Anatomy of a Sell-Out

by Stephen Moore

Fiscal conservatives are still smarting over the narrow passage of the new half-trillion dollar Medicare prescription drug benefit package, the biggest new entitlement program in 40 years. But conservates may be even more infuriated when they learn the sordid details of just how the White House and Republican establishment pulled off this victory. At the same time, there were many conservative heroes in this fight who withstood intense pressure from their own party to vote for principle over politics.

The bill passed by just two votes in the House in an historic vote that started at 2:00 a.m. on Saturday morning and ended at just after 5:00 a.m. This was the longest that the House has ever been held open for a vote—in its 200 year history. During the days before the vote we at the Club office alerted every House Republican that we opposed the bill because of its enormous cost and because we believe it is a giant leap toward Hillary-health care. We released a poll showing that most seniors are satisfied with their existing prescription drug insurance coverage and that seniors oppose the bill when they learn of the details. We called all the Club members in the House, in some cases repeatedly, to remind them of our opposition and to urge them to hold firm and vote no.

Two lieutenants quickly emerged to lead the conservative revolt against the bill: Pat Toomey and Mike Pence. Both of them are Club members, of course. Mike was all over the news eloquently dismantling this bill, arguing that he could never in good conscience look his children in the eyes and tell them that he had voted for a $1 trillion entitlement program that they would have to some day pay for. Sitting in the Oval Office of the White House, he told George Bush: “With all due respect, Mr. President, I didn’t come to this town to create new entitlements, but to rein in the ones we already have.” President Bush said neither did he.

The day of the vote it became clear to Toomey and Pence that there were 30 Republicans who were solid no votes, or people leaning toward a no vote. One of the people who was a hard no vote from the very beginning was Tom Feeney of Florida. Tom is the freshman class representative to the House leadership, a position that goes to the newcomer who the Speaker wants to groom for a leadership position. Feeney was told that his stubborn no vote would set him back 3 years in his bid to climb the House ladder. He would be relegated to a position of a back bencher. They put their arms around him and shook their heads and told him how disappointed they were in him. “Why jeopardize your career, Tom, over this one little vote?” they all insisted. Feeney never wavered. He too told the President that he could not in good conscience vote for an expansion in the welfare state. Of all the no votes, Tom probably had the most to lose.

The night of the vote Pat Toomey hosted a dinner at the Hunan Restaurant on Capitol Hill for the 30 Republicans who were against the bill. The message was: stick together. Toomey and Pence had devised a fall back plan outlined in the Wall Street Journal editorial page the day before to vote down the Medicare bill then come back to the President with a much scaled back plan that would 1) cover only those seniors who don’t have existing prescription drug insurance and 2) retain the health savings accounts (the one redeeming feature of the bill). This was exactly what we at the Club office and the Wall Street Journal urged as a sensible alternative that would cost only 1/3rd of what the conference report cost. The plan of action was for these conservatives to go to the floor, record their no votes immediately, to signal to the Democrats that there were enough Republican votes to kill the bill. It almost worked.

In the first 10 minutes of the vote there were 16 Republican no votes recorded. The Democrats, who did not want to hand Bush a “victory” on this issue, voted no en masse, with the exception of about a dozen, who waited on the sidelines to see what would happen on the Republican side of the aisle. After an hour the Republicans were stuck at roughly 210 votes. Now the intense lobbying pressure began. Members were promised pork barrel projects. They were threatened with primary challengers. The president, who had just returned from Britain, was woken up at 4:00 in the morning to make phone calls. This is when things started to get very ugly. The Republican leadership started calling the big donors of Republican members urging them to vote for the bill if they ever wanted another dollar of contributions. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who is a House member running for the Senate, got angry calls from several dozen major contributors saying that he would lose his Senate bid if he did not vote yes. Demint told his chief of staff that this vote might end my Senate candidacy, but then went to the floor and voted no. That is true grit.

Todd Aiken of Missouri got a call from a state legislator, no doubt at the urging of the White House, threatening to run a primary challenge against him if he voted no. I talked to Todd several times during the day urging him not to buckle. Aiken withstood intense pressure from his colleagues all night long and looked like he had come out of a torture chamber by 5:00 a.m. But he held firm and voted no.

