When Sarah Palin suggested that as president of the Senate, she could get in there and mix it up with the senators, the reaction was quick -- and most of it along lines suggesting she should take a quick course in government and the Constitution.
Wait a minute. Maybe she was on to something.
In an elegant (meaning short -- barely 440 words) Op-Ed in today's New York Times, Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee, tells us why, although Palin was "roundly mocked for her claim," the Republican vice presidential nominee was nonetheless "probably right."
The vice president is really more of a legislative post than a job in the executive branch -- the office in the West Wing of the White House notwithstanding.
And as a member of the legislative branch, the vice president, in exercising executive power, "raises important constitutional questions related to the separation of powers."
Having wrapped that up, he says Congress should "pass a law to prohibit the vice president from exercising executive power."
He continues:
Extensive vice presidential involvement in the executive branch -- the role enjoyed by Dick Cheney and Al Gore -- is not only unconstitutional, but also a bad idea.
But that's something Cheney's critics have been saying for eight years.
Vice President Dick Cheney says it regularly: He rarely votes in the Senate, but when he does, the Bush side always wins.
That's because the vice president, as president of the Senate, only votes to break a tie.
Along comes Sarah Palin, ready to mix it up as the McCain administration's team leader in the Senate.
Responding to a third-grader's question about what the vice president does, she said:
A vice president has a really great job because not only are they there to support the president's agenda, they're like the team member, the teammate to that president. But also, they're in charge of the United States Senate, so if they want to, they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom. And it's a great job, and I look forward to having that job.
Well, as Cheney has pointed out, not quite.
It is pretty clear in the Constitution, Article I, Section 3:
The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.
Palin's confusion led CBS News' Horserace blog to ask: "Would Palin Be 'In Charge' Of The Senate?"
Maria Comella, the Republican vice presidential candidate's spokeswoman, explained it all this way: "She was explaining in terms a third-grader could understand that the vice president is also president of the U.S. Senate."
In any case, Palin's mistake -- or, to use Comella's explanation, simplification -- is not uncommon.
As the Senate's own website notes, the job of vice president is "the least understood, most ridiculed, and most often ignored constitutional office in the federal government."
It could, perhaps, be a daily story: the Bush administration using its executive authority to put its stamp on government regulations and bypassing Congress as it leaves town.
Today, the playing field is product-safety -- and an effort to hold off lawsuits by consumers and states.
The Wall Street Journal noted that President Bush's aides are "pushing to rewrite a wide array of federal rules with changes or additions that could block" the suits.
For one, the paper found, the administration is pre-empting such litigation by using 50 rules "governing everything from motorcycle brakes to pain medicine."
It is common for administrations, as their time comes to an end, to lay out new rules that may last years before a new administration gets around to burrowing into the nitty-gritty of government regulation to see what's been done.
In addition, the Journal noted:
These new rules can't quickly be undone by order of the next president. Federal rules usually must go through lengthy review process before they are changed. Rulemaking at the Food and Drug Administration, where most of the new pre-emption rules have appeared, can take a year or more.
Among the new rules highlighted by the Journal: Limiting the number of seatbelts car makers can be forced to install -- and prohibiting injured passengers who didn't get to wear one from suing.
The wives or husbands of dozens of U.S. government officials and diplomats attending the dinner, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul Pelosi, were identified as a 'spouse.'
But the list identified Poe as the 'guest' of Mary Cheney, just as it identified all other attendees who were accompanied by friends rather than married spouses.
Now that Connecticut has joined Massachusetts and California in legalizing same-sex marriage, the question of how married or partnered gay couples should be described in formal affairs such as White House dinners is likely to resurface.
It's a difficult question for the White House.
As Countdown to Crawford noted last week when the Connecticut decision came down, "for more than four years, the Bush White House has run against any changes in the law that would allow gay Americans -- even his vice president's daughter -- to marry."
Speaking of the speaker, who was seated next to Berlusconi, the Columbus Day dinner proved that politics makes for interesting dinner companions.
Only hours earlier, Pelosi had set the Democrats on an economic path diverging from that favored by the White House. She called for a new stimulus package to the tune of $150 billion, setting up a likely end-of-term clash with Bush and congressional Republicans.
But the dinner itself suggested international accord: Maine lobster fondue, artichoke and reggiano cheese ravioli, lamb with crispy eggplant and Swiss chard, chocolate napoleons and Russian River cuvee.
The entertainment? The cast of "Jersey Boys."
