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Thursday, March 06, 2003

By James O'Toole, Post-Gazette Politics Editor

HARRISBURG -- Ed Rendell promised to bring a different kind of government to Harrisburg. So far, that's one campaign promise he's delivered on.

On a day spent blasting Republican legislators for state budget gamesmanship, Gov. Ed Rendell, left, enjoyed a light moment with state Sens. Sean Logan and Allan Kukovich as he was being introduced by Greensburg Fire Chief Ed Hutchinson to supporters at a fire station. Rendell made Hose Co. No. 1 in Greensburg the first stop on a statewide swing, in part to highlight his decision to include $25 million in equipment funds to volunteer fire departments, an item long sought by the departments but never funded before. (Lake Fong, Post-Gazette)

Following a script drawn in equal measures from "Alice in Wonderland" and Politics 101, Rendell's aides have scurried around the Capitol the last two days trying to make sure that fellow Democrats would vote against the fiscal blueprint the new governor had unrolled in an address Tuesday morning.

Republicans, meanwhile, embraced the same bare-bones budget, surprising and frustrating administration strategists with their promises to pass the measure and send it back to the governor's desk in record time.

Behind this unfolding political paradox were a series of miscalculations involving motives, tactics, a tough economy and even the definition of the word budget.

Rendell's decisive victory in November rested in part on campaign promises to spur development, increase funding for education and cut local property taxes.

The details of those promises were ambitious enough. The challenge to the former mayor was compounded as he, like incoming governors across the nation, inherited a projected deficit brought on largely by the limping national economy.

Rendell decided to deal with the challenges in two stages -- the budget introduced this week would bridge the gap in current state spending, and his ambitious campaign promises would be fulfilled in a supplementary budget message to be delivered three weeks from now.

The unusual strategy spawned conflicting perceptions. Members of the administration said that it was simply a necessity, borne of the fact that state law demanded a budget message Tuesday even though they had yet to translate their campaign promises to the fine detail of legislative language.

Many Republicans, however, saw a ploy in the two-stage process. The first phase, in which Rendell promised to hold the line on major taxes, was expected to be, and was, an austere proposal that took a scalpel to state spending, cutting a wide array of programs dear to one influential constituency or another.

Republicans believed that the first-phase budget was deliberately crafted to elicit outrage across the commonwealth, and with it public pressure to vote for the tax increases expected to accompany Rendell's second fiscal message.

Rendell and his aides continue to dismiss that analysis, insisting that each budget phase stands on its own -- the Tuesday message as their honest, best attempt to deal with the state's fiscal status quo, and the sequel promised for March 25 as an effort to invigorate the state along the lines Rendell suggested in his campaign.

But as leaks and previews of the budget plan emerged last week, Republicans began to flirt with the idea of voting for the plan.

"It was about as grass-roots as things get around here," said Steve MacNett, general counsel to the Senate Republicans. "I don't know how many members said, 'If he does what we think he's going to do, we ought to just approve it.'"

MacNett said he believed that the different explanations for the two-stage budget approach were not mutually exclusive. While he said that he thought Tuesday's budget was calculated at least in part as a vanguard for taxes, he noted that it may also be true that the administration is not prepared to outline its companion proposals.

"They started the process late, and there's no tougher knot to untangle than school finances," MacNett said. Rendell said his team had heard "rumblings" of the possibility that the Republican-controlled Legislature might rush to pass the first half of his plan. State Sen. Vincent Fumo, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, warned the administration last week that it was a clear danger. Still, Rendell acknowledged that he was taken aback at the GOP's hair-trigger plan to shoot the budget bill through the Legislature without hearings.

If the existing budget were signed, that would take the pressure of a June 30 budget deadline away from the deliberations on Rendell's subsequent proposals.

As late as Tuesday, Rendell's spokesman, Ken Snyder, had said -- without any qualification -- that the governor, albeit with great reluctance, would sign the budget if the two chambers approved it.

Yesterday, however, Rendell and Snyder both said that Rendell meant that he would sign the bare bones budget only if it had been at least considered along with his promised companion proposals.

The veto possibility, which Snyder made a point to emphasize yesterday, brought a warning from MacNett.

"If that's the case, we would know we couldn't count on what he says," said the senior GOP strategist.

In a closed caucus yesterday, Democratic House members were told that a Rendell veto was likely if the GOP leadership follows through on its plan for speedy approval.

"I don't think the governor will sign this budget as it is now," said Rep. Bill DeWeese, D-Greene, the House Democratic leader. "They are not sending him his budget; they are sending him half of his budget."

The office of governor is a powerful one and Rendell has options beyond a veto for keeping his own proposal from boomeranging into law, including the line-item veto.

"Would I use [the line item veto]? Sure, it's a possibility, but, again, I'm going to try avoid playing games," Rendell said. One inevitable question posed by this confusing, still unfolding episode is whether Rendell, who arrived in Harrisburg after primary and general election victories that demonstrated his enormous political skills, has stumbled significantly in his first major encounter with the Legislature.

"If there was a miscalculation, it was that he thought people would be reasonable -- would accept the responsibility to govern," said state Sen. Allen Kukovich, D-Westmoreland, a key ally who is the state Democratic chairman. "I'm sure he recognized there was a risk."

DeWeese sees the episode a relatively minor bump in the road, one that Rendell's campaign skills can overcome.

"He will alert the world of Pennsylvania that this is not his budget, that this is only half. ... I think the GOP leadership may have bitten off more than they can chew. The inexorable momentum of Ed Rendell and his bus are going to focus the attention of the polity."

DeWeese referred to the fact that Rendell intends to travel around the state, going over the heads of the legislators and appealing directly to the voters for support for his program.

Following a favorite campaign tactic, Rendell plans to travel from town to town in a Maddenesque customized bus. Yesterday, however, he traveled to his first stop in Greensburg by plane.

His bus, like the balance of his budget, was not yet ready.