The balance of power in Washington will shift significantly next month when Congress convenes and Democrats take charge of the U.S. Senate for the first time since Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. The results of last month’s elections indicate renewed momentum for Democratic candidates, but no apparent repudiation of Reagan’s policies.
Voters, who split their tickets in unusually large numbers, sent several signals that may shape political strategy between now and the presidential election in 1988: They appear to want moderation from both parties; they are turned off by candidates’ explicit appeals to religious faith; and they want a clearly articulated vision for the future. Voters appear to be open to either party to produce that vision, heralding a race toward 1988 that has suddenly become quite unpredictable.
After the November election, analysts from both Left and Right were quick to point out that results are similar to other elections held in the sixth year of any President’s administration. The average gain in Senate seats for the party out of power is seven. (Last month the Democrats gained eight seats.) Six of the defeated Republican senators were elected in 1980, on the coattails of Reagan’s first landslide victory. They include Jeremiah Denton (Ala.), Paula Hawkins (Fla.), Mack Mattingly (Ga.), Slade Gorton (Wash.), Mark Andrews (N.D.), and James Abdnor (S.D.).
Democrats also replaced retiring Nevada Republican Paul Laxalt and North Carolina’s James Broyhill, who was appointed to fill the seat of the late U.S. Sen. John East. Two “Reagan-revolution” senators who returned to the Senate, Charles Grassley of Iowa and Don Nickles of Oklahoma, distanced themselves from Reagan’s farm policies and played down their ties to the Religious Right.
The Democrats’ gains leave them with a 55-to-45 majority in the Senate, raising questions about whether Reagan will be able to move ahead with his social-policy initiatives, conservative judicial appointments, and foreign-policy goals.
The Future Of The Reagan Agenda
The loss of a Republican majority puts Democrats in charge of Senate committees, and this change is expected to have a significant effect on social legislation. Democrats will exercise control over which issues are debated by the full Senate, which bills are fast-tracked for passage, and which ones have no chance of consideration. Observers say it is unlikely that any significant bills regarding abortion or school prayer will be considered, and legislation to implement suggestions of the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography may face an uphill fight.
On the other hand, a civil rights act designed to overturn the Supreme Court’s Grove City decision—which curtailed the reach of antidiscrimination law into religious institutions—may reappear with new momentum behind it. Legislation promoting federally mandated parental leave may move swiftly through Congress as well. (Such a proposal could require an employer to provide time off when a baby is born or adopted, or when a family member is seriously ill.) Usually, liberal social initiatives come from the solidly Democratic House of Representatives. A Democratic Senate is apt to champion similar bills.
The election’s potential effect on Reagan’s agenda is best seen by examining the impact of key committee changes on issues such as abortion, family policy, and foreign affairs. Of primary concern to prolife advocates is the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, which confirms Reagan’s nominees for federal judgeships, including appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court. U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), the committee’s new chairman, was a vocal opponent of Reagan’s nomination of William Rehnquist as the high court’s new chief justice.
Biden is likely to oppose vigorously any conservative Reagan nominee, particularly if another vacancy occurs on the Supreme Court in the next two years. Filling the next vacancy with a prolife judge is considered critical by abortion opponents who want to see state restrictions against abortion upheld and the Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which legalized abortion, overturned.
Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, said he sees mixed results in the election. He said prolife advocates lost three votes in the Senate and four in the House of Representatives. But in two key races where abortion became an issue, the prolife candidates won: U.S. Sen. Christopher (Kit) Bond (R-Mo.) and U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.). “We didn’t lose any of our leaders [in Congress],” Johnson said.
Two other strategic Senate committees, Labor and Human Resources and Foreign Relations, will be chaired by Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) respectively. As head of the Labor and Human Resources Committee, Kennedy said he will concentrate on ways to improve education, health care, and job training. He said he sees the committee post as a platform for halting “the shameful recent trend of neglect for the needy in our society.”
Jerry Regier, head of the Washington-based Family Research Council, said he is “apprehensive” about Kennedy’s new position, but believes “there will still be a lot of opportunity to give input.” Family Research Council analyzes legislation and arranges for congressional testimony from traditional and Christian points of view. “The Democrats are certainly talking about family-oriented topics,” Regier said. “I assume there is a lot of common ground to be found.”
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, formerly under the chairmanship of Republican Richard Lugar, forged a bipartisan consensus on issues ranging from sanctions against South Africa to financial aid to counterrevolutionaries in Nicaragua. Lugar, a lay Methodist minister, was particularly sensitive to the church’s role in promoting democratic elections in the Philippines. Religious liberty has been a special concern of several of Lugar’s Foreign Relations Committee staff aides. It is likely that the new chairman, Pell, will continue to care about these issues, although they may hold lower priority. Said one Capitol Hill aide: “The question is, to what degree is religious liberty going’ to be an interest of theirs?”