Frankie Valli of the Four Seasons -- the real Jersey Boys from Newark (which, as anyone from Newark knows, is pronounced Nerk)-- yucked it up with the president afterward on stage.
-- James Gerstenzang
Top photo: Heather Poe and Mary Cheney. Credit: Damon Winter / Los Angeles Times.
Bottom photo: Nancy Pelosi and Silvio Berlusconi. Credit: Aude Guerrucci / EPA / Pool
Vice President Dick Cheney loves to say that when he represented Wyoming in the House of Representatives in the 1980s, the delegation was small, "but it was quality."
The state's population is so low that it has but one congressional district.
And the representative of that at-large district since 1995, Barbara L. Cubin, a Republican of course, is not running for reelection. She squeaked by two years ago with a roughly 1,000-vote margin over Democrat Gary Trauner.
Certainly, Wyoming has historically been considered a bright red state.
Not this year, at least in the race for Cheney's seat. And the trend may be emblematic of the difficulties his Republicans are facing in the Mountain West.
Trauner is running again, and the race against Republican Cynthia Lummis could be up for grabs.
-- James Gerstenzang
Photo credit: Marilyn Newton / Gazette-Journal via Associated Press
But there's the San Francisco Democrat talking in Denver about the possibility of a $150-billion booster shot for the economy, and calling the House back into session after the election to pass it.
That would be nearly three times the size of a package kicked around earlier--and approved by the House last month without gaining any support down Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House--and about the size of the late spring stimulus.
Sounds like election or not, the squabbling between the White House and the Capitol will continue right up to the moment the president sets foot on the Capitol steps to witness the swearing in of his successor.
The tense and terrifying moments of 9/11 and the start of the Iraq war notwithstanding, President Bush has weathered one of the most difficult weeks of his presidency.
Nevermind his record low 22% approval rating. He still walked away with what he wanted: "Decisive action to ease the credit crunch that is now threatening our economy."
The Congress delivered something that -- by his words -- was neither a "bailout" nor a "rescue." He used neither word, each fraught now with political tones, in his congratulatory statement.
Rather, with enough of his recalcitrant Republicans in line, he won approval of the $700-billion legislation intended to stabilize the economy in the midst of the credit crisis.
Remember: On Monday, the House shocked the markets, the country, global investors -- and the president -- with its initial rejection of the measure.
Embracing the bipartisanship that eight years ago he said would be the hallmark of his administration, but which in the interim seems to have eluded so much of Washington life, Bush declared:
We have acted boldly to help prevent the crisis on Wall Street from becoming a crisis in communities across our country. We have shown the world that the United States of America will stabilize our financial markets and maintain a leading role in the global economy.
The president, in a hastily announced visit to the Rose Garden, said soon after the House vote -- and shortly before he signed the bill after it was rushed from Capitol Hill to the White House -- that it would prevent "failed executives from receiving windfalls from taxpayers' dollars."
To be sure, he said, some have concerns, about the cost and the government's role.
But, he said, "in this situation, action is clearly necessary," and nearly all, if not all, of the government cost will be repaid.
Meanwhile, he said, don't hold your breath for immediate results.
"It will take some time for this legislation to have its full impact on our economy," he said, adding: "It cannot be accomplished overnight."
And with that initial mission accomplished, he headed out of town, for a weekend at his home in Crawford, Texas, and a full calendar of Republican fundraising.
It is, President Bush said a few moments ago, "an extraordinary agreement" drawn up to solve the economy's "extraordinary problem."
Now the question is: Will Wall Street and the Congress see it as the right agreement -- to help Main Street?
Although the president easily gained national television coverage for his extraordinary remarks -- the White House rarely makes the announcement on a Sunday evening that the president will go on live television at 7:35 the next morning -- his real audience was a select few: skeptical members of Congress and Wall Street investors.
Timing his remarks to try to set the tone for the day's debate on Capitol Hill and on the trading floors two hours ahead of the market's opening, Bush sought to instill confidence.
He sought to answer this primary question: Is the $700-billion bailout plan, on which congressional leaders reached agreement over the weekend, the right way to go?
And most important at the moment, he sought to persuade Wall Street and rank-and-file members of Congress that it would address the needs of the economy without saddling taxpayers with a lasting and expensive burden -- and would do so quickly enough that the stock market doesn't take any more steep hits.
Republicans are wondering: Will it push the government into areas best left to the free market -- and at what cost?
Democrats are wondering: Will it do more to bail out Wall Street than to help keep Main Street afloat?
