Op-Ed piece from Oct. 4th
Election Analysis and Commentary
Sunday, October 1, 2000
Eric L. Davis
Partisan control of all three national political
institutions: the Presidency, the Senate, and the House, is at
stake in the elections of 2000. The contest for the majority of
Senate seats is so close that control of the Senate for the next
two years could depend on whether or not Sen. Joseph Lieberman
continues to run both for re-election to the Senate from Connecticut
and for Vice President of the United States.
At the start of the year, the partisan breakdown
of the Senate was 55 Republicans and 45 Democrats. When Sen. Paul
Coverdell (R.-Ga.) unexpectedly died after suffering a stroke
in July, Georgia's Democratic Governor Roy Barnes appointed Democrat
Zell Miller, his predecessor as governor, to the Senate vacancy,
making the partisan breakdown of the Senate 54 Republicans and
46 Democrats. Sen. Miller is expected to win election on November
7 to the remaining four years of Sen. Coverdell's term.
Control of the Senate in January 2001 will be determined
by the outcome of contests in 10 of the 34 states electing senators
on November 7. Four of these races involve Democratic-held seats,
and six of them involve Republican-held seats.
The critical seats now held by Democrats are:
1. Nevada. The retirement of Democratic Sen. Richard
Bryan will almost certainly result in the Republicans picking
up a Senate seat. Rep. John Ensign (R.-Las Vegas) is likely to
defeat Democratic candidate Ed Bernstein, an attorney who has
never held elective office.
2. New Jersey. When Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg
announced his retirement in 1999, Republicans thought they had
a good chance of picking up this seat. They saw Gov. Christie
Whitman as their strongest candidate for a Senate seat in New
Jersey in several decades. Whitman then decided not to seek the
Senate seat, in part because she did not see how she could raise
the funds needed to run an effective campaign against Democratic
candidate Jon Corzine, former chairman of the investment bank
Goldman Sachs. Corzine spent $34 million, nearly all of it his
own money, on his successful Democratic primary campaign, and
he could very well end up spending more than $80 million of his
own funds by the time the general election campaign is over. Republican
candidate Rep. Bob Franks will have a difficult time winning this
Senate seat against the onslaught of Corzine's funds.
3. New York. The "mother of all Senate races" in
the 2000 election cycle. For most New Yorkers, the race is coming
down to "are you for or against Hillary Rodham Clinton"? Recent
polls show the First Lady building a lead just a point or two
greater than the margin of statistical error against Rep. Rick
Lazio. Both Democrats and Republicans had planned to pour millions
of dollars into the Empire State for this race, the Democrats
because they need to hold the New York seat, from which Sen. Patrick
Moynihan is retiring, if they are to have any hope for a Senate
majority, the Republicans because they want to end the Clintons'
political career once and for all. Clinton's and Lazio's agreement
last week to ban "soft money" advertisements on their behalf may
hurt Clinton more, because Lazio has been more successful in raising
"hard money" contributions of $1,000 or less. The soft-money ban
may not take hold, because the candidates' may not be able to
restrain their interest-group supporters from buying advertising
time; in any case, this race is still too close to call, although
the advantage appears to be with Mrs. Clinton.
4. Virginia. Sen. Charles Robb won a tough campaign
against Lt. Col. Oliver North in 1994. Robb's opponent this year
is former Governor George Allen, who had to leave office when
his term expired in 1997 because of Virginia's "one term and out"
rule. This is a race in which there are marked ideological differences
between the candidates, on issues ranging from education tax credits
to abortion to gun control. Most polls show Allen slightly ahead
of Robb, a Senate incumbent who has not been closely identified
with important national or Virginia issues, in a state that has
tended to support Republican candidates in recent years.
The critical Senate seats now held by Republicans
are:
1. Delaware. Sen. William Roth, chair of the Senate
Finance Committee, has held this seat since 1970. Seeking to prevent
Roth from winning a sixth term is popular Democratic Governor
Tom Carper, who cannot run for re-election because of Delaware's
term limits for state officeholders. Carper has won 10 consecutive
statewide elections in Delaware, and his centrist policies, such
as his program that allows parents to send their children to any
public school in the state appeal to moderate and independent
voters.
2. Florida. Democrats believe they are well-positioned
to pick up this Senate seat, which opened up when GOP Sen. Connie
Mack decided not to seek another term in 2000. The Republican
candidate is Rep. Bill McCollum, whose vigorous role as a House
manager in the impeachment of President Clinton is remembered
unfavorably by some voters. The Democratic candidate, Insurance
Commissioner and former Congressman Bill Nelson, will benefit
from Al Gore's keeping Florida competitive in the presidential
race, and a large turnout on behalf of the Gore-Lieberman ticket
from South Florida's large Jewish population.
3. Michigan. Rep. Debbie Stabenow (D.-Lansing) is
giving incumbent Republican Sen. Spencer Abraham a vigorous challenge.
