Massachusetts Republican Brown becomes a pivotal voice on the Hill

Massachusetts Republican Brown becomes a pivotal voice on the Hill
By Perry Bacon, Jr.
Copyright by The Washington Post S
Thursday, July 15, 2010; 7:38 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/15/AR2010071504518.html?hpid=topnews


The surest indication of whether a bill will be pushed through Congress right now is not a speech from President Obama or a declaration by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Instead, it's often a letter from the office of a Massachusetts senator who has served in Washington for less than seven months.

Sen. Scott Brown's (R) announcement Monday that he would back a briefly stalled bill to reform the financial regulatory system breathed new life into the bill, and he and two other Republicans helped prevent a Republican filibuster of the legislation on Thursday morning, clearing the way for a final vote.

A day later, the freshman senator declared his opposition to a bill to increase disclosure of corporate spending on elections, a move that could dampen the legislation's chances of passing Congress.

Brown campaigned in Massachusetts as an outsider who criticized the ways of Washington and pledged to be the 41st vote against Obama's health-care plan. But instead of becoming a GOP stalwart on Capitol Hill, Brown has turned into an unpredictable lawmaker whose vote is often in doubt and highly coveted by the two sharply divided parties.

And in a Senate in which Democrats control 59 votes but need 60 on most major legislation, Brown is in many ways the third member of a troika that includes Maine Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. They generally join with the other 38 members of the Senate GOP but occasionally break with their party colleagues.

Since support from one of the trio is essential to Democrats, Brown has become a power player on Capitol Hill. For example, he was able to force changes to two major provisions in the regulatory reform bill.

His outsize role has both parties alternating between praising and condemning him. In a true feat of bipartisanship, he has at times annoyed both conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

In an interview, he played down his influence, saying, "I'm just one of 41, everybody is the 41st senator."

"I'm not quite sure if there's a surprise," Brown said of his independence. "I've always said I'm going to be an independent voter and thinker, that's how I've been throughout my legislative career. I'm just happy I've been able to get people working again."
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The former state legislator arrived in Washington with great fanfare after his stunning victory in a January special election to replace the late Sen Edward M. Kennedy (D). Eager not to be defined in his ideology, he declared himself a "Scott Brown Republican."

Both parties are trying to figure out what that means exactly. He has opposed Democrats' push to end the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military but left open the possibility of backing Solicitor General Elena Kagan's nomination for the Supreme Court, even though Kagan sharply opposed "don't ask, don't tell" as dean of the Harvard Law School.

After a one-on-one meeting with Obama, unusual for a first-year senator but typical of the constant courtship of Snowe and Collins by the administration, Brown declared he could support a "comprehensive energy plan " but not one that caps carbon emissions.

Brown helped prevent a Republican filibuster of a long-stalled jobs bill when he first arrived in the Senate, but has joined fellow Republicans in blocking additional funding for unemployment benefits unless Congress makes sure they won't increase the deficit.

Unlike Snowe, who during last year's health-care process publicly agonized about whether to join Democrats in pushing a bill through Congress, Brown's approach is more measured. He does not give strongly worded speeches, but rather makes careful statements in interviews and statements released through his press office.

And while moderate on some issues, he is conservative on others, most notably his proposal to strip citizenship rights from Americans who the State Department has determined provided aid to terrorism organizations.

He presents his unpredictable approach as both an unfamiliarity and discomfort with the partisan, closed nature of Washington governing. But as the financial overhaul bill moved through Congress, Brown navigated the process as if he were a master of the Senate.

Before the bill was passed initially, he refused to support it until a measure protecting mutual funds, a major industry in Massachusetts, was added to a section banning banks from investing their money into hedge funds and private equity firms that the banks themselves own. Democrats agreed to allow banks to invest 3 percent of their money in these entities, even as liberal groups complained the provision weakened the bill.

Later, Brown again said he would not vote for the bill because he objected to a $19 billion tax on large financial institutions. It, too, was removed.

Once Brown agreed to back the bill, Snowe committed as well, giving Democrats the 60 votes needed. Obama praised the Republicans, while Limbaugh attacked Brown, saying, "There is no conservative anywhere who would vote 'yes' on financial regulatory reform." Brown said he thought many of his critics hadn't read the legislation closely.

But both inside and outside Congress, other Republicans, while disagreeing with some of Brown's votes, aren't complaining about him too much. Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) said, " I haven't heard any grumbling" among GOP senators.

"I think most people come at this realizing that he's a Massachusetts Republican, so I think people give him the benefit of the doubt that he is not as conservative as lot of us in the 'tea party' movement," said Christen Varley, president of the Greater Boston Tea Party, who nonetheless criticized Brown's vote on the Wall Street bill.

While Brown does not acknowledge it, his approach seems likely to help him stay popular at home: Massachusetts elected Brown, but it remains a generally Democratic state like Maine, where the other two unpredictable Republican senators live.

So far, it's working: A recent Boston Globe poll showed that Brown, who will stand for reelection in 2012, is approved by 55 percent of voters in the state, while 18 percent disapprove. That standing means Brown is more popular than longtime Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) or Obama in Massachusetts.

"I've never been a big poll guy," Brown said, literally one minute after quoting polls that about 70 percent of people in the Bay State supported the regulatory reform bill he voted for. "I just do my job. And whatever happens, happens."