Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho)
Larry Craig, elected to the House in 1980 and the Senate a decade later, has been an early advocate of fiscal and regulatory reforms that later resonated nationally. During the 1980s, Craig relentlessly campaigned for a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution. If Congress indeed passes an amendment this spring, the 49-year-old Craig may spend much of the next few years traveling to state capitals, lobbying legislatures to ratify it. That alone would make him a national figure.
He has a major obstacle to overcome first, however: getting the same amendment through both houses of Congress. A balanced-budget amendment runs the risk of becoming an excuse for raising taxes, rather than a mechanism for reducing spending. To counteract that effect, House Republicans promise to offer a version of the amendment that would require a 60-percent majority vote to increase taxes. Craig says that fewer than 67 senators would support such an amendment and that even debating the idea would waste time.
But if he and Senate Republicans insist on an amendment free of tax limitations, they could lose House support. And a balanced-budget-amendment-at-any-cost strategy that threatens to saddle taxpayers with ever-escalating bills could make the amendment harder to get through state legislatures, and far less effective at limiting the size of government.
When not plumping for the balanced-budget amendment, Craig is a leading advocate of regulatory reforms that appeal to grassroots voters in the West and beyond. The farmer and rancher replaced his former Idaho colleague Steve Symms as co-chairman of the Senate Property Rights caucus, which works to repeal intrusive government regulations or to enact laws that protect property owners from those restrictions. He is a principal co-sponsor of Sen. Phil Gramm's Private Property Restoration Act, a bill that would mandate compensation to a land owner when any new government regulation reduces the value of his property by 25 percent or $10,000, whichever is less.
Craig's vigorous advocacy of property rights has attracted national attention, making him the senator to call on the issue--even for journalists far from his Western home. In a December 25 article on the Endangered Species Act, Charlotte Observer reporter Heather Dewar quoted Craig's opinion that the act allows "malicious bureaucrats" to engage in "environmental extremism that has ruined the lives of ordinary people."
Most recently, Craig has cheered gun owners and more-traditional civil libertarians by speaking out against the excessive use of force by government law-enforcement agents. He is a relentless critic of the actions of federal law enforcers in the deaths of Vickie and Samuel Weaver, who were killed by government agents in a Waco-like raid on their home near Naples, Idaho. (See "Ambush at Ruby Ridge," October 1993.) Craig called for an official investigation of the actions of the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents involved in the raid. The department absolved the agents of any criminal wrongdoing in the raid but, as of late December, had refused to publicly release its 540-page report.
If the report remains under wraps, Craig has asked incoming Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch to convene hearings in which Attorney General Janet Reno and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Deval Patrick would be questioned on the role of law-enforcement officials in the Weaver case. Such congressional hearings, to which Republican guru William Kristol has given the unfortunate name "show trials," drive news coverage by highlighting human drama. Using them to question government action, rather than call for more regulation, would mark a significant change in congressional dynamics.
Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.)
The six-foot, seven-inch cowboy was Bob Dole's favorite for Republican whip, a job he lost by one vote to Gingrich ally Lott. And Simpson's tongue is even sharper than Dole's or, for that matter, Gingrich's. For a story on the entitlements commission, I once asked Simpson about the onslaught he would face from seniors' groups because of his support for raising the Social Security retirement age. What about the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare? Simpson mentioned the group's president by name. "Martha McSteen," he said. "I'd like to boil her in oil."
Simpson's great sound bites guarantee him media prominence. And his favorite issues guarantee him a prominent role in coming Republican battles.
In the Senate, environmental policy is still in the hands of the Sierra Club--specifically its "environmental hero" John Chafee, the patrician Rhode Island Republican most famous for his support for nationalizing health care. In the 103rd Congress, Chafee joined green Democrats to block proposals making wetlands and other land-use policies friendlier to property owners. Chafee now chairs the Environment Committee. Simpson's assignment: to check Chafee.
Simpson had angled for the chairman's job himself, though Chafee was first in line by seniority. But he was defeated before he began, not by Chafee, but by Jesse Helms. Once the North Carolina senator started shooting his mouth off about Bill Clinton's weakness as commander in chief, the only way Dole could avoid a messy fight over Helms's chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Committee was to declare strict seniority in force--and that meant Chafee stayed.
A December 19 Washington Times story reports that conservatives have strong-armed Chafee to such an extent that he has privately agreed to not impede property-rights and "sound science" reforms in his committee. But if Chafee starts cozying up to the Natural Resources Defense Council, it will be up to Simpson to forge bipartisan coalitions with Southern and Western Democrats on land-use policies.
Simpson also plans to speak early and often on immigration--an issue he has called "red hot." He was an architect of the 1986 immigration reform act, which established sanctions against employers who hire undocumented workers. He favors tougher border patrols and some form of "tamper-proof" identification documents for all workers. But he opposes cutting off education and medical benefits to the citizen children of illegal immigrants, and unlike other conservatives he would not deny government benefits to green-card holders, telling TheNew York Times that "the only thing they can't do that you and I can is vote. Period."
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