National Journal: One at a Time
GOP freshmen wanted to put an end to those huge bills that no one reads. It didn’t turn out that way.

https://nationaljournal.com/member/magazine/one-issue-at-a-time-easier-said-than-done-20111215?mrefid=site_search

By Ben Terris
As appropriations season winds down, it’s clear that House Republicans have been winning more skirmishes than their Democratic colleagues. They can boast that they’re fulfilling their pledge to reduce spending in Washington. But it’s how they are doing it that may be in conflict with another promise they made: to make the way that Washington spends taxpayer dollars more transparent. The lesson is that in Congress, it’s less about how you play the game than whether you win or lose. And for many of the newest members, that’s a frustrating lesson to learn.
In September 2010, Republicans took over a hardware store in Sterling, Va., to unveil their “Pledge to America.” It was their mission statement for what would soon be a new GOP House majority, and it became a campaign pillar for many of this Congress’s freshman class. The close relative of the 1994 “Contract With America” not only promised to cut the federal government, it also vowed: “We will end the practice of packaging unpopular bills with ‘must-pass’ legislation to circumvent the will of the American people. Instead, we will advance major legislation one issue at a time.”
This has not happened.
Even though both parties agree that the payroll-tax cuts must be extended, for example, Republicans bundled the extension with legislation to accelerate approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline and to block regulations of toxic air emissions from industrial boilers. Likewise, drafts of appropriations bills are filled with riders and other provisions to do everything from cripple President Obama’s health care bill to defund National Public Radio.
“I ran on the pledge; I liked a lot about it,” said Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., who sits on the Budget Committee. “I thought it contained a good set of principles that could guide us here.… Let’s just say I’m not satisfied with the outcomes.”
Last year, the tea party influence was crucial in abolishing earmarks, the process of adding sweeteners to spending bills to get lawmakers to sign on. If what’s happening now seems eerily similar to earmarking, that’s because it is. “There’s a distinction without a difference,” said Steve Bell, the former staff director of the Senate Budget Committee and a self-identified Republican at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “A rider is technically not an earmark, but the principle behind the two is precisely the same.”
The spin from leadership is that none of these things is in conflict with the pledge. Michael Steel, a spokesman for Speaker John Boehner, said that the extension of the payroll-tax cut doesn’t qualify as “must-pass” because at the end of the day “it’s a choice.” And as for the riders, a spokesman for House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., whose office wrote the pledge, said that the practice does not violate the document because riders have “always been a part of the appropriations process.”
But the pledge wasn’t about keeping things the same, it was about doing things differently. And many of the freshmen in the House aren’t as forgiving as their leaders.
Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., told National Journal he’d like to see a “single-subject rule” like they have in his state’s Legislature. Rep. Todd Rokita, R-Ind., says he is “not appreciative that things are getting all bunched up together,” and Rep. Tom Reed, R-N.Y., said he “still believes in the fundamental principle of looking at things one at a time.”
“What I’ve observed is that the longer you’re here, it seems like you lose what I call the ‘art of the possible,’ ” said Rep. Reid Ribble, R-Wis. “I came here with some cynicism, but I still believe we can do a lot more.”
So how is it that a group so opposed to the way things were is falling into the same traps as previous Congresses? Because legislation often has a magnetic pull. Frequently the best legislative strategy and the best legislative politics is to attach something controversial to something that’s irresistible and try to make the other party swallow it. The legislative laws of physics haven’t been abolished just because Republicans signed a pledge.
In the end, many House GOP members are willing to wager that constituents care more about the result than about the means. So if it comes down to moving bills one at a time and having them fail in the Senate or on the president’s desk, or else bundling measures as part of a compromise deal that could potentially become law, the House has often chosen the second option.
“It’s a case of lawmakers getting some reality therapy,” Bell said. “Offsetting member dislike is a necessity to getting things done.”
Rep. Alan Nunnelee, R-Miss., a freshman on the Appropriations Committee, is learning this firsthand. “The American people sent us here to change Washington, and I think we’re doing that,” he said. “But we also have to govern, and part of governing is funding the government.”
It sounds like his time on Appropriations has already taught Nunnelee how Washington really works. 
This article appeared in the Saturday, December 17, 2011 edition of National Journal.