Money Bomb Feature

<p>A former Republican leader burst forth into print yesterday and asked what the hell went wrong. A lot of them are doing it these days.</p>
<p>It was all about Republican losses in the mid-term elections and how the so-called Republican revolution that started in 1994 had gone so badly wrong. <br />
What's wrong with this picture? Well, the elections for control of the US Congress are still a week away. Votes are yet to be cast and counted. </p>
<p>No matter, welcome to the latest political trend in Washington, dubbed "precriminations" or "pre-mortems". </p>
<p>"The 2006 mid-term elections will be a success for the Democrats," says Dick Armey, aleading "precriminator", in The Washington Post. Armey was Republican leader of the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. </p>
<p>"Where did the revolution go astray?" he asks plaintively. "How did we go from the big ideas and vision of 1994 to the cheap political point-scoring on meaningless wedge issues of today -- from passing welfare reform and limited government to banning horsemeat and same-sex marriage?" </p>
<p>After the elections, Armey says, Republicans "will have to manage their own disappointment". "Fingers will be pointed, and various villains will be fashioned out of recent events." </p>
<p>A blame game starting well ahead of the result might seem a little premature, but is hardly surprising, because the polls do look bad for Republicans. </p>
<p>According to the latest surveys, Democrats are expected to win about 20 seats, while they need just 15 seats to take back control of the House of Representatives. </p>
<p>In the Senate, the Republicans are favoured to maintain a lock on the chamber - but only just - with Democrats predicted to fall one or two seats short of the six they need. </p>
<p>But even if the house, alone, were to go Democrat, it would spell doom for President George W.Bush, derailing his legislative agenda for his last two years inoffice and stamping him a lame duck. </p>
<p>In the past week, despite some wishful thinking from some Republicans, polls continue to show the momentum running strongly with Democrats. </p>
<p>So, while the precrimination game is built on a sound reasoning, what is interesting is who is making the charges. </p>
<p>Bush is used to being attacked from the Left, but these salvos - which have become increasingly shrill over the past 18months in apparent negative correlation to his plunging polls - are from the Right. </p>
<p>The pre-mortem blame game comes from small-government, fiscal conservatives known as the Reagan Republicans, in honour of president Ronald Reagan, who said on inauguration in 1981: "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." </p>
<p>Armey says: "President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress are presiding over the largest expansion of government since LBJ's Great Society" - a reference to president Lyndon B.Johnson's welfare programs of the 1960s to eliminate poverty and racial inequality. </p>
<p>Fiscal conservatives such as Armey are pointing to "embarrassing spectacles" such as the 2005 Highway Bill. </p>
<p>It cost $US295billion and was 35per cent larger than the previous transportation bill. </p>
<p>The legislation was laden with pork spending, politely called "earmarks" in Washington. In all, it had 6371 earmarks from legislators to grease constituencies, such as $US223million to build a bridge almost as long as San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge - in the tiny town of Ketchikan in Alaska. </p>
<p>There is little argument that pork-barrelling has run out of control under the Bush administration, and fiscal conservatives are incensed that not once has the President used the power of his veto to stop it. </p>
<p>It has inspired the likes of lifetime Republican Richard Viguerie to pen the book Conservatives Betrayed: How George W.Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause. </p>
<p>Viguerie says: "We are questioning why we should continue to vote Republican if the GOP (Republican Party) acts like the Democrats on spending, corruption, and lack of progress on social issues." </p>
<p>Armey has been a constant critic. In fact, his precrimination started in The Wall Street Journal last year when he wrote that "all of our leaders are complicit in this spending spree". He added that "a sense of entitlement" had set in among many congressional Republicans "who forgot why they were elected and began to actually believe that power was its own reward". </p>
<p>Earlier this year, conservative columnist Robert Novak said the hostility toward the Republican Party by the conservative base "remains as intense as we have ever seen". </p>
<p>"There is continuing debate among the previously faithful party activists over whether it might not be a good idea for the GOP to lose one or both houses of Congress." </p>
<p>Armey says his "Republican friends in Congress stand on the precipice of an electoral rout". </p>
<p>"Republican lawmakers forgot the party's principles, became enamoured with power and position, and began putting politics over policy. Now, the Democrats are reaping the rewards of our neglect - and we have no one to blame but ourselves." </p>
<p>It was a similar script in 1994. Then, Democrats were in power and being accused of arrogance. They were shellacked in the mid-term elections. </p>
