What Will Pelosi Really Do In the First 100 Hours?: Well, first of all, it’s not really 100 hours.

question: When House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi talks about what Democrats plan to accomplish in the first 100 hours when Congress convenes in January, does she mean 100 consecutive hours, as in, say, from a Monday at 10 a.m. until Friday at 2 p.m., or does she mean something else?

The answer is something else. Pelosi plans to enact the Democrats’ “Six for ’06” agenda in 100 legislative hours — not real hours. And a legislative hour is not just any hour that the House is open for business. “It’s when the House convenes, after the one-minutes and before the special orders,” says Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly, referring to the times of day when members of Congress will sometimes drone on about any issue that comes to mind. At that pace, Daly says, the first 100 hours “could take a couple of weeks.”

Or maybe longer. “We don’t really have a term ‘legislative hours,’” says a top Republican House aide. Depending how that is defined, “it could last for several weeks.”

There’s been confusion about the 100 hours for quite a while. Pelosi first started talking about the idea during the summer, and she made no distinction between hours and legislative hours. By early October, she was still talking about 100 hours when she gave an interview to the Associated Press, which reported Pelosi’s plan this way:

While the Democratic agenda has been characterized by some critics as unambitious, the goal of getting it accomplished in 100 hours has certainly not — if anything, it has been described as unrealistic. So talk of 100 hours became talk of 100 legislative hours. According to a search of the Nexis database, Pelosi’s first reported use of the phrase “100 legislative hours” was on October 27, when she wrote, in a letter to USA Today, that “in our first 100 legislative hours in office, we have a bipartisan and achievable plan” to enact the new agenda. But the distinction did not catch on. In fact, the phrase “100 legislative hours” has never appeared in the Washington Post or the New York Times.

Confusion has persisted even after the election. On November 10, three days after Democrats won control of the House, the Brookings Institution held a news conference which discussed the party’s agenda. Brookings scholar Thomas Mann, an authority on Congress said, “I’m still puzzled why Nancy Pelosi came up with this 100 hour agenda. I mean, 100 days is bad enough. But 100 hours? How do you move decisively on six major items at 100 hours without setting aside regular order and not allowing any amendments or debates?”

Ron Haskins, another Brookings scholar (and former Republican Hill staffer), agreed. “I actually have some good friends on Pelosi’s staff, and I'm praying for them, because they’re not going to survive the 100 hours,” Haskins said. “I mean, I don’t know why she did that. It just does not make sense to me.”

Meanwhile, there have been, in the last week, a number of indications that Pelosi might not be able to fulfill some of the key promises she made in the campaign, no matter how long she has. The “Six for ’06” agenda, according to a release from Pelosi's office, is this:

Problems might arise with several of those initiatives. Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that Democrats will not implement one major recommendation of the September 11 Commission — the one calling for an overhaul of how Congress oversees the intelligence community. It’s also possible that Democrats might not carry through with some other 9/11 Commission recommendations, at least not in the promised time frame. If that happens, look for party leaders to come up with a plan to allow more time to consider the issue. “For the things that they can’t do, they’ll create an internal commission to study the other recommendations,” says a GOP source. “It will be a commission to study a commission.”

Democrats are also said to be struggling with proposals to cut the interest rates on college loans. “It can be very expensive,” says the GOP source. “You have a cost component that is pretty complicated.” To avoid the problem, it’s possible Democrats might initially come up with a one-year plan to cut interest rates, in hopes of finding a permanent solution later. But in any case, it’s likely their actions will run afoul of Pelosi's high-priority commitment to restore “pay-go” rules — the policy that any new spending or tax cuts must be offset by similar cuts in spending.

Then there is the pledge to have the federal government negotiate prescription drug prices. Since the election, there have been a number of news stories suggesting that the Medicare prescription drug benefit, a frequent target of Democratic campaign attacks, actually works pretty well, is fairly popular with seniors, and might not be improved by the promised change. “As Democrats prepare to take control of Congress,” the Washington Post reported on November 26, “they are struggling to keep that promise without wrecking a program that has proven cheaper and more popular than anyone imagined.”

Now, there is speculation that Democrats might attempt some sort of halfway measure, like simply removing a provision in the Medicare prescription drug law that forbids the government from negotiating prices. Yet doing that would not force the executive branch to begin negotiating, and it is unlikely the Bush administration would make any changes in response. On the other hand, Democrats might pass a bill requiring the government to negotiate, but that might take more time than Pelosi has allowed and open up a fractious debate within the party. “The problem is, you begin to run into disagreements between Democrats,” the GOP aide notes. “Would it actually result in lower prices?”

