Filter by:

Print this page

Reid readies for another round with ‘Senator No’

By Alexander Bolton

The Hill

January 7, 2009

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is preparing for Round Three with Sen. Tom Coburn over a package of bills the conservative Republican has blocked — and some predict the fight won’t stop there.

Several Republican Senate aides say Reid is preparing to have Coburn (Okla.) removed from the Judiciary Committee. Meanwhile, a Senate Democratic source said leaders are looking to target Coburn for defeat in 2010, although the source acknowledges that’s a tall task given the senator’s popularity in a state that has become more Republican over the past few years.

It appears that Reid, a former boxer in his youth, has reached the limits of his patience with Coburn, who has earned the nickname “Senator No” for his efforts to block the Democratic agenda.

Reid plans to reintroduce a package of bills that Coburn held up during the 110th Congress, deciding to pass it as one of the first orders of business of the 111th Congress.

The package is known unofficially as the “Coburn omnibus” because it includes dozens of bills — some dictating specific uses for federal land, others authorizing funds for earmarks, still others earmarking federal funds for local projects — that Coburn obstructed at some point.

Coburn says the bill contains $11 billion worth of unnecessary parochial spending.

“We thought we were going to get change with [President-elect] Barack Obama. This absolutely doesn’t represent change,” Coburn said in an interview Tuesday. “There are a ton of wasteful projects in here.”

Coburn is insinuating that Democrats are hypocrites. While Obama is taking a hard line against earmarks and warning members to keep them out of the stimulus, Reid is moving a separate package of bills loaded with pet projects for members.

When asked about that charge, Reid paused for several seconds before putting Coburn firmly in his place.

“Dr. Coburn wants to run the Senate. … He does not run the Senate,” Reid said during a sit-down interview with The Hill.

Regan Lachapelle, Reid’s spokeswoman, said Coburn has made false claims because the bill does not actually appropriate any spending.

Watchdog groups tracking federal spending disagree that spending authorizations are so different from earmarks.

“Authorization earmarks are earmarks that lobbyists salivate over because they put projects in the game that wouldn’t be there otherwise; it’s paving the way for future pork,” said Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Reid’s aide argued, however, that Democrats have done significantly more than Republicans to combat problems associated with earmarks.

“Democrats have led the way to provide transparency in congressionally directed funding to prevent the types of abuse we saw during Republican control,” said Lachapelle. “Congress is a separate but equal branch of government, and it is our job to help fund local priorities. This legislation will help protect wilderness areas across the nation and has broad bipartisan support.”

Tensions between Reid and Coburn began to boil last April when Coburn objected during a routine voice vote on a bill Reid sponsored to study environmental causes of breast cancer.