Democrats Try Compromise on Domestic Security Bill

Senate Democrats struggled furiously today to reach a compromise on worker rights in an effort to get the stalled homeland security bill moving again.

With Republican demands for immediate action growing louder, several moderate Democrats gathered behind a proposal that would allow a president to deny workers in the proposed Homeland Security Department collective bargaining rights in the event of a national security emergency. It would, however, allow the workers the right to appeal to the Federal Labor Relations Authority.

Democrats want to curtail that power for the huge new security department, fearing that President Bush would use national security as a rationale to end union protections for thousands of workers, as he did with several hundred Justice Department workers earlier this year.

The issue, along with the White House desire to reduce job security protections in the department, is the principal divide between Congressional Democrats and Republicans on the bill.

The department has also been stalled because of a virtual filibuster by Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, who believes the administration is moving too quickly in proposing the largest reorganization of the federal government since World War II.

Senator John B. Breaux, Democrat of Louisiana, said he hoped to persuade Mr. Bush at a White House meeting on Wednesday to accept the compromise because two of the three labor authority members are appointed by the president, and because the burden of proof in battling a presidential order would be on the employee.

Republicans said the White House would not accept the plan because it diluted the president's current unconditional right to remove the union status of federal employees, a power that Mr. Bush says could be vital to combating terrorism.

Senate vote counters said each side of the worker rights debate appeared to have 50 votes, creating a possible tie that would allow Vice President Dick Cheney to provide a majority for the Republicans. (Senator Zell Miller, Democrat of Georgia, has sided with the administration, as he often does.) But Mr. Breaux said he believed his proposal would win the support of Senator Lincoln D. Chafee, a Republican moderate from Rhode Island, and possibly other Republicans in tight races in states where labor votes are important.

While the issue is being resolved, Republicans are seizing on the delay to paint the Democrats as more interested in union rights than domestic security.

"I fear that the Senate Democrats are fiddling while Rome has a potential to burn," said Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, the minority leader. "I believe that every day that passes that we're not doing the best possible job in protecting homeland security is another day that we've taken an unnecessary risk."

Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said the Senate had become "dysfunctional," and Senator Robert F. Bennett, Republican of Utah, accused the Democrats of leaving tens of thousands of federal workers in limbo while the discussion dragged on.

But Democrats pointed out that for all the supposed urgency cited by Republicans, the White House had not put forward any compromise proposals of its own to get the bill moving. Today, in fact, President Bush repeated his threat to veto any bill that does not include the personnel flexibility he has demanded.

"In the United States Senate, they're more interested in Washington special interests than they are in the interest of protecting the American people," Mr. Bush said while campaigning for Lamar Alexander in the Tennessee Senate race. "I will not accept a lousy bill that makes it impossible for the president, this president or future presidents, to do what the American people expect, and that's to protect the homeland."

There was one small sign of progress on the bill today, as Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, dropped a proposal to create an Office of Combating Terrorism in the White House in the face of opposition from a majority of his colleagues. But Democrats said they did not believe they could accept a proposal by Mr. Miller and Senator Phil Gramm, Republican of Texas, that would add only minor restrictions to the president's proposal.

"Show me one time in history when the circumstances threatening our country demanded that we forego the protections built into the law for federal workers," said Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the majority leader. "There isn't one. And the president needs to understand that and needs to appreciate the strength of feeling that I think the American people have on this issue."

The security bill is only one of several being held up by partisan bickering; most of the government's required spending bills are, too.

Today, showing that they could also prolong delays, Republicans refused to cut off debate on an Interior Department spending bill, in order to continue discussing national forest policy. As a result, a popular measure to provide $825 million in emergency aid to fighting wildfires will probably be held up for several more days or weeks.

Having unions involved in Homeland Security is beyond my comprehension. I am sick and tired of DemocRATs and their union partners holding up this bill so that the workers in Homeland Security have union rights. This Agency is too important to allow the union people to have any say! If a Federal employee doesn't want to work for Homeland Security because of the non-union clause for workers, then let him go elsewhere.

IMHO, no public service employee should be a union member! What benefit are the unions in the public sector except to protect incompetent employees from getting fired!

Time for every State in the Union to pass Right to Work which is the only thing that will take the teeth out of unions and money out of their pockets to support RAT candidates.

During the Clinton/Gore years, they larded the Federal departments with unqualified workers, most of them minorities who continue to muck up the works because they can't be fired! They all vote for democrats.

""I will not accept a lousy bill that makes it impossible for the president, this president or future presidents, to do what the American people expect, and that's to protect the homeland."...and that should mean a President can fire those who are incompetent, fail to do their jobs or are just plain unfit for federal work. Washington and cities around the country are full of these democratic appointees and hires.

E-mail the White House and encourage President Bush to stick to his guns on this issue. There is a Bureaucratic Army in Washington, D.C. that is marching all over the citizens of this country with the present rules and regulations governing their jobs. Help the President and future presidents get rid of the dead weight.

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