MR. FIXIT GOES
TO THE SENATE

Dick Durbin is known as a guy
who gets things done. His reputation
will be put to the test in his new job

by Gayle Worland

14 / March 1997 Illinois Issues

The new Congress has been in session only a few days and freshman Sen. Richard J. Durbin is moving at a fast clip.

In the Dirksen Senate Office Building — new territory, even for someone who spent the last 14 years in the House — Durbin glances at a map, then strides purposefully down the hall. He swings a sharp turn into the hubbub of a hearing room, which is quickly filling with staffers in pumps and senators in blue and gray suits. Paul Simon, his predecessor, is talking on the telephone in his shirtsleeves in a corner booth. Quickly, Simon hangs up the phone, slips on his jacket and grasps Durbin's hand in a warm, two-handed handshake.

When Simon decided to retire from the Senate last year, he endorsed Durbin for his seat. Simon stumped for his fellow Democrat on the campaign trail, sometimes for up to 13 hours at a stretch. Yet today — even as they grin at one another, bound by this strong handshake — both men know they are destined to part company.

Simon is here to talk about the big picture. Durbin has come to make sure the business of government doesn't slow down. Their 10 a.m. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing concerns the Balanced Budget Amendment, Simon's pet cause for much of his second and final Senate term. It would force Congress to balance the budget by 2002 and every year thereafter. Durbin is loath to tinker with the Constitution, and argues that lawmakers need flexibility with the budget, especially when a recession justifies a little red ink to get the economy moving. He's particularly fearful that under the amendment, budget writers might dip into Social Security funds to help balance the books.

A "National Debt Clock" on the wall is set at more than $5.3 trillion and clicking away at $4,500 a second. But after Simon's testimony to his former colleagues, committee member Durbin expresses his concern for Social Security. "This is not just another government program," Durbin insists. Washington must approach budget-cutting in a way that won't jeopardize the promise government made to its senior citizens, he adds. "If this were a Congress of Paul Simons, I would feel a lot more confident about this."

The balanced budget debate highlights some of the basic philosophical and stylistic differences between the pragmatic Durbin and his bow-tied forerunner. While Simon sermonized on global issues such as ocean-water desalination and the brittle state of African politics, Durbin's sights are closer to home — on the Senate floor and the back rooms of Congress, where laws are written and domestic policies are shaped. During his tenure, Simon worked on his share of domestic issues, but his demeanor and approach to politics kept him somewhere above the grubby fray. For Durbin, the joy is in the basic legislative process and the hands-on politicking needed to get things done.

He ticks off a freshman agenda of populist issues: protecting Social Security, monitoring welfare reform, pushing for universal health care and stricter gun-control laws and promoting campaign finance reform.

Indeed, Illinois' senators have left very different marks on the job. Alan Dixon believed it was his role to bring federal dollars and jobs back to the state; Paul Douglas, a principled statesman, stood firmly against such "pet projects." Everett Dirksen, on the other hand, was the consummate Washington insider and dealmaker. "I think each of us is a product of our experience," Durbin explains in his staff's temporary quarters, a suite of offices once occupied by Sen. Harry

Durbin's success against the tobacco
industry, says a Republican colleague, shows
his ability to catch an issue and lead.

Illinois Issues March 1997 / 15

Truman. When compared with his predecessors, "I will be different," says Durbin, 52. "It's just natural, when it's all said and done."

Durbin is the state's new junior senator, but he has far more Washington history behind him than Illinois' senior senator, Carol Moseley-Braun. A graduate of Georgetown University Law School, Durbin worked for Sen. Douglas in the late 1960s. In 1982, he won his own congressional seat in Illinois' 20th District, which takes in a broad swath of central and southwestern Illinois. He quickly rose through the ranks of the Democratic majority, holding a coveted chairmanship on the appropriations subcommittee on agriculture until Republicans took control of the House in 1994.

