President Clinton signed a supplemental spending measure Thursday night after Republican congressional leaders reversed course and allowed the measure to pass without contentious side issues attached.
"The leadership position is that we lost," said Rep. David McIntosh, R-Ind., following a House Republican Conference meeting at which the bill was considered. "Let's get out of town quickly."
The decision to pass a basically clean disaster relief bill left Democrats thrilled and many Republicans grumbling either that their leaders had caved in or that they had been ineffective in making their case with the American people.
Both the House and Senate easily and quickly passed the supplemental bill Thursday afternoon, with the House voting 348-74 and the Senate approving it 78-21.
Demonstrating exactly how divided Republicans were, House Majority Leader Armey, House Majority Whip DeLay and House Republican Conference Chairman John Boehner of Ohio all voted against the bill, and Senate Majority Leader Lott opposed it in his chamber.
An aide said Armey voted against the bill because the language calling for an automatic continuing resolution had been dropped and because he did not like how the bill is paid for. DeLay, for his part, wanted to deliver a message that President Clinton should not have vetoed the original bill.
After the bill came to the House floor on a unanimous consent motion, a GOP staffer said: "When the Democrats give U.C. to move a bill, you know it's a bad bill." McIntosh said House Speaker Gingrich had told GOP members that if they could not support the bill, they would not be pushed to vote for it, because a sufficient number of Democrats planned to support it.
Earlier Thursday, the Senate seemed likely to pass a stripped- down version of the supplemental.
However, House appropriators argued the funding in the bill was never a question and that the House should pass a bill that contained the full amount of spending.
The bill calls for $8.9 billion in supplemental spending, of which $5.6 billion will go to disaster assistance in 35 states, particularly the Dakotas and Minnesota.
The bill does not include controversial language banning the Census Bureau from using sampling in the 2000 census. Instead, the measure calls for the administration to report on its census plan within 30 days.
The bill also does not include a provision for an automatic CR in case appropriators do not finish their work by the start of the new fiscal year, and Senate Democratic leaders agreed not to filibuster separate CR legislation when it comes to the floor.
Senate Minority Leader Daschle said he expects the CR to last 45 days and to be set at the FY97 funding levels.
In arguing for passage of the bill, House Appropriations Chairman Livingston said the flood victims were not adversely affected by the delay.
Referring to the consideration of the original bill and its subsequent presidential veto, Livingston commented, "It's unfortunate that it had to be as sloppy and ugly as it was, but now, it's over."
House Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D-Wis., said Republican and Democratic appropriators had tried to keep the bill clean, but that GOP leaders had insisted on adding extraneous issues.
"Unfortunately, it has taken a presidential veto to bring the Congress to its senses," Obey said.
Some Republicans were dissatisfied with the way their leaders handled the supplemental.
McIntosh said GOP leaders were not ready to fight the president over his veto, adding, "If you want to get in a fight with the president, we'd better be ready to go to the American people."
Rep. John Thune, R-S.D., who had argued with Republican leaders not to load side issues onto the bill, told reporters: "I think the leadership felt it was pursuing important policies for our conference. Unfortunately, I got caught in the crossfire."
Pointing to the Republican Conference meeting, Thune said: "There are people in there who thought we were winning. I don't know if anyone in their right mind could see it that way." Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., was angry that GOP leaders had given in to the president's demands.
"I have two complaints, one is process and the other is results. ... Even while [Republican leaders] were saying they were standing firm, they were sending signals that they wouldn't," Istook charged.
However, Rep. Michael Castle, R-Del., a moderate who had threatened to abandon GOP leaders if they did not allow a clean bill to pass, said he does not believe GOP leaders will suffer long-term political damage.
"I don't think it's even close to the shutdown," he said before the vote. "If we go in and get it straightened out right now, the political damage will be minimal."
House Republicans also attempted to blame Daschle for the impasse over the bill, saying that if the minority leader had agreed to guarantee a vote on the CR, the issue could have been resolved.
Daschle scoffed at that notion, saying there is "ample record" that he had promised not to block separate CR legislation. "I'm surprised that anyone would say that with a straight face," he declared.
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