<p>Democrat president Bill Clinton then had to work with a Republican-dominated Congress. In the ensuing years, the deficit was eliminated and the US witnessed an unprecedented economic expansion. </p>
<p>If history were somehow to repeat, but this time with the Republicans losing Congress, maybe life wouldn't be so bad for Bush after all.</p>

<p>Regardless of what happens on November 7, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) needs to step aside or be removed as Republican House Leader. This should occur whether the Republicans are in the majority or minority in the House. </p>
<p>The Foley page scandal has just been the latest debacle to occur under Hastert’s reign. For one, Hastert is not an articulate or forceful advocate for the Republican message, never known for his stance on conservative values. Initially, Hastert was a stabilizing influence in the House, seeming to bring maturity and strength to the Speaker’s position after Newt Gingrich was forced out of the job. However, in the past 7+ years, Republicans have lost their way. The size of government has mushroomed under Hastert’s watch as the bureaucracy and entitlements have grown significantly. </p>
<p>In contrast, Hastert has not been able to bring about progress on Social Security reform, drilling in ANWR, division of offshore royalties with coastal states or even protecting the border. The President’s recent signing of the supposed 700 mile border fence bill was a sham, as the Congress did not authorize the necessary funding for construction of the fence.</p>
<p>Of course some of the problems need to be directed at the U.S. Senate or the White House, but Hastert should not escape criticism. In fact, GOP realizes the problem and wants a change. According to an anonymous poll in the National Journal of powerbrokers in the GOP, only 14% expressed support for Hastert remaining as Speaker. Among GOP activists across the country, there is the same level of discontent with Hastert and the entire GOP leadership team from the White House down to Congress. </p>
<p>According to a true conservative and one of the prime movers of the GOP revolution of 1994, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), Republicans in Washington D.C. “forgot the party’s principles, became enamored with power and position and began putting politics over policy.”</p>
<p>Armey knows the situation very well and is exactly correct. Republicans have come a long way from the heyday of the 1994 Contract with America to the sad, disappointing position the party finds itself in today. To revitalize the party, rediscover principles and return to the conservative policies of the platform, a leadership change in the House of Representatives is not only advisable, it is essential. </p>
<p>Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 8:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and Noon till 2 p.m. weekdays on several Louisiana radio stations. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.</p>

<p>The young women on the porch were whispering, their tittering just audible over Bill Clinton’s remarks to the 300 or so Democratic donors gathered here for lunch. </p>
<p>Representative Nancy Pelosi, mindful that some guests had paid $10,000 for a plate of chicken and bread pudding, shot a frown — the sort a grandmother gives when someone arrives at Christmas dinner in a wrinkled shirt — and in a split second, the whispers ceased. Ms. Pelosi’s face resumed its trademark molar-baring smile.</p>
<p>There it was in one brief moment, the three essential elements of Ms. Pelosi’s campaign to bring Congress under control of her Democratic Party, preferably with her favored alliteration: message, money, manners. </p>
<p>With the Republican ascendancy in Washington in peril and Ms. Pelosi in line to become the country’s first female speaker of the House, she has emerged as a searing symbol of the country’s deep partisan divide.</p>
<p>For Republican strategists laboring to maintain control of Congress, she is the personification of liberal lunacy, an Armani-clad elitist who will help push lawmakers toward an agenda of multicultural, tax-raising appeasement. </p>
<p>To many Democrats, Ms. Pelosi embodies their raw antipathy for a Republican Party that has held them largely to the margins for more than a decade, and their hope that a Democratic Congress could make trouble for a president with whom they are at bitter odds. </p>
<p>“I wouldn’t say I’m tough,” Ms. Pelosi, 66, said in an interview at the home of Representative John Lewis of Georgia, who was host for the luncheon. “I think I am firm and strong.”</p>
<p>Indeed, her smile-while-she-gnaws-at-you style and her legislative prowess have gained her respect, if not good wishes, from colleagues and foes. </p>
<p>Aided by a highly partisan House, she has overseen the most uniform voting record of any Democratic caucus since the 1950s. Her steely strategy for sinking President Bush’s plan to overhaul Social Security succeeded. </p>
<p>She has raised more money for Democrats in this election cycle than any other candidate except Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton — just over $50 million. In September, her party’s House campaign raised $14.4 million, outpacing Republicans.</p>
<p>“I am a big fan,” said Dick Armey, the former Republican majority leader of the House and co-architect of his party’s coup in the 1994 election. “She is an able person and serious about her work and a very pleasant person with whom to work.”</p>
