Fly the federal skies

Fearing public wrath and shaken by the crash of Flight 587, the House GOP folds and allows airport security workers to be federalized.

By Jake Tapper

Nov. 16, 2001 | WASHINGTON -- Prompted by tragedy and an impatient public, the House Republican leadership backed off their opposition to the federalization of airport security workers on Thursday. As a compromise agreement with the Senate on a larger airport security bill was announced and finalized, House Republicans brashly tried to portray their caving as a victory. But one House Republican congressman painted a more apt picture of the day, telling colleagues that the House GOP's position -- opposed by a majority of the public, according to polls -- was a recipe for self-destruction.

The compromise works like this: The Department of Transportation (as opposed to the Justice Department, the Senate's preference) will have a year to make airport security personnel a full federal work force -- personnel who will enjoy few of the job protections afforded other federal employees. Two years after federalization has been implemented, airports can opt out and return to a privatized service to provide employees.

It was a fairly stunning capitulation by House Republicans, who had previously turned down Senate compromise proposals that would have allowed for the continued use of private security firms in all but the largest three dozen or so airports.

The Senate voted 100-0 on Oct. 11 to federalize the nation's 28,000 airport security workers; in a more contentious 218-214 vote on Nov. 1, the House opted to introduce federal supervision while retaining private contractors to do the job. A Washington Post-ABC News poll from early November indicated that Americans supported the Senate position on federalization over the House position, 55 percent to 36 percent.

Both bills included similar measures, including adding more air marshals to the flight-going public, fortifying cockpit doors, and taking steps toward the eventual screening of all checked luggage. Still, because of the federalization controversy, airport security was stuck in holding pattern. House Republicans -- led by Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, and Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas -- rejected various compromise proposals. Democratic Senate negotiators, Sens. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C, and John Kerry, D-Mass., dug in their heels, convinced by polls that they had a winning issue.

Then American Airlines Flight 587 crashed in New York on Monday, killing more than 260 people and shaking up the Hill.

The cause of the accident remains murky, but the continued laxness of airport security was clearly the topic of the day.

When Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., who had flown to New York to sound the opening bell of NASDAQ Monday morning, first saw footage of the crash he thought it was from Afghanistan, an aide said.

Lott then vowed that he would do whatever he could to have a compromise bill by the end of the week.

The next day, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., announced he was inviting Stephen Push of Falls Church, Va. -- whose wife, Lisa Raines, died as a passenger aboard American Airlines Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon on Sept. 11 -- to a press conference urging immediate action on the airport security bill. Push belongs to a coalition whose loved ones were killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and who support the federalization of airport security workers. The stakes were being raised.

The next day, Wednesday, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the Republican co-sponsor of the Senate bill in favor of federalization, sent out an alert to the 200,000 individuals on his Straight Talk America e-mail list announcing that the airport security bill is "now being held hostage in a conference committee." He urged them to call House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., Armey and DeLay and "tell them that the American public demands the same level of safety that members of Congress insist on for themselves."

"Continuing to allow the American people to rely on these contract baggage-claim people is like letting the Boston Strangler massage your neck," grumbled Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., at a Wednesday hearing on airport security.

By Wednesday evening, Lott met with Hollings and DeLay and sold them on the idea of an "opt-out" provision -- the airport security workforce would be federalized, but after a couple of years airports could opt out and return to private screeners if they wanted. Meanwhile, House Republicans began griping that President Bush wasn't doing enough to apply pressure on the Democrats. "It certainly would be nice for the president to come out and say, 'I support the House bill,'" one senior House GOP leadership aide told Roll Call. "Since we passed the bill in the House, he hasn't come out and said anything definitively. We've got a lot of half-baked statements from [White House spokesman] Ari Fleischer that could be interpreted for us or against us."

Thursday morning, Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, chairman of the House transportation committee, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of its subcommittee on aviation, Hollings, Kerry, McCain and a few others met for an hour and hashed it out. A tentative deal was cut, pending the approval of the House and Senate leadership.

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