The appropriations job made Durbin one of 13 "cardinals" who lord over the House budget. He and his subcommittee were responsible for divvying up $70.5 billion — more than twice the Illinois state budget — for food-related programs ranging from farm loans and food stamps to E-coli bacteria research.

His high standing earned Durbin respect from colleagues in both parties. "He was effective in the House," says U.S. Rep. John Porter, a Wilmette Republican who has served in that chamber since 1980 and is considering a challenge to Moseley-Braun's Senate seat next year. "I think Dick will be a very, very active senator. In some ways he will make his mentor and good friend Paul Simon look like he was standing still — and Paul Simon was himself a very hard worker."

Durbin may have come to the right Senate at the right time. By its very nature the Senate is more deliberative than the House; James Madison described its role as providing "more coolness, more system and more wisdom than the popular branch." To newcomers like Durbin — and other veterans of the frenetic "First 100 Days" of the 1995 Republican House majority — the traditional Senate might feel overwhelmingly stodgy.

But "the world's most exclusive club," as the New York Times calls the Senate, may be entering one of its most activist periods. Forty-three members, the largest number in modern history, have served in the House. Among them, says the Times, are "the most rambunctious, conservative and independent-minded group of Senators in nearly 70 years."

Durbin's experience on Capitol Hill helped him hit the Senate in full stride. But his first priority in January was to create "trusting relationships" among his new colleagues, only 45 of whom are Democrats. Without friends, a legislator does not get far.

Durbin "came to Congress with an understanding of its rules and a knack for playing its internal politics — a combination that has given him the savvy and self-assurance to act the parts of both insider and insurgent," Congressional Quarterly writes.

In the late 1980s those traits helped Durbin take on the colossus of the tobacco industry and, much to his own surprise, win. A dedicated anti-smoking activist whose father died of lung cancer when he was 14, Durbin inspired the smoking ban on domestic airline flights that began in 1991. He also supported legislation protecting children from secondhand smoke and was an ardent critic of cigarette advertising geared toward young people.

Washington sat up and took notice. "His work on tobacco and smoking in the House," Porter observes, "makes you aware of his ability to catch an issue and lead."

'Richard Durbin came to Congress with an understanding of its rules and a knack for playing its internal politics.'

What kind of senator will Durbin be? "He wants to be a re-elected one," says Paul Green, a professor of Illinois politics at Governors State University in University Park. Green places Durbin in the "liberal-moderate" category, "barely left of center." No doubt Durbin will employ the savvy he picked up in the House, says Green. "He's a very shrewd person. I don't think he'll make a blunder." Blunders happen, but Durbin is so wily in the ways of Congress that he knows how to make friends, build coalitions and get things done to avoid major pitfalls.

And he's a nice guy. When John Shimkus, the Republican who ran a tough but unsuccessful campaign against Rep. Durbin in 1992, won the seat four years later, Durbin showed up for his swearing-in. Shimkus returned the gesture by attending a reception for Durbin.

Although from different parties, the two men share the belief that cooperation helps to get things done. Durbin has offered to talk with him about key issues for central Illinois, says Shimkus, who admits to admiring his former opponent's energy. "Part of my success is thinking I can outwork anyone," Shimkus says. "But I think in '92 it was probably break-even."

Durbin also has a partisan side, and the reputation of a guy who's willing to strike a deal. He's already lobbying heavily for a spot on the Senate Appropriations Committee in 1998. On appropriations, he would once again be in his element: reveling in the nuts-and-bolts of government, judging the worth of legislation and writing out the checks.

In the meantime, as a member of the Senate Government Affairs Committee, he'll have a seat at the high-profile investigation of the Democratic National Committee's fund-raising practices. The hearings have the potential to become "a drive-by shooting of the DNC," he says.

Back in the high-ceilinged halls of the Dirksen Building, Durbin punches the "Up" button for the elevator. Lately, he tells a reporter, he's been pondering "group dynamics," a term he first

16 / March 1997 Illinois Issues

heard in college. He now belongs to a legislative body with 100 members instead of 435, and is tripling the size of his staff to serve 11 million new constituents. Unlike Moseley-Braun, whose Washington office was decidedly chaotic in its early days, Durbin has made staff appointments a priority. "It's a big undertaking," he says, "to find good quality people who represent you well."

