State delegation has mixed reviews on election

WASHINGTON – When an aide to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said that the Democratic justices on the Florida Supreme Court were a bunch of “partisan hacks,” U.S. Rep. Tom Allen sucked in a deep breath.

“This is bipartisanship? This is the way that the Republican administration expects to work with the Democrats?” the Harvard-trained lawyer asked. “I’m very troubled by the language that the Bush campaign has used.”

On the day after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a sometimes curious, sometimes muddled ruling that effectively gave the presidency to Texas Gov. George W. Bush, Allen was, in his own word, “disturbed.” It was that gnawing type of anguish that you can’t put your finger on, although Allen knows exactly what caused it: Republican rhetoric.

For the next two years, Bush -unless the electors vote otherwise later this month – will be the first Republican president to enjoy a House and Senate ruled by the same party in a half-century. For Allen, that could present problems, but he has hope. For the rest of the Maine delegation, a Bush presidency means different things.

To Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, it could be an insider’s track to a family she has been close to, and a position of emerging power that could bode well for issues critical to the state.

To Sen. Susan M. Collins, R-Maine, it is an opportunity to work with an administration that may want to help push her rural education initiative, and help parts of Maine that are traditionally ignored by the mainstream education measures that move through Congress.

To Rep. John E. Baldacci, D-Maine, it may be a time when Democrats and Republicans can work together on an agriculture bill that takes a fresh new look at a perennial problem.

Baldacci, who represents Bangor, was headed for sleep Tuesday night when newscasts began to break the story: The court was acting. It was both high drama and comedy as runners scampered down the marble steps of the high court to hand-carry to reporters copies of the opinion.

“I saw it as a state election run by state election laws and an election that should have been determined by the state supreme court in Florida,” said Baldacci, a businessman by profession. “I felt that the involvement of the Supreme Court complicated the situation.”

But, after listening to the debate at the court Monday, Baldacci was ready to throw in the towel and look to fight another day.

“I’m going to try to make it work,” Baldacci said, saying that a prescription drug plan for seniors, tax credits and education reform are as much on his agenda as on the one expected to be put forward by the incoming administration.

“It’ll be important to make sure that a substantial number of moderate Democrats and others of our caucus participate,” Baldacci said, also indicating that he’d like GOP support for reform of the marriage penalty tax and a reduction of the estate tax.

Snowe said she was relieved, and said America got a history lesson starting a few years ago with an impeachment proceeding and ending with an election that was decided in the courts.

“I hope we can rise to the occasion,” Snowe said. “I don’t think anyone minimizes the circumstances under which George W. Bush assumes the presidency.”

As a ringleader in the effort to bring about bipartisan solutions to congressional problems, Snowe is aptly positioned to play a major role – and she knows it.

“We want to help ameliorate the vast differences that exist across the political spectrum,” she says of he centrist movement. “There are polarizing views in both ends of the political spectrum, and we can help to bridge them.”

In the Senate, Snowe is looking at a seat on the Senate Finance Committee as one way to embellish her role in both tax policy and health care issues.

“I don’t happen to be one who wants to be defined by legislative gridlock and failure,” she said. “Move ahead and govern. That’s my reason for being here.”

Collins, who was channel flipping from MSNBC to CNN on Tuesday evening, found herself watching a bulletin that flooded the airwaves: A decision was imminent. “It was difficult to understand at first,” she admitted, saying the early reports showing a remand seemed to indicate that the game might go on. As time passed, it became increasingly clear that the remand ended the game rather than extended it.

Her agenda for the new administration, while focused on education and prescription drugs, includes stable, regular funding for the Low-Income Heating Energy Assistance Program. Collins recently learned that House Texans were among the ringleaders in crafting a new agreement on the current budget, still pending on Capitol Hill, to strip off some badly needed funds. And the Clinton administration, she says, appears willing to go along with it.

Collins would like the Bush administration to take a different stance.

She also would like the new team to provide a financial assistance package for political jurisdictions that need to modernize their election equipment and set uniform poll-closing times.

Allen was not at all conciliatory, but nonetheless resigned to what appeared to be the inevitable. “I’m happy to work with George W. Bush on whatever matters and will help,” he said.

As a lawyer, he found the Supreme Court’s intervention and ruling flawed.

“The Bush campaign has spent more than a month desperately trying to prevent these ballots from being counted,” Allen said. “That is deeply troubling.”

Allen said right now there’s a lot of rhetoric in the air, including the pledge by House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, to complete the Contract with America of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. That “contract” was an agreement of House Republicans to take a set of actions, some of which have become law. Among those still pending are the elimination of the Energy, Commerce and Education departments. None of those positions has been taken up by President-elect Bush, but Allen said if DeLay’s view prevails, “the next two years are impossible.”

“The primary determinant is whether the majority wants to govern from the center or from the right,” Allen said.