Friday, July 12, 2002 | 4:58 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION: July 14, 2002
Nevada's top three politicians were trounced last week in perhaps the biggest battle of their careers when the U.S. Senate voted 60-39 in favor of Yucca Mountain.
But Gov. Kenny Guinn and Sen. John Ensign, both Republicans, and Sen. Harry Reid, a Democrat, likely will emerge virtually unscathed. Few voters or historians are likely to blame the politicians for failing to kill the project that would make Nevada home to the nation's nuclear waste.
"The track record is that if a member has proven that he has done everything he could, then generally he will survive pretty well," George Washington University political science professor Christopher Deering said. "The fact is that two senators can't do much other than slow the process down. They can't do much to defy the Senate's will."
In fact, the drubbing could actually strengthen the power trio's political careers if they are remembered as tireless gladiators in one of the bloodiest political battles in Nevada history, observers say.
"They did a remarkable job," said Joan Claybrook, head of the environmental and consumer group Public Citizen, which worked closely with Reid and Ensign. "We raised a stink. A lot of senators were really sweating over this, and we wanted them to sweat.
"Without (Reid and Ensign) we would not have been able to do that job."
Reid, Ensign and Guinn are reluctant to discuss how the Yucca battle could affect their careers, and perhaps with good reason -- they lost.
They shrug at the notion that their efforts could actually bolster their images.
"I did what any governor would have done," Guinn said.
For Guinn and Ensign, it could be worse because it was a fellow Republican, President Bush, who approved Yucca in February, ultimately setting up the congressional fight. And 45 of the 48 GOP senators supported Yucca. Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina did not vote.
During the closely contested 2000 presidential election, Guinn -- as chairman of Bush's campaign in Nevada -- invited the then-Texas governor to raise money and his image with voters here.
During a stop in Lake Tahoe, Bush made the now infamous statements that any decision to site a waste repository at Yucca Mountain should be based on "sound science, not politics."
Guinn, Ensign and Reid lobbied Bush in the Oval Office after Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommended Yucca Mountain. The Nevadans said the meeting went well and Bush listened. Reid said he reminded the president of the political realities and said Nevada's electoral votes put Bush into the White House.
Bush approved the project eight days later and was blasted by Nevadans.
Regardless, Bush continues to have a high approval rating in Nevada, as he does nationwide.
Ensign could actually suffer the most, not just because he stood next to Bush in 2000, but because he made Yucca Mountain a centerpiece of his Senate race.
Ensign constantly argued that Nevadans had to elect a Republican to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Richard Bryan because, he said, only a Republican would be able to persuade Senate Republicans about Yucca Mountain's dangers and swing GOP votes Nevada's way.
But last week, only Sens. Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island went against the GOP to vote with Nevada.
"He only got two," said Ted Jelen, chairman of the political science department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "That's not very good."
But the ultimate effect of the Yucca battle is hard to predict and will be revealed at the polls, the senators said.
"That's up to the voters," Ensign said.
Yucca put Reid and Ensign in underdog roles against the bureaucratic Energy Department. Sympathetic constituents -- from a state that often prides itself on its distrust of the federal government -- overwhelmingly rallied behind them. They even sent money to bolster an anti-Yucca legal and lobbying fund.
Until the end, the two routinely portrayed themselves as David in a battle with the Goliath nuclear power industry, which played well in the media. Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory gushed that the "humble, natty" Reid did everything he could.
Reid
"Harry Reid stood in the first row of the Senate with bowed head and hands loosely clasped before him as the ayes for the Yucca Mountain repository rained down on him," she wrote. "The Democratic whip can count, and he had known for days that he was being beaten -- by White House pressure, the power of the nuclear industry and ingratitude."
The Yucca fight, which Reid last week described as a pool-hall brawl, also seemed to burnish the image of the Nevada senators among their colleagues. And in the clubby, 100-member Senate where the best lawmakers are often the best back-room deal-makers, that's important.
Senators routinely go to battle with each other over a given issue one day, then team up to introduce another bill the next. Reid understands how Congress works: The respect senators garner among their enemies today pays dividends tomorrow.
Corralling 35 Democrats was a testament to the respect Reid -- the majority whip -- has cultivated in 16 years in the Senate, his allies said.
"The easy thing for most of these people is to be on the other side, to just jam Nevada," former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta said in a Wall Street Journal profile of Reid on Wednesday. Nevada hired Podesta to help lobby against Yucca. Without the Democrats' solidarity with Reid, Podesta said, "I don't think we'd have 10 votes."
Reid's performance set off a new round of whispers that his fellow Democrats would likely elect him Senate majority leader if Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., runs for president. ("A number of people" have approached Reid about taking the job, but he declines to comment on it. "Sen. Daschle is the majority leader and I'm going under the assumption that he will be the majority leader in the next Congress," Reid said last week.)
