Republicans rejected an offer by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., to finish the bill by holding votes on a version supported by President Bush and on a Democratic version that appears to have a slim majority in favor. The key difference between the two is whether Bush gets broad personnel powers he insists are necessary to manage the 170,000-employee agency.
The GOP maneuver, Daschle said, makes it clear "they have no desire to finish this bill," preferring instead to use the stalemate as a national security issue in campaigns for the Nov. 5 congressional elections.
"They don't want to resolve it because they want to continue to blame the Democrats, but we're not going to let them," Daschle told reporters.
Republicans have been demanding a yes-or-no vote on the president's plan, but Bush's chief Senate backer, Republican Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, said that alone was not enough. Gramm said he would still insist on his right to offer further amendments in an effort to remake the Democratic bill to the president's liking.
"The bottom line is, the president has got to have something he can work with," Gramm said.
"That's anybody's definition of a filibuster," Daschle responded.
Gramm and Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., said it was the Democratic allegiance to public employee labor unions -- and their handsome campaign contributions -- that was stalling the legislation. Labor unions and most Democrats oppose Bush's desire to hire, fire, demote and deploy the agency's workers virtually at will.
Thompson said Democrats want to "kill the bill softly" by running out the congressional clock.
"They want to pretend to keep it alive while doing everything they can to make sure nothing happens," he said.
The latest skirmish further diminished the already slim chance that Congress will pass the homeland security bill this year. But Daschle refused to declare it dead.
"We still want to find a way ... to resolve homeland security," he said.
The legislation, which passed the House in late July, has been stuck in the Senate for more than six weeks amid an increasingly acrimonious, politically tinged debate over labor rights. There is agreement on most other parts of the bill, which would transfer all or part of 22 agencies into a single Cabinet department responsible for protecting Americans from terrorists at home.
"The things that are holding up this bill are going to seem like awfully small potatoes compared with the price we might have to pay," Thompson said if another attack occurs on U.S. soil.
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