Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2007 | 7:01 a.m.
WASHINGTON - Last fall, when Republican Rep. Jon Porter was portrayed as being in lock step with President Bush during a brutal reelection campaign, he tried to show his independence through two legislative positions - his support of stem cell research and opposition to a proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear dump.
Now, after winning reelection with less than 49 percent of the vote, he is rapidly adding others to that list.
Porter, and fellow Republican Rep. Dean Heller, supported three of the six initiatives House Democrats pushed through during the first 100 hours of the new Congress. All six Democratic legislative priorities passed in the House, each with some Republican support.
Neither Porter nor Heller supported three items that were popular with voters: increasing the minimum wage, lowering Medicare drug costs and repealing tax breaks for big oil. Porter, a three-term incumbent, and Heller, a freshman, will have to explain those votes in the next election.
"Those three will all have the potential to be a negative campaign ad: Hurting seniors, hurting the poor and a tool of big oil," said Eric Herzik, a political science professor at UNR.
AARP has already announced that the Medicare bill is the first vote of the 110th Congress that it is tracking for the 2008 election.
Porter and Heller voted with Democrats to fund embryonic stem cell research, cut student loan interest rates and fully carry out the 9/11 Commission's security recommendations.
Nevada Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley voted for all six items.
Herzik said the votes by Nevada's two Republicans show that Republicans feel freer to break with party leadership than they did when House Speaker Tom DeLay ran the chamber.
"It is a new day for the Republicans in the House," agreed James Hershman, a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Government Affairs Institute.
The three issues the Republicans voted to approve were comparatively easy to support, given voter sentiment. Stem cell research is supported by vast majorities of Americans who are longing for cures to debilitating diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's that affect loved ones.
Cutting student loan interest rates in half over the next four years was supported by 124 Republicans - nearly two-thirds of the total in the House. Few politicians want to have an ad against them saying they opposed the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
Where the Democratic agenda really hit a nerve with voters was on the partisan issues of tax breaks for oil companies, Medicare drug prices and minimum wage.
Berkley says there wasn't a voter in America who didn't know Democrats were going to raise the minimum wage.
On those, the Nevada Republicans "voted like a Republican," Herzik said.
The fate of the issues in the Senate is far from certain. A combination of Senate rules and the slim 51-49 Democratic majority makes it more difficult for Democrats, led by Majority Leader Harry Reid , to push through their legislation.
Congressional observers say they expect the minimum wage and stem cell items will garner support, but the fate of the other four issues is in doubt.
Critics have said the Medicare plan will not really lead to lower costs as Democrats suggest. The minimum wage increase will need small-business protections to win Republican support in the Senate, they say.
Hershman said there's a chance for the Senate to accomplish more than the doubters suggest because Reid and his counterpart know the inside game so well they can cut deals.
Democrats announced the end of the 100 hours with fanfare last week, saying they had accomplished all they set out to do with time to spare. They put the clock at 42 hours, but the Associated Press, tallying a wider definition of the time in session, put it at 87.
But Hershman said coming on the heels of the do-nothing 109th Congress "and the turgid pace of the last months ... it really was action and it got things done."
archive
