Race for minority vote intensifies in Congress

Benjamin Grove

Monday, Jan. 27, 2003 | 11:11 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has helped lead the attack on Republicans in recent days as Democrats try to capitalize on what they consider GOP miscues on racial issues.

In the wake of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and with the start of Black History Month just days away, race is a hot topic in the nation's capital. At stake are minority voters in the 2004 election cycle, already very much under way.

Democrats have subtly but repeatedly referenced racially insensitive remarks made by Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., that led to his resignation as GOP leader. Democrats also cited the decision by President Bush to oppose an affirmative action policy at the University of Michigan. And they said it was a slap in the face for Bush to again support judicial nominee Charles Pickering, rejected last year by Democrats who questioned his commitment to civil rights.

"We're going to try to let minorities know not just how Republicans talk about them, but how they treat them (through legislation)," Reid said.

Reid last week blasted Bush for having a wreath laid at the Confederate Monument in Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day.

"Trent Lott was not the problem," Reid said. "They used him as a scapegoat, but the problem is in the Republican Party."

Republican leaders said Democrats are using race as a political tool.

"The Democratic strategy with regard to race has always been the same -- to divide and conquer," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, said last week.

Reid said Senate Democratic leaders have a strategy this year to illuminate their efforts on minority issues, including hate crime legislation and bills aimed at improving civil rights, education, and raising the minimum wage. Democrats would continue to oppose federal judge nominees they deem as insensitive to minorities, Reid said.

In Senate speeches last week, Reid outlined civil rights legislation that Democrats are calling Equal Rights and Equal Dignity for Americans. Reid said Democrats aim to end to racial profiling; erase pay inequities between men and women; stop employment discrimination against homosexuals; and fund election reforms that protect minority voting rights.

"Our comprehensive legislation includes measures to expand hate crimes protections," Reid said. "Let the Republicans come forward and stop barring us from passing that. We have legislation to strengthen enforcement of existing civil rights laws. Let them move across the aisle and help."

Reid and Democratic Leader Sen. Tom Daschle last week hosted a civil rights forum in which panelists explored a civil rights agenda for the next century, as well as the roles of education and the federal courts in promoting equality.

Racial dynamics have always been a part of congressional politics, but divisions may be intensifying in the politically divided 108th Congress. Democrats are re-asserting the traditional notion that they are the party of minorities.

"There is no question that African-Americans don't view the Republican Party as an alternative," said David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a black think tank in Washington. "The choice African-American voters have is to vote Democratic or stay home."

Lott's comments, along with Bush's affirmative action stance and support for Pickering will dog the GOP this year because they are just examples of a deeper problem, Bositis said.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said Lott's comments hurt the GOP, but stressed that the party plans to build bridges. Ensign said GOP senators at virtually every meeting since the Lott controversy have talked about communicating more effectively with minority voters.

Senate Republicans this year plan to push an agenda of their own that helps minorities: education plans including vouchers, faith-based initiatives that could better help inner city churches, and small-business programs, Ensign said.

Ensign said Republicans also plan to do a better job of recruiting minority candidates and hiring them as congressional staffers.

"The Democratic Party is taking minority voters for granted and they know that," Ensign said. "But the Republicans were ignoring them. Both parties have been guilty."

In the House, Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said he was proud of GOP efforts to reach out to minority constituents and to recruit minority candidates, although there are no black House Republicans now that Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., has left Congress.

Gibbons pointed to two high-profile Nevada Republicans -- Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval and Las Vegas Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald, who lost a bid to oust incumbent Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. If Democrats had the moral high ground on minority issues, they would have supported McDonald, who is black, Gibbons said.

"We're moving forward in the 21st century to make sure that minorities are represented and that the party welcomes them with open arms," Gibbons said.

Gibbons said the rehashing of Lott's "unfortunate" comments was "political scare tactics" by Democrats.

"That issue is behind us," Gibbons said.

Berkley said there was no danger that minorities would turn away from Democrats.

"The Democrats don't need a 'strategy' of communicating with black and Hispanic voters," Berkley said. "The proof is in the pudding: It's decades of producing and passing legislation that is sensitive to cultural differences and includes all people in the American mainstream."