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President Bush must have had an eerie feeling last week as he watched a large number of Senate Republicans help sabotage his immigration overhaul. It was exactly a decade ago that he was sitting in the governor’s office in the Texas Capitol watching Senate Republicans torpedo his signature school-funding bill. Against the advice of many in his party, Mr. Bush had pushed the Legislature to overhaul the state’s way of paying for public education. He told me then that the state needed to fix the system, which the Texas Supreme Court had ruled unconstitutional. If not, property tax rates would rise as high as California’s, and people would revolt. No telling what would happen to school funding then.

He was right. The issue needed solving before it got worse. And he had the fire to take it on.

At first, he had some luck. The Texas House passed a bill he supported, with more Democrats than Republicans signing on. But it hit trouble in the Senate, where some Republicans didn’t want to get within five miles of messing with Texas’ tax system, which a fix would have required.

It always surprised me that a few of Mr. Bush’s pals brought the bill down. They knew a ton was riding on it. His presidential bid was starting to get legs. Plus, this problem wasn’t going away. (As it turned out, Texas struggled with its school funding system for eight more years until the Supreme Court gave the Legislature a fix-it-or-else ultimatum.)

Yet stiff him they did. Which brings us around to last week.

Mr. Bush had the centerpiece of his domestic agenda on the line, but that wasn’t enough for some Senate Republicans. Even fellow Texans Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn rebuked him on the immigration bill, voting to effectively kill the proposal.

You may take away from all this that Mr. Bush is a fool for picking battles that end in defeat. Here’s a different take:

What we saw in the immigration battle, as well as the school funding one, was Mr. Bush at his best. He was willing to stick his neck out and trying to build a coalition from the center.

Let’s deal with the neck part: Politicians normally don’t like getting too far out on an issue. John Kennedy didn’t when it came to civil rights, for instance. He spoke a good game but really didn’t push Congress very hard.

A former Republican House veteran helped me understand the risk-aversion streak last year, when I sat in his Washington office and told him that I just didn’t get it: Why spend all your time flying back and forth to Washington if you aren’t going to solve problems, whether it’s immigration or Social Security or what have you?

He smiled and said he agreed but that I needed to understand that politicians largely aren’t interested in solving problems. They want to get re-elected, over and over. That’s what motivates them.

That’s also why Mr. Bush stands out on immigration. He was the anti-politician, trying to tell Americans that we have a problem that we must fix before it gets worse.

And even with approval ratings in the 25 percent range, his neck was 100 percent on the line for this fight. If immigration went down, it would line up next to Social Security as part of a failed domestic legacy. The risk was great, but he took it anyway because he knew it was the right fight to take on.

Let’s deal now with the coalition part: People like me have been arguing for a long time that we need to see more of Gov. Bush the coalition builder, not President Bush the divider.

Well, there he was, standing alongside Ted Kennedy, Arlen Specter, Harry Reid and Jon Kyl on the immigration bill. They were part of the “grand bargain” that had emerged among senators from both parties.

Like Mr. Bush, those Democrats and Republicans were willing to stick their necks out, too. Although they failed, they showed that it’s still possible to build coalitions. Mr. Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, said as much in eulogizing the bill.

Another defeat, 10 years later. Maybe it takes a loss like this to ultimately produce a victory. That’s what happened with school finance in Texas.

For the moment, it must be a little eerie in the Oval Office.

Author: William McKenzie From: http://www.dallasnews.com

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