I know there is not much choice for the Republican leadership, but when they refuse to work with the administration as a matter of strategy, they wind up inadvertently investing tremendous power in just a few moderates within their caucus. If they keep this up, we’ll see a cycle repeat itself where Sens. Collins, Snowe, and Specter consistently wins concessions for their concerns and their constituents, while the rest of the Republicans are left with almost nothing to show for themselves.
On other issues, it could Sen. Lugar or Sen. Voinovich, or Sen. Murkowski who provide the critical votes, but the lesson will be learned fairly soon that opposition as a matter of strategy is going to lead to few accomplishments for individual members.
The problem will be even more acute for members of the House. The Democrats don’t actually need Republicans to pass bills in the House, so the only way Republicans can really influence the laws is to work in the committees and then offer bipartisan support, which the Democrats still value.
It will be interesting to see how many Republican House members wind up voting for the stimulus package, but it won’t have all that much predictive value because the stimulus didn’t work its way through the committee process (regular order) but was written by Rep. David Obey (D-WI) and the leadership. The Republicans didn’t have any opportunity to work with the Democrats on the bill, so they have no skin in the game.
Future bills will give them an opportunity to have some positive input. We’ll see how many times they have to be rapped on the nose before they begin changing their behavior.
