It’s John McCain versus Bill Frist once again:
Angry over what he considers a breach of Senate courtesy by GOP leaders, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has teamed with Democrats and centrist Republicans to force the leaders to back down on an effort to undermine fundraising limits he helped make law in 2002.
With assurance from Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that he would have the Democrats’ support, McCain confronted GOP leaders in private yesterday at the Senate Republican Caucus luncheon.
At issue was a rider attached to the treasury-transportation spending bill that would have allowed lawmakers to transfer unlimited sums from their leadership political action committees to party coffers.
Well, why would he be upset about that (unless he wants more honest government)? MORE:
McCain brought his grievance with Republican leaders before his Republican colleagues and won, said a GOP lawmaker who attended the meeting. The leadership promised to give McCain a vote on stripping the rider.
The confrontation attests to McCain’s growing clout on Capitol Hill. By working with Democrats and winning the backing of a handful of Republicans, he has demonstrated that he can wrest the chamber’s agenda from the leaders. It also shows that McCain may be becoming more influential within his own caucus at a time when President Bush is struggling in the polls and the senator has emerged as a front-runner for the 2008 presidential race.
It was a dramatic turnaround from earlier in the week, when leaders decided to circumvent McCain by pulling the transportation-treasury bill from floor consideration. McCain suspected that the bill would be put into a “minibus� bill, preventing the rider from being stripped out in its own vote.
GOP leaders apparently realized yesterday that McCain had cobbled enough support to hand them an embarrassing defeat if the bill came up for consideration with the rider attached.
McCain told The Hill that he had brought the issue up at the Republican Conference meeting and was satisfied with the response, although he wouldn’t discuss details of the exchange.
“It’s the same people who have fought long against campaign-finance reform …� McCain said, “the same cast of characters.�
A GOP senator who attended yesterday’s luncheon said McCain told colleagues that he had not been given a floor vote on the campaign-finance rider, which he considered a serious discourtesy.
Campaign-finance reform was McCain’s signature issue before and shortly after running for president in 2000. He was upset that Senate leaders would try to amend one of the greatest achievements of his Senate career on an unrelated spending measure. He was irate that GOP leaders would use procedural tactics to deny him a chance to challenge the provision, said a GOP aide familiar with the matter.
“McCain was livid,� said the aide.
And Frist?
Amy Call, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), said Republican leaders never made a decision on when to bring the transportation bill to the floor, despite Bennett’s understanding. She added that the bill could still make it before the end of the week
(Editor’s Note: It is the policy of this site never to include the words “Bill Frist” and “intelligent design” in the same sentence, in the interest of accuracy.).
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.