<p>Conceding that he disagreed with Ms. Pelosi on everything that matters — “She’s misguided” — Mr. Armey added: “You don’t get to be minority leader without being intelligent. I’m no longer in office, so I am free to be a nice person. If I had been majority leader and said, ‘I like Nancy Pelosi,’ I would be crucified.”</p>
<p>In her stump speech, Ms. Pelosi has been laying out an agenda for what a Democratic-led House would do in its first 100 hours. Her planning has unnerved Republicans, some of whom are taking aim at her in campaign advertisements.</p>
<p>“I don’t take it personally,” Ms. Pelosi said, “nor should they.”</p>
<p>She arrived at the luncheon here from the airport (she had been raising money in New York, and would go on to Florida to raise more) in a signature lilac suit and strolled into the racially mixed crowd of Atlanta’s Democratic elite. </p>
<p>She made her way through the crowd greeting many people by first name, smiling. “How was Paris?” she asked Ann Cox Chambers, a billionaire former ambassador, clutching her hand.</p>
<p>Ms. Pelosi ate nothing and even in casual conversation seemed to be reading from a script. One woman complained to her about Republican advertisements. “The Republicans are unconcerned about money, truth or decency,” Ms. Pelosi said, staring into the woman’s eyes while delivering one of her standard speech lines. </p>
<p>In her formal remarks over lunch, she forgot one line and stuffed it awkwardly into her close. “Thank — Are you ready for a Democratic victory? — you!”</p>
<p>Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, said of Ms. Pelosi, “She smiles too much in public.” Mr. Frank attributed her image problems with some people to “sexism, partly.”</p>
<p>“She is an attractive woman who dresses very well and is soft spoken, from a generation that has a certain kind of softness,” he said.</p>
<p>Ms. Pelosi was uninterested in talking about why some people seem angry that she wears expensive suits or make fun of her speaking style, and she said she found her sex an asset. </p>
<p>“Women are very excited about the prospect of a woman speaker,” she said, sitting in the Lewises’ living room.</p>
<p>Her campaign aides play down her ambition, denying that she ever planned to lead anything — an assertion Ms. Pelosi repeated in the interview.</p>
<p>But current and former associates describe her as infused with political aspirations almost from birth.</p>
<p>“She has always wanted to be speaker,” said Tony Coelho, a former House Democratic whip. “She told me so 10 or 15 years ago.”</p>
<p>Born and raised in Baltimore, Ms. Pelosi is a lifelong Democrat raised at the till of the “favor bank” developed by her father, Thomas J. D’Alesandro Jr., a congressman in the 1940s and the mayor of Baltimore during most of Ms. Pelosi’s childhood.</p>
<p>Ms. Pelosi often mentions learning from her father’s practice of keeping note of people he had helped and calling in stamp-licking, envelope-stuffing favors from them at election time. </p>
<p>Her family’s fierce partisanship is legendary. When President Ronald Reagan was running for re-election against Walter Mondale, the president went to Baltimore to dedicate a monument. White House officials called Ms. Pelosi’s mother to ask if they could collect Mr. D’Alesandro on the way.</p>
<p>Her mother replied, “After what he has done to poor people, he should not come to our house,” Ms. Pelosi said in the interview here. “She made it clear that would not be happening.” </p>
<p>Ms. Pelosi’s version of the favor bank involves seeking money and support from Democratic officeholders, donors and organizations around the country. She makes it clear in phone conversations that she knows what their individual wishes may be, and that if they hope to see them attended to should “her candidates” take back the House, they need to pay upfront, several people whom she has contacted said.</p>
<p>“She’s relentless,” said a national union official, who said Ms. Pelosi had been calling in recent months, looking for money for campaigns and volunteers. The official, an admirer who spoke on the condition of anonymity because getting on Ms. Pelosi’s bad side “ain’t pretty,” added, “She can really smell the goal line.”</p>
<p>Ms. Pelosi married her husband, Paul, a millionaire real estate investor, in 1963. They moved to Mr. Pelosi’s hometown, San Francisco, and had five children. From early in her married life, she began holding fund-raisers, for which she cooked the food and her children served it.</p>
<p>She rose quickly in the party, becoming chairwoman of the California Democratic Party. In 1983, when Phillip Burton, the congressman for the Fifth District in California, died, his wife, Sala, won an election to complete his term. But in 1987, Ms. Burton became ill with cancer, and she summoned her politically-powerful family to her deathbed to suggest Ms. Pelosi — who had recently lost a bid to become chairwoman of the national Democratic Party — to take her place.</p>
<p>“She saw a lot more than I did at that point about Nancy’s leadership potential,” said John Burton, a former state senator and Phillip’s brother. “And she was more than right.”</p>
<p>Ms. Pelosi’s victory in that election came in part by coloring her competitor in the primary, Harry Britt, as too liberal. In every election since, she has been derided by her district’s most liberal activists as not liberal enough.</p>
