The Hill
September 6, 2005


Anatomy of a vote: Part 1 How Blunt whipped CAFTA
By Patrick O'Connor


Just after midnight on the last Thursday in July, House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) drew a hand across his throat, signaling to Rep. Ray LaHood, the Illinois Republican presiding that night, to gavel the vote to a close.

The sharp rap was followed by a cascade of applause from the Republican side of the chamber as deflated Democrats looked on.

The Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) had passed, 217-215, the culmination of an intense partisan showdown that had been raging for months.

It was a big win for President Bush and an even bigger win for Blunt, who put his credibility with the White House on the line. During the applause, Blunt and his team exchanged hugs and handshakes around their desk on the House floor.

Celebrations after close victories in the House are usually more about relief than elation because the party in the majority is expected to triumph. Still, Republicans and Democrats knew that CAFTA could have gone either way, and no one was more relieved that summer night than Blunt.

The Hill spent three months interviewing lawmakers, administration officials, lobbyists and staffers in Blunt’s whip operation, with the agreement that their behind-the-scenes efforts would not be reported until after the CAFTA vote. The following is an account of the public wrangling and private dealings as policymakers inched CAFTA to the House floor, where the whip organization delivered on the final step: making sure the bill had enough votes to pass.

A sour mood Blunt faced an uphill task. Trade deals are notoriously difficult to pass. Members are disinclined to upset local industries or cast a vote that could be portrayed as a jobs killer during their reelection campaigns.

On CAFTA, Blunt and the White House realized early that they would not receive much support from the other side of the aisle because congressional Democrats had signaled their opposition during the debate on previous trade bills. Democratic resistance also meant wavering Republicans had more leverage to negotiate with their leadership.

As support for CAFTA fluctuated, Blunt remained characteristically confident. Blunt’s floor director, Amy Steinmann, usually balanced his optimism with a healthy dose of skepticism, but those roles were occasionally reversed.

Steinmann, a cheery and focused Floridian, had the crucial task of building and maintaining the highly secret whip list, a directory of member concerns that allowed Blunt and his team to chart support for CAFTA. She and Blunt reviewed the list every night after the last vote.

In the second week of July, with CAFTA hanging in the balance, the normally upbeat Blunt was in particularly sour spirits. He was roughly 20 to 25 votes short and was running out of time. Unless CAFTA passed before the August congressional recess, the bill was probably doomed.
To bolster his flagging spirits, Steinmann printed out the initial whip list from the earlier, bitterly contentious 2003 vote on the Medicare prescription-drug benefit. As bad as CAFTA looked one week before the vote, the early whip count on Medicare was worse and was illustrative of how far they had come.
“We’ve been in tougher spots,� Blunt conceded.

Republicans had won the drug-bill vote, but the victory was tainted by an unprecedented three-hour roll call and an embarrassing ethics investigation.

‘We’ve got to move’

Blunt had won many times on the floor, but the fate of CAFTA would shape his career as whip, one way or another.

Since taking over for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) as majority whip in 2003, Blunt has worked to make a name for himself as the top vote counter. Following DeLay â€â€