Republicans rush away from Bush on key votes

Senate Republicans broke in large numbers from President Bush and his would-be Republican successor on Thursday, handing Democrats critical victories on domestic programs.

Twenty-five Republicans defied the president and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, by supporting a massive domestic-spending plan as part of the emergency war-spending bill. That included a $52 billion veterans’ education benefits package opposed by the White House that has become a flashpoint in the presidential campaign.

The 75-22 vote ensured the Senate could overcome a presidential veto on a $165 billion war-funding package tied with the domestic-spending initiatives, which also includes a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits and a delay of Medicaid rules.

Later in the day, 35 Republicans voted with 47 Democrats to override a presidential veto on a five-year farm bill, the second time a veto has been overturned in Bush’s presidency. McCain calls the farm subsidies in the bill wasteful.

The votes were an indication that maintaining GOP unity on hot-button issues might become more difficult with congressional Republicans sensing major losses in November.

“I think they get a little skittish,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) of his Republican colleagues.

“They’re scared, some of them, of ads, but they’ll have to answer for themselves,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), whose narrower GI bill with McCain did not get a vote Thursday.

When asked what the votes said about Bush’s influence on Capitol Hill, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) responded slyly: “What influence?”

Nearly every Republican facing a tough reelection voted for the domestic-spending package, and Democrats acknowledged that funding for veterans’ benefits helped them secure a veto-proof majority.

An exception was Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who faces a tough reelection contest in Kentucky. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee wasted no time blasting McConnell for voting against the package, saying his vote showed a “complete disconnect with — or an utter ambivalence toward — the needs of our nation’s veterans.”

Don Stewart, a McConnell spokesman, said his boss supports the Graham-McCain plan, which he said would not “unfairly penalize Kentucky vets by allowing states with higher in-state tuition rates for public universities to get a higher level of benefits.”

Despite the defections, Republicans aren’t ready to embrace the Democratic agenda.

According to talking points distributed to their members, Senate Republicans plan over next week’s break to hit Democrats over a failure to pass a Colombia free-trade agreement and a surveillance bill, and for failure to quell sky-high gas prices. Similarly, House Republicans plan to highlight gas prices and the majority’s proposed tax increases.

Nevertheless, Democrats saw Thursday’s votes as an opening to tell voters over the Memorial Day recess that — despite Congress’s rock-bottom approval ratings — they are bringing change to Washington.

“This is a big, big deal,” said Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) of passing the domestic-spending package with the Iraq supplemental, which now heads to the House.

Over the break, Democrats hope their ability to secure money for veterans, under the bill authored by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), will defuse criticism from their base for once again paying for the war without a timetable for bringing troops home from Iraq. The Senate rejected an amendment calling for troop withdrawal by next year, 34-63.

“This is a day of celebration,” Reid said.

Others saw it as a political calculation for Republicans facing reelection.

“They obviously made a political calculus that separates them from the president and says on this one to their nominee: ‘Sorry, we’ve got to take a different course,’ ” said Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.), deputy chief of the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm.

One Republican trying to keep his seat is Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.), who voted for the farm bill and the domestic-spending package.

While Wicker said he sympathized with concerns over the veterans’ benefits package, he argued that billions for Gulf Coast reconstruction were too much for him to vote against.

“Like so many issues, I was conflicted,” Wicker said. “It was a tough call.”

 McCain has criticized that plan because he said its generous benefits would dissuade military personnel from re-enlisting.

But that wasn’t enough to convince vulnerable Republican Sen. Norm Coleman (Minn.), who called the bill “good for my state.”

J. Taylor Rushing contributed to this article.