Flanked by members of Bush's Cabinet, homeland-security adviser Tom Ridge said Senate Democrats want to forbid Bush from excluding department members from collective-bargaining pacts. He said presidents since John F. Kennedy have had that flexibility throughout federal government in times of national emergency.
"We remind the Senate leadership that under the legislation being considered by the Senate, that while the president would have national security authority as it relates to the 14 existing departments, the way it is presently written, the new department ... would not have this same authority," Ridge said.
"We think it's a rather perverse set of circumstances," Ridge said. "Whereas the president would have national-security authority as it relates to every other department in his Cabinet, at this time we are at war, [but] it would not apply to the new Department of Homeland Security."
He urged the Senate to drop that provision and pass the bill "however long it takes," even as Congress prepared to adjourn.
Ridge spoke to reporters shortly after the White House released a letter signed by Bush's Cabinet seeking passage of the bill.
"At this challenging time, we believe that the president's existing, government-wide authority to exclude unions from certain agencies in the interests of our national security should be preserved for this new department," the letter stated.
The Senate is insisting that Bush could not exercise this authority without satisfying two new and "burdensome" standards that do not apply to any other department, Ridge said.
Under the Democratic proposal, before Bush could waive union rights, a worker's job would have to change substantially in the new agency, and a majority of the workers in that unit also would have to be involved in terrorism-related investigative or intelligence work.
"We do not believe that it is logical, especially in this time of war, for the president to have this critical national security authority for each of the 14 existing Cabinet departments, but to have that authority effectively stripped from him when it comes to the department created for the very purpose of protecting the homeland," the letter said.
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