A good staff makes its boss look good — not only on the Hill, but to the folks back home. Constituent service is a top priority with any House member who wants to serve more than a two-year term. It's less politically important for a senator, but for Durbin the habit is hard to break. He still holds close ties to his old job; during the week Durbin shares a Capitol Hill apartment with three former House colleagues, and has been spotted working out in the House gym rather than in the gym reserved for senators. His performance in Senate committees is vintage Durbin: self-effacing and affable, assertive and insistent in an aw-shucks sort of way. As he peers over his large round glasses from the dais, Durbin's occasional anecdotes raise a laugh the way his dry one-liners broke up his old ag committee.

Sure, Dick Durbin grew up in working-class East St. Louis, earned spending money for college by working in a slaughterhouse and tries to get home every weekend. But he's not your ordinary working stiff. "I'm still shaking my head at the thought that I'm sitting

here in the United States Senate. This is something that I never thought would happen," says the man who defeated Al Salvi in November with 56 percent of the vote. "Now that I've cast a couple of votes it's starting to sink in."

In fact, Durbin has spent his entire professional life in state and federal politics. After the brief slaughterhouse stint, he became a political animal, earning a spot as Illinois advance man for U.S. Sen. Douglas' 1966 re-election

Illinois Issues March 1997 / 17

campaign. Douglas became Durbin's mentor, and Durbin's son is Douglas' namesake.

After receiving his law degree in 1969, Durbin served on the staff of Lt. Gov. Paul Simon, and later as a state Senate staffer. Durbin weathered two election losses before he defeated 11- term incumbent Paul Findley for his seat in the U.S. House in 1982.

Moseley-Braun, his Illinois colleague in the Senate, says she's known Durbin since she served in the state legislature in the 1980s. "He was the first person to offer to take me into a coal mine," she recalls with a laugh. Moseley-Braun expects to collaborate with Durbin on issues such as ethanol subsidies, health care funding and the selection of federal judges in Illinois.

"We talk almost on a daily basis about Illinois matters," Durbin says about the senior senator. Moseley Braun supported Durbin in the Democratic primary for Senate, and she can count on his support in 1998. "I'm going to be doing everything I can to make sure she's re-elected," he vows.

At lunchtime, Durbin buys a submarine sandwich and yogurt to eat at his desk, which faces a wall and is rather small by senatorial standards. Classical music plays from a tiny portable radio on the windowsill. Durbin and his staff could be asked any day now to pack up — again — and move to another office if this one is fancied by a more senior senator.

The Senate was supposed to be a promotion. But did Durbin forfeit 14 years of seniority in the House? With the Republicans in control, "I didn't lose as much as it might appear," he explains. Minority parties are better off in the Senate, where each member can participate fully in floor debate and offer amendments to legislation. "The House rules restrict you dramatically, and I was very limited as to what I could do."

"Congressman — er, Senator Durbin?" says a man in a nylon jacket who later passes Durbin in the hall. He and his wife are visiting from Vandalia, the man explains. "Right to Life," announces his wife, identifying the couple as marchers in the day's anti-abortion protest to mark the anniversary of Roe v, Wade, On the fly, Durbin offers a handshake and wishes the couple a "good stay." For a pro-choice Catholic like Durbin, who proudly displays a photo of himself with Mother Teresa in his front office, abortion has proved one of the more difficult issues in his political career, particularly in representing a district with a sizable Catholic bloc.

But Durbin, whose natural inclination and political temperament make him the ultimate pragmatist, has never shied from offending friends and allies over principle. He so angered one of his strongest constituencies — organized labor — when he voted for NAFTA that unions threatened to sit out his 1994 re-election campaign. And he lost some political friends when he voted last year for President Bill Clinton's welfare reform package, a measure that Sen. Simon opposed. After inheriting a constituency that includes the nation's third largest city, however, Durbin says that monitoring the effect of welfare reform on Illinois is one of his top priorities.

