Flaps
A Sure Thing for the
Democrat Leaders
[reprinted from the December, 1991 edition of The Nevadan]
Following Harry Reid's 1986 graduation to the Senate, the respected Congressional Quarterly, having watched the politician for his two terms in the U.S. House, was able to define his modus operandi -- an M.O. of cautious duplicity that Reid still essentially follows, some 12 years later.
"Reid behaves in Congress as if he were negotiating a treacherous ledge," said CQ. "He moves with extreme caution. He rarely stakes out risky positions on controversial issues, and he appears to cast votes with a view to pleasing both Nevada voters and the congressional leadership as much as possible."
But it isn't Reid's constitutents who get most of his votes, the magazine suggested. "In his two terms," the non-partisan journal said, "he took conservative positions on a few highly publicized issues, then voted with the majority of House Democrats much of the rest of the time."
During his first term in the Senate, Reid continued the same M.O. While presenting himself to Nevadans as a conservative Democrat, who opposes gun control, opposes legal abortions, and supports the death penalty, Reid even on those positions was compromised.
He voted for the 5-day handgun purchase waiting period, voted for legislation to allow federal family planning funds to be used to refer pregnant women to abortionists, and voted for a Ted Kennedy "racial justice" crime bill amendment. The provision sought to impose racial quotas on capital punishment.
Reid also always came down with the liberal interest groups whenever they sought to 'Bork' Reagan or Bush conservative nominees. Cases in point during his first Senate term were the Tower, Bork and Thomas nominations.
Reid's only uncompromised conservative position of any significance is his opposition to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. Yet even here -- given his usual indifference to the basic principle of federalism, states rights -- one has to acknowledge that Reid would never oppose the despotic initiative from the central government were this not a visceral issue for most Nevadans and, especially, the big financial interests in this tourism-centered state.
In short, the pattern remains precisely as described by Congressional Quarterly: a conservative position on a "few highly publicized issues," while he votes with the majority of ... Democrats much of the rest of the time."