WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- A partisan logjam over labor provisions in the proposal to establish a cabinet-level homeland security agency continued to vex the Senate Thursday as a Democrat-backed proposal failed a procedural vote. Republicans -- backed by the president -- oppose the provision, saying it removes the president's ability to manage the workforce.
The substitute amendment offered by Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., would establish a single agency from the dozens of agencies that currently perform homeland security duties. An estimated 170,000 workers would be reassigned to the new agency, included an estimated 43,000 union members. President Bush has vowed to veto any bill that continues the labor protection offered to these members.
The Senate is expected to vote later Thursday on a competing amendment offered by Sens. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, and Zell Miller, D-Ga., that Bush supports, which closely mimics the Lieberman language, but fails to include any organized labor protections. That measure is also widely expected to fail to gather the 60 votes needed to limit debate and move to a final vote, where only a majority is required.
A bipartisan team of Sen. John Breaux, a conservative Democrat from Louisiana, and liberal Republican Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, have made a proposal that limits the ability of workers to collectively bargain, but only if the actual job description can be specifically detailed to national security or has changed substantively in the reorganization.
President Bush has vowed to veto this proposal, leaving it unlikely to be passed by the Senate in the foreseeable future.
Also Thursday, Gramm produced what he said was ammunition to bolster his claim that allowing a union presence in the new department would hurt homeland security because of the inherent difficulty in firing and reassigning union-protected workers. Gramm personally delivered to reporters a complaint filed by the National Treasury Employees Union against the Customs Service for failing to enter into negotiations with the union when President Bush changed the terror-meter from code yellow to code orange in response to increased terror threats.
Gramm said it proved his point that the war on terror should not involve negotiations or collective bargaining when the nation is threatened.
"Sometimes when you're trying to make a point, you just can't believe how lucky you get with an example," Gramm joked with reporters.
Thursday's defeat of a cloture motion -- which would have brought the Lieberman amendment to a vote -- was the fourth such defeat for this amendment this week, leaving the Senate in limbo over how to resolve the issue. President Bush has been highly critical of the Senate leadership for failing to acquiesce to his demands and pass the bill he wants. But Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Thursday foisted blame on his Republican colleagues for continuing to deny the Lieberman amendment an up-or-down vote.
"This is the fourth week we have been debating homeland security; and while so many have been unwilling to report the fact that our Republican friends have been filibustering, the fact is they are stopping the completion of our work on this bill," he chided reporters. "They are extending this debate indefinitely for reasons that are inexplicable. They may be explicable. I said yesterday I'm very concerned about the politicization of the debate not only about Iraq but about homeland security, and I get very concerned when I see our Republican friends unwilling to bring debate to a close on this bill. We still have the opportunity to allow germane amendments, but we can't even get them to do that after 4 weeks."
The Senate Republicans have demanded that the Gramm-Miller amendment be allowed a straight vote, circumventing Senate rules that allow almost unlimited amendments. Daschle has not been willing to make an exception for the amendment and Republicans have declared an unofficial filibuster to prevent Daschle from bringing their amendment for a vote until he agrees. The vote expected Thursday on Gramm-Miller will be on cloture, not passage of the amendment.
