WASHINGTON -- In his first big test as Republican whip, Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-7th, succeeded in uniting House Republicans Wednesday in 100 percent opposition to the $819 billion economic stimulus bill.
But with the bill passing easily in the Democratic-controlled House, some analysts say the GOP runs the risk of appearing too obstructionist as Congress grapples with the worst economic climate since the Great Depression.
"It's a highly, highly risky move on their part," said Thomas E. Mann, who studies Congress at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
The stimulus bill passed in the House, 244 to 188, with 11 Democrats and 177 Republicans opposed.
Cantor said the message of the vote to President Barack Obama was: "Tell Speaker Pelosi to begin to work with us."
The lockstep GOP opposition may be a tactical move, Mann said, to encourage the Senate to send a revised package back to the House that will attract more Republican support.
Obama has called on Congress to pass a stimulus bill by Feb. 16.
For Cantor, who was elected to his party's No. 2 post in December, following the party's election losses, the stimulus vote marked his first challenge to unite the minority party. As Republican whip, Cantor is his party's chief vote-counter in the House.
"This was a pretty easy bill to whip," said Rob Collins, Cantor's deputy chief of staff.
Political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia Center for Politics called Cantor's efforts impressive nonetheless. "He held everybody together."
The risk, Sabato said, is that if the economy improves, Democrats can now use Republican opposition to the bill against them.
"Not a single Republican voted for [President Bill] Clinton's stimulus bill and he used that to criticize them when the economy recovered," he said.
Collins said that is a risk "everybody factors in."
Congressional Quarterly reported that the GOP unanimity drew praise from Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Kansas Republican that it described as a former rival of Cantor within the GOP.
"It's hard to argue with the results," Tiahrt said. "Our Republican leadership did a good job of informing folks of what was in the bill."
But Collins said the high amount of spending in the bill made it an easy sell to even centrist Republicans.
"This bill just spent too much money on government programs . . . and never hit its mark, which was creating jobs."
Republicans praised their House leadership team Wednesday night for keeping the party together and providing them an alternative on which they could vote.
The GOP alternative bill Cantor helped craft was focused almost exclusively on tax cuts. Republicans said it would create 6.2 million jobs and cost $478 billion. Two Democrats voted for it and nine Republicans opposed it.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, accepted no blame today for the bill's failure to attract a single Republican.
"They probably voted their conscience," she said at a news conference. "We reached out to Republicans all along the way."
Contact Neil H. Simon at (202) 662-7669 or nsimon@mediageneral.com.
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