<p>That constituency is furious that she has been largely absent from the same-sex marriage fracas, voted to pay for the Iraq war and has refused to move to impeach Mr. Bush.</p>
<p>Code Pink, an antiwar group, has picketed her town hall meetings. “She represents one of the most progressive districts in the country,” said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the group. “We keep pulling her back to what we hope are her real roots.”</p>
<p>That first campaign also presaged Ms. Pelosi’s proclivity for sticking to her message, her ability to avoid being disarmed by her critics and her taste for retribution.</p>
<p>“The first time she ran for Congress, I was angry about people supporting her opponent,” Mr. Burton said. “I was yelling and screaming and she would just go to another church bingo game. She said, ‘Don’t worry about it; some day they will realize how unimportant they really are.’ And after it was over, she didn’t do much for them.”</p>
<p>Her voting record is among the most liberal in Congress. She gets an “A” from the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League and an “F” from the National Rifle Association. She favors alternative sentencing over prison construction, schools without prayer and death with taxes. She voted against the use of force in Iraq, though after the war started she voted to finance it.</p>
<p>In Ms. Pelosi’s vision for those first 100 hours, a Democratic-led veto-proof majority would “drain the swamp of Washington,” create a new rules package that would include pay-as-you-go budgeting, immediately adopt the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, increase the minimum wage to $7.25 and broaden the types of stem cell research allowed with federal money.</p>
<p>She also imagines cutting the interest rate on student loans and “ending tax giveaways for big oil.” </p>
<p>Still, she has risen in the ranks by being not a voice of her party, but its able banker. When she campaigned for whip, she filled the Democratic Congressional war chest with $3 million, and she continues to curry favor by flipping through her Rolodex of the rich.</p>
<p>“She has the best personal fund-raising base of any candidate outside of a president,” Mr. Burton said. </p>
<p>Ms. Pelosi seemed at her most comfortable — and polished — at a fund-raiser recently in the wealthy Bel Air section of Los Angeles, where she was introduced by the actress Annette Bening, serenaded by a folk guitarist and surrounded by the sort of women who know better than to wear high heels to a garden party.</p>
<p>Before walking into the backyard, Ms. Pelosi went to greet one young volunteer, the granddaughter of the hostess, and took her face gently into her hands and thanked her. </p>
<p>She then emerged, beaming at the crowd, largely female and many of a certain age, and announced, “At last we have a seat at the table.”</p>

<p>The US midterm election campaign entered its last full week yesterday amid a groundswell of support for Democratic candidates, which led a prominent Republican to admit that his party stands “on the precipice of an electoral rout.” </p>
<p>“If the election were held today, the Democrats would pick up 25 to 30 seats in the House of Representatives and at least four seats in the US Senate,” opined pollster John Zogby. </p>
<p>He cautioned, however, there was more than a week to go to the November 7 vote, which will feature contests for all 435 seats in the US House of Representatives, 33 seats in the Senate, 36 governorships and scores of local elective offices. And up to 20 per cent of voters have not made up their minds, Zogby warned. Yet, a new opinion poll made public on Saturday indicated a high level of public support for Democratic candidates as Republicans fought, and seemingly failed, to maintain their foothold using issues like national security and terrorism. </p>
<p>The survey, commissioned by Newsweek magazine, showed that if the congressional elections were held today, 53 per cent of likely voters would cast ballots for a Democrat in their respective districts while only 39 per cent would vote for a Republican. </p>
<p>What’s more, the poll indicated Republicans had virtually run out of winning campaign themes as their dominance on issues like national security and counterterrorism has all but evaporated. </p>
<p>By a margin of 45 per cent to 33 per cent, Americans now trust Democrats rather than Republicans to handle the increasingly bloody conflict in Iraq, the Newsweek poll found. On the economy, the margin of preference was 47 per cent to 34 per cent in favour of Democrats, and on health care 53 per cent to 26 per cent. The Republicans, who once enjoyed a substantial lead on the ability to conduct the war on terror, now saw it reduced to a statistical tie of 40 per cent to 39 per cent. </p>
<p>Prominent conservative ideologue and former House majority leader Dick Armey bitterly wrote in The Washington Post yesterday that Republicans “stand on the precipice of an electoral rout” because they “became enamored with power and position, and began putting politics over policy.” </p>
<p>Democrats need a net gain of 15 seats to regain control of the House they lost to Republicans in 1994 — and six seats to retake the Senate. The poll numbers have allowed Stuart Rothenberg, head of an independent political research firm, to predict “a Democratic wave” on November 7. </p>
