The past few days, in the wake of Sen. Russ Feingold introducing his censure resolution, we’ve all seen (and probably felt) some frustration. Here’s a Dem sticking his neck out to take on the president, on an issue in which the White House is quite clearly wrong, and the party is no where in sight. Worse, in many instances, Feingold’s Dem colleagues are literally running from the issue.
What’s going on? Is Feingold right when he says Dems are “cowering” in fear of the White House and prefer to “run and hide”? I thought I’d try and get the other side of the other story.
I’m not in DC anymore, but I still know some people who work on the Hill. Over the last 24 hours, I’ve asked several of them for some insights into what Dem offices think of the censure resolution and why so few have joined Feingold on this. There were five principal responses, which turned out to be more compelling than I expected.
First, a lot of Dems were bothered by the fact that Feingold took the party off-message. The DP World controversy was still reverberating, and congressional Dems had hoped to keep the momentum going this week with a vote on the “Sail Only if Scanned (S.O.S.) Act,” which requires more effective scanning techniques be implemented at our ports, and a bill that would expanding government scrutiny of foreign investments. Instead, both of these are getting less attention because of interest in Feingold’s resolution.
Second, there’s a sense that Feingold helped bring Republicans together. As of last week, the GOP’s fissures were showing and all the talk was about Republicans on the Hill exerting independence from the White House. Now, Feingold’s resolution has pushed the GOP back together again and Republicans are back on the offensive. Some Dems think the censure resolution basically helped the GOP get off the ropes.
Third, there was not even a hint of party strategy on this. The past couple of years, there’s been an effort to try and have Dems coordinate more on major political and policy initiatives. Coordinating Dems is like herding cats, but there’s been some progress of late. Feingold, however, decided to go his own way; he announced his resolution without even letting his colleagues know it was coming and with no real regard for what it would do for the party’s short-term agenda. Some see this as a slap in the face — if Feingold wanted party support, they said, he should have worked within the party. Instead, Feingold took the lead, and no one followed.
Fourth, Dems saw that Bush was starting another series of Iraq speeches, and the party was ready to pivot from ports to the war. Roll Call noted today that Dems want to “play offense on Iraq.” Yesterday, however, whenever a Dem senator tried to talk about the war, reporters just asked about Feingold.
And fifth, one Senate staffer in particular said if Feingold wanted to push warrantless searches again, there were (and are) effective alternatives to a censure resolution. The staffer told me:
“Rather than just rush to a vote, which would be stupid, we want to get Specter to hold a hearing on it in Judiciary where it has been referred. Imagine a hearing with a panel of experts discussing whether Bush’s behavior deserves censure. Wouldn’t that be much better as a first step then a rushed vote in which we lose and R’s declare victory and say we were silly?”
Just to be clear, I support Feingold’s resolution. On the substance, I’d like to see senators vote for it. But after talking with some Hill staffers, I’m a little less ready to embrace the Dems-cravenly-abandon-Feingold idea than I was before.