From the WSJ Opinion Archives
POTOMAC WATCH
Why Dems Miss Newt
Hastert wrestles the Bush agenda back to life.
Democrats who once quipped that they'd miss Newt Gingrich had no idea how right they were. Speaker Dennis Hastert has proven to be a tougher foe than they ever imagined.
That's the big story this week, as Mr. Hastert's Republican House majority piled up victories that weren't supposed to happen. It passed President Bush's energy plan more or less intact, including Alaskan oil and gas drilling. It also struck a deal on HMO regulation that (as this was being written) united Republicans and left Dick Gephardt sputtering.
Add those to a six-month list of House accomplishments that include the tax cut, a cloning ban, modest education reform, faith-based welfare, and the delicious demise of campaign-finance reform at the reformers' own hands. Not bad for a six-vote majority.
But that setback is dwarfed by the House victories, which repeat Mr. Bush's pattern of surprising everyone except himself. His tax cut was dead in the Senate until it passed with 12 Democratic votes. His energy plan was doomed until 36 House Democrats voted for it, including Houston superliberal Sheila Jackson-Lee. GOP "moderates" were supposed to be in open revolt until they somehow fell into line. (Someone pass Norm Ornstein a Valium.)
Mr. Bush may not inspire political fear the way LBJ or the Gipper did. But he does seem skilled in the art of centrist, and usually center-right, compromise. In this he shares credit with House leaders and especially Mr. Hastert, the rumpled, enormous speaker who doesn't approach members so much as engulf them.
The soft-spoken former wrestling coach's preferred lobbying method is the private clinch. He rarely visits the likes of NBC's "Meet the Press" and when he does he tries not to commit news. GOP members appreciate that they don't have to defend his every public statement.
With less time spent grandstanding, Mr. Hastert has more time for building coalitions. They include more than a few Democrats, not that the press ever reports it. He lost 15 Republicans on the usually partisan vote on the House "rule" for the cloning ban this week, but he won anyway by persuading 34 antiabortion Democrats. And he let Detroit's favorite Democrat, John Dingell, persuade 86 Democrats to help scuttle new auto-mileage standards.
To pass Alaska drilling, the speaker and GOP whip Tom DeLay let New Hampshire Rep. John Sununu offer an amendment limiting exploration to 2,000 acres, which is all the oil companies say they need anyway. But that vote made it easier for Northeast Republicans to oppose a Democratic amendment to ban all drilling. The GOP won both votes.
But the speaker devised a two-track, comeback strategy. First he and the White House kept negotiating with Mr. Norwood. But at the same time he united Republicans behind an alternative that had a chance to defeat the Norwood-Democratic bill. The speaker also advised Mr. Bush--with whom he talks as many as three times a day--to threaten a veto, which let Mr. Norwood know he'd have to bend if he wanted something to become law.
Karen Hughes and other White House aides opposed the veto threat. But it was clear this week that without it a deal never would have been struck. "We want to change the law. And the last time I looked, that's pretty difficult to do without the presidential signature," Mr. Norwood said, standing next to Mr. Bush at the White House.
The Bush-Norwood compromise is hardly ideal. Its new mandates will drive up health-care premiums and produce more uninsured. But it's also no longer a trial-lawyer bonanza. Damages are capped at $1.5 million, which may not be worth your average billionaire-lawyer's trouble. An independent review panel will also get to judge HMO decisions before a patient can sue. In short, the compromise won't loot the managed-care industry, which is what some Democrats want.
As for the politics, the Norwood compromise (if it passed last night) would leave Mr. Bush in a far stronger position. It'd guarantee a House-Senate conference, putting the ball in Majority Leader Tom Daschle's court.
Will he settle for the Norwood language and share a victory with Mr. Bush? Or will he kill the bill in conference so he can use the issue again in the 2002 elections? If he does the latter, Mr. Daschle will be the do-nothing obstructionist.
Democrats know this, which is why Mr. Gephardt was nearly shouting yesterday on the House floor: "In the name of God . . . vote against this bill." He'd have been better off starting a chant of "Bring back Newt!"
Mr. Gigot is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. His column appears Fridays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com.
