Republican positions. He served on the Medicare Commission that presented its premium support plan in March 1999. In June 2000 sponsored a Medicare reform bill with commission chairman John Breaux. Their plan would have private insurers competing to provide coverage to Medicare beneficiaries, overseen by a new government agency which would approve the content of plans; the idea is to evade the cumbersome HCFA bureaucracy in HHS. They seek to include prescription drug coverage as part of a larger reform of Medicare, with subsidies for all seniors and a progressive sliding scale of subsidies depending on income. Frist has also co-sponsored with Breaux and James Jeffords a plan to provide those uninsured and ineligible for Medicaid a tax credit, $1,000 for individuals and $2,000 for families, for amounts spent for health insurance; this would give them some of the same benefits others get for employer-provided health insurance. Frist worked on tobacco legislation with John McCain in 1998, but ended up opposing his bill; in 2000 they joined to sponsor a bill giving the FDA limited power to regulate tobacco marketing to children.
On other issues, Frist was the lead sponsor with Democrat Ron Wyden of the Ed-Flex bill which passed by a wide margin in March 1999; it would give school systems greater flexibility in return for holding them to greater accountability. He favors individual retirement accounts as part of Social Security. After a trip to Sudan, he said in 1998 that the Clinton administration's acquiescence to Sudanese government manipulation of humanitarian relief "may be a contributing factor in the horrendous prospect of widespread starvation." And in July 2000, after recounting the horrifying conditions he had seen in Sudan a week before, he got UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke to commit to a change in U.S. policy.
Senators of the same party from the same state often have acrimonious relationships, but Frist and Fred Thompson, elected the same year, seem to get on unusually well, although they disagree on about 20% of roll call votes--many of the disagreements are what you might expect between a doctor and a lawyer. They have worked in tandem on many Tennessee issues, including the 1998 TVA bill that refinanced its debt, saving $100 million, and added $50 million for its non-power activities, like the Land Between the Lakes park. They worked in 2000 to prepare TVA for deregulation. In December 2000 they got $6 million for a school of government to be named after Howard Baker at the University of Tennessee.
Frist came up for re-election in 2000, and Democrats were eager to field a strong candidate against him in order to help Al Gore in his native Tennessee. In summer 1999, 29-year-old Congressman Harold Ford of Memphis traveled across the state and attacked Frist for his holdings in Columbia/ HCA and his opposition to the Democrats' HMO regulation bill. He told state Democrats that he would decide whether to run by Labor Day. But he announced no decision and quit barnstorming, leaving Democrats with the prospect of having as their candidate John Jay Hooker, an up-and-coming politician 30 years before but now something of a joke; he won 29% as the Democratic nominee against Governor Don Sundquist in 1998. Ford's indecision and Hooker's notoriety kept Memphis businessman John Lowery, who once said he was willing to spend $1 million of his own money, out of the race. The Democratic nomination went to computer science professor Jeff Clark, who beat Hooker by just 810 votes in the August primary, 34.2%-33.8%, in a light turnout. Clark, as he put it himself, spent "zero dollars on television, zero dollars on radio and zero dollars on direct mail." He attacked Frist for the alleged Columbia/ HCA conflict and denounced pharmaceutical companies. Frist set up organizations in all 95 counties and ran ads stressing his achievements on education and health care and featuring testimonials from constituents. Frist won 65%-32%, with the highest number of votes cast for a candidate in Tennessee history. He lost only five of the 95 counties, including Al Gore's home in Smith County.
Frist, meanwhile, delivered the Republican response to Bill Clinton's State of the Union address in January 2000. In July 2000 he was named to replace the late Paul Coverdell as the liaison between George W. Bush's campaign and Republican senators. He worked on the Republican platform and spoke Thursday night at the Philadelphia convention. He was on an early list of possible vice presidential candidates. Tennessee Democrats and Republicans speculated that he was thinking of running for president some day. In December 2000 he was elected head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, with the assignment of bettering the party's total in a year when 20 Republican and 14 Democratic Senate seats are up.
