Democratic unity starts to show cracks

Democrats head into 2009 with sky-high expectations but
points of intra-party friction are already starting to show a month before President-elect
Obama’s inauguration, forecasting bigger fights next year.

Veteran Democrats say the party has become more split
along parochial interests since Democrats last controlled majorities as large
as they will in the 111^th Congress.

{mosads}They say the growth of their majorities in Congress,
which has ushered in a new cadre of lawmakers from conservative-leaning states and
those with new views on old policy problems, has only made the Democratic
caucuses less governable.

“Because the Democratic caucus is itself diverse,
reflecting many different points of view, it will be a challenge for the
leadership to keep that coalition of interests together on the priorities
established,” said former Democratic Sen. Richard Bryan (Nev.). “That will be a
big challenge.”

“To the extent our majorities have increased it’s a more
difficult challenge,” he added. “But I’m not saying it can’t be done.”

Over the next year and beyond Democratic leaders will
have to referee strong disagreements within their party over the budget,
immigration, trade and energy production, not to mention an array of smaller
disputes that few foresee today.

The recent flap over evangelical minister Rick Warren,
whom Obama tapped to deliver his inaugural invocation to the angry dismay of
gay and liberal activists, has reminded Democrats of the potential vehemence of
factions within their party.

Some activists also gripe that Obama has not appointed
enough prominent liberals to his cabinet and inner circle of advisers.

Centrists are already defending the president from
left-wing criticism.

“I consider myself a moderate and I think Barrack Obama
is going to be president of the American people and not just president of the
Democratic Party,” said Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.). “My Democratic colleagues
who might say that Obama is not doing what he should do as a Democrat, they’re
dead wrong, he is doing it and he will do it.

“I don’t think this is the time that American people want
radical shifts,” he added.

President Bush’s departure from office, while celebrated
by many Democrats around the country, is a mixed blessing for strategists who
used him to galvanize activists.

Even among leaders there are signs of some tension. Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
have thrown brush-back pitches at the incoming administration to make clear
that Obama and his advisers should not expect Congress to do the White House’s
bidding automatically.

Reid has said Vice President-elect Biden will not be
allowed to attend the weekly Senate Democratic lunch except on a few occasions,
a striking contrast to the open door invitation Republicans extended to Vice
President Cheney over the past eight years.

Pelosi meanwhile has told White House chief of staff Rahm
Emanuel in no uncertain terms that he should not expect the free rein to meet
with House lawmakers that he once enjoyed as Democratic caucus chairman. Pelosi
has told the administration that it must deal with her before trying to
negotiate deals with rank-and-file members.

Reid and Pelosi’s actions reflect the determination of
many Democrats in Congress not to be condescended to. And while many lawmakers
are excited about Obama’s incoming administration, they are fed up with the
steady erosion of power from Congress to the White House that that became a
conspicuous feature of the Bush years.

“What we complain about is: ‘You don’t give up
legislative power to any executive,’” said Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks
(N.Y.). “I don’t think we should give up any legislative party just because the
president is of the same party. We should stand up for our power. There are two
separate branches of power. You don’t give up the power and you don’t let them
take you for granted.”

It remains an open question whether Obama will relinquish
the power that accrued to the presidency under Bush, who pushed the limits of
his authority with signing statements, warrantless surveillance, the
establishment of military tribunals and by often invoking executive privilege
to shield advisors from Congress.

Cheney, during a recent media appearance, predicted that
the “Obama administration is not likely to cede that authority back to the
Congress.”

“I think they’ll find that given a challenge they face
they’ll need all the authority they can muster,” he stated.

Obama’s advisors may also become impatient with what may
seem at times like an army of Lilliputians in Congress attempting to tie
strings to his ambitious change agenda.

Reid and Pelosi have forged leadership styles of
consensus-building and while frequent hash sessions may lessen the chances of intra-party
blowups, they are time consuming.

For example, House Democrats spent months after winning
control of Congress in 2006 forging a position on how to wind down the war in
Iraq. While the party’s position on the war seems established, next year’s
debate over healthcare reform looms.

Senior House Democrats, such as Majority Whip Steny Hoyer
(Md.) and Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), chairman of the Ways and Means Health
Subcommittee, have warned that the House will move more slowly than the Senate
on healthcare.

Obama advisor David Plouffe has said the incoming
president will use his e-mail list of 13 million supporters to push his
policies. Several political analysts have suggested the list could be used to
wage grassroots campaigns to pressure recalcitrant members of Congress. That
strategy, although potentially effective, could build resentment among
lawmakers who would not appreciate White House-prompted badgering from their
constituents.

Veteran Democrats say that larger majorities will not
necessarily make it easier for leaders to pass legislation, noting that while Republicans
are in disarray there is less motivation for the Democrats to stay unified.

“They’re always demanding, when I was in Congress we had
292 Democrats and on all the issues he had to hustle to get the votes,” said
former Rep. Marty Russo (D-Ill.), who served as House Democratic floor whip in
the 1980s.

He said House Democrats have become more factionalized
since they last controlled a large majority.

“I think it’s more spread out than it ever was,” said
Russo. “Now you have five or six caucuses, you have the Hispanic caucus, the
Black caucus, the progressive caucus, the Blue Dog Coalition and the New
Democrat Coalition.”

“Before it was liberals, moderates and conservatives, it
was easier,” he stated. “Pelosi has it more difficult but she’s handling it
well.”

Russo and other Democrats say that Pelosi has managed to
tame the caucus by ensuring that each group has a chance to participate in
leadership debates.

One of Democratic leaders’ biggest challenges will be to
resolve disagreements over how much money to spend at a time of soaring federal
deficits and a national economic crisis. They are drafting an economic stimulus
package that could reach $850 billion and some lawmakers want it to swell to a
trillion dollars.

Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) a member of the House
Appropriations Committee, said the stimulus package should cost between $1
trillion and $1.5 trillion and warned against excessive interference from the
administration.

“The legislature has the responsibility to determine the
amount of money in the package, not the president,” he said.

This and other spending debates will pit fiscally
conservative southerners against colleagues. While members of the conservative
Democratic Blue Dog Coalition want the costs of new legislation offset with
spending cuts or tax increases, others want to jettison these budget
restrictions altogether.

Democrats from manufacturing states are also gearing up
for a battle against colleagues from financial centers such as New York and San
Francisco over trade policy.

“Most of the leadership of Congress comes from servicing
centers, finance centers or capital cities, parts of the country where the real
wealth comes from have been beaten down by Wall Street,” said Rep. Marcy
Kaptur, a Democrat from Ohio and an outspoken critic of many free trade
agreements.

Kaptur said there is a growing number of Democrats who
question the benefits of free trade agreements on the nation’s economy as a
whole. She argued that these agreements have benefited finance centers such as
New York and hurt manufacturing centers such as Michigan and Ohio.

Some Democrats might find themselves wishing Bush and
Cheney were still on the public scene to serve as unifying bogeymen.

“It was a sad moment for Democrats when Newt Gingrich retired
from the House,” said former Sen. Bryan, referring to the former Republican
speaker from Georgia, who was a lightning rod for Democrats in an earlier era.