WASHINGTON (By Billy House, Republic Washington Bureau)
January 2, 2004 - Congress convenes here Tuesday for its new two-year
session with immigration, Social Security reform and possible upcoming
Supreme Court vacancies among top priorities, all hot-button issues in which
Arizonans are expected to play prominent roles.
Much of the congressional activity, though, won't kick into high gear until after two big speeches by President Bush in which he is expected to lay out his priorities for the new Congress: his inauguration speech on Jan. 20 and his State of the Union address days later, on Feb. 2.
And squeezed between those two addresses is the Jan. 30 election in Iraq, another event that could have profound impact on lawmakers and an American public at a time, surveys show, Bush is facing slumping approval ratings and growing discontent over the war in Iraq.
Bush's performances on those two speeches, and the Iraqi vote outcome, could determine if he'll regain enough momentum from his Nov. 2 election victory to push through Congress his more ambitious and controversial priorities, including giving temporary legal status to millions of undocumented workers and overhauling Social Security.
Some analysts suggest that Bush will have to expend any political capital he has quickly because second-term, lame-duck presidents often lose influence as their term advances.
"There is a window for him to cash in his political capital, and it is open to debate as to whether it is anywhere from about six months to about a year," said Michael Franc, a former congressional aide who is now vice president of government relations at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "As you get closer to the next (two-year) election cycle, members of Congress find it increasingly difficult to dispense with major legislation."
Even before the new congressional session's official start this week, the senator had been speaking to Bush and other lawmakers, including Democrat Sen. Edward Kennedy, on how to proceed with a bipartisan approach on immigration changes.
"We have to have a comprehensive approach . . . and I hope that will be a top priority," McCain said of the upcoming session from the Senate floor in early December.
But while some lawmakers want to ease immigration restrictions or, like President Bush, want to at least permit some undocumented migrants the ability to remain in the country as part of a guest worker plan, immigrant advocates say they won't be satisfied unless any reform includes a way to earn permanent legal status for the estimated 8 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants working in this country illegally.
Meanwhile, many of the Republicans who control both houses of Congress and others are just as adamant about tightening border security and limiting these immigrants' access to such things as driver's licenses, efforts they say they'll begin almost immediately in the new session.
One lawmaker, Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., said last week in an interview that one of the first five bills he plans to introduce on the opening day of the new session will be a resolution of disapproval of a "totalization" agreement signed June 29.
That agreement will allow Mexican workers who have divided their working lives between the United States and Mexico to be eligible for partial U.S. or Mexican retirement benefits, based on combined credits from both countries. In September, the House defeated 178-225 a Hayworth amendment that would have blocked the payments of Social Security benefits to the millions of possibly eligible undocumented Mexican immigrants who work in the United States.
But Hayworth, a member of the tax-code-writing House Ways and Means Committee, says he will continue to press his opposition. He insists this is not an immigration issue. Rather, he says this is a Social Security solvency issue.
The Social Security Administration says that by 2018, the amount of money going out of the system will be greater than the amount coming in.
But Social Security reform, like immigration reform, is an issue in which a bipartisan solution may be hard to find.
Lawmakers contemplating changes are debating over how much money, if any, workers should be allowed to invest in the stock market, and others are arguing over how to pay for such a transition: by borrowing money or raising taxes?
The president, countering concern from those who question whether such a change is needed, has already laid out some parameters for an investment account approach, including that any such plan would include reasonable guidelines about where investments could be made, and people would be barred from socking money away in a "frivolous fashion." But many Democrats and others are skeptical about allowing people to take money out of the system and put it into Wall Street, and argue that raising taxes or the retirement ages is a better approach to keep the system solvent.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan has cited Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., along with Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Fla., as lawmakers the president wants to work with in developing a bipartisan Social Security account approach.
According to Kolbe's office, the two lawmakers plan this session to introduce a bill to require workers to redirect 3 percent of the first $10,000 of earnings and 2 percent of their remaining Social Security taxable earnings into retirement accounts, with federal matching funds for low-income workers. The personal account part of the program would be open to workers under 55.
"The key is that it does require presidential leadership. Without presidential leadership, you really can't achieve the kind of reform we're talking about," said Kolbe at an early December news conference at the U.S. Capitol.