<p>“The national political environment currently is worse than it was in 1994, when the Democrats lost 52 House seats, eight Senate seats and 10 governorships, and when Republicans won ... control of the House for the first time in decades,” commented Rothenberg. Charlie Cook, publisher of The Cook Political Report, was more specific. </p>
<p>He predicted this weekend that Republicans are most likely to see a net loss of 20 to 35 seats in the House, and with them their majority in the lower chamber. In the Senate, according to Cook, Republicans were poised to lose at least four, but possibly five or six seats. </p>
<p>The list of most endangered Republican senators included Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Conrad Burns of Montana. </p>

<p>Rep. Jim McDermott, Washington's most liberal congressman, is called courageous by his fans and an embarrassment bordering on irrelevant by his detractors.</p>
<p>Next month, both camps may be calling him Mr. Chairman.</p>
<p>If Democrats win control of the House, McDermott could become an important politician.</p>
<p>He'd get a subcommittee chairmanship on the House Ways and Means Committee, a platform he says he'd use to push for universal health-care coverage and alternative energy.</p>
<p>Speculation about McDermott's potential elevation — and that of other Democrats, such as Rep. Norm Dicks of Bremerton — is part of the grand guessing game in full swing on Capitol Hill.</p>
<p>With midterm elections nine days away, many polls suggest a Democratic victory in the House, and perhaps even in the Senate.</p>
<p>What would a switch from Republican to Democratic control in Congress mean for Washington state?</p>
<p>In general, the state's congressional clout would increase, because of the number and seniority of Democrats from Washington. They outnumber Republicans in the House delegation 6-3 and hold both Senate seats.</p>
<p>All of the state's House Democrats are expected to win in the Nov. 7 election. Sen. Maria Cantwell is leading her opponent in the polls, and Sen. Patty Murray isn't up for election until 2010.</p>
<p>Dicks, with 30 years in the House, and McDermott, with 18, have the tenure to play key roles in a Democratic House. By comparison, the senior Washington Republican, Doc Hastings of Pasco, has 12 years experience. The other two, Dave Reichert of Auburn and Cathy McMorris of Spokane, are freshmen engaged in tough re-election battles.</p>
<p>Dicks would be the House delegation's biggest winner. He would chair one of the 13 Appropriations subcommittees and might find himself in a position to steer more federal contracts to Boeing.</p>
<p>The state's four more-junior Democrats have not made their marks in national legislation, although Rep. Adam Smith of Tacoma could end up with a choice role on the Armed Services Committee.</p>
<p>If Democrats take the Senate, Murray would chair one of that chamber's Appropriations subcommittees, allowing her to funnel more federal money to the state.</p>
<p>Cantwell, if she survives a re-election challenge by Republican Mike McGavick, could chair a subcommittee on Commerce.</p>
<p>A shift in power doesn't automatically mean Democrats would get their way. The Senate could put the brakes on an exuberant House, and President Bush can veto bills he doesn't like.</p>
<p>Former Republican Rep. Jennifer Dunn, Reichert's predecessor in the 8th District, warned that Democrats could try to raise taxes and, in a nod to labor, weaken free-trade agreements, a major issue for trade-dependent Washington state.</p>
<p>Washington also would lose its influence on the House Homeland Security Committee, where Reichert chairs a subcommittee, said Dunn, a lobbyist for DLA Piper, one of the largest lobbying firms in D.C.</p>
<p>A new way — or repay?</p>
<p>First up if Democrats win: a sea change in how Congress operates, Dicks said.</p>
<p>"No more 2 ½-day work weeks," he said, referring to the abbreviated schedule imposed by GOP leaders. "We're going to work five days a week."</p>
<p>Dicks reflects general Democratic anger at how Republican leaders manage the House. They complain the GOP limits amendments, debate and hearings, and unveils complicated legislation only hours before a vote.</p>
<p>But that does not mean, McDermott said, that Democrats should seek revenge for perceived wrongs. "A number of us have sat down and said that if we go for payback we will deserve to be thrown out on our ears," he said.</p>
<p>Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution, an influential, center-left D.C. think tank, doubts that view will triumph. "Is there no sense of retribution? Two years to a presidential election? It's open season!" he said.</p>
<p>Committee chairs are the spoils for the party in power. Committee and subcommittee leaders set the legislative agenda, schedule hearings and witnesses, and enjoy higher visibility in Congress. On appropriations committees, chairmen and chairwomen can add and remove money from budget bills.</p>
<p>Dicks would be in line to chair the House Appropriations subcommittee that handles money for the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and related matters.</p>
<p>But he could end up leading the prized defense Appropriations subcommittee, if Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., were to become majority leader, a position he has said he wants. Murtha currently is the ranking Democrat on defense Appropriations.</p>
