Capital Scene: Shutdown Redux

KEN Starr isn’t the only one on the receiving end of the Clinton stonewall. Members of Congress are increasingly frustrated with the President’s refusal to negotiate agreements on spending bills. They suspect that he plans to look less like a lame duck by vetoing appropriations legislation in the fall, forcing the Democrats’ favorite event: a government shutdown, when the spending authority expires on September 30.

If campaign finance and tobacco aren’t working as issues for Democrats, this strategy promises to give them one that will. It could resurrect unpleasant memories of the Republican “revolution” of 1995 and provide an anti-Gingrich rallying cry for this fall’s campaigns.

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Kate O'Beirne

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KEN Starr isn’t the only one on the receiving end of the Clinton stonewall. Members of Congress are increasingly frustrated with the President’s refusal to negotiate agreements on spending bills. They suspect that he plans to look less like a lame duck by vetoing appropriations legislation in the fall, forcing the Democrats’ favorite event: a government shutdown, when the spending authority expires on September 30.

If campaign finance and tobacco aren’t working as issues for Democrats, this strategy promises to give them one that will. It could resurrect unpleasant memories of the Republican “revolution” of 1995 and provide an anti-Gingrich rallying cry for this fall’s campaigns.