Group Ratings
ADA ACLU AFS LCV CON ITIC NTU COC ACU NTLC CHC
2000 0 14 0 0 67 91 74 86 92 97 92
1999 0 -- 0 0 8 -- 73 100 92 -- --
National Journal Ratings
1999 LIB -- 1999 CONS 2000 LIB -- 2000 CONS
Economic 30% -- 68% 0% -- 86%
Social 36% -- 59% 30% -- 68%
Foreign 23% -- 67% 27% -- 67%
Key Votes of the 106th Congress
1. Educ. Savings Accts. Y
2. Prescrip. Drug Benefit N
3. Delay Ergonomic Standards Y
4. Phase Out Estate Tax Y
5. Review Movie Violence Y
6. Gun Show Bckgrnd. Checks N
7. Ban Part.-Birth Abortion Y
8. Broaden Hate Crimes List N
9. NATO War in Serbia N
10. Table Cuba Travel Ban Y
11. Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty N
12. Perm. Trade with China Y
Molech still needs appeasing...
In the Senate Nickles has been a stalwart for conservative principles--"the keeper of the conservative flame," as CongressDaily put it. He ascribes his views to his experience running a small business. ''I'm a strong proponent and believer in the free enterprise system. … I built up a business that was almost bankrupt. If I see government causing problems or doing things that interfere with personal freedom or economic freedom or religious freedom, I feel very strongly that we should get involved and try to change it.'' Without much notice outside Washington, he has risen to the number two position in the Republican leadership. He chaired the Republican Senate campaign committee during the 1990 cycle and, as an opponent of the 1990 budget summit tax increase, he beat the more senior Pete Domenici for Republican Conference chairman in December 1990 by 23-20. When Bob Dole resigned in June 1998, Nickles considered running for majority leader, but didn't challenge Trent Lott; both got their posts unopposed. After the November 1998 election, Nickles was urged to run against Lott, but decided not to. He said a race against Lott "would probably end one of our political careers."
There is nonetheless a tension between their approaches: Lott, though very conservative on substance, is temperamentally a deal-maker; Nickles, though personable and pleasant, is inclined to stand solid on his convictions. After the June 1997 tobacco settlement, Lott charged Nickles with putting together a tobacco bill, but he would not compromise with the tax increases sought by Orrin Hatch and Edward Kennedy. The assignment went to Commerce Chairman John McCain, whose bill Nickles opposed as ''one of the worst pieces of legislation I've ever seen.'' In summer 1998 he coordinated a three-week filibuster which killed the bill; his own proposal is for a $1 billion program to discourage teen smoking and drug use. On HMO regulation, Lott in 1997 made Nickles head of a health care task force. In summer 1998 Nickles came up with his own HMO bill with 49 co-sponsors, and Democrats did not bring up their bill after a version of it passed the House. When Democrats got 51 votes for the House bill in 2000, Nickles continued to resist action, and it did not come to the floor. Nickles has resisted increases in the minimum wage, even when leavened by tax relief for small business. "By raising the minimum wage, politicians would yank the ladder up too high for some people to get on in the first place." He had little enthusiasm for the community renewal bill which was a 2000 project of Bill Clinton and Dennis Hastert.
In his early years in the Senate Nickles backed the successful fights to deregulate oil and natural gas prices, to repeal the windfall profits tax, and to repeal the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit. He opposed the Clinton Btu and gasoline taxes in 1993, and in 1998 sponsored an electricity deregulation law which would prohibit the states from granting electric utilities exclusive service territories. He got the Senate to go on record 76-23 in 1993 against allowing HIV-positive immigrants into the country. In 1998 he held up the nomination of Jane Henney to head the FDA until HHS Secretary Donna Shalala agreed not to seek a manufacturer for RU-486 or finance more abortions under Medicaid or Kiddiecare. He takes sometimes lonely stands--against the confirmation of Ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke in 1999, against $15 billion in aid to farmers and against outlawing Section 527 campaign organizations in 2000. He opposed the Conservation and Reinvestment Act as a federal power grab and called AmeriCorps a "boondoggle," though Oklahoma's Republican Governor Frank Keating supports both. His move to require congressional approval of national monument designations--a power used by Bill Clinton during the 1996 campaign and in his last year in office--failed by a 50-49 vote in July 2000. He spoke out against tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in September 2000 and against giving Native Hawaiians the same status as American Indian tribes in October 2000.
