One fellow senator calls David Vitter’s years-long crusade to scrap health care subsidies for lawmakers and their staffers “disingenuous.” Another says it’s obviously being done “for political purposes.”

“I just don’t think he’s made a lot of progress on this issue,” a third senator says.


And those are just fellow Republicans talking.

Within the chummy confines of the U.S. Senate, Vitter has emerged as one of the most disliked members. The second-term senator’s effort to kill the federal health care contribution, worth several thousand dollars to lawmakers and their staffers, is a big part of it. But the two-year drive, his critics say, symbolizes an operating style that Vitter’s critics complain is consumed with public relations, even for an ambitious member of Congress: speeding in and out of meetings, railing about issues on the Senate floor but doing little to execute behind the scenes, firing off news releases left and right. In an institution in which the inside game is critical, Vitter doesn’t even pretend to bother with it.

The most recent repudiation of Vitter, who’s running for Louisiana governor this year, came a month ago in the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, which he chairs. He tried to subpoena documents to investigate how members of Congress and their aides became eligible for health care under Obamacare’s D.C. exchange.

Five Republicans — including presidential candidate Rand Paul — blocked the request, angering Vitter and prompting an unusual round of second-guessing from GOP committee members over their chairman’s agenda.

“I thought there were more appropriate uses of the Small Business Committee,” said Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), who voted against the subpoena request.

Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) went so far as to suggest that Vitter’s work at the helm of the panel compares unfavorably with how Democrats ran it the prior two years. The focus then was on innovation and job growth, she said, “so I hope Chairman Vitter is going to go back to that.”

A number of off-committee Republicans gripe that Vitter’s accusation that lawmakers are getting a sweetheart deal is unfair and misleading. If he succeeds, some of them say, more of their high-level aides will bolt Capitol Hill for lucrative jobs in the private sector.

Several GOP senators said privately that Vitter’s effort appears to be rooted in his campaign for governor.

“We all know why David’s doing this,” said a senior Republican senator who asked not to be named to speak frankly.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), meanwhile, said Vitter’s arguments on the health care issue are “disingenuous.”

“I think to some degree, it’s disingenuous to suggest to taxpayers that this is about saving money when the result is going to be to raise people’s salary to compensate them for what they’re not getting for coverage for health care,” Burr said.

Vitter insists lawmakers and Hill aides are illegally exploiting a loophole in the law.

“Washington’s Obamacare exemption is a clear example of Washington elitism and fear of transparency, which is why I will continue investigating how Congress was designated as a small business in the first place to receive a special taxpayer-funded subsidy,” the senator, who declined to be interviewed, said in a statement. “The Obamacare exemption for Congress is a slap in the face to the Americans suffering through the pains of Obamacare.”

Vitter, 54, a Rhodes scholar who earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard, is one of the more conservative members of the Senate GOP Conference. But his personal style — an unusual combination of brashness and standoffishness that dates to his time in the Louisiana statehouse two decades ago — has long annoyed many of his cohorts.

“He doesn’t really like to talk to members,” one GOP senator who asked not to be named said of Vitter, who also does not engage with reporters in the halls of the Capitol.

On the floor, Vitter periodically flashes a temper. “That’s a bunch of bull,” he fumed last week during a procedural squabble over the Iran nuclear bill.

But even as he’s known as a fierce partisan, Vitter has periodically struck bipartisan deals. Recently he worked with Sens. Tom Udall of New Mexico, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and other liberals on reforming a law governing toxic substances, and he worked with a bipartisan group of senators last year to overhaul the flood insurance program.

Vitter has recovered from his involvement in the 2007 “D.C. Madam” scandal, when his phone number turned up in the records of a prostitution ring. It prompted the socially conservative Vitter, who is Roman Catholic, to apologize for a “very serious sin.” He won reelection in 2010 by nearly 20 points and now has a serious chance of winning the governor’s race this year. His unpopularity in the Senate hasn’t translated to his poll numbers: One survey in December showed four in five Republicans viewed him favorably.

Targeting the health care contributions to Capitol Hill employees has been Vitter’s signature issue in the Senate in recent years. Before 2014, lawmakers and staff received federally subsidized health insurance, but an Obamacare provision proposed by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to force Hill employees onto the exchanges changed that. The White House responded by issuing a rule that allowed members and aides to keep their subsidy by enrolling in a D.C. small-business health care exchange — a move Vitter and critics blasted as an end run around the law.

Killing the subsidy could cost many lawmakers and staffers $5,000 or more annually. Federal coverage typically pays about 70 percent of premiums for employees, including lawmakers and staff, which is in line with what many large employers cover.

“Virtually all large employers subsidize the health insurance of their employees,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), “and I don’t see a basis for taking away the standard employer contribution to health insurance benefits for members of Congress or their staffs. It’s that simple.”

Vitter has some allies in his health care effort, including Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and the conservative group Judicial Watch. Both have sued to block the federal contributions to lawmakers and staff, but both cases have failed to pass muster with the courts so far.

Vitter’s repeated attempts over the past two years to force a vote on the subsidies, which predated his announcement for governor in early 2014, were blocked by Democrats. The stalemate ended up tying up an unrelated bipartisan energy efficiency bill for much of the previous Congress.

“I thought he had a right to offer it,” said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), one of the authors of the energy bill. “On the other hand, I wish he had not chosen to pick on us; in other words, not chosen to do it there.”

After the GOP’s November election victories, Vitter succeeded in winning adoption of an internal Senate GOP policy change calling on staff to join the Obamacare exchanges, though it didn’t target the employer contribution and is not binding on Republican offices. In March, 52 Senate Republicans voted to add to the nonbinding budget resolution a Vitter plan ending the “illegal Obamacare exemption,” with just Collins and Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) joining Democrats in voting against it.

Neither carries the force of law.

While Vitter “has a point,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), “I’m not trying to make it harder to recruit people to work on Capitol Hill.

“At the end of the day, you change the health care benefit package, our employees aren’t getting anything that any government workers don’t get,” Graham added.

Paul, the Kentucky Republican, said of Vitter’s effort to investigate the matter in committee: “I just think there’s a different way of doing this.”

Most senators, of course, are wealthy enough to get by without the federal contribution. But some lawmakers could feel the pinch, particularly since they often maintain two homes — one in Washington and one back home.

Sen. Jeff Flake’s minimum net worth is just $51,000, according to his financial disclosure forms. The Arizona Republican said it wouldn’t be right for lawmakers and aides to lose their contributions if other federal employees get to keep theirs.

“I just think we ought to be treated like everybody else,” Flake said.

“I think most people feel that the current interpretation is merely a function of treating members of Congress and staff as federal employees,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who has hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. “No more, no less.”

Wicker, along with several other Republicans, said Vitter and the GOP should instead be focused on the “larger” fight against the Affordable Care Act. The big looming issue is a Supreme Court ruling in King v. Burwell, a case that could cause 7.5 million Americans to lose their health care subsidies within months.

“I understand [Vitter’s] focus on it, but I think what we need to be preparing for is if the Supreme Court decides the right way, then the whole [health care law] is going to have to be revisited,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “I just don’t think he’s made a lot of progress on this issue.”

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