Senate Republicans block homeland vote until after elections

Senate Republicans Thursday again blocked a vote on a key homeland security amendment, scuttling any chance Congress would create a Homeland Security Department before the elections.

"We'll have to wait until we come back and hopefully we can get it done," said White House Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge.

The bill's demise came when Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, objected to a unanimous consent request from Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., that would have given the GOP an up-or-down vote on the key personnel issues that have held up the bill for months.

Gramm objected to the request because it would not give him the chance to amend the employment rules at a later date. The unanimous consent, Gramm said, would have given him a "meaningless, phony" vote that would have let Democrats "be on three sides of a two-sided issue."

Senators in both parties blamed each other for the downfall of the bill, but promised that the homeland security legislation would be a top priority in a lame-duck session.

As it became clear that senators would not settle the issue today, frustrated lawmakers blamed each other in some of the sharpest rhetoric to date.

House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, took direct aim at Daschle, charging that the Democratic leader "puts the next election in front of homeland security." He also said "America sits and wonders why al Qaeda, the ragtag organization, can reorganize itself and the United States government can't reorganize itself. I guess the reason is the United States has a Senate." He added, "Al Qaeda doesn't have Sen. Daschle."

Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., noting that Armey is retiring, observed, "That was an 'Adios, I'll-see-you-later' kind of speech."

Regardless, Daschle responded by accusing Republicans of blocking the vote. "Republicans have opposed homeland security from the beginning," he said, adding: "I think it's pretty clear what's going on: They don't support it. They've never supported it."

Republicans also sought to use the Senate stalemate over homeland security as the latest example of what they see as a failure to legislate. At a news conference, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ohio, said the bill is an example of "one of the problems we continually have" in the Senate. Republicans rattled off a list of stalled issues that they blamed Democrats for, from the homeland bill to prescription drugs, a budget resolution and energy legislation.

"The list is long," Lott said. "The Senate Democratic leadership has failed."

Said House Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts of Oklahoma, who also is retiring at the end of the year, "My coat has actually done more to pass these bills than Sen. Daschle."