On occasion Nickles has taken bipartisan initiatives. With Nevada's Harry Reid, he won Senate passage of a bipartisan regulatory reform bill in March 1995--a more realistic and effective version of the moratorium on new regulations in the House's Contract With America. Nickles was also the chief sponsor of the Republican $500-per-child tax credit included in the 1995 budget reconciliation bill vetoed by President Clinton, but passed in 1998. He sponsored the Religious Freedom Act, which passed unanimously in 1998, though without the automatic sanctions some sought. He helped to pass the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and to ratify the World Intellectual Property Organization. He and Mary Landrieu sponsored a 2000 law for automatic citizenship for foreign-born children adopted by Americans.
Nickles can be a tenacious fighter. He has long sought to bar the Cheyenne-Arapaho tribe from claiming ancestral land at Fort Reno which has been an USDA research station. This was the tribe that lobbied Bill Clinton in the White House after making a $100,000 contribution to the Democratic National Committee. In September 2000 Nickles passed an amendment blocking the land transfer, against the strong opposition of Daniel Inouye. Nickles has also worked hard to in effect repeal Oregon's 1994 assisted suicide law, by sponsoring what he calls the Pain Relief Promotion Act which would bar physicians from prescribing controlled substances for purposes of suicide. This passed the House in 1999, and Nickles worked to find a vehicle to bring it to the floor of the Senate. In the process he tangled with Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, as he attempted to stop a vote and Nickles put holds on other Oregon legislation.
For all his commitment to cutting spending, Nickles does work to bring projects to Oklahoma, including a $12 million veterans cemetery in Fort Sill (line-item vetoed by Clinton but revived in 2000), a $3 million weather station in Norman, $40 million for the Montgomery Point Lock and Dam on the McClellan-Kerr Navigation System and the $18 million anti-terrorism institute near the site of the 1995 federal building bombing in Oklahoma City. He is a big fan of Amtrak's Heartland Flyer that runs from Oklahoma City to Fort Worth, and in August 2000 sponsored a contest for high schoolers to design a symbol for the train.
Nickles has been very popular in Oklahoma. His one tough re-election came in 1986, when he faced Tulsa Congressman Jim Jones. But Jones's ad campaign misfired and Nickles showed greater strength than many in Washington expected, winning 55%-45% in a year several other Southern Republicans elected in 1980 lost. In 1992 Nickles won easily, 59%-38%. In 1998 he had no big-name opponents. The Democratic nomination was won by Tahlequah air-conditioning contractor Don Carroll when he defeated a woman who had died a week after filing for office. Nickles carried all but one county and won 66%-31%. Does he wish to stay in the Senate as long as Strom Thurmond? Nickles professed himself ''surprised I'm running for my fourth term'' and suggested he might retire from office after that. But he said, two years before George W. Bush was elected, the possibility of a Republican president could get him to stay on. No one doubts that he can be re-elected in 2004, and some see him as a successor to Trent Lott as Republican leader.
Group Ratings ADA ACLU AFS LCV CON ITIC NTU COC ACU NTLC CHC 2000 0 29 0 0 93 100 83 86 100 100 100 1999 0 -- 0 0 80 -- 83 88 96 -- -- National Journal Ratings 1999 LIB -- 1999 CONS 2000 LIB -- 2000 CONS Economic 0% -- 83% 27% -- 68% Social 13% -- 84% 20% -- 78% Foreign 6% -- 90% 5% -- 86% Key Votes of the 106th Congress 1. Educ. Savings Accts. Y 2. Prescrip. Drug Benefit N 3. Delay Ergonomic Standards Y 4. Phase Out Estate Tax Y 5. Review Movie Violence N 6. Gun Show Bckgrnd. Checks N 7. Ban Part.-Birth Abortion Y 8. Broaden Hate Crimes List N 9. NATO War in Serbia N 10. Table Cuba Travel Ban Y 11. Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty N 12. Perm. Trade with China Y
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