Senate Setbacks Test Frist's Influence

Bush Has Given Difficult Tasks to Him, Analysts Say

For someone with the lofty title of Senate majority leader, Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has had a terrible week. Last Monday, a curious mix of 14 senators took control of the judicial filibuster issue and crafted a compromise that left Frist grumbling from the outside. On Thursday, he stood glumly on the Senate floor as his party failed to pick up the half-dozen Democrats it needed to end debate on John R. Bolton's nomination to be U.N. ambassador.

The four-day stretch was so dismal that a Los Angeles Times editorial headlined "The Frist Problem" suggested he quit his post if he really wants to run for president in 2008, as many expect.

Even his fans have often said that Frist's knack for running the Senate and passing tough bills falls short of the skills displayed by predecessors Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.). Compounding his problems recently, some say, are the unyielding demands of a person generally seen as Frist's greatest political benefactor: President Bush.

No one did more than Bush to help Frist, a heart surgeon from Tennessee, become majority leader after Lott praised a segregationist presidential campaign in December 2002. But Bush played big roles in this week's setbacks, some Republicans and Democrats say, largely through his acrimonious relationship with Democrats, who still wield influence in the 100-member body.

Monday's showdown over judicial appointments, they note, was set in motion when Bush renominated seven judges who were blocked by the Democrats in his first term, even though Senate Republicans continue to lack a filibuster-proof majority. Democrats said they saw it as a deliberate provocation, and Frist had no clear strategy for breaking their solid resistance. When Frist threatened to end judicial filibusters with a rules change, seven Democrats and seven Republicans -- led by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) -- scrambled to cut a deal without him.

"McCain Eclipses Frist" blared a headline in the next day's edition of the Hill newspaper.

On Thursday, Democrats blamed Bush, not Frist, for the continued impasse over Bolton. The administration is "not giving us the information we wanted" about Bolton's record in the State Department, Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said.

Frist had only eight years of Senate experience when he succeeded Lott, and some colleagues felt he was more Bush's choice than the GOP caucus's. He was bound to need more White House help than did up-through-the-ranks predecessors such as Lott and Dole, they said, but sometimes Bush seemed to dump tough problems at his door and walk away.

"Bush makes Frist's job much more difficult than it need be," said congressional scholar Thomas E. Mann of the Brookings Institution. "Renominating the [filibustered] seven without any consultation or accommodation ensured a major battle on judicial nominees, one Frist could win only by taking down the Senate as a unique institution." As for Bolton, Mann said: "The Bush White House's insistence on information-control has poisoned the relationship with Congress. . . . They hung Frist out to dry."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan rejects such comments. "It's Democratic leaders who have chosen the path of blocking nominees," he said in an interview Friday. As for the Bolton documents, he said, "they have what they need. It's not about documents, it's about partisan politics."

Asked whether Bush actively helped Frist try to win confirmation for the seven filibustered judges renominated in January, McClellan said that the president "was reelected with a strong majority" after campaigning to appoint conservative judges. Democrats, not Frist, are to blame, he said.

Some conservatives, however, say Bush should have done more than send the seven embattled nominees back to a Senate with 55 Republicans and leave it to the majority leader to find a way to confirm them. Bush has acted like "a spectator on the scene who kibitzes but doesn't use his real muscle" the way he does on legislative priorities such as tax cuts, said Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer who served in the Reagan administration.

Eric Ueland, Frist's chief of staff, said editorial writers and outsiders do not appreciate how difficult it is to lead the Senate. "It's sloppy and simplistic to blame the president every time things get tough in the Senate, when by its very nature the job of majority leader is like walking across hot coals as other members throw kerosene on your feet while carrying just a couple of ice cubes in your hands," he said.

"Standing for principle of fair up-or-down votes, and shining the light on unfairness in an institution that resists making worthwhile change against a ferocious mainstream media onslaught, isn't failure," Ueland said. "It's common-sense leadership that doesn't flinch."

Gary Jacobson, a congressional and presidential authority at the University of California at San Diego, said last week's events "remind us that it's hard to lead the Senate. These are a bunch of fairly independent prima donna types for the most part," and "Frist's tools for keeping them in line are quite modest."

But Bush sometimes hinders Frist, Jacobson said, by picking sharp-tongued, contentious nominees such as Bolton and leaving it to the GOP leaders to figure out how to get them confirmed. "That's the way Bush operates," said Jacobson, who is writing a book on the president. "He knows what he wants, and he goes for it. He thinks he's right, and if it causes problems for someone else, so what?"

Former senator Don Nickles (R-Okla.), now a lobbyist, said the criticism of Frist is unfounded. He has helped win passage of bills limiting bankruptcy rights and class-action lawsuits, plus enactment of an austere budget, Nickles said.

The agreement on judicial filibusters, while imperfect in Frist's eyes, will result in more conservative judges being confirmed, Nickles said, adding: "I think Senator Frist should be complimented for pushing the Senate to make some changes" to discourage filibusters.

Others disagree. The British-based Economist magazine, commenting on the judicial filibuster compromise, wrote: "There are three big losers from the peace deal: Bill Frist, the White House and the religious right. Mr. Frist is a much diminished leader."