But nothing compares to the disgusting behavior of the Republican leadership toward Michigan’s Nick Smith. Smith is retiring from the House and his son is running in a crowded field to succeed him. The leadership first was offered unbelievable enticements to change his vote to a yes. First they said that the leadership would take the unusual step of endorsing his son Brad in the tight primary race. Smith said no deal. Then they promised to raise $100,000 for Brad Smith if he voted yes. He still said no. Then several Republican leaders threatened that if he didn’t change his vote they would raise money for his son’s opponents. At this point, Nick Smith called his son and asked him what he should do. Brad Smith heroically told his dad to vote his conscience and don’t worry about the House race. Smith stuck with his no vote. Several infuriated Republicans in the House were still fuming after the vote and taunted Nick Smith with threats that “we will make sure your son never wins this seat.” Ugly stuff.

Another hero was Scott Garrett, who of course replaced the RINO Marge Roukema. Garrett was lambasted by the leadership for the political suicide that he was committing by voting no. But when I asked him a few hours before the vote what he was going to do, he said “I am for freedom.” And he was the only Republican in the entire northeast to vote no.

By 4:00 a.m. in the morning many members were starting to suffer from sleep deprivation (was this an intentionally ploy to break down their will to resist?). The Drug Bill was stuck at a vote of 216-218. The vote count on the board had not moved in nearly an hour. Incredibly, the bill was going down to defeat. According to the Washington Post, on several occasions House Majority Leader Tom Delay was ready to throw in the towel and end the vote. Each time he was urged by the White House to hold off a little longer.

Then the White House and the Whip team tried one more desperation tactic. They went to 2 western state members, Trent Franks and Burch Otter and told them that if they didn’t change their votes, the president would immediately instruct the House leadership to pass the Democratic version of the bill—which was infinitely worse than even this bill. These two were told that they were the only ones standing between passage of a horrible Medicare drug bill. I’m convinced the White House was bluffing and this was simply another scheme to peal off votes. We’ll never know. Because Franks and Otter changed to yes votes at 5:00 a.m. after getting calls from the president and the bill passed 220-215. Poor Trent Franks looked like he was white as a ghost when he walked off the House floor. Trent is terrific guy and I truly believe that he simply allowed himself to get snookered. I have talked to him several times since the vote (he called me at 8:00 that Saturday morning to tell me what had happened). He seemed whipped and I have no doubt his conscience is gnawing away at him—and will do so for a long time. I feel actually more sorry for Trent Franks than anyone else in this whole unseemly escapade.

"I went to the Citadel and so I have lived through the hazing process," says Gresham Barrett, another no vote. "But the barrage of attackes we absorbed from our own colleagues through during those three hours was much worse."

I really believe that if we could have won this vote against the most powerfulwhip operation in the history of House and a popular Republican president, it would have been a shot across the bow at the Republican establishment that conservatives are sick of the spending splurge that is going on inside Washington these last few years. The budget has grown by 27% in two years a faster rate of growth in the budget than at anytime since LBJ’s presidency. Republican leaders in the White House and the Congress seem entirely unconcerned about the orgy of spending and debt. They are in denial. A deserved defeat of this bill would have dropped an ice cold bucket of water on their heads and helped them snap out of it. So close!

I’m convinced this is a phyric victory for the Republican party bosses. The bill could blow up in the Republicans’ laps when seniors see the details of the carved up turkey they’ve just been served. Worse, the bill threatens to further demoralize fiscal conservative voters who are infuriated by the GOP’s massive expansion of government. I know I’m demoralized. As Mike Pence told me last week, “We Republicans seem to have forgotten who we are and why voters sent us here.”

We now have two big government parties in Washington. And we only have 25 Republicans in the House and 4 in the Senate who are trying to pull the Republicans in an anti-big government direction. Time for us to start adding to these numbers. Probably the best way to start is to get Pat Toomey elected to the Senate in 2004.