Senate backs away from potential homeland personnel deal

A deal in the Senate on homeland security legislation remains unlikely after a day of back-and-forth between Republicans and Democrats over the bill.

Sources said Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, remain at loggerheads over a deal that would permit a series of votes on the key personnel issues that have bogged down the bill for more than a month.

Senate Democrats late Wednesday held off offering a unanimous consent request to proceed to the legislation after progress was reported on a proposal to move the bill through the Senate before senators leave town for the elections.

It remained unclear late Wednesday whether a deal can be reached-or if Democrats will again move to call up a unanimous consent request to proceed to the bill.

The unanimous consent would challenge Gramm and Republicans to accept a straight up-or-down vote on a provision offered by Gramm and Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., to give President Bush the flexibility that he is seeking for personnel rules for the new Homeland Security Department.

Democrats offered Republicans the vote after becoming convinced that Republicans would prefer to blame Democrats for blocking the bill than to pass the homeland security legislation, Democratic sources said.

"Gramm's bluff was called," said a spokeswoman for Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., the author of the underlying bill. "Once it was called, the bluff was changed."

Earlier in the day, Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said Republicans would accept Daschle's offer of a clean vote on the GOP amendment followed by a vote on the Democrats' alternative, authored by Sens. John Breaux, D-La., Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I.

However, Gramm later said that he would accept the deal only if he could offer other amendments to the legislation as it continues moving through the legislative channels.

Democrats quickly charged that the Republicans' move proved that the party really does not want homeland security legislation.

"They want to politicize homeland security before the election," Daschle told reporters.

He continued, "I hope everybody will be on notice and will see this for what it is, an effort to extend the debate unnecessarily, to politicize the debate before the election and to ensure that we never come to a resolution."

Meanwhile, House and Senate Republicans will hold a news conference today in an effort to assign blame to Daschle and to Democrats for blocking the homeland legislation.