CALL YOUR SENATORS -- TELL THEM GOP WON THE ELECTION -- GOP COMMITTEE CHAIRMEN NEEDED ASAP

For those of you that may not know, the DemocRATs in control of the Senate Minority led by ms. clinton (don't be fooled by anyone -- she is calling the shots) have decided not to recognize the results of the last election and are maintaining Committee Chairmanship until the Republicans give them what they want.

The Memo below from Roll Call in October laid out their plans. What the DemocRATs did not expect was a Republican controlled Senate so now they are refusing to vote on a continuing resolution to keep the Government running and thus hand over control of the Senate Committees. It is to try and force Republicans to cave into their demands or Republicans will get no Committee Chairmanships. What they want is equal funding for Committees and 50/50 shared committees which is not an option.

Right now we have 11 newly elected Senators that do not have Committee assignments because of this DemocRAT Obstructionist tactic.

Call your DemocRAT Senators (you have my sympathy) and let them know as a taxpayer you will not tolerate this stunt of theirs to withhold Committee Chairmanships from Republicans. Remind them that there are 11 new Senators without Committees and you are holding them responsible for this attempt on the part of the DemocRATs to hijack the Senate!

If you have Republican Senators, call them and tell them to keep up the fight and that we are behind them 100%!

Please call your Senators now. If you would like their phone numbers, you can find them at:

October 31, 2002

Senate Faces Power Battle

'Knock-Down' Fight Likely on Organization

By Paul Kane

Regardless of how Election Day pans out, Senate leaders on both sides of the aisle are already digging in for an intense battle over how to organize the chamber next year. "It'll be a serious fight. It'll be a series of knock-down, drag-out talks that last a long, long time,"said one senior GOP leadership aide.

After starting the 107th Congress deadlocked at 50 seats apiece, a tie that was broken by a party switch midway through 2001, both sides are looking to establish themselves as the clear and completely legitimate majority party in the chamber.

That means that, internally, more than just majority status, chairmanships and job titles are at stake in Tuesday's elections.

So too are top patronage jobs given to the Majority Leader and the shape and size of staffs on the chamber's 20 committees.

Neither side particularly liked the resolutions that were struck, after two intense negotiations, over how to organize the Senate and its committees in the 107th Congress, establishing new rules and giving equal space and funding to the minority and majority parties. And both sides are looking to gain an edge in the coming talks over the new organizing resolution.

If they can pick up additional seats in the elections, Democrats expect to dispatch with their previous diplomacy when Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) gave them the majority in June 2001. A senior Democratic aide said that was an "extraordinary circumstance" that forced them to continue under an even funding deal for committees.

"If we pick up a seat or two, Ithink it's without a doubt we'd go back to two-thirds/one-third," the aide said, using the in-house phrase to describe normal funding levels that gave the majority up to 67 percent of committee money.

After the historic 2000 elections left the chamber tied at 50-50, the Senate's top leaders, Republican Trent Lott (Miss.) and Democrat Thomas Daschle (S.D.), negotiated an unprecedented organizing deal, Senate Resolution 8, commonly referred to S. Res. 8.

It established an equal number of Democrats and Republicans on each committee, dictated each side get equal space and funding, and allowed for Lott or Daschle to pull a deadlocked bill or nomination out of the committee and onto the floor.

Under normal circumstances, much of the funding split between majority and minority depends on separate negotiations between the chairman and ranking member, as demonstrated earlier this year by the Judiciary Committee. Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the panel's ranking member, announced plans to keep in place the 50-50 funding and space deals, other than some administrative costs that are accrued to the majority, regardless of how the elections turned out. No other committee has publicly announced such a deal.

After six years in the majority, Republican chairmen and other senior GOP Senators were furious with Lott, believing he had given away too much power to Democrats, who were still considered the minority by virtue of Vice President Cheney's tie-breaking vote.

The immediate impact of the deal was to leave GOP staffing levels the same and provide a boost to Democrats - to the tune of about $12 million worth of new salaries.

Republicans believed the historic structure was a failure, something they will vehemently oppose if the GOP is to gain one seat and re-establish a 50-50 Senate (counting Jeffords as a Democrat). "I hope we get a better deal than S. Res. 8," said one senior GOP committee staffer.

"There's a broad sentiment that S. Res. 8 was fairly unworkable," added a GOP leadership aide, who called the 50-50 deal "awkward at best."

Despite their conservative leanings on handling the national purse strings, Republicans are not concerned about the costs of the internal deal, meaning another 50-50 Senate wouldn't lead to the GOPpushing for a new funding formula that would slash Democratic committee jobs. Rather, Republicans appear most concerned about S. Res. 8's applications to how the chamber functioned.

It was never entirely clear how that deal was going to apply to conference committees between the House and Senate, whether the Senate would send an evenly divided number of Republicans and Democrats to each conference. Republicans considered that a recipe for complete gridlock, with the Senate side of the conference always stuck at a 50-50 split between Democrats and Republicans.

So their negotiating position for the 108th Congress, if there is once again a 50-50 Senate, is almost certain to begin with a demand for a GOPmajority on conference committees. Republicans are also likely to hold out for a different format for handling legislation in committees, either giving them a one-seat edge or just giving the GOPchairman authority to break any ties.

GOP Conference politics would also play a key role in the negotiations. Lott's lowest moments of power came after the S. Res. 8 deal and after Jeffords left the GOP fold. Throughout the past year, however, Lott has taken an increasingly combative approach to his dealings with Daschle and has been winning the respect of his colleagues in the process. He has beaten back a perceived challenge for the leader's post from outgoing Republican Whip Don Nickles (Okla.).

And Republicans also plan to seek a new deal on how to handle judicial nominations in the next Senate, with President Bush's proposal on Wednesday of a 180-day timeline from nomination to a full Senate vote serving as the blueprint.

One near-immediate impact of a GOP majority in the Senate would be turnover among the top patronage jobs, with Secretary of the Senate Jeri Thomson, Sergeant-at-Arms Alfonso Lenhardt and Parliamentarian Alan Frumin all likely looking for work as Lott searched for their successors.

If they do lose a seat, Democrats plan to fight for the full re-implementation of S. Res. 8, considering it a landmark deal for power-sharing in an evenly divided chamber.

Feeling confident with how the elections are shaping up, several senior Democratic aides began talking up the possibility last week of gaining seats and therefore garnering a much larger chunk of committee funding and space.

"That's the way it should be," one senior aide.

But Republicans are ready for that fight, saying they had been increasingly gracious to Democrats in the minority and that many committees didn't operate under the two-thirds funding rule for the majority.

"There is absolutely no way we will countenance or stand for that,"a GOP leadership aide said of Democratic hopes for a large shift in committee funds.

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