Even partisan lackeys have limits. Republicans in Congress may not be diligent in their oversight responsibilities, but they also haven’t completely given up their self-respect. They’ve been pushed around by the White House, they know it, and I think they’re getting a little tired of it.
When Bush’s approval rating was 70%, the GOP caucus in Congress was confident that they could ride the president’s coattails to prolonged success. If that meant letting Bush run roughshod over the legislative branch, so be it.
But now that Bush’s support is barely in the mid-40s and a second term is very much in doubt, Republicans are suddenly less anxious to follow White House orders.
I mentioned earlier that Sen. Grassley wants the GOP to take its congressional oversight role more seriously, but that’s the least of their problems. Consider, for example, that Speaker Hastert is now openly criticizing Bush and is getting applauded by other Republicans for doing so.
Republicans on the Hill are so frustrated with the White House that when Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) criticized the administration at a House GOP meeting last week, the caucus burst into applause.
The meeting was only the latest sign in an accumulating body of evidence that lawmakers are unhappy with the way the administration treats them.
[…]
A rank-and-file lawmaker said: “Hastert was frustrated and disappointed that he had not been dealt with openly and fairly and given accurate information. He was not so much speaking to the conference as he was speaking for the conference.”
It’s about time.
The contentious fight between Bush and the House over the federal transportation bill seems to have pushed the caucus past the tipping point, but it wasn’t the only thing.
A senior Republican House member said his colleagues frequently disparage the White House communications team, particularly on articulating its policy in Iraq.
He said there was frustration about a lack of White House effort in pushing the FSC/ETI bill, designed to replace corporate subsidies with tax breaks.
And in March, the Speaker told The Hill that the White House was doing a poor job selling its economic policies.
There are also widespread complaints among lawmakers that the administration’s message machine is out of sync. When, for example, the House passed a bill in March raising penalties for violence against pregnant woman, the White House diminished the political impact by trumping it with the announcement that it would support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, even though key House leaders were not on board.
Behind the scenes, the White House is making it clear that it is less concerned about grumbling among members of Congress than with winning hearts and minds beyond the Beltway. It believes that by this measure, the president’s support is solid.
That’s almost amusing. Forget Iraq; Bush is having trouble winning the “hearts and minds” of congressional Republicans?
What’s more, Hastert’s frustration was voiced before the administration decided to quietly kill a GOP homeland security proposal.
A high-ranking Bush administration official last month called for a coordinated effort from various government agencies to defeat a Republican bill on homeland security, according to a memo obtained by The Hill.
Thomas Quinn, director of the Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS), wrote the April 2 memo to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assistant secretary for U.S. immigration and customs enforcement one day after lawmakers introduced a bill that would allow more pilots to carry firearms in the cockpit.
This probably isn’t the kind of thing that will help smooth over the intra-party fissure. Stay tuned.