Clinton allies reject her funding bill
By Geoff Earle


Even though Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) has raised millions of dollars to aid her Democratic colleagues and is a de facto party leader in Congress, the possible presidential candidate in 2008 failed to persuade her colleagues this week to fork over homeland security money for her state.

Clinton made an impassioned plea in a closed Democratic Caucus meeting Tuesday for her amendment to direct that the Homeland Security Department follow a “threat-based” approach when allocating homeland-security money. Such an approach would send more aid to cities such as New York and Washington, where the terrorist threat is deemed greatest.

But Clinton was beaten back by senators fearful that their states would lose out under a system that guaranteed less money for each state, with more money based on such factors as population or level of threat. Since small states have outsized representation in the Senate, with two senators representing each state, Clinton never had much of a chance.

Even typical Clinton allies, such as Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Democratic Policy Committee Chairman Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), opposed Clinton on her amendment. (Plains states had a particularly good week, when the Senate tacked $3 billion in drought relief onto the homeland security bill.)

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee and a Clinton confidante, opposed her amendment as well. All three senior Democrats come from small states that fare disproportionately well under the status quo.

Among top Democratic leaders, only Minority Whip Harry Reid (D-Nev.), whose state includes populous Las Vegas — a city deemed to suffer a relatively high threat of terrorist attack — supported Clinton’s amendment.

“There aren’t many places like Nevada that have a great big city,” Reid told The Hill, explaining why Clinton’s amendment was defeated. “You have a lot of places like Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota.”

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) tried to line up support for Clinton’s amendment among Republicans, many of whom come from low-population states in the West. But Ensign had even less luck than Clinton. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) all opposed the amendment, as did most Republicans.

Late Tuesday evening, the amendment was tabled, or killed, on a procedural vote, 54-39.

After Tuesday’s Democratic Caucus meeting before the vote, Sen. Mark Dayton (D-Minn.) said he was undecided — although he gave indications that he would end up opposing Clinton (his eventual position). Dayton said he would have to be like a Texas politician and say, “Half my friends are for it, and half my friends are against it, and I’ll stick with my friends.”

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who often works closely with the Bush administration, this week found himself opposing the position espoused in the presi-dent’s budget: that a more threat-based approach should be followed. There were no indications Tuesday that the White House was actively whipping for Clinton’s proposal.

Nelson spoke at Tuesday’s caucus in opposition to Clinton and received a pat on the back afterward from Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), another powerful Democrat from a low-population state.

“Every state, small or otherwise, has high-value targets that need to be protected,” Nelson told The Hill. “We have refining areas. We have ethanol plants. We’ve got a number of pharmaceutical companies. We have our food-security risk of cattle and livestock.”

“It’s all on how you figure it,” Nelson continued. “It’s where you live.”

Clinton said that she “understands very well” the politics of the situation but that it was important to put federal money “where the threat is.”

“It was a tough vote for people,” said Nelson spokesman David DiMartino. “People don’t want to be perceived as parochial. How are you going to explain later on if a terrorist attack hits in the heartland of America?”

DeMartino said that if Clinton’s amendment passed, Nebraska’s homeland-security funding would have dropped from $19 million to $8 million. “It’s going to be hard to go home and say, ‘We gave up all our money and sent it to New York.’”

In an impassioned floor speech, Clinton cited the conclusions of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, which wrote that homeland-security funding “should not remain a program for federal revenue sharing.” The committee concluded, “Congress should not use this money as a pork barrel.”

One of the few senators to vote against his state’s immediate self-interest on the amendment was Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), who is legendary for steering millions in federal aid to his state. According to Byrd spokesman Tom Gavin, Byrd thinks more funding should go to areas with the highest risk of attack. “He’s certainly worked to fund his state’s interest throughout the rest of the bill, too,” Gavin allowed.

Clinton also offered an amendment to increase, by $625 million, the amount of funding directed to high-threat urban areas. That amendment also was defeated on a procedural vote, as was an amendment by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to increase funding for rail security. "

http://www.thehill.com/news/091604/clinton.aspx

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“I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.” — Barack Obama, Speech to ACORN, November 2007

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"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left."
Ecclesiastes 10:2 (NIV)

Giving more money to places like NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington DC should be a no-brainer. Also, more money should be allocated to the various ports around the country.

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"George W. Bush surrounds himself with smart people the way a hole surrounds itself with a donut." —Dennis Miller

I tend to think it should be allocated to high risk areas. However, it's not easy to determine what's a high-risk area when you can't even know how such an attack were to occur. It could be a power plant, which may spread radiological particles over an area of2 or more states. It could be like 9/11 where it affects a single place. It could be an attack on a place like Hoover Dam, a place that multiple states depend on for utilities.

I honestly don't know. However, I think they should've passed it. A terrorist attack is likely to occur in a high risk area. If it's not in one of those areas, cleanup and relief for the attack would likely not be very expensive as opposed to one taking place in a high-risk area. I could be quite wrong though.

Lesson learned by this indecision of mine? You can't predict terrorist attacks.
Remember the Bush qoute we Democrats keep using to make fun of him with? "Terrorists never stop think about ways to harm our nation and neither do we."

While the second part is debatable he's right. They will have thought over every detail in such depth that a terrorist attack is incredibly hard to predict, especially when it's not in generic form. (Crash planes into twin buildings causing them to almost simultaneously fall? Who'd have thunk it?)

I saw on a news piece somewhere lately that the distribution of the homeland security funds is based on the distribution of highway funds. They chose the highway fund formula as an expediant way to arrive at a decision. Getting any of these guys/gals to give up any funding now will be nearly impossible. It's no way to run a country.

Generally they'll go along party lines with homeland security, but when it effects their state as an indivdual, the loyalty generally goes to the state. (Which I suppose is a good thing, as that was what they were put in office to do.)

Exactly. Most wouldn't get re-elected if they don't "bring home the bacon" to their home states.

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“I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.” — Barack Obama, Speech to ACORN, November 2007