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Only two
of these four will take majority party leadership
positions in the House and Senate, depending on your vote. |
No
matter where you live, your votes will decide the fates of four
men: Tom Daschle, Trent Lott, Dennis Hastert and Dick Gephardt.
Will
they be forced to lead or follow, to propose or oppose bills, to
set an agenda or rail against it? Will they be granted enormous
power, or almost none at all? Will their views matter to the
President, or they will be rarely consulted? Will their names
adorn history books, or become mere footnotes?
The
names Daschle, Lott, Hastert and Gephardt may not appear on your
ballot. And yet, in every single race, the issue of leadership —
who will lead the 108th Congress — is critical.
Who
do you want to lead the United States Senate — Tom Daschle or
Trent Lott? Who do you want to lead the House of Representatives
— Dennis Hastert or Dick Gephardt?
Your
choice, a choice based on what is best for you and your family,
can guide how you vote in the state and local elections on
November 5.
Lott’s Anti-Worker Agenda
If the Republican party retakes the
Senate it means Sen. Trent Lott, R-MS, will regain the Majority
Leader’s post he ceded to Sen. Tom Daschle, D-SD, last year.
That
would mark a huge shift in legislative priorities in the Senate.
The
Majority Leader typically schedules which bills may come before
that august body and when they may come to the floor for a vote,
although that power has some limitations.
Lott
has been a strong supporter of business-backed trade measures
that have eroded the nation’s industrial base and sent highly
skilled and well-paying manufacturing jobs to foreign shores.
Lott backed legislation making China a “favored” trading
partner, despite that nation’s dictatorial government and its
shameful employment of poorly paid child labor and political
prisoners.
Lott
is a southern conservative whose priorities seldom include
working families. In 1998, for example, he began the push to
privatize Social Security, which has now become a staple of the
Republican Party platform.
He
consistently opposes and votes against working family issues,
including prescription drug coverage under Medicare. When it
appeared set for Senate approval, he voted for less prescription
drug coverage. Additionally, he repeatedly voted against raising
the minimum wage.
By
the same token, Trent Lott has never met a tax cut he didn’t
like, except the one that would create a larger deduction for
college tuition, a measure that would greatly help middle-class
working parents struggling to send their kids to college.
Lott’s unwavering support for President George W. Bush’s
out-sized tax cuts for the richest taxpayers wiped out the
budget surpluses targeted for Social Security and resulted in
soaring budget deficits.
Lott
was elected to the House in 1972 and moved up to the Senate in
1988. He served as Majority Leader from June 12, 1996 to June 5,
2001.
Daschle: Hanging On By One Vote
Senator Tom Daschle’s reputation as
“prairie populist” has its roots in his upbringing in a small
South Dakota town. His soft-spoken demeanor masks a toughness
that served him well as an underdog in the rough-and-tumble
scrimmage of elective politics.
He
brings that same scrappy dedication and hardnosed determination
to his role as Senate Majority Leader, a post he assumed when
Sen. James Jeffords, R-VT, abandoned the GOP and switched to
Independent status. Jeffords’ defection gave the Democrats a
razor-thin 51-49 Senate edge and the leadership mantle passed to
Daschle.
In
his first month as Senate leader, Daschle fought to add a
prescription drug benefit to Medicare and has remained in the
forefront of the fight to see it to ultimate passage. He voted
against the Bush tax cut, which saw 90 percent of those cuts
flowing to the wealthiest two percent of taxpayers in the upper
brackets.
Daschle described that measure as giving the wealthy a “tax cut
big enough to buy a Lexus,” while giving middle-class families
“barely enough to buy a muffler.”
He
fought the Bush decision to repeal workplace safety standards
put in place during Clinton’s Administration.
Daschle’s agenda for the future calls for a comprehensive
patient’s bill of rights; a prescription drug benefit to
Medicare; an increase in the minimum wage of $1.50 an hour; job
training for the unemployed and a significant increase in
funding for Head Start programs and other child care measures.
Every year, Daschle returns to his home state and visits each of
its 66 counties. Often traveling alone, he chats with
constituents and makes careful note of their concerns. Such
consideration for their views has made him a formidable figure
on the political landscape.
Gephardt Seeks to Shift House Balance
The House’s top Democrat, Dick Gephardt of Missouri, is
focused on retaking the House for his party. This election could
make him the 52nd Speaker of the House.
Gephardt has diligently worked the hustings for House
contenders, raising more than $20 million to win the six seats
he needs to retake the House. That seems an easier chore in the
wake of the corporate scandals at Enron, WorldCom, Tyco and
others. On a similar note, recent polls show, for the first time
since Sept. 11, most voters feel the nation is “headed in the
wrong direction.”
That
could be bad news for the party in power which typically loses
seats in a mid-term election such as this one. Democrats contend
that economic anxiety attracts votes to their party on a host of
issues, ranging from health care to the environment.
None
of those issues packs an electoral wallop like Social Security.
That issue could be the Democrats’ nuclear weapon in a year that
has seen 401(k)’s fizzle — as they did at Enron and other
corporate collapses.
Gephardt campaigns hard on the need to strengthen Social
Security in stark contrast to GOP efforts to “privatize” it by
turning the trust funds over to Wall Street managers.
For
his entire career, Gephardt has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with
workers. He has voted with workers on every issue ranging from
improvements in railroad retirement pensions to workplace safety
and health, from Fast Track to a patients’ bill of rights.
Gephardt racked up a 100 percent “right” vote on the IAM’s
voting scorecard in recent sessions.
The
veteran Gephardt, 61, was first elected to the House in 1976 and
moved up through the ranks until becoming Majority Leader in
1989. Gephardt lost the Speaker’s post when the GOP seized
control in 1994.
Hastert Plays Low-Key Role in House Post
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-IL, has the politically
useful knack for being in the right place at the right time.
This unobtrusive, low-key former high school teacher and
wrestling coach carved his political niche from a safely
Republican district in Chicago’s suburbs.
He
first came to Congress in 1986 and during his years in the House
compiled a conservative voting record that drew little attention
as the political spotlights focused on rising GOP stars like
Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay. Hastert wisely hitched his wagon to
those caravans and rode them to his current post as the 51st
Speaker of the House.
Unlike Gingrich, and to a lesser degree, the acerbic DeLay,
Hastert operates as a genial backslapper with a bear-like
friendliness. But his voting record shows the same indifference
to working family issues as DeLay and the anti-worker majority
that now controls the House.
Hastert opposed every issue that came up on the IAM’s list of
legislative priorities. He voted to kill OSHA’s crucial
standards for preventing ergonomic injuries, for example, but
voted for a bogus prescription drug plan that was written
largely by the pharmaceutical industry.
Using his powerful post as Speaker, Hastert brought enormous
pressure on wavering GOP representatives during the Fast Track
trade fiasco. That jobs-stealing measure passed the House by a
single vote after a fierce lobbying campaign by Republican
leaders and the White House. Hastert delayed the vote tally
until a single Republican caved at the last minute and switched
his vote.
Republicans have lost House seats in every election since they
gained their majority in 1994. Now with just 12 seats left from
their stunning 52-seat gain in that election, they face an
electorate uneasy about jobs, retirement security and a host of
other issues.
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