Spotlight finds Durbin - and he loves it

By Ron Harris
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

WASHINGTON-Dick Durbin’s staffers say working for the Illinois senator has never been simple.

Each day requires the constant feeding of information to the boss, an East St. Louis native with over 20 years on Capitol Hill. The result is an avalanche of briefs, updates, talking points, memorandums and meetings.

But when Durbin became the second-highest-ranking senator after Democrats ascended to power in January, that workload exploded.

“It was like being thrown inside a dryer and the thing being kicked up to full blast,” said Joe Shoemaker, the director of communications who has been with Durbin for five years. “Sometimes you held on, and when you couldn’t, you just did your best not to tumble over yourself too many times.”

As assistant Senate Majority Leader, Durbin, 62, is at the center of Washington’s legislative and political storm. His workday goes from around 5 in the morning to 10 at night.

At one point in the day, he may be acting as his party’s spokesman on the Senate floor. At another, he may be defending Democrats’ positions on a network newscast, or leading a closed-door meeting with fellow Democrats on strategy for upcoming votes.

In addition, he has sponsored a mountain of legislation, offering it on everything from immigration to the high price of college textbooks.

Along with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Durbin now faces a dizzying array of question — legislative, procedural and personal — from reporters, fellow senators and the public.
How might Democratic senators respond if President George W. Bush vetoes the Iraq war-spending bill? What does Durbin think of France’s new president? How many second-degree amendments can senators offer on a bill? And the list goes on.

Durbin loves it.

While Durbin has been doing much of the Democrats’ heavy lifting, Illinois’ Barack Obama has received the lion’s share of the publicity since coming to Washington two years ago. Durbin said he has no envy of his state’s junior senator.

“None whatsoever,” he said with a chuckle as staff members struggled to maintain his quick pace down a hallway. “I’m exactly where I want to be. I’m doing what I want to do.”

Wheelbarrow of frogs

Durbin, of Springfield, is a second-term senator who served seven terms in the House. He has much the same responsibility he had as the minority whip in 2005 when Republicans ran the Senate — to persuade Democratic senators to vote together on major issues.

He likes to describe the task as pushing a wheelbarrow filled with frogs — read senators — down the road at 20 mph and keeping all the frogs from jumping out.

But now that Democrats control the Senate, his duties have broadened considerably. He must manage the flurry of day-to-day voting and bill introduction in the Senate. And with his party in the majority, he’s helping to fashion strategy to push Democrats’ agenda through the Senate instead of just playing defense against the GOP.

So far, Democrats give him high marks.

“He’s been a great leader, and I say that in the broad sense,” said Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa., a moderate whose views are often to the right of the liberal Durbin.

How does Durbin appeal to the more conservative Democrats?

“A lot of it is his ability to communicate as a person and that’s obviously a huge advantage,” Casey said. “Some people in Washington just talk at you. He listens and tries to find common ground.”
Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., called Durbin “a new conscience of the Senate” for his continued championing of issues not always in the political spotlight, such as the genocide in Darfur.
“We may not always agree, but he’s someone I really admire,” Salazar said.

What distinguishes Durbin, admirers say, are his keen intellect and his speaking ability. He rarely uses a prepared text.

“I think he’s the best speaker in the U.S. Senate,” Salazar said.

Durbin has done a lot more of that speaking publicly because Reid, although articulate, is disinclined to be out front, observers said.

“So, Dick Durbin has stepped up and performed that role, and most people would say really quite effectively,” said Steven Smith, a professor of political science at Washington University who specializes in the Senate. “He’s getting to be viewed as the one who is articulating the official Democratic line.”

Durbin’s calm public style helps, Smith said.

“He’s almost always giving the appearance of being calm, not being radical, simply being kind of matter of fact, rather than looking like the attack dog.”

Overtures to the GOP

Democrats in the Senate have come to depend on Durbin to carry their positions to the rival party.

“He is the person who goes across and talks to Republican senators about how we can manage the floor and achieve the goals that everybody shares,” said Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington. “He is approachable and he is reasonable, and I think he takes the time to understand where people are coming from. So, you feel comfortable talking to him, no matter where you are on an issue.”

Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican Senate leader, is one who works with Durbin on those issues, though the politics of the two can be diametrically opposed.

“He knows that it takes 60 votes to do most things in the Senate,” McConnell said, referring to the number of votes needed to end a filibuster. “So, yes, he does seek us out. He’s a very knowledgeable and talented debater who believes very strongly in his positions. I think he represents his party’s interests very ably.”

As he tries to push legislation through the Senate, Durbin has one eye on taking care of Illinois and another on the 2008 elections — including his re-election.

“I am now in a position where I can help our state more because I’m in the middle of debate on the floor of the Senate,” Durbin said. “That means standing up for our values, but also making sure that we get our fair share of government resources.”

As for next year’s elections, “We want to be able to point to things we’ve achieved,” he said of his party.

Their wish list includes ethics reform, raising the federal minimum wage, instituting the security recommendations of the 9/11 commission, making prescription drugs more affordable for seniors, broadening stem cell research and finding a way out of the war in Iraq.

So far, Durbin and fellow Democrats have been thwarted on the big issues — such as war funding and stem-cell research — either because of Republican senators or because they can’t muster the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto.

“There will be a number of things we can point to that say we passed these things,” Durbin said, “and the best that you can say is that until we get a new president, there’s not much that we can achieve.”

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