But House Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., in a national radio address Saturday, emphasized that, "Democrats are resolved to protect Social Security, and we will continue to do so.
"To jeopardize the solvency of this resoundingly successful program by gambling Social Security benefits on the stock market is a risk that President Bush and this Congress should resolve to avoid," Clyburn said.
Even if Kyl is not a serious candidate for the high court, his role as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel that considers presidential judicial appointments, will place him in the thick of what may be some of the most contentious early congressional battles this session.
Two days before Christmas, Bush said he would try again to win Senate approval of 20 nominees for lower federal court judgeships, some of which had been blocked by Democrats.
But speculation about potential Supreme Court openings also has increased with the news that Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80, has thyroid cancer and is undergoing radiation treatment and chemotherapy, and the belief that his and possibly other retirements from the court may soon occur, possibly as early as this year.
Three other justices also are seen as possibly retiring soon: Sandra Day O'Connor, 74; John Paul Stevens, 84, and, to a lesser degree, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 71. O'Connor, though, also is speculated as a possible successor to Rehnquist as chief justice. When and if any of these retirements occur, Bush for the first time will get to pick nominees for the high court, and his selections could have a profound impact on American law for a generation or longer.
Franc, of the Heritage Foundation, said there may be some Democratic "pyrotechnics" over a Bush nominee to succeed the conservative Rehnquist. But he said a Rehnquist replacement will not upset the current delicate balance on the court. The real congressional "holy war" will come, he said, if either the more liberal Ginsberg or Stevens steps down. And if that happens this session, Franc said the battle could become so distracting that Congress might get little else done.
The talk regarding Kyl suggests that he likely would not be a choice to fill a vacancy left by Rehnquist, when a conservative is more likely to be selected to replace an outgoing conservative and not upsetting the court's current balance. Some say J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals is seen as the favorite for that nomination.
But if some other opening should occur, some speculate Bush could seek to short-circuit the tough Democratic opposition by nominating a senator, on the belief he would gain more collegial treatment from his colleagues.
Much of the congressional activity, though, won't kick into high gear until after two big speeches by President Bush in which he is expected to lay out his priorities for the new Congress: his inauguration speech on Jan. 20 and his State of the Union address days later, on Feb. 2.
And squeezed between those two addresses is the Jan. 30 election in Iraq, another event that could have profound impact on lawmakers and an American public at a time, surveys show, Bush is facing slumping approval ratings and growing discontent over the war in Iraq.
Bush's performances on those two speeches, and the Iraqi vote outcome, could determine if he'll regain enough momentum from his Nov. 2 election victory to push through Congress his more ambitious and controversial priorities, including giving temporary legal status to millions of undocumented workers and overhauling Social Security.
Some analysts suggest that Bush will have to expend any political capital he has quickly because second-term, lame-duck presidents often lose influence as their term advances.
"There is a window for him to cash in his political capital, and it is open to debate as to whether it is anywhere from about six months to about a year," said Michael Franc, a former congressional aide who is now vice president of government relations at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "As you get closer to the next (two-year) election cycle, members of Congress find it increasingly difficult to dispense with major legislation."
Immigration reform
Arizona's Sen. John McCain, a Republican and a vocal proponent of comprehensive immigration reform, has not been waiting around to get to work.Even before the new congressional session's official start this week, the senator had been speaking to Bush and other lawmakers, including Democrat Sen. Edward Kennedy, on how to proceed with a bipartisan approach on immigration changes.
"We have to have a comprehensive approach . . . and I hope that will be a top priority," McCain said of the upcoming session from the Senate floor in early December.
But while some lawmakers want to ease immigration restrictions or, like President Bush, want to at least permit some undocumented migrants the ability to remain in the country as part of a guest worker plan, immigrant advocates say they won't be satisfied unless any reform includes a way to earn permanent legal status for the estimated 8 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants working in this country illegally.
Meanwhile, many of the Republicans who control both houses of Congress and others are just as adamant about tightening border security and limiting these immigrants' access to such things as driver's licenses, efforts they say they'll begin almost immediately in the new session.
One lawmaker, Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., said last week in an interview that one of the first five bills he plans to introduce on the opening day of the new session will be a resolution of disapproval of a "totalization" agreement signed June 29.
