How Reid got stimulus bill through Congress

By Lisa Mascaro

Sunday, Feb. 10, 2008 | 2 a.m.

For the cameras, it looked perfect. Four leaders of the House and Senate standing before a portrait of George Washington to announce a fix for the nation’s troubled economy.

Congress moments earlier had passed legislation to spur the economy with cash rebates, tax incentives for businesses and mortgage aid. The Treasury secretary stood at the leaders’ side to bless the deal President Bush would sign into law.

The smiles frozen on the lawmakers’ faces belied their apparent exhaustion. It was nearly 8 p.m. in Washington. When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stepped up to the lectern to say a few words, he acknowledged what a tough trip it had been.

“Legislation is the art of compromise, and that compromise comes very hard sometimes,” Reid said into the TV lenses. “It came very hard this time.”

There’s a reason they call it sausage making. Watching legislation become law is not always pretty. The Saturday morning “Schoolhouse Rock” song only hints at the dark underbelly with its soulful, melancholy explanation of how things work.

This first major legislative battle of 2008 showed that the partisan warfare that has become business as usual in Washington can subside when that’s politically expedient. The parties are not inexorable. But warfare remains, and it takes just as much fighting to get nowhere as it does to reach a happy conclusion.

Here are a few scenes from the factory floor.

A rocky start

Reid was home in Searchlight two days before Nevada’s Jan. 19 presidential caucus. He got on the phone with Bush and the other leaders of the House and Senate. Congressional leaders wanted to forge a bipartisan approach to spur the economy.

Bush told them the economy could use a fix, but Reid thought the president wasn’t interested in including Democrats in discussions of possible solutions.

When the call was over, Reid sent word that he was disappointed in Bush’s unilateral approach.

Reid and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson talked at length while Reid was home in Nevada. It helped smooth the rift. By the time they all met in person at the White House the following Tuesday, a plan was under way. Reid predicted Congress would have a bill on Bush’s desk by Presidents Day.

One week later, in a stunning show of speed, the House overwhelmingly passed an economic stimulus package. Nevada’s representatives, Democrat Shelley Berkley and Republicans Jon Porter and Dean Heller, voted in favor.

The package included the key elements of rebates, business tax breaks and mortgage help that would become law.

The bluff

Senators, though, were feeling shut out of the process. The Senate Finance Committee crafted a broader plan, tacking on provisions Democrats supported — extended unemployment benefits, cash to help low-income households pay their heating bills, and renewable energy tax credits to spur that nascent industry and its jobs.

Republicans called these “extras” that would doom the bill. The new year’s comity quickly faded and Congress backslid into the partisan divide.

“Democrats put American taxpayers’ rebate checks in jeopardy” came a missive from the Senate Republican communications shop.

House Democrats grumbled that they had stomached the compromise and the Senate should, too. One prominent House Democrat warned that the Senate was “on very thin ice.”

Reid chimed in that portions of the Senate Democratic plan made him “gag” (the part about giving rebates to the Warren Buffets of the world, rather than reserving the checks for those with incomes of $75,000 or less.) He predicted the Senate plan’s defeat, and announced he would carve out votes on the most plausible chunks.

The most popular element from the Senate was a provision to extend rebate checks to 21 million seniors and 250,000 disabled veterans who had been excluded under the House plan because they don’t earn enough money to pay income taxes.

The Senate minority leader, Republican Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, would eventually support that addition.

Then came the bluff.

Reid had a change of strategy. He increasingly believed he could persuade enough Republicans to support the full Senate plan. A new jobs report showed a worsening economic outlook, and he believed Republicans would be loath to vote against aid. The Senate package was what Democrats were all about.

One week after the House’s bipartisan success, Reid laid down the marker: The Senate would vote on its plan alone. If it failed, there would be no compromise, only a vote on the House plan — without the popular seniors-vets provision that Republicans now supported.

The idea was to pressure wavering Republicans by removing any hope that they could approve just some of the elements sought by Senate Democrats. If they voted no, they would be turning their backs on all of those additional items.

Reid was bluffing, people thought. Why not just take the deal?

“I’m not much of a bluffer,” he said.

The compromise

The vote was called for the next evening. Reid summoned Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama from the campaign trail. Eight Republicans crossed over in support. That left Reid one short of the 60 needed to pass. (Republican Sen. John McCain did not vote.)

Reid exited the chamber’s west door to his office. He started making calls, looking for the 60th vote.

Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, who had sided with the Democrats, said any loss, no matter how close, is still a loss. “He prefers to win,” she said. “The problem is you can’t exact an all-or-nothing outcome when you don’t control 60 votes.”

“It was worth a try,” she added. “It didn’t work.”

All morning the next day, Washington waited. Reid and McConnell met at 9:30 a.m., but there was no word of a deal. Pelosi nudged Reid by saying the House would handle the seniors-vets compromise, but she also made a case for speed. “Unless there is a reason, why should we wait?”

Shortly after 3 p.m., Reid announced the compromise. The Senate would vote for the seniors-vets amendment, then vote on the final bill.

So he was bluffing after all.

He made his point. The tough vote the night before had put Republicans on record against the plan. The campaign committee trying to elect Democratic senators in 2008 issued news releases criticizing Republicans up for reelection who voted no.

“I think Democrats and Republicans got the American public to know how they stand on these issues,” Reid said. Republicans, he predicted, are going to pay at the polls. “They are going to walk off a cliff,” he said.

The first vote happened at 4:10 p.m. — exactly the time Reid had a scheduled a conference call with the Mayor of Fernley, the flood-ravaged Northern Nevada town, and Nevada media members.

An upbeat Reid ribbed reporters on the call and worked through their questions about rebuilding the broken levee. Twenty minutes later, as the C-Span clock counted down, Reid ended the call, which had otherwise been virtually free of the D.C. drama. “I’ve got 36 seconds to go before I have to go vote,” he said, excusing himself.

The compromise amendment passed overwhelmingly, as did the final bill.

Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada voted against final passage, saying, “It will not provide the immediate relief we need.”

Democratic senators said Reid’s firm stance moved Republicans to bolster the bill.

Republicans scoffed and said they should have passed the bill a week ago.

Within hours it was passed by the House.

By 8 p.m. the leaders were standing in front of George Washington, smiling for the cameras. Presidents Day is still a week away.