Finally, there is the issue of spending. A few days ago, the New York Times published a front-page story headlined, “In New Congress, Pork May Linger.” “Like their Republican counterparts, many Democratic appropriators consider earmarks a venerable tradition,” the paper reported, describing the narrowly-directed spending that Pelosi and others had criticized during the campaign. “Many of the new Democratic chairmen are among the most experienced purveyors of political bacon.” The Times reported that a number of powerful Democrats are determined to ensure that there will be no significant changes in the earmark system — in the first 100 legislative hours, or ever. Whether Pelosi will be able to defeat them in her effort to “drain the swamp” is not clear.

There are certainly things Democrats will be able to accomplish upon taking power — for example, most observers believe they will succeed in increasing the federal minimum wage. But, for now at least, it appears that the story of the first 100 hours — legislative or otherwise — might become a tale of contentiousness, frustration, and half-measures as the new Speaker of the House confronts the realities of governing.

— Byron York, NR’s White House correspondent, is the author of the book The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President — and Why They’ll Try Even Harder Next Time.

Thanks for posting. I found this in the WSJ yesterday and found it interesting - a bit more info on the Queen Bee's 'agenda' for the 1st 100 (legislative) hours:

The 100 Hours Rush
Speaker Pelosi learned a few things from Tom DeLay.

Thursday, January 4, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

Congratulations to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats, who begin their new control of Congress today. They also deserve full marks for paying attention while in the minority, because it's clear Democrats learned a few things from Tom DeLay--to wit, how to rush through legislation without any minority participation or public debate.

House Democrats plan to pass a pile of legislation in their first 100 hours, bringing the measures quickly to the floor without committee hearings. These are issues they campaigned on last year and that do well in polls at first blush, such as a higher minimum wage, price controls on prescription drugs and "ethics reform." The rush is supposed to show Democratic resolve to get things done, but it's enough to make us wonder if they're afraid that some of their ideas won't hold up under scrutiny.

Take an increase in the federal minimum wage--to $7.25 an hour in 2009 from $5.15. This was a big hit with Big Labor, and even President Bush has endorsed it in principle. Still, there are negative consequences when the government increases labor costs, and they deserve to be aired, not muffled. No serious economist disputes that a higher wage floor will reduce employment. The debate is only over how many people will lose their jobs. Minorities, low-skilled workers and small businesses get hit hardest, and if a wage hike does less harm this time it will be because in the current tight labor market most employers are already paying above the minimum.

The need for scrutiny is even more compelling on price controls for Medicare prescription drugs. Under the Medicare Part D benefit that took effect last year, private companies negotiate prices. Democrats want to allow the government to deal directly with drug companies. They argue that this would lead to lower prices for medicines, but the more likely outcome is fewer drug choices and price controls.

Democrats point to the Department of Veteran Affairs as a model, but we doubt seniors will like that story when they learn about it. The government already negotiates drug prices directly with the VA. But as Robert Goldberg wrote last month in The Weekly Standard, "Far from negotiating prices, the VA imposes them. Federal law requires companies to sell to the VA at 24% below wholesale price. If they won't, they are banned from selling medicines to Medicaid, Medicare and the public health service."

The VA has created a list of approved drugs for its patients. Companies that don't pay the VA price don't make the list, and a slew of drugs fall into that category. They include Azilect and Tysabri, two of the newest therapies for Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis, respectively. That's what happens when keeping prices down takes priority over getting the best available medicines to patients. Both drugs are available through Medicare Part D, by the way. Maybe Congress ought to debate this.

On ethics reform, Democrats are offering a hodge-podge of good, bad and ridiculous. The good includes earmark reform, if they are really serious in reducing the number and increasing the transparency of the spending process (see below). The ridiculous is a mandate for ethics training for all House employees, which makes us wonder who they're hiring in the first place.

As for the bad, most of the rest of these "reforms" are about controlling the lobbyists, not the Members, which gets it exactly backward. Putting restrictions on the right of citizens to petition government is a strange way of handling ethically challenged politicians. If a Member can be bought with a free lunch or skybox ticket from a lobbyist, he shouldn't be in Congress anyway. And even as they're forgoing lunch, the Members will still be telling corporate lobbyists they'd better ante up that PAC money, or else.

Most slippery is the attempt by Democrats to disguise so-called "pay as you go" budgeting, or paygo, as ethics reform. This is supposed to be a mechanism for reducing the deficit, but in practice it keeps the spending spigots open and makes tax cuts next to impossible. Under paygo, tax cuts must be offset by less spending, but existing entitlement programs that grow automatically every year are exempt from the rules. Under paygo rules, the Bush tax cuts that expire in 2010 have no chance of being extended--as Democrats well know.

The country spoke loud and clear on behalf of Democrats last November, but we doubt this means it voted for everything on the party's partisan wish list. Attempting to shove these measures through the House without allowing votes on amendments or alternatives isn't the way a confident majority behaves. We guess this is why the Founders created the Senate.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009477

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