Schumer vs. Durbin: An Early Fight to Replace Harry Reid

(2 of 3)

Reid soon capitulated and gave the bill to Baucus and his GOP counterpart Chuck Grassley of Iowa to craft with Schumer's help. Durbin, incensed, began a progressive campaign to bring down that bill on the grounds that it gave too much away (in the form of tax cuts and business incentives) to Republicans in an effort to pass a bipartisan bill, according to three senior Democratic aides. In frustration, Reid threw up his hands on Feb. 12, mere hours after Baucus unveiled his bill, and stripped down both Durbin's and Baucus' bills to their smallest building blocks and began a strategy to pass them piecemeal instead of in one big package. "The jobs bill would've been done weeks ago if not for the Schumer-Durbin wrangling," says a senior Democrat. Not only did their intrigue make Reid look bad — his sudden move sparked a firestorm of criticism — but it also cost the Democrats a quick, bipartisan victory on jobs.

Aides to each Senator are quick to reject any suggestion that Durbin or Schumer are working to firm up support for a leadership bid. "The current parlor game among the rumormonger set in D.C. seems to be pitting Senator Durbin against Senator Schumer in a race to be Senate majority leader — all the while seeing how many spurious motives and political garbage they can heap on everybody in the process," says Durbin spokesman Joe Shoemaker. "I have bad news for them: we have a majority leader; his name is Harry Reid. Instead of trying to refute every asinine rumor and half-truth that comes along, Senator Durbin is going to put his efforts into making sure that Senator Reid is the majority leader next Congress as well." Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon echoes the sentiment: "This is nonsense. Senator Reid is going to be re-elected, and any speculation otherwise is wasted breath."

Schumer is considered more of a political animal than Durbin, and thus has spent much of the year burnishing his legislative credentials, sponsoring a provision in Baucus' jobs bill with Utah Republican Orrin Hatch and toiling with South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham on an immigration-reform bill. It's Schumer's background as the Dems' Senate campaign chief that may be his ace in the hole: most observers believe that the 14 Senators he helped elect in 2006 and 2008 when he ran the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee owe him their loyalty. "Who wins? Schumer," says a Senator whom Schumer has helped at the polls. "There are loyalties that override secret ballots, and this is one of them."

But that doesn't mean Durbin isn't making a play for those freshmen. In the past few months, the normally mild-mannered Senator has been suddenly waging vocal partisan battles. When Senator Jim Bunning staged his one-man filibuster of an extension of unemployment benefits, it was Durbin who took him on most directly for five days. The move delighted the newer Senators, many of whom have been calling on their more gun-shy leaders to force Republicans to filibuster to show how broken the process has become. Durbin then took it a step further, endorsing Iowa Democratic Senator Tom Harkin's bill to dismantle the filibuster. "The American people are sick of process blocking progress," Durbin wrote on a website he started, Fed Up with the Filibuster, which urges people to sign an online petition. "They're fed up with an arbitrary tradition that allows a minority of Senators to prevent popular, much-needed legislation from even coming to a vote."

None of this has made Reid's job any easier. The majority leader has consistently told progressives that it's impossible to change the Senate rules right now — he'd need 66 votes, and Republicans are hardly likely to vote to weaken their minority position. But this week Schumer announced that he plans to hold hearings on the filibuster in his Rules and Administration Committee. "Most of our Democrats are in support of seeing what can be done, because the filibusters have just slowed the Senate down to a crawl," Schumer told reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. "I have for weeks and weeks told the majority leader that we in the Rules Committee would hold hearings to explore what could be done legally to deal with the filibuster." Embarrassed, Reid was forced to backtrack, telling a group of Nevada progressives on Wednesday that he'd make changing the filibuster a priority next session if re-elected. With 10 months to go until the caucus elects leaders for the 112th session, Schumer's and Durbin's campaigns "have become a creeping problem," says another Democratic Senator.