<p>That would be good news for Boeing. Dicks is Boeing's best friend in Congress and has pushed hard for the company against foreign competitor Airbus. Among other things, he helped get language that benefits Boeing in Pentagon guidelines for pending Air Force tanker contracts.</p>
<p>Dicks also vows more oversight of Iraq war contractors, such as Halliburton, and their profits. He said Congress needs a panel modeled after the Truman commission, a committee established by then-Sen. Harry Truman that investigated waste and abuse among military contractors during World War II.</p>
<p>"It's long overdue," Dicks said.</p>
<p>Expect Democrats to examine corporate practices, profits and tax breaks, too. The scandals of Enron, hedge funds, the insurance industry and big drug makers have given Democrats plenty of fodder, Dicks and McDermott said.</p>
<p>"All the committees will be more aggressive on oversight. You'll see a lot of CEOs in the House being sworn in," said T.J. Petrizzo, a lobbyist with Seattle clients.</p>
<p>The 2003 Medicare drug bill also is in the Democrats' sights. They want to repeal rules that prevent the government from negotiating bulk drug prices with pharmaceutical firms.</p>
<p>"Medicare is the low-hanging fruit," McDermott said. "If that doesn't go in a flash, then there's too much wrong with Congress to fix anything."</p>
<p>Friends at the top</p>
<p>McDermott would move up on the Ways and Means Committee, which handles tax legislation. He is in line to become chairman of the panel's subcommittee that deals with social services, but he has his eye on the Health subcommittee.</p>
<p>More important, many of his congressional friends in the party's left wing would become powerful committee chairmen.</p>
<p>Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, who wants to consider impeaching President Bush, would chair the Judiciary Committee. Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York would lead Ways and Means. Californian Reps. Henry Waxman and Tom Lantos would get Government Reform and International Relations, respectively.</p>
<p>That would give McDermott more friends in high places than many moderate colleagues.</p>
<p>McDermott's favorite issues aren't aimed at making your commute faster, your paycheck fatter or your child smarter. He's best-known for his sharp rhetoric against the Iraq war and his efforts to battle poverty and AIDS in Africa.</p>
<p>But he said he'd use a subcommittee chairmanship to advance his most pressing concern: health-care coverage for all Americans.</p>
<p>"It's why I went to Congress, to work on this," McDermott said. "In addition to children, we need to focus on people between ages of 50 and 65, those who increasingly lose their jobs, then have no benefits."</p>
<p>His secondary target is an alternative-energy policy, which he wants to create by using the tax code.</p>
<p>Former Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas, now a lobbyist with DLA Piper, speculates that McDermott and Ways and Means leaders might try to raise gasoline taxes to repress consumption of fossil fuels and reward use of alternative energy.</p>
<p>"McDermott will be one of the people [Rep. Nancy] Pelosi will have to rein in," Armey said. "... It's hard for McDermott to work with people because he is a militant partisan."</p>
<p>Pelosi, of California, would become House speaker under Democratic control.</p>
<p>McDermott said he's realistic about what Democrats could accomplish. His prediction: "We'll probably get minimum wage raised, and the right to negotiate Medicare prices."</p>
<p>Committee seats key</p>
<p>The state's other four House Democrats would rely on strength in numbers and seats on crucial committees to have an impact.</p>
<p>Smith serves on the Armed Services Committee and has become close to its ranking Democrat, Ike Skelton of Missouri.</p>
<p>"He is on the bubble of a subcommittee chairmanship," said Steve McBee, a lobbyist who represents several Northwest clients.</p>
<p>Smith, whose district includes Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base, would like to lead the Military Personnel subcommittee. He also wants oversight of the administration's use of National Guard and Reserves in Iraq.</p>
<p>Rep. Brian Baird of Vancouver and Rep. Rick Larsen of Lake Stevens are both on the Transportation Committee, and they could help in securing more federal money for projects in the Puget Sound and Vancouver regions.</p>
<p>Baird has pushed hard for the state sales-tax deductibility on federal taxes and is constantly developing new ways to resuscitate that legislation.</p>
<p>Larsen would have a chance to finally pass his bill that would create the Wild Sky Wilderness Area from 106,000 acres in Snohomish County.</p>
<p>Rep. Jay Inslee's role on the Energy and Commerce Committee and Resources Committee also could pay off. Those committees oversee oil and gas, national parks and high-tech development and regulation.</p>

<p>One of the old saws about politicians goes like this: "Question: How do you know when a politician is lying?" </p>
<p>"Answer: His lips are moving." </p>
<p>Voter trust - or lack thereof - is a recurring backdrop for many local and state ballot measures in the Nov. 7 general election. </p>
