Republicans Shot Down
Besides social security, Senate Budget Republicans attempted and made only a few changes in the administration's domestic cuts. On the Senate floor, the major test of unity occurred on March 31.
Five veteran Republican senators were a liberal remnant within their party. Those senators were Charles Mathias of Maryland, John Chafee of Rhode Island, Lowell Weicker of Connecticut, Robert Stafford of Vermont, and Mark Hatfield of Oregon, who as the new chairman of Appropriations was really on the hot seat. At Mathias's instigation, the group began meeting regularly soon after the election. All were longtime party loyalists, but all had ideological and constituency problems with the administration. They hoped to use their pivotal position, given their party's slim Senate margin, to moderate policies. None had any relations with Reagan, but all five were close to Howard Baker and wanted to help him control the Senate.
Torn between party and belief, Hatfield and company faced the blizzard of Democratic amendments. An aide recalls that it was
this Draconian thing. There was a Metzenbaum amendment on child vaccines, all sorts of terrible votes. They were all "people" sort of votes, like AFDC, and the Republicans all in lockstep were voting them down. Chafee, Stafford and Weicker were all up in 82 and they got very nervous. Their advisors were saying, "These are your constituents, they elected you in the past, you're taking this Republican stuff too far!"
Chafee decided to offer an amendment restoring funds for programs of particular interest to northerners and urbanites, such as home heating assistance, Urban Mass Transit, Urban Development Action Grants, and education funding. Because the increase in the deficit would be limited to just that package, the administration would be protected; moderates could use the Chafee amendment as evidence that they were representing their constituents and to excuse voting against all the Democratic changes.
Greider reports that "Stockman had no objection. The amendment wouldn't cost much overall, and it would 'take care of those people who have been good soldiers.'"[36] But if Stockman did not really mind, other Republicans did. At the least, the administration's opposition was muted, and Domenici seemed willing to go along. Then Domenici decided to try to beat the amendment. Putting a little back into the basic package "made it easier" for fence-sitting moderate Republicans. As a symbol of the vote's importance, Vice President Bush was in the Senate chair if necessary to break a tie.
Chafee lost 40 to 59. Majority Whip Ted Stevens of Alaska admitted he was voting against Chafee reluctantly, adding that "many of us have been saying no not only to programs we supported in the past, but sometimes to programs we initiated."[37] Eleven Republicans still stood up for Chafee. Hatfield, as a member of the leadership, could not join his "Gang of Five" colleagues; but John Heinz and Arlen Specter (Pa.), William Cohen (Maine), David Durenberger (Minn.), Mark Andrews (N.D.), John Danforth (Mo.), and Charles Percy (Ill.) joined Stafford, Weicker, Mathias, and Chafee. Those Republicans, however, were more than balanced by the seventeen mostly southern Democrats who opposed the amendment.
The Chafee failure showed there would be no coalition of moderate Democrats and liberal Republicans. "Chafee was the one shot we had at making inroads," said Chris Dodd (D-Conn.). "When that failed, any hope of making additional inroads went out the window."[38] The vote also dramatized the situation of the northern "gypsy moth" Republicans of the House and Senate.