INSIDER INTERVIEW

Monday, November 17, 2008 11:19 AM

Q&A: Kyl Talks About Playing Defense

By KIRK VICTOR

When Barack Obama tries to move his legislative agenda as president, his biggest hurdle will be in the Senate, where a determined minority can be a roadblock. Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., will be one of the key players in determining when GOP legislators should work with the new president and when they should resist his initiatives.

Kyl recently spoke to National Journal about the challenges of keeping Republicans on the same page as they work on a game plan for responding to an Obama administration. Edited excerpts follow.

NJ: Given the level of partisanship and the fact that Senator Obama is perceived as a liberal, is it inevitable that we will have more conflict during his presidency?

Kyl: I think so. I hate to be quoted on that because then it sounds like I am trying to promote it. But answering you honestly, I just have a feeling that that, unfortunately, is the way it is going to be. But it will all depend on him. [There will be battles] if the Democratic leaders and Barack Obama make the same mistake that has been made in the past when, for example, Bill Clinton came in. They had been out in the wilderness all these years. They get in [and say], "By God, we are going to really advance our agenda now." They came out with Hillary Care and the rest of it. Two years later, they were in shambles because they overreached.

And you saw our liberal colleagues in the Senate and House overreach several times in the last couple of years. They are very capable of doing that. If they go after things like card check [legislation for unions] and the fairness doctrine [for broadcasters] or some big tax increase or get out of Iraq immediately, that is likely to unify Republicans, create great anxiety in the body politic, and potentially pave the way for Republicans to make a quicker comeback than might otherwise be the case.

I am not in the mood of giving them advice -- and they wouldn't take it, in any event -- but I have always admired the way Ted Kennedy does things. He is always willing to take 10 percent, 15 percent, 20 percent, he'd take whatever you'd give him and he'd bank it, and boy, after a few years [he'd] have a lot of percents. He has really mastered the art of legislating. If [the Democrats] are going to be successful, they are going to have to do it in baby steps. Otherwise, they are going to scare the American people and they are going to unify the Republicans.

NJ: Is it more or less difficult to hold your caucus together given the diminished numbers of Republican senators?

Kyl: It really depends on the issue. There is a theory that says that the closer you are to death, the more you stick together. I know that there is some truth to that. On the other hand, being a whip, I can tell you that margins of error are nice things to have, because there is always somebody that just can't go with you for one reason or another. So the more room you have to play with, the better you are. All in all, I would rather have bigger numbers and let more people go at one time or another than to have to hold everybody together all the time. It is just very hard to do that.

NJ: On an issue near to your heart as a member of the Judiciary Committee, there is a likelihood that there will be one or more vacancies on the Supreme Court during the next four years. Given the sentiment among Republicans that President Bush's nominees were ill-treated, are the prospects for combat in that area especially great?

Kyl: I don't know. I can give you my own personal views. There is a feeling that President Bush has been mistreated [in getting his nominees confirmed], and the statistics bear that out. But again, it probably depends on the type of people who are nominated. Barack Obama made some comments that are troubling when he talks about the kind of judges he would nominate -- people that have empathy for various classes of alleged victims in society rather than simply deciding cases based upon the law as to who is right and who is wrong in a particular case. So if he nominates people to fulfill this criteria that he identified during the campaign, he might have some trouble from the Republican side.

If, on the other hand, they are competent jurists -- maybe not quite the people that we would nominate, but still unquestionably competent and not ideological -- then there is no reason that we would want to oppose them. But I do think that there will be a heightened scrutiny based upon what the Democrats did to us with regard to President Bush's nominees.

NJ: How do Republicans come back?

Kyl: That is a very big question, and I probably wouldn't want to give you the game plan. But it is still relatively evident, and it goes to the advice I was giving to my Democratic friends. I suspect that they will not be able to resist the temptation, or perhaps more accurately, resist the blandishments of some of their key constituent groups who can really put a lot of pressure on them to deliver all of these big items quickly. I think that will give us an opportunity.

We don't have to come out with the agenda right now. We fumbled the ball. They recovered. They are on offense. We are on defense. We have to stop anything that we consider bad news coming from their side. If we do that a few times and they scare enough people with the kinds of things they try to move forward, it will begin to create the coalition of partners that we will have to build for our future.