Mullings A Political Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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230 Votes

Friday, March 9, 2001

The magic number in the U.S. House of Representatives is 218. There are 435 voting Members of Congress (plus non-voting Members from the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands). One more than half of 435 is 218, hence the magic of that number.

Because the House has a finite number of voting Members, every vote for the prevailing side is a vote the failing side can't have. So, assuming everyone is present and voting, the closest possible vote is 218 to 217.

H.R. 3, the first stage of President Bush's tax relief plan, was brought to the floor by House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA). It passed the House 230 to 198 which the AP's Dave Espo reported as, "handing President Bush a major victory only 48 days into his term."

All 219 Republican votes for the bill, a feather in the cap of Republican Whip Tom DeLay. No Republican voted against it, which Espo described as "a striking show of unity."

If that had been the total number of votes for the bill, the headlines would have been: "GOP Squeaks Tax Victory on Straight Party Line Vote. Hopes Dim in the Senate."

But, ten Democrats broke ranks and, likely, Dick Gephardt's heart, by jumping onto the tax cut bandwagon. Together with one independent that brought the total to 230 votes.

230 to 198 is not a squeaker.

The GOP does not have a great deal of experience in having a Republican House dealing with a Republican Administration. In fact, there is not a single Republican Member of the House who has ever served under a Republican Administration as a member of the majority.

This was a test of how well the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue could cooperate. If the GOP leadership had needed to pull the bill from the floor because of a lack of votes, it would have been big, big news, and big, big trouble.

Thomas, and DeLay along with White House Congressional Liaison chief Nick Calio showed, at least in this early going, they could come up with a good strategy and then employ the tactics necessary to accomplish it. So, it was a big, big victory.

On the other side of the Rotunda, the Senate passed a bill canceling a Clinton order dealing with repetitive injury rules in the workplace by a vote of 56-44.

As we have been told 75,398 times, the Republicans have only 50 votes in the Senate and they need Dick Cheney sitting in the Chair to break any ties.

Dick Cheney was sitting in the hospital when the vote was taken. Six Democratic Senators saw the folly in the rules and voted to repeal them.

The House followed suit about a day later, adding up to a pretty impressive legislative week for the GOP.

I appeared on Alan Colmes' radio program the other night. The issue was whether there is a double standard when it comes to the coverage of racist remarks by Democrats and Republicans. The issue, of course, was the outrageous use of the "N" word by Democratic Senator Robert Byrd this past Sunday.

Colmes insisted Republicans get treated just the same as Democrats when those things happen. Then came the news that Ted Turner - never a fully paid up member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy - said, upon seeing employees at CNN wearing ashes on Ash Wednesday, "What are you, a bunch of Jesus freaks? You ought to be working for Fox."

Imagine the screaming from the mainstream media if Roger Ailes, head of Fox News Channel, had said something like that.

What double standard?

With all the focus on what shenanigans might have been going on in Florida last election day, we have forgotten the outright fraud which was being perpetrated in St. Louis. They had a primary election for Mayor there on Tuesday. There were 83,698 votes cast in the Democratic primary. Total votes in the Republican primary? 361. That's correct: Three Hundred Sixty One. Here's a report from the AP's Joe Stange:

"The vote-rigging allegations intensified Feb. 7, the last day to register to vote in the mayoral primary, when an unidentified person handed in about 3,800 registration cards. Many of the cards tried to register prominent St. Louis residents - even a few dead ones - and most appeared to be filled out by the same hand."

But that was Missouri, not Florida. Weren't we just talking about double standards?

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