Along With Ceremony, A Quick Return to Work
Jobless Benefits First Business for Returning Congress

By Helen Dewar and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, January 8, 2003; Page A04

The Senate quickly agreed to extend unemployment benefits yesterday, as Republicans took control of both houses in the newly convened 108th Congress and moved to clear the decks for swift action on President Bush's proposed tax cut and other initiatives.

House members planned to take up the unemployment bill today to avoid delays in sending checks to about 750,000 idle workers whose benefits ended three days after Christmas. Leaders of both parties predicted House passage, and the White House has indicated Bush will sign the bill.

The action occurred during a day otherwise filled by the pomp of opening ceremonies, including the swearing-in of 66 freshman lawmakers and a bigger than normal group of new leaders in both houses.

The biggest transfer of power came in the Senate, where voters turned Democrats out of power in the November elections and Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) took over as majority leader. His GOP colleagues tapped Frist last month to replace Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who was forced out as party leader after he praised the 1948 segregationist presidential campaign of Strom Thurmond.

The $7 billion unemployment measure will provide an additional 13 weeks of federal benefits for workers who exhausted their standard 26 weeks of state assistance, but had not used all 13 weeks of supplemental federal aid when that money ran out Dec. 28.

The extra benefits will be available to another 2.5 million workers considered likely to use up state benefits by June 1. But nearly 1 million workers who exhausted their earlier benefits will not be eligible, prompting complaints from Democrats.

Republicans were eager to act quickly on jobless benefits to counter Democrats' charges that they are insensitive to victims of the economic slowdown and to make way for other aspects of Bush's agenda, especially the tax cuts in his $674 billion economic package. The unemployment bill was more generous than a similar version approved last November by the Senate -- then controlled by Democrats -- but shunned by the House as too costly.

Frist, a heart surgeon who has spent eight years in the Senate, proceeded cautiously yesterday as he tried to come to grips with the chamber's arcane rules and procedures. He underwent what amounts to an initiation rite for new Senate leaders: a little coaching from Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.), the Senate's resident expert on rules and procedures.

"It is my hope in this Congress that we will be defined by achievement as well as a cooperative spirit," Frist, 50, said in his first speech to the Senate as majority leader. He said Congress faces "historic challenges," including combating terrorism, boosting the economy, improving health programs and "ensuring our agenda is inclusive of all Americans" -- a veiled reference to the Lott controversy.

Lott, who was given the chairmanship of the Rules and Administration Committee to soften his downfall, was on hand for the opening ceremonies and chatted amiably with colleagues. He occupied a seat toward the rear of the chamber and took no public role in the day's business.

In the House, Rep. J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) was elected to a third term as speaker, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was installed as minority leader, the highest rank ever held by a woman in Congress. A few Democratic conservatives refused to support Pelosi during the roll call for speaker, which basically is a partisan exercise. But a Democratic-sponsored mock swearing-in for Pelosi yesterday morning had the air of a victory party.

In the Senate, the drama of the power transfer was understated, to say the least. At the proper point, early in the session, Frist rose to be recognized as majority leader. Vice President Cheney, the day's presiding officer, did so because Republicans, as everyone knew, were back in the majority.

Even though collegiality was the order of the day in both houses, with pledges of bipartisan cooperation, there was an edginess to the Senate debate over unemployment assistance that pointed to partisan differences that lie ahead. When Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and other Democrats sought a vote on their proposal to expand the assistance to include workers who have exhausted their benefits, Republicans objected, drawing a protest from Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.).

"We should stop playing politics out of the box with this very important issue . . . and get the job done," responded Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), the third-ranking GOP leader. He said Democrats backed a similar proposal in the last Congress, a compromise engineered by Clinton and Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.). The House would object to changes the Democrats wanted, he said.

Daschle retorted that Santorum had misstated the situation and said the Senate should not allow itself to be "dictated to by the House of Representatives." He asked that the Democratic proposal be sent to the House, too, but Republicans refused.

After a two-hour delay prompted by disagreement over whether to vote on the Democratic proposal, the benefits bill was passed by unanimous consent.

In the House, where relations between party leaders have often been chilly, Hastert and Pelosi made conciliatory comments in their opening speeches. "My door will always be open to you," Hastert told Pelosi, who in turn praised Hastert's character.

In the Senate, Frist's comments about cooperation drew agreement from Daschle, who said he believed the Senate would be "led well . . . and fairly" by Frist. Both leaders received standing ovations from both sides of the aisle.

New legislators include 55 House members and 11 senators, with the Senate swearing-in ceremony taking on the aura of a family reunion. Formerly a senator and now Alaska's governor, Frank H. Murkowski (R) was on hand for the oath-taking by his daughter, Lisa Murkowski (R), whom he appointed to succeed him. Former senator David Pryor (D-Ark.) was there to watch his son, Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), sworn in. Robert J. Dole (Kan.), the former majority leader and Republican presidential nominee, accompanied his wife, Elizabeth H. Dole (R), as she was sworn in as a senator from North Carolina.