WASHINGTON - Congressional leaders and the White House reached a long-elusive breakthrough yesterday on a Homeland Security Department, paving the way for lawmakers to finish action on it as early as this week and to hand President Bush a major victory.
Republicans and Democrats still differ on some aspects of the agency, which Bush has called vital to protecting the United States from terrorists. But the partisan stalemate that has blocked it for months appeared to have lifted after the Republican gains in the midterm elections.
The president took advantage of that dynamic in recent days, intensifying his call for the Cabinet-level department and reaching a compromise with key Senate moderates on labor rules covering the roughly 170,000 employees who would work there.
"I believe we can get this done," Bush said yesterday. "I believe Congress can show the country that they can finish their work on a high note of achievement."
On the first day of a rare post-election lame-duck session, congressional leaders wasted little time in responding to that call. The Senate is ready today to turn to the homeland security bill and to begin procedural votes that could lead to its passage by the end of the week.
A final Senate vote is possible today, though some Democratic opponents are expected to use parliamentary tactics to delay it, possibly until next week.
But Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, who was weakened by his party's loss of the Senate, said he would cooperate with efforts to pass Bush's plan, though he opposes the deal.
"There may be differences of opinion on different components of this legislation," Daschle said. "But there is no disagreement that we need to complete our work on this bill promptly."
At the same time, House leaders, who passed a homeland security bill in July, are poised to act on a new version today that reflects yesterday's breakthrough. They hoped to prod the Senate to act and to speed enactment of the measure.
Bush called the creation of a Department of Homeland Security "the single most important business before Congress."
The formation of the agency would be the marquee achievement of the lame-duck session, which is unlikely to produce many other legislative achievements.
Partisan disagreement over labor protections for the new department's employees stalled action on the homeland security measure in the Democrat-led Senate for months. Bush wants broad authority to negotiate personnel rules for the department, such as procedures for hiring, firing or promoting employees, rather than being constrained by civil service rules.
He also wants to be able to use existing authority to bar certain employees from unionizing if he believes that is necessary to protect national security.
Democrats and public-sector unions have vehemently opposed those provisions, saying they would gut workplace protections for employees in the new agency.
In the months leading up to the congressional elections, efforts to forge a bipartisan compromise on the politically charged issue proved fruitless. But the new political landscape has leant new momentum to the bill.
3 centrist senators
The breakthrough that freed the measure from deadlock came Sunday night, when three centrist senators - Democrats John B. Breaux of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Republican Lincoln D. Chafee of Rhode Island - cut a tentative deal with Senate Republican leader Trent Lott of Mississippi and Tom Ridge, director of the Office of Homeland Security.
Their proposal would hand Bush the latitude he has sought both to set personnel rules for the new department and to exclude certain workers from collective bargaining agreements for the sake of national security. But to try to appease organized labor, the bill would give unions a greater voice on the workplace rules, allowing them to appeal proposed regulations to an out- side mediation panel.
And it would allow the president to exclude employees from unions only for four years at a time. Workers could recover their collective bargaining rights after that period, unless the president moved to renew the exclusion.
Representatives of organized labor, who spent the weekend intensely lobbying Democrats to oppose the proposal, argued that it would deprive the department's employees of legitimate rights.
"It's not a compromise, it's capitulation, and we're strongly and vigorously opposed to it," said Beth Moten, the legislative director of the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that would represent most of the employees in the new department.
"The issue is still a crucial one for the federal work force," Moten said. "Just because of what happened Nov. 5 doesn't mean people should support a bad proposal."
AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney was also working to persuade senators not to support the proposal, labor officials said.
"Unfortunately, it's just window dressing," AFL-CIO legislative director Bill Samuel said of the plan.
In a joint statement issued yesterday, Breaux, Chafee and Nelson said they preferred earlier proposals they had made that further limited the president's authority on labor matters in the new department.
But the new plan, they said, "represents improvement."
"There is no doubt that the supporters of [Bush's plan] are in a better negotiating position following the elections of last week," the three said in their statement. "In the end, most members of the Senate want to pass Homeland Security legislation this week."
Still, some obstacles remain to quick Senate completion of the bill.
Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat who has consistently opposed the homeland security measure, is likely to use parliamentary tactics - possibly including a filibuster - to delay action on the department. His efforts could postpone enactment of the measure until late next week.
Importance of timing
But timing is important for Democrats. They are eager to complete the homeland security bill before a Dec. 7 runoff election in Louisiana, which pits Sen. Mary L. Landrieu against a Republican challenger, Suzanne Haik Terrell. Doing so would prevent Republicans from using the issue against Landrieu in their brief but intense push to capture her seat.
Republicans, too, are eager to act. Bush has increasingly put his prestige on the line in calling for prompt congressional action on the Homeland Security Department.
Some also want to complete work on the agency before the retirement of House Republican leaders who played major roles in forming it, including Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas, who chaired the panel that wrote the homeland security measure, and Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma, who also served on that committee.
Some Republican conservatives would have preferred, though, to wait until January - when they will control of both chambers in Congress - to complete the homeland security agency, aides said. With a Republicans chairing the committee writing the bill and controlling the Senate, they believe they could have given more latitude to form the department.
"We could have had more flexibility," one Republican Senate aide suggested yesterday. "It would have been a nice thing to start the new Congress and the new majority; but the president said, 'Now.'"