<p>Some observers say distrust of government is fueling several of the 10 statewide initiatives, including those that would limit legislators' terms, curb state spending, restrict the government's power to condemn private property, and dictate geographic boundaries for election of judges to statewide courts. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, in Lane County, the fate of the most expensive local measure on the ballot - a $27 million annual countywide income tax for public safety - could hinge on whether voters trust that the government has made an honest case and that the only answer is "more taxes." </p>
<p>Analysts say ballot measures that exploit voter mistrust are nothing new. But some say skepticism of government is up - and may play a bigger role in the final tallies this year. </p>
<p>Voter cynicism is "real high," said Russ Walker, Oregon director for FreedomWorks, a national group supporting the Oregon income-tax-cutting Measure 41 along with Measure 40, which would require the election of appeals and Supreme Court judges from different geographic districts, rather than statewide. </p>
<p>"With anything that's viewed as `We're going to fight city hall,' there's a lot of support for those ideas, because city hall hasn't been delivering," Walker said. </p>
<p>To trust or not to trust </p>
<p>Trust is a key issue in national-level issues. And that may color voter attitudes about local and state leaders and measures, observers say. </p>
<p>The Associated Press reported this month that about half of likely voters say recent disclosures of financial corruption and sexual scandal in Congress will be "very" or "extremely" important when they vote. In a CNN poll, only half of the respondents said they feel Republicans and Democrats have high ethical standards. </p>
<p>Portland political analyst Tim Hibbitts said the specific battles for and against particular Oregon ballot measures ultimately could prove more influential than voters' overall perceptions of government and politicians. </p>
<p>But pollster Mike Riley, of Portland-based polling firm Riley Research Associates, said faith in national public bodies is very low, and "that's probably going to impact" voting on Oregon issues. </p>
<p>Distrust could lead voters to support initiatives that are perceived as "a way to get things done when the Legislature fails," Riley said. </p>
<p>Margaret Noel, president of the Oregon League of Women Voters, said "limiting government" is a theme running through several of the statewide measures, reflecting the limited-government ideology of the groups and individuals that spent many hundreds of thousands of dollars to get those measures onto the ballot. </p>
<p>Those forces include Walker's Washington, D.C.-based FreedomWorks, Nevada millionaire and Oregon business owner Loren Parks, and the Illinois-based organizations U.S. Term Limits and Americans for Limited Government, which are run by New York real estate investor Howard Rich. </p>
<p>These entities have bankrolled measures to prevent government from condemning private property for private-sector economic development work (Measure 39); to require the election of judges from districts (Measure 40); to cut state income taxes (Measure 41); to reinstate legislative term-limits (Measure 45); and to limit state spending (Measure 48). </p>
<p>The measures are attempts by out-of-state groups and individuals with an ideological distrust of government to take advantage of similar misgivings among Oregonians, Noel said. Her league opposes all of these initiatives. </p>
<p>"This doesn't come from Oregonians looking at problems that have occurred in Oregon," Noel said. </p>
<p>"This comes from people outside the state who have a vested interest in limiting government." </p>
<p>Dislike of taxes </p>
<p>The campaigns for some measures play directly to voter skepticism. </p>
<p>Television ads promoting the spending limit initiative remind voters of the string of Oregon legislators who failed to disclose that beer and wine distributors paid for their trips to Hawaii. The message: State lawmakers are too busy partying with lobbyists on tropical islands to bother running the state in a wise and thrifty fashion. </p>
<p>Supporters of the tax cut and spending-limit measures hammer away at the theme that government wastes money on needless programs and excessive pay and benefits for employees. </p>
<p>Other measures offer a more uplifting rationale for support. Supporters of Measure 40 say they want judges on Oregon's two top courts to be "accountable to the people" and to "adequately represent all areas of the state." </p>
<p>Judy Bonn, a Walterville-area retiree, voted for measures 41 and 48, calling them fair controls on how state government spends taxes. She has scant trust in government - be it the local, state or federal level. </p>
<p>"There's a good percentage of them that can just go away at all levels," she said. "We are taxed and taxed and taxed, and there's never an attempt by government to explain why the taxes happen, or to try to live within its means." </p>
<p>Bonn directs particular ire at the Lane County income tax measure, which she called "totally deceptive." </p>
<p>The ballot language states that a "yes" vote would limit the government's taxing authority. Voters must read an accompanying informational insert to learn that voting "yes" also enacts the tax. </p>