Al Gore has steadily increased his margin over George W. Bush
in Michigan since the Democratic convention, in part because the
United Automobile Workers has steadfastly supported the Vice President
in recent weeks, after expressing some hesitancy about his candidacy
over international trade issues, especially permanent normal trade
relations with China. Gore is doing a good job mobilizing the
union and the African-American vote, important voting blocks in
Michigan, and Stabenow will benefit from intensive Democratic
activity for the top of the ticket in Michigan.
4. Minnesota. Sen. Rod Grams, who is running for
his second term in 2000, was first elected to the Senate in 1994,
the year of the "Contract with America" and the "Gingrich Revolution."
Grams may be a bit too conservative for Minnesota, but his Democratic
opponent, former gubernatorial and senatorial hopeful Mark Dayton,
has only held one state office (Auditor from 1990 to 1994) in
spite of spending millions from his personal fortune on his own
campaigns.
5. Missouri. Conservative Republican incumbent
John Ashcroft gave some thought in 1998 to running for President.
He decided to seek re-election to the Senate instead, perhaps
because he thought his emphasis on social issues might play better
in Missouri, and help the Republicans hold on to the Senate majority,
than nationally. Ashcroft's challenger is Democratic Governor
Mel Carhanan, who, like Carper in Delaware, is ineligible to run
for another term. If Carnahan were to defeat Ashcroft, he would
be one of the more conservative Democrats in the Senate.
6. Washington. Three-term GOP Sen. Slade Gorton
has never received more than 56 percent of the vote in any election.
His Democratic opponent this year is Maria Cantwell, a former
U.S. House member who became an executive with Internet company
RealNetworks.com. She spent over $5 million of her own funds to
win the September 19 Democratic primary. Pacific Northwest voters
have been hard to pin down this year _ both Gore and Bush, as
well as Ralph Nader, have been spending substantial amounts of
time and money in Oregon and Washington _ so a closely-fought
contest for the Senate appears to be shaping up in Washington.
If Cantwell is willing to dip into her personal wealth in a substantial
way, she may force Gorton into a big-spending advertising campaign
that will exhaust his resources and those of his party and interest
group supporters.
As I noted above, I believe that two of the critical
Democratic-held Senate seats, Nevada and Virginia, are likely
to switch to the GOP column on November 7. But if Jon Corzine
wins in New Jersey and if Hillary Rodham Clinton wins in New York,
and if the Democrats can win all six of the critical Republican
held-seats (or, if Robb is re-elected in Virginia, if the Democrats
can win five out of six of the GOP held-seats), the Senate would
be tied up at 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats. And this is where
Joe Lieberman comes in. Currently he is seeking re-election to
the Senate from Connecticut, as well as running for Vice President.
Connecticut law does allow him to run for two offices simultaneously.
The Constitution provides that the terms of members
of Congress begin on January 3, while the terms of the President
and Vice President begin on January 20. If Lieberman were to be
re-elected to the Senate and were to be elected Vice President,
and if the Democrats held 50 of the 100 Senate seats on January
3, Vice President Al Gore, as presiding officer of the Senate,
would cast the deciding vote to organize the Senate for the Democrats,
meaning that the Democrats would chair all of the Senate committees.
But no more than 17 days later, Lieberman would have to resign
from the Senate in order to take the oath of office as Vice President.
When the Connecticut Senate seat becomes vacant, an appointment
to it would be made by Connecticut_s Republican governor John
Rowland. Rowland would certainly appoint a Republican to the seat
(as Georgia's Democratic Governor Roy Barnes appointed a Democrat
when Republican Paul Coverdell died), which would make the Senate
party balance 51 to 49 Republican. (The appointed Senator from
Connecticut would serve until the next general election, in November
2002, at which point there would be an election for the remaining
four years of the term to which Lieberman would have been elected
in November 2000.) Under this scenario, once the new Republican
from Connecticut were sworn in, the Republicans would have a Senate
majority and they could move to replace all the Democratic committee
chairs with Republicans.
If Lieberman were to withdraw as a candidate for
re-election to the Senate before October 27, the Connecticut Democratic
State Committee could choose a replacement for him, presumably
Connecticut's Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.
If Blumenthal were elected to the Senate in November, the possibility
of the Republicans gaining a seat due to Lieberman's resignation
would go away. (Republican Senatorial candidate Phil Giordano,
the mayor of Waterbury, is not considered to be a serious threat
to either Lieberman or a replacement.) Of course, there is a risk
in this scenario for Lieberman: he could withdraw as a Senate
candidate, and lose the Vice Presidency, and then be completely
out of office in January.
As I noted above, the Connecticut seat will probably
not make a difference in terms of partisan control of the Senate:
the Republicans should be able to hold on to at least one of their
six critical Senate seats. But because the races for all six of
these seats are so tight, Democrats have not given up on the possibility
of returning to majority party status in the Senate in January
2001.
|