Sen. Mark Hatfield will be able to buck Republican orthodoxy another day. But it's a luxury that future committee chairmen may not have.
The resolution of the Oregon senator's fate Wednesday in an extraordinary Senate Republican conference put an end to days of whispers and unflattering speculation over whether Republicans would punish someone for voting on principle."It's time now to move on," said Sen. Connie Mack, R-Fla., after conceding Hatfield would not be stepping down as Senate Appropriations Committee chairman as Mack and others had hoped.
The drive to punish Hatfield for voting against the GOP's balanced budget amendment derailed after senators with long and sometimes controversial voting records rallied to his defense.
"We would like to see our senators vote unanimously on every major issue before our conference, but from time to time, we recognize that may not happen," said Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., the third-ranking Senate GOP leader.
The Oregon senator set off angry protests last week with his opposition to the proposed constitutional amendment - sending the cornerstone of the Republican legislative agenda to its doom by a one-vote margin.
Younger party members who had talked of stripping Hatfield of his chairmanship forced Republican senators to hold a closed-door session on the matter Wednesday. No vote was held, Mack said, and Hatfield emerged holding firmly to his post.
The meeting Wednesday served mainly as a forum for some senators, many of them relatively young, new and recently members of the House, to vent their frustration with Hatfield, the languid Senate pace and the lack of tools for enforcing party discipline.
"In the end the public is going to measure us here in the Senate on whether we accomplish things," said Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., a two-month Senate veteran.
Participants said the Hatfield case led to a wider discussion of what the party expects of its leaders.