During the debate, senators lauded the Nevadans, seemingly out of genuine admiration -- as well as traditional courtesy.
Reid was "unbelievable in his tireless pursuit of every member of this body," Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., said.
Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., a longtime Reid friend, agonized over his vote. He wanted to support the project -- and vowed to vote for it if it would break a tie. But he ultimately voted against Yucca out of loyalty to Reid.
Carper served in the House with Reid beginning in 1982, worked out in gym with Reid and watched Reid's kids grow up.
"For me, and I know for many of us, this important policy decision is also a decision that is intertwined with the respect and admiration we have for our colleagues (from Nevada)," Carper said.
And Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said there was "not a more revered member of this body than our senior senator from Nevada."
Of course, all the kind words directed at Reid do not mean he is universally loved. Senators disguise their contempt because of self-preservation.
Reid and Yucca champion Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, are not the "friends" they call each other during debate. To preserve civil debate, senators are required by congressional rules not to address each other by name. That explains why, even in the heat of battle, they call each other "friend" and "gentleman."
"It's frequently the case that the more adjectives and courtesies they place before an address -- 'my distinguished colleague and dear friend from Nevada' -- the more (angry) they are," Deering said. "It's inversely related."
Ensign
Still, Ensign's efforts -- he assembled a unique Yucca information binder for each GOP senator and met with most personally -- won the freshman some genuine admiration.
Utah Republicans Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett said they were pained to vote against him.
"I don't feel good about this at all," a solemn-faced Hatch said the day before the vote. "These are our neighbors to the west."
And GOP leaders -- who may have quietly cursed Ensign's efforts -- seemed to respect his tenacity in the end.
"I understand the senators from Nevada," Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said. "They have made a valiant effort. They feel so strongly about it. I understand that. But I think the Senate is committed to working with them to make sure that as we move forward, it is based on good science and also that we do it in the most secure fashion."
Ensign was doomed from the start, according to Ed Rothschild, a lobbyist for Nevada.
"He was fighting against the president of the United States," Rothshild said. "He had a very tough set of demands."
Even anti-Yucca activists, who were shattered by the vote, were reluctant to criticize Nevada's senators.
"I don't want to place blame (on Ensign), but I am very disappointed that he was not able to get more Republicans to take another look at this issue," said Anna Aurelio, a scientist with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
Reid and Ensign will be remembered for sticking to their guns, said Grant Smith, an anti-Yucca activist with Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana.
"People have to realize that the Nevada delegation doesn't have the power or the influence of a delegation from New York or Florida or Michigan. I don't see how people could hold the (Yucca defeat) against them."
Michael Mariotte, director of the anti-Yucca Nuclear Information and Resource Service, said he was disappointed that Reid couldn't keep 15 Democrats in the fold, and that Ensign couldn't corral more than two Republicans. But he didn't blame them.
"I think the vote revealed the power of the issue and the industry rather than a commentary on their efforts," he said.
Guinn said the clout both Ensign and Reid built in Washington had the White House "running scared."
"They raised the big guns up at the end," Guinn said. "The White House had to summon Utah's two senators to make a deal with them because the administration was afraid of the momentum we had built."
The bipartisan effort, specifically between Reid and Ensign, will also help Nevada in the future, Guinn added.
"They proved they could work together for Nevada, and I think it shows they will be able to work together on other things," he said.
Nevada Democrat Party Chairman Terry Care said it was too early to determine whether the working relationship that the two senators forged on Yucca will affect future Senate races.
"That's still a long way off," Care said, "and a lot can happen."
Guinn
It probably helps Reid and Ensign that they don't face re-election until 2004 and 2006 respectively. Time should heal any Yucca wounds, observers say.
Guinn faces little opposition in this year's race, so for him the "Yucca effect" is harder to gauge.
Although Democrats inside Nevada like to bash the GOP for its support of Yucca, none has tried to attack the state's top Republican on the issue.
Guinn's political team believes that his opposition to the repository has only bolstered his support at home and increased his presence on the national stage.
"The governor has been the most visible fighter here in Nevada," his chief of staff Marybel Batjer said. "I think everybody realizes he's done everything he can."
Guinn's historic veto of a president also set him apart from the House Republicans whom Nevada Democrats like to assault, Jelen said.
"He went against his party and did what was right for the state," Jelen said. "That probably gives him more credibility."
Guinn can also benefit from his Yucca fight during his campaign because his leading Democratic opponent, state Sen. Joe Neal of North Las Vegas, has long supported negotiating for benefits as a quid pro quo for accepting waste at the dump.
"The Democrats aren't even backing Joe Neal," Guinn's former chief of staff, Pete Ernaut said. "Kenny Guinn is the better candidate to fight nuclear waste."
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