Spy Reform Bill's Guiding Light Is Up to the Task

By Mary Curtius

Oct. 5, 2004 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — In the Senate, senior members who chair the most powerful committees long have been accustomed to having their way on the most important national security issues.

But when Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) was looking for a senator to write legislation in response to the Sept. 11 commission’s finding that the nation’s spy agencies had failed to protect Americans from the terrorist attacks, he bypassed the Appropriations, Armed Services and Intelligence committees.

Instead, Frist turned to the relatively obscure Governmental Affairs Committee.

With no allegiance to the intelligence agencies or the Defense Department, which controls 80% of the intelligence budget, the committee and its chairwoman, Susan Collins (R-Maine), could be counted on to carry out real reform, Frist reasoned.

Few in the Senate, however, thought that Collins -- who had no experience managing a complex bill on the Senate floor -- would be a match for her more senior colleagues.

When debate opened last week on Collins’ intelligence reform bill, she was given little chance of withstanding the attacks of Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Armed Services Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.). Collins has endured lectures on what she doesn’t know about intelligence, the military and the labyrinthine budget process.

“What I’m finding is that the biggest challenge is to be extremely patient,” a weary Collins said in an interview Monday.

Stevens and Warner, who saw the bill as threatening the Pentagon -- and their own committees’ authority -- fought fiercely to limit the powers of a new national intelligence director and national counterterrorism center. But in several key showdowns Monday, Collins kept her bill largely intact.

If she continues to prevail, she will be the chief author of the most sweeping overhaul of the nation’s intelligence-gathering apparatus since the beginning of the Cold War.

“They underestimate her at their peril,” said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “This fight will separate the men from the boys, and she is very much a man.”

Few in the Senate shared Harman’s confidence before the intelligence debate began.

A former staff member who worked for then-Sen. William S. Cohen (R-Maine), Collins, 51, has served just eight years in the Senate -- where seniority is the currency of power -- and only four years as chairwoman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, which oversees the government bureaucracy but rarely writes legislation.

Collins, who favors jewel-colored suits on the Senate floor, has a reputation among Senate staffers for being a demanding taskmaster who tends to micromanage her staff and responds badly to pressure. In some of her floor debates with Stevens and Warner, she appeared nervous, almost fragile -- her voice sometimes quavering.

Soon after receiving her assignment from Frist in July, Collins formed a tight partnership with Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on her committee who had written the bill creating the Homeland Security Department and co-wrote legislation with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) creating the Sept. 11 commission.

Lieberman and Collins held hearings during the August recess, then fashioned a bill that won support from the commission and the White House. The Governmental Affairs Committee passed the bill unanimously.

But the big guns were waiting on the Senate floor. Stevens, Warner and Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, were among those who repeatedly reminded Collins that she was a junior senator of a committee with no expertise in intelligence, armed services or the intricacies of budget appropriations.

“Listen to me,” Stevens -- who holds the power to punish or reward senators through the appropriations process -- shouted at Collins. He argued that her bill would endanger national security by disclosing top-secret intelligence budget numbers.

“You have not lived with how we have financed the intelligence community.... I ask the question: Does the senator understand what her bill does?”

Collins calmly responded that the senator was mistaken. Her bill, she said, would reveal only a single, aggregate budget number for all 15 intelligence agencies -- a disclosure meant to help Congress oversee intelligence matters.

When Warner subtly reminded Collins of his status as chairman of one of the Senate’s most important committees, Collins replied that she had “enormous respect” for her colleague, but opposed his amendment to cut back the national intelligence director’s authority. With behind-the-scenes assistance from the White House, she persuaded Warner to rewrite the offending amendment.

Still, said one senior Democratic Senate staffer, watching Collins debating the Senate barons was a lesson in how the chamber works. To the older senators, he said, she was a “lightweight.” Warner’s exaggerated civility in their exchange, the aide said, was meant to underscore the disparities in their positions.

“You want to play with the big leagues? OK, let’s go,” the aide said Warner communicated.

Collins played -- and won.

Bolstered by Lieberman and the White House, she defeated amendments, which would have gutted the bill, and paved the way for it to clear the Senate as soon as tonight.

“If it does, it will ... do so despite the threats that were made by these old bulls,” McCain said. “These old men can complain as much as they want to. It’s results that matter, and the ferocity of their attacks on her is related to her success.”

Sen. John D. “Jay” Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee and a strong supporter of both Collins and her bill, said she had the combination of patience and steel necessary to get such complex legislation through the Senate.

Watching Collins, Rockefeller said, “is fascinating.... You watch people trying to beat her up and you see that she’s enjoying it.”