House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner has received private assurances from the Republican leadership that tighter immigration restrictions that he failed to include in the intelligence reform bill definitely will be passed next year.
While Sensenbrenner lost out in seeking driver's license control for aliens and other proposals, House GOP insiders feel the fight was a major political benefit for him. For the first time in his 13 terms in Congress, the 61-year-old lawyer from Menomonee Falls, Wis. commanded a national audience on immigration issues.
A footnote: Passage of the reform bill marked a major victory for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who had been privately criticized for bringing up the measure in the brief lame-duck session. He not only got the bill passed, but refused to rubber-stamp the Senate version.
MAJORITY RULES
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has enraged the Democratic minority by pressing for two-thirds of the Senate's internal budget to pay staffers, though the Republicans control only 55 percent of the Senate.
When Republicans had only 51 out of 100 members following the 2002 election, they were given 51 percent of most of the budget. If Frist gets his two-thirds share, Democrats claim they would lose 80 staffers. The move is regarded as part of Frist's intent to take tougher positions as majority leader after gaining four Republican senators in the 2004 elections.
A footnote: Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an unexpectedly easy winner this year in Alaska, on Nov. 19 announced she was firing her entire staff (with the option of hiring back some aides). Murkowski felt that several members of her staff, confident she would lose, viewed a trip back to Alaska to work on the campaign as an opportunity to vacation.