Passage by the US House of Representatives of a stem cell research bill, over the emphatic objections and veto threats of the President, tell us several things:
(1) All second-term presidents are, by definition, lame ducks. This includes Mr. Bush. In this era of the perpetual presidential campaign, lame duck status descends almost immediately on a re-elected President.
Irrespective of how one may feel about this President's policies and preferences, it can't be good for the country that at the very moment voters endorse the chief executive, his capacity for being persuasive with Congress and the bureaucracies is emasculated.
Congressional Republicans, who might have acquiesced to the President's views on stem cell research during his first term, now feel free to act independently of the President. While the majority by which the legislation passed isn't veto-proof, the Republican Congress--whether it's Social Security reform, Senate filibustering of judicial nominations, or stem cell research--feels safe in voting against the President's positions.
(2) Underscoring the sense of safety Republican legislators feel in differing with the President is the fact that Mr. Bush has thus far, never vetoed a single piece of legislation passed by the Congress during his tenure.
Particularly when it's come to spending, Mr. Bush clearly should have vetoed some of the bills that have come his way. As I've mentioned before, during the eight years of the Clinton Administration, Republican Congresses trimmed $57-billion from budgets proposed by the executive branch. In the first four years of the Bush Administration, however, Republican Congresses have added $91-billion in spending to presidential budget proposals. And that doesn't even include spending for the war on terrorism.
Republican legislators might very well conclude that threats of Presidential vetoes are meaningless.
(3) House members have obviously looked at the poll numbers and determined that they can afford to break with "pro-life" interest groups who insist that further stem cell research is a violation of the sanctity of life. Most Americans are probably like me, fairly ignorant of this subject. But most Americans seem to favor the possible use of stem cells to cure disease. The House, always facing re-election every two years, feels that it's voting with their constituents on this one.
(4) House willingness to, on this issue, break with what has become a key constituency for the Republicans, may tell us something about the 2008 presidential election. Already, the field contains candidates who can be described as conservative, but diverge in their views from some current Republican orthodoxies. In this group would be included John McCain, Chuck Hagel, and Newt Gingrich. Others are flat-out liberal in some of their views. Rudy Giuliani springs to mind.
Major changes may be coming to the Republican Party.
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