The Senate TV and Radio Gallery, headquarters for the electronic press on Capitol Hill, is jammed with reporters as Durbin and Democratic Sens. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota and Tim Johnson of South Dakota file on stage in front of an oversized blue and white photo of the Capitol dome. Their press conference will address campaign finance reform, which Wellstone calls "the central issue of this Congress." One of Washington's most passionate voices of the left, Wellstone exhorts Americans to "light a fire" under Congress and to rally nationwide for an Earth Day-style "Reform Day" to demand change.

By contrast, Durbin's style is less soapbox-radical and more measured. He warns of the public's "growing cynicism" about how campaigns are funded and Americans' "distrust of this political process." He points to a "Political Inflation Index" chart showing that from 1992 to 1996 wages increased an average of 13 percent, education costs went up 17 percent and political costs soared 73 percent.

The escalating price of campaigns — last November's presidential and congressional races cost close to $2 billion — "really gets to the heart of the problem in this country," Durbin says later in his office. "The American voters are losing interest in this process. They are not showing up to vote. They are not anxious to run for office, and they have a very low opinion of elected officials. ... This process has become so shabby that the average person doesn't identify with it."

Durbin's own Senate campaign raised close to $4 million, a quarter of which came from political action committees (PACs) ranging from trial lawyer associations to health care groups, from insurance companies and agriculture concerns to special interest groups for pilots. His campaign also benefited from millions in "soft money," dollars raised for the political parties rather than for specific campaigns. Neither "PACs" nor "soft money" were mentioned in Durbin's January 23 press conference.

"I'm not here to protect any one of those," Durbin later explains. "Everything is on the table as far as I'm concerned." His campaign went after "every legal dollar we could find," because his opponent could afford to put $1.6 million of his own money into the campaign, he says. "I just kept buying lottery tickets."

18 / March 1997 Illinois Issues

The campaign helped Durbin understand why Simon, fed up with the fund-raising rat race, gave up his Senate seat. "I mean, many parts of the campaign were nice," says Durbin, "but much of it was pure drudgery — on the phone day and night begging for money from strangers and special interest groups. I didn't feel good about it. And a lot of those who contributed didn't feel good about it." Buying time for TV ads proved pricey in Chicago, where Durbin was little known until the Senate race.

His Chicago ties are more cozy now; the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, for example, donated $10,000 each to his campaign and underwrote a luncheon buffet for Durbin's family and friends to celebrate his swearing- in. And when the Senate Commerce Committee began hearings on Chicago's William Daley, President Clinton's nominee for secretary of commerce, Durbin and Moseley-Braun were there to formally vouch for him. Daley, brother of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, could be an important link between Illinois' business community and its new senator. The new commerce secretary "will probably try to make it clear that he's going to be helping everyone, not just Chicago," says Durbin. "But it is great to have a friend a telephone call away." Over the next six years, Durbin is unlikely to spend much time behind the Senate microphones debating foreign policy or preaching lofty causes. Instead, his turf will likely be the committee rooms and cloakrooms where he'll write the legislation, press the flesh and work the phones. One of his longtime pet projects for Illinois — ethanol subsidies — is an ongoing target of budget-cutters looking at "corporate welfare"; other corporate and agriculture interests will certainly come knocking on his door.

But Durbin says he'll be just as consumed with fielding calls from Rockford to Cairo. "Every day, the phone rings with someone else from Illinois concerned about something in the president's budget, or something in an appropriations bill or legislation. And that's my job, to field those inquiries."

That's Illinois' new senator, the state's own Mr. Fixit in Washington.

Gayle Worland is a Rockford native now living in Washington, D. C. Her free-lance pieces have appeared in several publications, including Illinois Issues and the Washington Post.

Illinois Issues March 1997 / 19