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For pragmatic legislator, it's a fight for key job

Rep. Clay Shaw seems fit to be the next Ways and Means chairman, but he'll have to struggle for it, like all else.

By BILL ADAIR
Published June 13, 2005

WASHINGTON - In the ornate hearing room of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Clay Shaw has a prized seat. He sits at the right elbow of the chairman, a reminder of his status as the senior Republican.

In the past, that seat would have meant the 13-term lawmaker from Fort Lauderdale was next in line to head the influential committee, which oversees tax laws, trade and Social Security. But seniority is no longer the deciding factor. So Shaw is campaigning to win the post in 2007, when term limits will force Chairman Bill Thomas to step down.

Shaw, 66, is a contender because of his legislative clout. He engineered the historic welfare reform bill that passed in 1996. His proposal for Social Security investment accounts has been called a good starting point for an eventual compromise.

But other factors work against him. He is battling lung cancer. His difficult re-election campaigns have left him little time to help his fellow Republicans and earn IOUs. And his record of bipartisanship may not be attractive to GOP leaders, who care more about party discipline than pragmatism.

Thomas passed bills without much input from the other party. His relations with the Democrats got so sour that they once stormed out of a meeting. Thomas summoned police to arrest them.

Shaw, a quiet man with the air of a leprechaun, has a more congenial approach. Although he has a conservative record and votes with his party more than 90 percent of the time, he said it often takes working with Democrats to pass a bill.

"I pass legislation. The ideologues do not pass legislation. They just kick up dust," he said. "If you want to consider yourself a person of vision, you've got to have the ability to look at the other side without squashing ideas that might be different from your own."

Rep. Mark Foley, a West Palm Beach Republican who serves on the committee, praises Shaw because "he doesn't trash the opposition. He seeks to gain insight from them to find out what it would take to get them on board."

As a Republican in the Democratic stronghold of Broward County, Shaw knows the importance of being bipartisan. He served as mayor of Fort Lauderdale from 1975 to 1980.

Broward County Commissioner Jim Scott, a Republican, said Shaw is "willing to listen before he makes a decision and give everybody a fair say in what's going on."

But Shaw's bipartisan spirit may not have much appeal to Republican leaders, including House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who is nicknamed "the Hammer." The Republicans have such rigid discipline that Democratic votes aren't needed for many bills.

Steve Elmendorf, former chief of staff to Democratic leader Dick Gephardt, said Republican leaders prefer to have ideologues running their committees.

"They have a tendency to dump people who collaborate with the other side," Elmendorf said. "I don't know that boasting about collaborating with Democrats is a ticket to success with this Republican conference."

Shaw's Social Security proposal is typical of his effort to find consensus. It would leave the existing retirement program intact and provide workers with a tax credit so they could create their own investment accounts, an approach that he said should attract Democratic support. It's been praised in the conservative editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times.

Shaw is frustrated that no Democrats have been willing to support it - or at least offer their own ideas. During a meeting with his staff before a hearing, Shaw complained that committee leaders were allowing Democrats to testify, even though the other party had not offered its own proposal.

"They're just going to sit there and trash the president," Shaw said.

In March, the political magazine National Journal called Shaw "the leading contender" to become chairman. But Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La., has emerged as the front-runner. He heads the Social Security subcommittee and has a high-profile role because his panel is considering President Bush's proposal for personal accounts.

In the Republican-controlled House, campaigning for a chairmanship is a unique grass roots effort that targets the 28 members who sit on the party's steering committee. They will choose the new chairmen or chairwomen of all committees after the November 2006 elections.

In the next few months, Shaw plans to help colleagues raise money and remind them of his credentials as a lawyer and a certified public accountant, which he said makes him well qualified to change the tax code.

"I see a lot of unnecessary complications in the code," he said in an interview. He said both parties are to blame for those complications but that "the American people ought to be able to file their returns without a computer."

Shaw is accustomed to challenging campaigns. His coastal district is 35 percent Democratic and 40 percent Republican. In the 2000 election, he defeated state Sen. Elaine Bloom by only 598 votes.

His margins grew in the last two elections, but he still must spend lots of energy campaigning and raising money, which leaves him less time to help fellow Republicans. State Sen. Ron Klein and Robert Watson, a political science professor, are seeking the Democratic nomination to run against him in the 2006 election.

So far, Shaw's fundraising for fellow Republicans pales compared with the boatloads McCrery has raised. This year, Shaw has collected only $40,000 for his political action committee to give to other Republicans. McCrery has raised about $675,000. In the last election cycle, Shaw gave $350,000 to GOP candidates, compared with about $1-million from McCrery.

Shaw plans to launch more aggressive fundraising next month.

His lung cancer also has added uncertainty. After it was diagnosed two years ago, the upper lobe of his left lung was removed. He described it as a slow-growing and treatable cancer.

Last month, doctors found a new tumor in the same lung. He is taking anticancer medication but may need surgery this summer. Shaw said it is treatable and that it won't affect his campaign to become chairman or his re-election effort.

"Obviously, any time the word cancer comes up, you worry about it. ... But I've got early diagnosis; I've got the best doctors. The doctors are predicting a good outcome, and I accept that."

[Last modified June 13, 2005, 06:11:32]