Frist Among Equals

The

new year's day accident was terrible. A rear tire blew out on the Isuzu SUV as it traveled on Florida's "Alligator Alley" west of Fort Lauderdale, flipping the vehicle and hurling several members of a family onto the highway. A girl perished on the highway; her brother would die hours later. Medical personnel who happened to be in the surrounding cars rushed to the rescue of the other victims. A physician helped clear the windpipe of a woman and resuscitate two of the other injured, staying long enough to direct the arriving paramedics to those who most needed help. Only after he left did anyone realize that the doctor was Bill Frist, incoming majority leader of the U.S. Senate.

Dr. Frist, who doesn't mind his colleagues' addressing him that way instead of as "Senator," keeps a black medical bag in his legislative office and has shown a penchant for coming to the rescue. The Tennessee lawmaker treated victims of a gunman who opened fire in the U.S. Capitol in 1998, and in 2001 came to the aid of Strom Thurmond when the Senator, then 98, collapsed on the Senate floor. But now, Frist, 50, is beginning a different kind of rescue mission, one that he may not be fully equipped to handle. Congress starts a new session this week, and the patient before Frist is his own party, still reeling from the Trent Lott debacle.

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Desperate to expunge memories of the racially insensitive remarks Lott uttered at Thurmond's 100th-birthday bash on Dec. 5, Republicans selected Frist as their new majority leader on Dec. 23, hoping the surgeon could reattach "compassionate" to "conservatism." George W. Bush, who nudged Lott out and Frist in, has similar expectations. But the President also wants to move quickly on tax cuts and Republican-oriented Medicare reform. And Frist is the least experienced Senator ever to assume the majority leader's job.

Frist concedes that he is starting from scratch. He has been on the phone to former Republican majority leaders Howard Baker and Bob Dole, asking for advice, and has been receiving tutorials in floor procedures from G.O.P. staff members. None of his decisions, not even the small ones, will be easy. Lott, for example, had already selected the 100 or so staff members a majority leader is allotted to manage the Senate, many among the Capitol's most skilled in moving legislation. Does Frist keep some of them to get the fast start Republicans originally wanted on their bills, even though their first loyalty was to the boss he deposed? To ease the humiliation of the coup for Lott, Frist plans to give him chairmanship of the Rules and Administration Committee. Though it is an inconsequential post, Lott may use it to make some noise. "I have the experience and the background to be very much a player," Lott told the Associated Press. Other Lott allies who question whether Frist has the seasoning for the job expect to be players too.

Frist brings to his new position a dazzling array of talents. One is a calm bedside manner on TV, which is just what the White House wants to appeal to minority voters and white suburbanites scared off by Lott. A heart-and lung-transplant surgeon who made millions from his family's hospital company, Frist often flew his own plane to transport organs to patients. Educated at Princeton and Harvard Medical School, he runs marathons, sleeps little more than four hours a night, has written a best seller on bioterrorism and during congressional breaks likes to fly to places like Uganda and Sudan to practice surgery. He also has great organizational skills. The White House won credit when the G.O.P. retook the Senate last November, but it was Frist who managed the takeover behind the scenes as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

A majority leader's biggest job, however, is moving bills through the Senate. Frist is an expert on health-care issues, but he has little experience with the arcane rules and procedures the chamber uses to pass legislation. He didn't even vote until he was 36 and has been in the Senate only since 1995. Frist wants to begin by quickly finishing the appropriations bills stalled last year and passing legislation to extend unemployment benefits for the nation's 8.5 million jobless, a measure that, because it benefits many minorities, could begin repairing the Lott damage. After that, Bush wants to push for more tax breaks for investors and middle-and upper-income earners and for the Medicare reforms Frist previously championed, which rely more on the market to provide benefits. But Frist has little experience, for example, collecting the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster on controversial bills. "The learning curve for him," says a senior Senate G.O.P. aide, "will be awfully steep."

On the other side of the aisle are two of the Democrats' shrewdest floor operatives: minority leader Tom Daschle and his deputy, Nevada Senator Harry Reid, who are no doubt eager to lay traps for Frist and his party. "Republicans claim they want to support civil rights," Daschle says coyly. "We want to give them ample opportunity to demonstrate that." Democratic staff members are rewriting their bosses' talking points to emphasize that poorer minorities will reap little from Bush's tax cuts compared with the wealthy. Senator Ted Kennedy hopes to force Republicans to vote on civil rights — related measures like affirmative action and an increase in the minimum wage. With the White House no longer revisiting the Appeals Court nomination of Charles Pickering, a Lott favorite blocked by Democrats in 2001, Democrats are readying battles against two other Appeals Court nominees opposed by civil rights groups: Jeffrey Sutton, a pro — states' rights attorney, for the 6th Circuit in Ohio, and Terrence Boyle, a Jesse Helms protege, for the 4th Circuit in Virginia.