<p>Said Reis Kash, a Springfield-area retiree: "If you can't trust the government to put a measure before you honestly, then people are going to say, `Hey, they tried to swindle me on this one. I don't think I'll support the school tax' or `I don't think I'll support that tax.' </p>
<p>"The person who wrote the (county income tax wording) should get the Slick Willie award for political deception," he added. </p>
<p>Defending the measure </p>
<p>But Diane Moore, a 50-year-old Elmira accountant who served on the committee that wrote the explanatory statement about the income-tax measure, said the measure was crafted to do what the wording says - limit the county's ability to tax. </p>
<p>Moore said she's taken the time to educate herself about the county and its spending, and that's given her a new appreciation of the five-member board of county commissioners. </p>
<p>"Have they earned my trust? Yes they have, because they work hard," Moore said. "Every one of them is extremely hard-working. They are trying to please such a diverse population - I don't know how they do their job, honestly." </p>
<p>Kash and Moore agree on one thing: Distrust of government is up. </p>
<p>Moore attributes that to debate surrounding national issues such as the Iraq war and the related issues of civil and human rights. </p>
<p>Kash agrees. "I have never seen contention like we have now," she said. "It abolishes trust - you cannot live in an environment where everyone hates somebody else."</p>

<p>Under a banner of geographic diversity, backers of Measure 40 join a national parade to manipulate courts</p>
<p>Oregon voters aren't the only ones being asked to restructure their courts this fall. Voters in at least four other states will decide on constitutional amendments to do the same.</p>
<p>These ballot measures are part of a national movement to make judges easier to control and punish. Oregon's measure is one of the harder to stomach, because it comes under the false pretense of encouraging diversity.</p>
<p>Oregon voters shouldn't be fooled. Measure 40 is another pet project of conservative Nevada millionaire Loren Parks and the state chapter of FreedomWorks, a Washington, D.C.-based anti-tax group. It would harm the state by reducing Oregonians' voting rights, politicizing the courts and making the job of judge less appealing.</p>
<p>The measures in other states include the following:</p>
<p>* Colorado voters will decide whether to impose term limits for appellate judges. If this constitutional amendment passes, a number of sitting judges will be term-limited off the bench.</p>
<p>* Hawaii voters will be asked to repeal the current age limit for judges, which is 70. Opponents say the measure is intended to deny the Republican governor a chance to appoint new judges.</p>
<p>* Montana voters may make it easier to recall judges who displease them. Currently, judges can be recalled only for official misconduct and other serious problems. This constitutional amendment would allow voters to recall judges for any reason.</p>
<p>* South Dakota voters will consider granting themselves the right to sue judges for rulings they don't like. If the measure passed, judges could also be fired, fined or jailed by a specially created grand jury. The group sponsoring the amendment is called "JAIL 4 Judges."</p>
<p>On the spectrum of political manipulation, Oregon fits in between Montana and South Dakota; between harassing the judiciary and terrorizing it.</p>
<p>Measure 40 would require Oregon's appellate judges to run in geographic districts, much like legislators, rather than statewide. The Legislature would divide the state into seven districts for the Oregon Supreme Court and five (two judges each) for the appeals court. Voters could no longer weigh in on all 17 appellate races, as they do now. They could vote only in the races held within their district.</p>
<p>Backers say this measure would increase the geographic diversity of the bench, which they complain is dominated by people who worked in Portland and the Willamette Valley before getting appointed or elected. The sponsors have a bigger goal: They want to make it cheaper and easier to unseat incumbents --starting with the "liberal elite."</p>
<p>Thomas Balmer, an associate justice on the Oregon Supreme Court, says the measure is driven by "single-minded hostility" to the current court. He worries about the requirement to live in your district while working in Salem, a rule that would force some judges to quit, maintain two homes or spend long hours commuting.</p>
<p>Mostly, he's bothered by the prospect of judges turning into political representatives rather than impartial arbiters of the law.</p>
<p>While incumbent judges have reasons to oppose this change to the status quo, so do voters. This fall, for example, all Oregon voters get to pick between Jack Roberts and Virginia Linder, two candidates vying for an open seat on the Supreme Court. If Measure 40 were in effect, 85 percent of Oregon's voters would be denied a vote in this race.</p>
<p>In fact, if Measure 40 were in effect, both of these good candidates could be barred from running based on the location of their homes. This is a dumb way to attract the most qualified Oregonians to a public service job that is so specialized and influential. It's clearly not a way to diversify Oregon's courts, but rather to divide, weaken and conquer them.
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