How will Trent Lott, the Senate majority leader, deal with John McCain's tobacco bill? Among Republicans, there's growing opposition to McCain's bill. But Lott's interest in passing something "anti-tobacco" trumps his concern over passing a bad bill. Thus it was Lott who, earlier this year, circumvented Don Nickles, the Senate Republican supposedly formulating GOP tobacco policy, and asked McCain to draw up a bill. When McCain brought his package before the commerce committee, Lott urged the committee's Republicans to support it (Lott himself is a member of the committee). All but one, John Ashcroft, complied. And a few weeks ago, when Ashcroft and Orrin Hatch were preventing the bill from sailing through the Senate, Lott needled them to end the stall: "If the Senate is smart, it will stop this dilatory stuff and get [the bill] done this week. Is the Senate smart? Not if it has an alternative."
But many Republicans who supported the bill are now having second thoughts, as they've come to understand the shortcomings in a measure that, according to one Senate GOP study, would result in roughly $ 800 billion in new taxes. Ashcroft, who has done yeoman's work in building opposition to the McCain bill, will propose earmarking at least half the tobacco-tax hikes for tax cuts for people with annual incomes below $ 30,000. Is Lott going to support this? Or, faced with Democratic threats to tie up the legislative calendar with mischievous tobacco-related amendments, will he capitulate along the lines of last year's chemical-weapons-treaty debate and push for a quick resolution? His colleagues are desperate to find out.