That agreement will allow Mexican workers who have divided their working lives between the United States and Mexico to be eligible for partial U.S. or Mexican retirement benefits, based on combined credits from both countries. In September, the House defeated 178-225 a Hayworth amendment that would have blocked the payments of Social Security benefits to the millions of possibly eligible undocumented Mexican immigrants who work in the United States.
But Hayworth, a member of the tax-code-writing House Ways and Means Committee, says he will continue to press his opposition. He insists this is not an immigration issue. Rather, he says this is a Social Security solvency issue.
Social Security revamp
Fixing the 69-year-old retirement system before it goes bankrupt has also been identified by the president and Senate and House leaders as a priority in the new session. In fact, another Bush goal - wholesale changes to the tax code - is being pushed back for at least another year because of the attention the administration wants to give to Social Security.The Social Security Administration says that by 2018, the amount of money going out of the system will be greater than the amount coming in.
But Social Security reform, like immigration reform, is an issue in which a bipartisan solution may be hard to find.
Lawmakers contemplating changes are debating over how much money, if any, workers should be allowed to invest in the stock market, and others are arguing over how to pay for such a transition: by borrowing money or raising taxes?
The president, countering concern from those who question whether such a change is needed, has already laid out some parameters for an investment account approach, including that any such plan would include reasonable guidelines about where investments could be made, and people would be barred from socking money away in a "frivolous fashion." But many Democrats and others are skeptical about allowing people to take money out of the system and put it into Wall Street, and argue that raising taxes or the retirement ages is a better approach to keep the system solvent.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan has cited Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., along with Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Fla., as lawmakers the president wants to work with in developing a bipartisan Social Security account approach.
According to Kolbe's office, the two lawmakers plan this session to introduce a bill to require workers to redirect 3 percent of the first $10,000 of earnings and 2 percent of their remaining Social Security taxable earnings into retirement accounts, with federal matching funds for low-income workers. The personal account part of the program would be open to workers under 55.
"The key is that it does require presidential leadership. Without presidential leadership, you really can't achieve the kind of reform we're talking about," said Kolbe at an early December news conference at the U.S. Capitol.
But House Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., in a national radio address Saturday, emphasized that, "Democrats are resolved to protect Social Security, and we will continue to do so.
"To jeopardize the solvency of this resoundingly successful program by gambling Social Security benefits on the stock market is a risk that President Bush and this Congress should resolve to avoid," Clyburn said.
Warring over judges
Meanwhile, Arizona GOP Sen. Jon Kyl's name is again emerging on various short lists over who might be potential conservative nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court.Even if Kyl is not a serious candidate for the high court, his role as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel that considers presidential judicial appointments, will place him in the thick of what may be some of the most contentious early congressional battles this session.
Two days before Christmas, Bush said he would try again to win Senate approval of 20 nominees for lower federal court judgeships, some of which had been blocked by Democrats.
But speculation about potential Supreme Court openings also has increased with the news that Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80, has thyroid cancer and is undergoing radiation treatment and chemotherapy, and the belief that his and possibly other retirements from the court may soon occur, possibly as early as this year.
Three other justices also are seen as possibly retiring soon: Sandra Day O'Connor, 74; John Paul Stevens, 84, and, to a lesser degree, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 71. O'Connor, though, also is speculated as a possible successor to Rehnquist as chief justice. When and if any of these retirements occur, Bush for the first time will get to pick nominees for the high court, and his selections could have a profound impact on American law for a generation or longer.
Franc, of the Heritage Foundation, said there may be some Democratic "pyrotechnics" over a Bush nominee to succeed the conservative Rehnquist. But he said a Rehnquist replacement will not upset the current delicate balance on the court. The real congressional "holy war" will come, he said, if either the more liberal Ginsberg or Stevens steps down. And if that happens this session, Franc said the battle could become so distracting that Congress might get little else done.
The talk regarding Kyl suggests that he likely would not be a choice to fill a vacancy left by Rehnquist, when a conservative is more likely to be selected to replace an outgoing conservative and not upsetting the court's current balance. Some say J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals is seen as the favorite for that nomination.
But if some other opening should occur, some speculate Bush could seek to short-circuit the tough Democratic opposition by nominating a senator, on the belief he would gain more collegial treatment from his colleagues.
