Bipartisanship evaporates on Homeland Security authorization

What began as an exceptional bipartisan effort to move homeland security legislation in the House unraveled Wednesday night amid charges and counter-charges between Homeland Security Committee Republicans and Democrats.

Homeland Security Committee Chairman Christopher Cox, R-Calif., and ranking member Jim Turner, D-Texas, hoped to mark up the panel's first authorization measure for the Homeland Security Department Thursday, and bring to the House floor a separate bill to revamp the grant funding process for police officers, firefighters and other first responders.

But Cox Wednesday night blamed partisan politics for sabotaging progress on both measures.

"We've now officially crossed the barrier from bipartisan consideration of our nation's security to the political season," Cox said.

He said committee Democrats rejected his offer to bring the first responder legislation to the House floor Wednesday night under suspension of the rules, as well as a separate proposal to hold a markup today on the first three titles of an authorization measure that had bipartisan agreement.

But Turner rebutted Cox's claims. Turner said Cox approached him Wednesday with an amendment to the first responder bill that would have a "significant impact" for some lawmakers' districts and expected Turner to deliver an agreement from Democratic leadership and rank-and-file members within six hours.

Cox has been negotiating for weeks with House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, on his original first responder bill, which would change the formula to distribute funding based on terrorist risk rather than other factors such as population.

But three panels that share jurisdiction over the issue earlier this year sought to preserve the parochial process, amending Cox's bill to keep the minimum funding level for every state. Currently, each state receives 0.75 percent of allocated grant funding.

On Wednesday, Turner said Cox wanted the Democrats to agree to a 0.45 percent minimum for each state, but Turner said the two sides had originally agreed to 0.25 percent.

"When you start talking about money, you're going to have a lot of [lawmakers] wanting to find out what's in it," said Turner, arguing he did not have enough time to convince Democratic leaders and his colleagues to approve the new language.

Turner said when he notified Cox during the last House votes Wednesday night that there was no deal on the first responder measure, Cox accused Turner of "killing the bill."

Cox aides were unable to confirm Turner's account of the exchange.

Turner said a fight between rural and urban lawmakers over first responder funding that erupted earlier this summer on the House floor during debate on the fiscal 2005 Homeland Security appropriations bill is indicative of the impact of Cox's legislation.

Turner called it an "unreasonable request" to bring the measure to the floor as a suspension -- which requires a two-thirds majority to pass -- when it would have a significant impact on several lawmakers.

On the authorization measure, Turner also disputed Cox's contention that Democrats stalled efforts to resume marking up the bill after a procedural disagreement abruptly ended Monday night's markup.

Cox said Wednesday that he and Turner agreed last Friday to mark up the measure in nine separate titles, but then Turner objected Monday after consulting with a House parliamentarian. Cox's tactic would have rendered most of Democrats' amendments out of order.

Cox tried again Wednesday to move forward on parts of the authorization bill, proposing the two sides only mark up the sections that enjoy bipartisan support.

Turner said he declined because Democratic amendments would not be allowed adequate time for debate.

Cox called Democrats' refusal to proceed politically motivated, while Turner said Republicans refuse to have substantial debate on both measures because they do not want to take "embarrassing votes" against Democratic amendments that would appear to strengthen homeland security.

On Tuesday, Cox said GOP panel members stood ready to support Cox and reject Democratic amendments.

However, a Republican aide said several members who face tough elections this fall privately expressed frustration that -- if forced to vote against the Democratic amendments on aviation, rail and port security -- Democrats would "twist every vote to say [Republicans] are weak on homeland security."