Washington Outlook
EDITED BY RICHARD S. DUNHAM
Election Reform Looks Like a Shoo-In
Election reform, long ago given up for dead, could well become the first major legislation approved by Congress in 2002. For most of 2001, it was caught up in partisan recriminations over dangling chads and bipartisan allegations of vote fraud. But the issue seems to have been resurrected by something that happens all too rarely in Washington: a compromise that makes both sides feel like they've won.
For Democrats, the cost of consensus was more than $2 billion in grants to states to buy modern election machinery and safeguards that allow voters to cast provisional ballots if their names were inadvertently left off the rolls. Republicans signed on in part because the legislation includes significant antifraud provisions. It will require new voters to show a photo ID before casting their first ballot and mandates statewide registration to lessen the chance of someone voting in more than one jurisdiction.
"When similar measures were adopted in Virginia, 100,000 deceased people and 20,000 felons were removed from the rolls," observes Representative Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), co-sponsor of the bipartisan House bill. If, as GOP strategists believe, most felons and dead people vote Democratic, the change will benefit the Republicans. "I have great respect for the dearly departed and for dogs--I just don't think they should vote," says Senate co-sponsor Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.).
The House overwhelmingly approved Ney's proposal in December, and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) promises that a similar measure will be near the top of the agenda when the Senate returns on Jan. 23. With few obstacles remaining, born-again election-reform convert George W. Bush is poised to sign it into law by spring.
Why the rapid turnaround? Chalk it up to a post-September 11 end to the debate over whether the now immensely popular President was legitimately elected. And a news media examination of Florida ballots, which concluded that Bush likely would have carried the state had the Supreme Court not stepped in, "took the pressure off the Republicans to keep this baby bottled up," says Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
But there are longer-term calculations at work as well. By agreeing to a compromise bill, Republicans can deflect Democratic charges that they are against accurate vote-counting. And Democrats are likely to benefit from the additional votes that may be tallied in heavily minority precincts. "When this is fully implemented, we're going to add 3 million to 5 million voters," predicts Representative Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), co-sponsor of the House bill. The reason for Hoyer's optimism: The most inaccurate voting systems are concentrated in primarily minority precincts in inner cities and rural areas. In Cook County, Ill., for example, uncounted punch-card ballots exceeded 5%.
A cadre of Democratic liberals and pro-reform purists complain that the changes don't go far enough. They are demanding federal standards for voting machinery, a ban on punch-card ballots, and far more money to help recession-ravaged states pay for new equipment.
But the incremental approach seems to have satisfied all but the harshest partisans. The Republicans have a reasonable guarantee that the last election won't become a big issue in the next. And Democrats have a crack at picking up some previously uncounted votes. "One reason this works," says former Representative Mickey Edwards (R-Okla.), now a lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, "is that nobody really loses." And in Washington, there's nothing quite so sweet as legislation that has something for almost everybody.
By Dan Carney
CAPITAL WRAPUP
Firing Back at Ashcroft
Attorney General John Ashcroft wants to give law enforcement every tool to combat terrorism--except, it seems, if it angers the National Rifle Assn. A gun-control group tied to Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) is airing ads protesting Ashcroft's decision to withhold gun-show records from the FBI. Americans for Gun Safety notes that a Hezbollah member in Michigan and a Texan with links to al Qaeda bought submachine guns, rifles, and handguns at shows this year. The FBI arrested both men on tips after September 11.
CAPITAL WRAPUP
Chief of What?
The President's Chief of Staff wields enormous power, but the job may not be much of a political springboard. Charlotte (N.C.) venture capitalist Erskine Bowles, a much-admired staff boss in the Clinton White House, lags far behind Republican Elizabeth Dole in the race to succeed Senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.). An Elon University poll gives Dole a 60% to 13% lead. And Bush's Staff Chief, Andrew Card, trails former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich in a hypothetical match-up for Massachusetts governor, according to a Boston Herald poll. Card says he's not running. Smart decision.
CAPITAL WRAPUP
Holiday Goodies
The Bush Administration gave business two gifts in the final weeks of 2001. It rolled back one of Bill Clinton's last-minute regs, requiring federal agencies to prove that their private contractors comply with environmental, labor, and other laws. It's also set to publish more business-friendly ergonomics rules.
|
Copyright 2002 , by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
Printer-Friendly Version
