Chafee’s Political Prescriptions

EARLY IN 1988, Senate Democrats were pushing campaign-finance legislation so partisan that Republicans, fearing it would end any chance of their winning back the Senate, filibustered. Debate was bitter—at one point Majority Leader Robert Byrd had Bob Packwood “arrested” and brought to the floor to make a quorom. But when the Senate eventually voted on cloture, three Republicans opposed their party’s filibuster, among them the Chairman of the Republican Conference, John Chafee.

Votes like that cost the affable Chafee his spot in the Republican leadership in 1990. Now he is leading again, as head of the GOP health-care task force. For Senate Republicans a crucial task in the fight against the Clinton health-care plan will be keeping Chafee in opposition—against all his instincts.

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Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.

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EARLY IN 1988, Senate Democrats were pushing campaign-finance legislation so partisan that Republicans, fearing it would end any chance of their winning back the Senate, filibustered. Debate was bitter—at one point Majority Leader Robert Byrd had Bob Packwood “arrested” and brought to the floor to make a quorom. But when the Senate eventually voted on cloture, three Republicans opposed their party’s filibuster, among them the Chairman of the Republican Conference, John Chafee.

Votes like that cost the affable Chafee his spot in the Republican leadership in 1990. Now he is leading again, as head of the GOP health-care task force. For Senate Republicans a crucial task in the fight against the Clinton health-care plan will be keeping Chafee in opposition—against all his instincts.