James Skillen, of the Association for Public Justice, said the election calls into question the idea of a realignment of voters into Republican ranks. “It hasn’t occurred in the way that Ronald Reagan and others thought it would. [At the same time,] incoherence among the Democrats shows the extent to which party identification has less and less significance for defining what an individual candidate stands for.”
U.S. Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.), a leading contender for the Republican presidential ticket in 1988, said his party’s candidates this year neglected to develop and articulate a clear vision. “Politics is about the future, and Republicans were defending the status quo,” he told a group of journalists. Kemp said 1986 offered “not the political realignment I wanted to see, but an intellectual realignment far closer to my wing of the Republican party than to the McGovern Democrats.”
A Repudiation Of Religiosity
Voters failed to detect a unifying theme among Republican candidates, but in several races they sensed an appeal for their support based on religious belief. Their response, in several parts of the country, was a resounding rejection of Christian Right tactics. Four of the Republicans who lost Senate seats were from the South, where since 1980 conservative Christian voters have tipped the political balance toward the Republican party.
The only House incumbent who lost his bid for reelection, Republican William Cobey of North Carolina, sent a letter to churchgoers in his state saying his opponent was “unwilling to take a strong stand for the principles outlined in the word of God.” The Democrat who beat him, David E. Price, is a Baptist and a seminary graduate.
In Indiana, Christian political activists took the state by storm when, in this year’s primary elections, their candidates were nominated over Republican party regulars in two districts. Both born-again candidates were defeated last month, however, even though one of them ran in a district that is a Republican stronghold.
One right-wing organization, Christian Voice, became an issue in the Colorado race for Gary Hart’s vacant U.S. Senate seat. Republican Ken Kramer was endorsed and championed by Christian Voice’s political action committee, the Christian Voice Moral Government Fund. Just before the election, Denver newspapers pointed out that Republican campaign strategists have been warning candidates to keep their distance from Christian Voice because of its alleged ties to organizations related to the Unification Church (CT, Nov. 7, 1986, p. 46). Kramer, who is Jewish, is listed on Christian Voice’s advisory board.
Two Michigan candidates may have experienced some backlash sentiment as well. Incumbent U.S. Rep. Mark Siljander lost a primary contest after he sent a letter to fundamentalists in his district asking for their votes to help him “break the back of Satan.” And William Lucas, who unsuccessfully challenged Michigan Gov. James Blanchard, came under criticism from fellow Republicans for his ties to Christian Right figures, including an endorsement and financial assistance from Pat Robertson’s Michigan Committee for Freedom.
Said Stephen Monsma, a Michigan Democrat and former professor at Calvin College: “There definitely is a backlash out there to some of the more extreme positions taken by the New Christian Right. But I don’t think it is a general backlash against evangelical involvement in politics, which is much broader than the Christian Right.”
Plenty of talk about agendas for the future can be expected in both major parties during the next two years, and the process invites Christian perspectives at all levels. Democrats who control the Senate need to hear from concerned Christian voters who share their ideals, rather than being ostracized because of previous platform positions. And the Republicans, points out political analyst James Skillen, “have a bigger job cut out for them in 1988 than Ronald Reagan alone can manage.”
Where Congressmen Go to Church
In January, the One Hundredth Congress will contain fewer Roman Catholics, Methodists, Episcopalians, and Jews. But it will gain one Presbyterian, five Baptists, and two members of the United Church of Christ.
Albert Menendez, research director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, compiled information about the religious affiliation of the nation’s U.S. Senators and Representatives. He found that the infusion of religious issues into American electoral politics has had little effect on the church affiliations of members of Congress. The total numbers for each denomination or group of denominations, and their change from the Ninety-ninth Congress, follow:
Churches with just one adherent in Congress include Christian Reformed, Free Methodist, Pentecostal, Seventh-day Adventist, and Apostolic Christian. U.S. Rep. Floyd Flake, a pastor of a 4,000-member A.M.E. Zion church in Queens, New York, joins U.S. Sen. John Danforth (an Episcopal priest) and U.S. Rep. William Gray (a Baptist clergyman) as the third ordained member of the One Hundredth Congress.
U.S. Rep. Arthur Ravenel, of Charleston, South Carolina, lists his affiliation as French Huguenot. He attends a historic church in Charleston founded by French Protestant settlers of the city in the late 1600s. The church has recently reorganized as a congregation made up primarily of conservative former Episcopalians.
Many of the denominational categories used in Menendez’s research include combinations of several related groups, and the totals reflect the elected officials’ personal designation of religious preference.
By Beth Spring.
