Judges:
The GOP-forced 39-hour marathon session of the Senate had no chance of making any direct progress in the confirmation of President Bush's judicial nominees.
1) The main purpose of the session was not so much to motivate the base positively, as to appease angry conservatives. Socially conservative voters who perceived the importance of the courts were becoming dissatisfied with the GOP leadership and its unwillingness to take bold measures regarding judges. The overnight was done in the hope of showing these conservatives that Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) is serious.
2) The media attention on the long session together with the flap regarding Judiciary Committee memos have brought more attention to the fight than ever before, but that may not be much.
3) Increasingly, Republicans are coming to the realization that only an intervening election will clear the logjam of judges. Even that may not do the trick, considering there is no way the GOP can climb up to 60 seats next November. The idea of waiting until next year is also worrisome to some conservatives on the Judiciary committee, who fear how Sen. Arlen Specter (R.-Pa.) will run the committee when Sen. Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah) steps down because of GOP term limits on committee chairmen.
4) Also, Republicans still do not have 51 votes to back drastic rules changes. Resistance continues to come both from liberals as well as moderates and pragmatists within the conference.
Medicare-Prescription Drug:
A Medicare bill providing a new prescription drugs entitlement will probably be on President George W. Bush's desk for his signature, just as he desires, within a week. But it is a fairly close call, and the issue disrupts Republican unity going into the election year.
1) The trick for the White House and the Republican leadership is to draft a bill that is liberal enough to avoid a serious Democratic filibuster in the Senate and conservative enough to avoid mass Republican defections in the House. They appear to have concocted such a measure in the House-Senate conference, but not without making a lot of Republicans unhappy.
2) The biggest problem for Republicans is that the key conservative provision to provide a wider private enterprise element has been reduced to a mere "demonstration program" in six regions. In fact, the bill may reduce the opportunities for private enterprise. Thus, the avowed goal of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R.-Tex.) to use the demand for prescription drug subsidies as a lever for conservative reform of Medicare-what made the bill a short-term evil for a long-term good in the eyes of many conservatives-appears to have failed.
3) There will be even fewer House Democrats voting for this bill than the nine who supported the original House bill, which passed by only a one-vote margin. That means Republicans will have to reduce the number of their defectors below the 19 members who voted against the first bill.
4) There are many more than 19 House Republicans who don't like the bill at all, but they are responding to the party whip. This is one of President Bush's priorities, but he is off for his British state visit Wednesday. That leaves the job up to DeLay.
5) The problem in the Senate is whether a serious filibuster will be waged by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D.-Mass.), requiring 60 senators to stop it. Kennedy never will vote for this bill, but his rhetoric has softened lately after the endorsement of the measure by the AARP-a major coup for Bush.
6) Politically, this bill has been intended by White House political strategist Karl Rove to inoculate President Bush's re-election campaign from attacks on the prescription drug issue. But if middle-class seniors are forced into government programs, there may be a backlash from normal Republican voters. Many Republican politicians would like to see a bill passed by the GOP House and killed by in the Senate by a Kennedy filibuster.
Steel Tariffs:
Increasingly bellicose trade rhetoric flies back and forth between the European Union and the United States with steel tariffs the current focal point of conflict.
1) For months, Europe has been threatening tariffs on the U.S. in retaliation for a tax break for exporters the WTO has ruled illegal, but the U.S. has not taken those threats seriously. With the latest WTO ruling, European leaders are speaking in harsher tones about imposing retaliatory tariffs.
2) European and U.S. relations have become so soiled that national political leaders in Europe feel political pressure to take some action against the U.S. This changes the calculation in the Bush Administration regarding the EU's willingness to impose tariffs.
