| The Harvard Salient | November 4, 1996 |
| Cover Story | |
our years ago - four long years - Republicans across the country reassured themselves that four years of Bill Clinton would teach the electorate never to trust a Democrat again. Two years ago, almost no one (outside of Berkeley or Cambridge) would have disputed that prediction. Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne's book They Only Look Dead, on the coming liberal resurgence, was roundly derided by conservatives. Yet a week before Election Day, Bill Clinton is almost certain to become the sixth man this century to be elected to two terms as President of the United States. Conservatives must now stop asking themselves how they can stop it - apparently, only a grand jury can do that now - and start thinking about what a second Clinton term will mean.
If Bill Clinton will say anything to be elected and do almost anything
to be reelected, what will he do when he's freed of any responsibility to
the voters? He hinted in his response to Democrats angry that he agreed
to sign the Rep
ublican welfare bill that he might be
pondering a return to the liberalism of his first two years. Seeking to
deflect the entirely plausible criticism that he signed the bill solely
out of political necessity, he suggested that Mrs. Clinton might be put
in charge of "fixing" the bill in a second term. Memories of the
health care debacle make Rep. Clay Shaw (R-FL) and the other principal authors
of the bill wonder what a second Hillary Clinton-Ira Magaziner task force
might do to their handiwork. Moreover, this administration has been almost
shameless about accomplishing goals it could not ram through Congress by
executive fiat and regulation; preventing the federal government from contracting
with companies that employ striker-replacement workers and classifying tobacco
as a drug are just two examples. With the vast bureaucracy of the Department
of Health and Human Services at its disposal, the administration is more
than able, and probably more than willing, to wreck any serious implementation
of the welfare bill.
The President also assuaged hurt Democratic feelings by promising to work to return Democrats to power in Congress to "fix" the welfare bill. A Democratic Congress would be sufficient (but not necessary) to completely derail or even repeal the welfare reform law, particularly with Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), who last year earned a 93.2% liberal rating from National Journal, chairing the committee with jurisdiction over welfare policy. But a Democratic Congress would have consequences reaching far beyond welfare. Of Rangel's colleagues on National Journal's Liberal Top 20, six would chair full committees (including Judiciary and National Security) and at least five would chair subcommittees. Anyone who thinks that the President would serve as a check on Congress's liberal impulses should remember that during the Democrat-controlled 103rd Congress, President Clinton did not veto a single bill.
Moreover, congressional oversight of the executive branch would shut down again. Of the eleven Democrats who would chair the House's oversight committee, its subcommittees, and the four other oversight subcommittees, only one was independent enough to vote against the Clinton tax increase in 1993; in 1994, the last year Democrats controlled the House, nine of the eleven had 85% or better ratings from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action. No one who remembers the sham Whitewater hearings held by the House Banking Committee before the Republican takeover can seriously think that a Democratic Congress would assiduously exercise its oversight responsibility.
To make matters worse, Chief Justice William Rehnquist is over seventy. Should Rehnquist retire during the next four years, Clinton would have an opportunity to reshape the Supreme Court and upset the current 5-4 conservative majority. Despite the media's simpering, Clinton appointees Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer are not centrists but liberals. Another like-minded justice could lead to reversals of the Court's landmark 5-4 decisions on federalism and affirmative action, to name just two critical issues on which the Clinton Administration has talked a moderate game but pursued an extremely liberal legal strategy. Even if the Republicans keep the Senate, don't count on them to force Clinton to nominate a conservative; they may prevent Laurence Tribe or Peter Edelman from being named to the Court, but another Ginsburg or Breyer would almost undoubtedly sail through. Even if Trent Lott holds all the Republicans in line to keep a Clinton appointee off the Court, no such firepower will be deployed to stop the President's appointees to lower federal courts, which make most of the final decisions (the Supreme Court declines to review over 90% of the appeals it receives). Clinton will have a chance to undo almost completely the realignment of the lower federal benches accomplished under Reagan and Bush. Together with foreign policy, in which his ineptitude is likely to continue unabated, judicial appointment is the presidential power likely to do the most harm to the country in a second Clinton term; he can do less harm by simply vetoing or signing legislation, unless he suddenly line-item vetoes most of the defense budget.
However, the outlook is not all bad. If the Republicans retain their majority, they will be able both to check Clintonian excesses and to get some of their ideas enacted into law, particularly entitlement reform - a Republican Congress and a Clinton who no longer needs to demagogue the Medicare issue could actually enact into law the recommendations of a bipartisan commission. The Balanced Budget Amendment will almost certainly pass Congress next year; the additional two "yes" votes needed to secure Senate passage will almost arrive in January, barring flip-flops like those performed by Jeff Bingaman (NM), Tom Daschle (SD), Byron Dorgan (ND), Dianne Feinstein (CA), Wendell Ford (KY), and Ernest Hollings (SC) - all of whom had voted for the amendment in previous Congresses and none of whom is up for reelection this year - last April.
Moreover, if we can learn from the examples of recent history, 1998 will bring the "six-year itch" that afflicts most two-term presidents in their second midterm election. Just as the GOP lost the Senate in 1986 when vulnerable incumbents swept in with Ronald Reagan were defeated, it may make considerable gains in 1998, when eight of the 20 most liberal Senate Democrats (including those representing marginal states like California, Illinois and Wisconsin) will be up for reelection. More Democrats holding conservative seats through personal popularity will probably retire, and any freshmen swept in by Clinton this year may be swept out just as quickly.
second Clinton term may be torture for Republicans,
but it may also mark an opportunity. The Supreme Court will almost certainly
clear the way for the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit to go to trial;
special prosecutor Kenneth Starr will still be turning up dirt in Little
Rock; and other scandals like Filegate and the illegal Indonesian contributions
may galvanize reporters anxious not to affect the election but still eager
to make their journalistic careers. The Bob Packwood sexual harassment allegations
broke three weeks after he was reelected for the last time, for example.
Clinton may be reelected, it's true, but so was Richard Nixon, and 1974
was a watershed year for Democrats.