Parties Poised for Senate Switch

WASHINGTON -- When the Senate comes under Democratic control tomorrow, the new majority leader, Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, will make patients' rights and an increase in the minimum wage the top priorities, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

Congress is first expected to wrap up an overhaul of education policy, and then the leaders of both parties are trying to determine what else, if anything, will get done.

Left in the dust of the whirlwind Democratic capture of the Senate will be President Bush's energy initiative, his missile-defense proposals, and his wish for liberalized trade authority.

A question confronting leaders on both sides is whether the new Senate atmosphere lends itself to the kind of political compromises needed to rewrite health-care regulations or raise wages.

The moment for passing major bills is fleeting. After July, Congress will either be in a long summer recess or preoccupied with the spending bills that keep the government running. Republicans do not sound particularly accommodating, and some Democrats are counseling that rather than cut deals, Daschle should hold firm and highlight the differences between the parties.

Some conservatives believe Bush's agenda is a lost cause, for now. They say Republicans should work to block Democratic initiatives, offer uncompromising proposals that ignite the party's conservative base and hope that the 2002 elections reestablish GOP power.

"There's something liberating about being in the minority," Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, the soon-to-be-liberated Republican leader, said last week. "You're freer to advocate the positions and commitments that you really think should be adopted."

This week's extraordinary shift of power is the aftermath of Vermont Sen. James M. Jeffords' defection from the Republican Party. That left Republicans with only 49 members and Democrats with 50 and a friendly independent in Jeffords.

Many Democrats argue that with Republicans still in control of the White House and the House of Representatives, Democrats do not have a clear shot at victory on their issues. They say Daschle should simply push the most popular elements of the Democratic agenda, win or lose.

With Congress back in session tomorrow after a weeklong Memorial Day recess, the question for congressional leaders and for Bush is how much confrontation is too much for voters already weary of gridlock and grandstanding.

Bush ran for president on the promise that he was "a uniter, not a divider," an implicit vow to unite Washington and America behind his agenda.

"One scenario is we revert to politics of polarizing postures in which the parties claim issues rather than solve problems," said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic policy group. "The other possibility is that there is a serious attempt to work with the center to build broad coalitions."

Marshall cited Congress' overhaul of education policy. The legislation, which calls for annual testing and sets new school accountability standards, has been assembled in a bipartisan fashion and is not likely to be affected by the shift in the Senate.

Still, Lott complained last week that "the bill is not what it should be" and said Republicans would insist on giving local school districts greater control of how they spent federal money.

Daschle wants the Senate's next order of business to be a patients' bill of rights, legislation that would give people more control over their managed health-care plans.

More than 50 senators are lining up behind a bipartisan proposal that gives patients the right to sue their health-care plans in state and federal courts on claims of improper care.

Bush favors a bill with a more limited liability provision. Neither plan has enough support to ward off delaying tactics, such as filibusters, that require 60 votes to overcome.

That means Democrats will either seek a compromise that Bush can sign or stand their ground and use the issue during next year's congressional campaigns.

Bush will have to wait for the Senate to get around to his energy policy, which many Democrats oppose because it relaxes some environmental policies in favor of increased domestic energy production. Senate Democrats want to investigate why energy prices are rising and want the administration to call on foreign oil producers to increase production.

Bush's wish to have Congress liberalize his authority to cut trade deals, called the fast track, also will be put off, more than likely replaced by a Democratic effort to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $6.65 an hour by 2003.

A higher minimum wage could pass if Democrats let Republicans attach tax breaks for small businesses or, bigger yet, a reduction in capital-gains taxes. Organized labor, however, favors an uncluttered bill.

"We've had about all the tax cuts we can afford," said William Samuel, the legislative director for the AFL-CIO.