A veteran Hill staffer remarked to me last week that for the
first time since the 2002 elections she misses Senator Jesse Helms
(R-NC). Helms finished his Senate career as Ranking Member of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, after having been chairman for
several terms.
The new Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee is Sen. Dick
Lugar (R-IN), a veteran of 28 years in the Senate. Lugar has waited
a long time to become Chairman. Following the 1986 elections he
attempted to get his colleagues to dump Helms, who had shifted from
being chairman of the Agriculture Committee to ranking member of
the Foreign Relations Committee. Helms had long wanted to be
chairman of Foreign Relations. But in the 1984 campaign he promised
he would stay as chairman of the Agriculture Committee, since that
position was helpful to tobacco and other farmers in North
Carolina. He kept his promise for the next congressional term but
in the 1986 elections Republicans lost control of the Senate, so
Helms saw his opportunity to move.
His seniority permitted him to move to Foreign Relations, but
Republicans had devalued seniority a bit by permitting Senators to
challenge a chairmanship, or in this case, ranking member. Lugar,
who was four years junior to Helms, made that challenge but he lost
badly. Even though the Foreign Relations Committee had never had a
strong conservative as ranking member, Senators still respected
seniority and Helms was installed. Then after eight years in that
position, Republicans regained control of the Senate in the 1994
elections. Helms became chairman all the way through 2001 when
Senator Jeffords’ change of party made Helms the ranking member
again. Had Helms run for another term and won, even though
Republicans again became the majority party, he could not have
continued as chairman of Foreign Relations since new rules put term
limits on committee chairmanships.
So, Lugar finally got the chairmanship he prized. Although Lugar
has a fairly strong conservative voting record, it was always
understood that he was no Jesse Helms. Indeed Lugar’s 1986
challenge of Helms was based on what was perceived as concern about
Helms’s conservatism. Surprisingly, Helms got along well with his
Democrat colleagues. First there was Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-RI) and
then later Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE). Together they forged a
bi-partisan approach to foreign policy. But one thing Helms did was
to sit on various treaties, which various Presidents had agreed to,
but had never been ratified by the U.S. Senate.
THE REASON THIS VETERAN Hill staff member said she missed Helms was
that Lugar has revived the Law of the Sea Treaty and got it passed
out of committee. This treaty had been bottled up since early in
the Reagan Administration when the president made it clear he did
not support it.
Something has happened to Lugar in this episode because the way
he behaved regarding this treaty is not vintage Lugar. He
would not let real opponents of the treaty testify against it. He
passed it without warning in what we call in the Senate, “a
Midnight-style raid.” He prevented other senators on the Armed
Services and Intelligence Committees from seeing the whole
treaty.
Lugar, who began his long political career as Mayor of
Indianapolis (in the late 1960’s President Richard Nixon called him
his favorite mayor), came to the Senate in the 1976 election. He
soon developed a reputation for thoughtful approaches to problems.
While always a globalist on international questions, Lugar has been
very conservative on social issues and was one of the few
Republicans who was willing to actually cut programs when Ronald
Reagan was elected President. His evenhandedness on very emotional
and highly controversial issues is legendary.
Thus there has to be an out-of-the-box explanation for Lugar’s
behavior on the Law of the Sea Treaty, which is a huge giveaway of
American sovereignty, and which sets up a system to transfer wealth
from the United States to places that don’t deserve it. In
addition, this treaty is a real step toward global government,
giving decisions on matters of concern to America — to The
Hague.
It is not like Lugar to want to pass something like this with an
iron hand. First, because Indiana is a very conservative state when
it comes to issues such as this. Second, because this undoes his
long-established reputation for fairness and evenhandedness. Lugar
ran for president briefly in 1996. His campaign was short-lived. At
his age, he is not likely to try that again.
So what is he angling for with this move which is bound to be
unpopular back home and which may not even sit well with George
Bush?
WELL, JOHN KERRY HAS AT LEAST an even chance to be elected
president. If some polls are right, he has a better than even
chance. No doubt Lugar has given up his ambitions to be president,
but the next best thing for a globalist such as Lugar would be to
be Secretary of State. Now, Senator Kerry has already suggested
that he might bring Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) into his administration
if elected to the presidency, so why not Lugar? About the only
thing that could explain Lugar’s behavior is that he is angling for
Secretary of State in a Kerry Administration.
Of course, Lugar’s longtime associate and former Chief of Staff,
Mitch Daniels, is running for governor of Indiana. Daniels thought
he would be running in an open seat. But the incumbent governor up
and died. And the lieutenant governor, who then became governor,
said he was retiring too. Apparently, however, he liked living in
the governor’s mansion. He now is running for election as the
incumbent. If Kerry wins, and a Democrat were governor of Indiana,
a Lugar appointment as Secretary of State would also put another
Democrat in the U.S. Senate. That might even switch party control,
which would be in Kerry’s interest.
That theory may be wrong, but whatever accounts for Lugar’s
sudden rash of unfairness, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist,
who schedules legislation for a vote, must keep the Law of the Sea
Treaty from coming to a vote.
Perhaps if Sen. Frist delivers a bit of reality to the chairman
of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he will return to his
penchant for fairness and decency. The old Lugar was certainly
preferable to the new one.