Bush's argument: The program will address "the root causes" of the debt crisis by using government money to help major lenders get back in the business of lending -- and thus "restart the flow of credit."
Emphasizing bipartisanship -- repeatedly using the term "both parties"--the president sought to give reluctant members of the House and Senate cover to vote with him, and said: "I fully understand this will be a difficult vote."
The next day or so should answer this question: Was the president able to convince his diverse audience?
For the White House transcript of the president's remarks, click on Read Full Story...
So it looks like George W. Bush will get his bailout -- a bill allowing the Treasury Department to buy $700 billion in toxic debt from Wall Street in what could become the largest financial bailout in U.S. history.
Poised to come to the House floor on Monday, the package hammered out by congressional negotiators late last night is a lot heftier than the three-page power grab that the administration sent to the Hill more than a week ago. As Democrats insisted, the bill, now running at more than 100 pages, includes limits on compensation for executives if their companies seek the help, oversight on the people running the deal, a more aggressive government plan to help individual homeowners from losing their homes and a stake for taxpayers in the profits if the bad mortgages turn around. As Republicans insisted, it requires financial institutions to help pay for bailing out less solvent companies. Of course everything could still collapse again, but insiders were hopeful. "I think we're there," said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson at a post-midnight press conference flanked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and other congressional leaders, including Roy Blunt of Missouri, representing the House Republicans who torpedoed the last "looks like we have a deal" package.
If this deal is sealed, what will history say about a president who presided over first one of the largest increases in federal spending and then one of the largest rescues for those who benefited from the spending?
Bush's reputation as a free spender is cemented. As Veronique de Rugy of the conservative American Enterprise Institute calculates, Bush has already authorized more in discretionary spending than any recent president since the free-spending, Great Society's Lyndon Johnson.
As for the financial crisis, widely blamed on bank deregulation approved by both parties and lax supervision during the Bush administration, Ken Duberstein, former White House chief of staff under President Reagan, told CNBC's Ben Feller that the Wall Street mess could come to rival the 9/11 terror attacks as one of the key definers of Bush's presidency.
"This has the potential to move up there in the first tier," said Duberstein, now a Republican strategist. "9/11 is in there. Katrina is in there. The Iraq war. And the financial crisis."
With public calls and e-mails to congressional offices running sharply against the administration's $700-billion bailout of the nation's financial services sector, the White House is scrambling today to rescue the rescue plan.
Republicans in the House are in revolt, calling on Wall Street to pay for its own bailout by purchasing insurance on mortgage-backed securities and advocating tax cuts and relaxed regulations for Main Street. After eight years of bowing to White House pressure -- eight years in which their numbers dwindled as they stood loyally behind Bush on the war in Iraq and on the runaway spending that marked this administration -- they seem at the breaking point.
"We will not agree to a bill that sells taxpayers out," Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio said today.
The fight to secure House Republican support may be embarrassing for the White House -- these are their troops -- but it's also imperative. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she will not bring a bill to the floor without their support. Democrats have enough votes to pass the bill without the Republicans. But they are not about to make themselves vulnerable to a Republican attack in the fall elections, something along the lines of, "They sold you out!"
So Vice President Cheney canceled his plans to attend Republican fundraisers in the West. As spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said:
Due to the current situation in the U.S. capital markets, the vice president has decided to cancel his previously scheduled trips to New Mexico and Wyoming so he can assist with the pending legislation on Capitol Hill.
And President Bush sought to calm jittery markets -- and jittery tempers on Capitol Hill -- this morning with his own call for Congress to make progress. In a statement at the White House he said:
Anytime you have a plan this big, that is moving this quickly, that requires legislative approval, it creates challenges. Members want to be heard. They want to be able to express their opinions, and they should be allowed to express their opinions.
There are disagreements over aspects of the rescue plan, but there is no disagreement that something substantial must be done. The legislative process is sometimes not very pretty, but we are going to get a package passed. We will rise to the occasion. Republicans and Democrats will come together and pass a substantial rescue plan.
James Gerstenzang and Johanna Neuman are reporters in The Times' Washington bureau. Between the two of them, they have covered the White House, diplomacy, military affairs, the environment, international economics, trade and Congress. They have both spent time in Crawford, Texas.
When Sarah Palin suggested that as president of the Senate, she could get in there and mix it up with the senators, the reaction was quick -- and most of it along lines suggesting she should take a quick course in government and the Constitution.
