Who Will Lead the Next Congress?


« Contents

 

Don't Vote, Don't Vent

Critical Issues for Working Families

Who Will Lead the Next Congress?

The Tightest Senate Races

Too Close to Call House Races

Power Shifting in 36 States

Women on the Edge of a Breakthrough


This portion of this website is paid for by the Machinists Non-Partisan Political League with voluntary contributions from IAM members and their families and is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
 

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.