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Analysts see leadership promise in Pryor's Senate work Saturday, Mar 8, 2008 By Aaron Sadler Stephens Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - Mark Pryor stood in the well of the Senate one day last week and offered an open door to anyone with concerns about a sweeping product safety bill, the first major legislation authored by the freshman senator from Arkansas. "I will be on the floor all day today," Pryor said looking around the chamber. "We have worked very hard to try to come up with a bill that can have bipartisan support and something that people all over this country can be very proud of." In typically unassuming fashion, Pryor spent most of the week holding court in the Senate, shepherding his bill through four days of debate. The measure, which supporters called the most significant consumer safety bill in decades, passed 79-13 on Thursday, following months of work by Pryor to soften the legislation enough to appease opposition concerns. As a result, analysts said Friday that Pryor may have opened doors for himself into Senate leadership and greater credibility at the Capitol and in his home state. Pryor for the first time served as a floor manager, directing the bill through the legislative process. He was given credit for bringing Republicans and retailers on board for the bill that strengthens the Consumer Product Safety Commission and enhances testing for imported toys. Pryor's work indicates Senate leaders trust the first-termer to guide key legislation, said Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar with the American Enterprise Institute. With the bill's passage, the son of former senator David Pryor took a significant step toward a bigger role among Senate Democrats, Ornstein said. "Pryor, it seems to me, is a natural for the leadership," he said. "He has a natural affinity for the Senate and the legislative process because he grew up around it. He's smart and hardworking." Before last week, Pryor's seminal accomplishment was his part in the "Gang of 14," a group of 14 senators who forged an compromise to end a standoff over President Bush's judicial nominees in 2005. Pryor's reputation as a centrist increases his value in a divisive Senate, where Democrats hold a slim 51-49 majority, Ornstein said. "He is a moderate, and able to see all sides," he said. "He is not a sort of Republican in Democrats' clothing, so you're not going to find suspicion on the part of liberals about him." Pryor is chairman of the consumer affairs subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee. He was asked by Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, who heads the commerce panel, to take charge of the product safety act a year ago. "I think this shows that over a period of time, as he accumulates seniority in Washington and in the Senate, (Pryor) is going to be in more of a leadership role," said Cal Ledbetter, a former political science professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Pryor received congratulatory handshakes all around when the legislation passed. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Pryor "takes right after his dad." "I appreciate the example he has set working through the process here," Reid said. " ... 'Compromise' is not a bad word, it is consensus building, and Mark Pryor has done a wonderful job working on this piece of legislation.'" Pryor is seeking re-election this year. Perhaps coincidentally, his time in the spotlight coincided with the political filing period in Arkansas. Filing ends Monday. No major opposition has filed for the seat so far. Though Pryor's first time to manage a bill came five years into his tenure, one observer said the wait is not unusual. Worth noting is that Democrats only took control of the Senate in 2007, said Donald Wolfensberger, director of the Congress Project at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center. "He'll be getting a lot more of that now," said Wolfensberger. But he added Pryor's role may not have much traction in Arkansas. "Within the institution, it's something that members and leaders look for someone to take up a bill and manage it," he said. "Beyond the Beltway, I don't think it matters that much other than the fact you can go to your constituents and say, 'I was one of the leaders on a major consumer bill.'" Hoyt Purvis, a University of Arkansas professor and longtime aide to the late Sen. J. William Fulbright, said Pryor's success was a rare feat for a first-termer. "Not everybody in their first term manages to do much at all," Purvis said. "There was a time when there was the notion that particularly somebody in the first part of their first term was supposed to be seen and not heard." The state's senior senator, Blanche Lincoln, has never single-handedly managed a bill on the Senate floor, according to her office. Lincoln has been in the Senate since 1999. Pryor's timely legislation came as safety recalls of toys made in China escalated last year. It took months before the top Republican on the Commerce Committee, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, signed off on a compromise version of the bill. Even Thursday, Republicans and retailers like Bentonville-based Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., had reservations about Pryor's bill. A Wal-Mart spokeswoman said the retail giant was concerned about a provision that allows state attorneys general to enforce federal product safety standards. But Wal-Mart was "very supportive of Senator Pryor's leadership on this bill," said company spokeswoman E.R. Anderson. The Bush administration backs product safety legislation passed in the House last year. The Senate bill is viewed as being tougher on retailers and manufacturers. Differences in the two versions must be negotiated by a conference committee. |
