The attempted assassination of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffordshas cast a shadow over the political world.
Yet there are signs that lawmakers are not preparing to shift their approach to even the most divisive issues before Congress.
The immediate impact of the Jan. 8 violence was clear. House Republican leaders moved quickly to call a timeout, postponing all previously scheduled legislative business for this week.
Instead, they began preparing at least one resolution for floor consideration Wednesday to honor the six people killed and 14 people injured in the attack.
It was a call for unity, sounded by leaders of both parties and President Obama, that often follows national tragedies.
But it is uncertain whether the tragedy will alter the substance or tone of the nation’s political discourse over charged policy issues such as health care, immigration and the national debt, to say nothing of strained partisan interactions among members of Congress.
One sign that the new House Republican majority is not about to abandon its approach to at least one of those issues: lawmakers expect to vote next week on a bill (HR 2) to repeal the health care overhaul (PL 111-148, PL 111-152) that last year stirred heated debate and threats of violence against both representatives and senators. The repeal was a campaign promise made by many House Republicans during the fall.
Lawmakers returning to the Capitol on Monday expressed mixed feelings about the lasting impact of the violence in Arizona. They left it to time to see if the substance and tone of political discourse would soften and interactions between opponents would increase.
Rep. Allyson Y. Schwartz, D-Pa., who has established herself as a voice on health care, complimented Republican leaders for delaying consideration of the repeal bill. At a time when lawmakers are trying to create a sense of unity, “that was going to be a fairly strongly ideologically split vote,” she said. But “it will still happen,” she added, probably as soon as next week.
Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said there are no plans to abandon the health care repeal bill.
Schwartz and Upton participated with lawmakers and staff of both parties in an 11 a.m. gathering on the east steps of the Capitol to observe Obama’s call for a moment of silence to honor the injured and dead.
The gathering was reflective of an altered environment on Captiol Hill. Instead of policy meetings, members and staff have been attending and preparing for security briefings and prayer services. With the Senate in recess until Jan. 25, Congress’ only significant floor activity of the week is Wednesday’s resolution; that same day, Obama will travel to Tucson to pay tribute to the victims. House Republicans and Democrats have party retreats later this week.
Still, for all the shock that the Arizona shooting has caused, lawmakers have tempered expectations about its impact on their personal and political conduct. Even in the area of security, many House members cautioned against assuming that there would be major changes, arguing that the need for open contact with constituents makes risks largely unavoidable.
“There is no practical way to provide security for members of the House and Senate, pure and simple,” said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C.
Staying the Course
On a broader level, Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, has seemed to shift from an initial condemnation of the violence to a still somber, but more defiant message. “No act, no matter how heinous, must be allowed to stop us from our duty,” he said in a brief statement from his home state Jan. 9.
Multiple lawmakers said that they shared Boehner’s sentiments. But a discussion continues about how the shooting might influence the tone of political debate, and in turn, whether any shifts in tone may have any impact, large or small, on the legislative course of the 112th Congress.
A crucial point for many is that the suspect in the shooting, Jared Lee Loughner, 22, has been described by authorities as mentally unstable with a history of erratic acts and no discernible views that bear much relation to mainstream politics.
That it appears that Loughner allegedly was driven neither by anti-immigrant feelings, as was initially rumored, nor by any coherent philosophy about the role of government, is a welcome development for Republicans. Some Democrats and pundits accused the GOP of inflaming the extremes in the run-up to the midterm elections — a charge Republicans rejected.
Proponents of smaller government, Republicans have been relatively optimistic that they can achieve many of their policy objectives, despite opposition from Senate Democrats and Obama.
Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have said that they want to use a vote to increase the debt limit as leverage to reduce discretionary spending at around the same time as the current continuing resolution (PL 111-322) funding government programs expires in early March.
If repealing the entire health care overhaul could prove difficult, if not impossible, Republicans are still hopeful they might be able to remove specific provisions or weaken the law by reducing funding for federal agencies in charge of its implementation.
Setting a Tone
In light of those goals, subtle differences between calls for civility from Republicans and Democrats were telling.
While Upton said that the political posture should be to “disagree without being disagreeable,” Democrats were more likely to suggest that they may object to specific arguments going forward and not just to their delivery.
Even before the shooting, the Senate was headed for a debate later in January about the tone of disagreements and the level of bipartisan cooperation in the chamber. The call of some Senate Democrats to push for changes to internal rules and procedures related to the filibuster will, if carried out, assuredly provoke heated debate about how the chamber’s operations are perceived outside the walls of the Capitol.
“We can take a good, hard look at our rules, how they incentivize obstructionism, how they inhibit rather than promote debate, and how they prevent bipartisan cooperation, and then we should implement common-sense reforms to meet these challenges,” Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said on the floor Jan. 5.
On Monday, an e-mail from Giffords to a friend surfaced in which the congresswoman called for improving the tone of politics just a day before she was shot.
“I would love to talk about what we can do to promote centrism and moderation,” Giffords wrote to her friend, Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson — a Republican who, like the Democrat Giffords, just won a difficult election. “I am one of only 12 Dems left in a GOP district (the only woman) and think that we need to figure out how to tone our rhetoric and partisanship down.”
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