40th President of the United States Ronald Reagan
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Reagan could be on a collision course with the new Senate Judiciary Committee. Massachusetts' Ted Kennedy, the man conservatives love to hate, opted to take over leadership of the Labor and Human Resources Committee, so the Judiciary Committee chairmanship will fall to Biden. Under Democratic rule, the panel will inevitably give the President a difficult time on judicial appointments. In the past year, even with a Republican majority, the committee helped defeat the district-court nomination of right-wing Ideologue Jefferson Sessions and waged tough fights against the nominations of Daniel Manion to the Seventh Circuit Appeals Court and William Rehnquist to be Chief Justice of the U.S. Moreover, the Judiciary Committee deals with such matters as civil rights, abortion and school prayer. Any new initiative by Attorney General Edwin Meese on those social issues is bound to hit a roadblock with the new panel, and Meese's chances of being confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice, should Reagan want to appoint him, are probably nil.
In his postelection address and again on the radio Saturday, Reagan mentioned the need for further reforms in the budget process, in particular one that would give him a long-desired line-item veto over specific provisions of a spending bill. Given the new Senate lineup, this is now unlikely.
But as his opponents have learned time and again, it is foolish to underestimate Reagan's power to shape political events. That remains true despite last week's results. Still, the election was a clear reminder that the Reagan era is coming to its inevitable end, that the Great Communicator will not always carry the day, that U.S. voters are already casting around for new leaders. "The electorate is ready for some change, the country is ready to move," says Democratic Pollster Peter Hart. "What the voters seem to be saying is that they'd like to see some new faces, new times." Will this result in another turning of the political tide? That depends on whether the Democrats can present an alternative agenda that takes into account the huge changes Reagan has wrought in the nature of the American policy debate.