Paul is trying to carve an unconventional identity in the stodgy Senate. Rookie Paul tackles budget head-on

President Barack Obama will soon lay out his vision for federal spending when he releases his annual budget, setting in motion months of debate over the size and scope of government.

Rand Paul is doing the same thing.


The tea party hero is at the bottom of the Senate in seniority and was sworn in as Kentucky’s junior Republican senator only two weeks ago, but he’s about to unveil his own sweeping budget plan that would result in a $500 billion cut in just one year — about five times more than what the House GOP has promised to do.

It’s an unusual move — a rookie senator releasing his own version of the federal budget — but it says a lot about how Paul is trying to carve an unconventional identity in the stodgy Senate. As he tries to navigate Senate politics, Paul faces a key question: Will he use his national profile to paint himself as a conservative firebrand and perennial outsider, or will he work within the system and with senators across the ideological spectrum to settle for less ambitious deals?

So far, he’s showing signs he’ll do a little of both.

Paul’s version of the federal budget — which he’ll unveil as early as next week — would target programs at virtually every federal agency, including the Defense Department, and would eliminate the Education Department. He plans to follow up with a five-year budget with even deeper spending cuts, a move likely to prompt backlash from groups that would be affected by his proposal.

Like other Republicans, Paul is pushing a constitutional amendment to force Congress to balance its books, calling for a two-thirds-majority vote to increase taxes. And he plans to float bills that would kill certain federal regulations. Breaking from most lawmakers, he also wants to force a debate over instituting a limit of two terms for senators. And he’ll propose establishing a waiting period before lawmakers cast major votes and forcing them to read legislation.

“These are not without ambition,” Paul told POLITICO in an interview.

With these proposals, Paul is clearly moving to make a down payment on promises he made as a fire-breathing campaigner, when he vowed to drastically change the Senate from its core and force a dramatic belt tightening on Capitol Hill.

But none of them are expected to go very far in the Democratic-controlled Senate. And with Paul lacking seniority in the Republican Conference, the real test for the new senator is how he adjusts when his more ideologically driven ideas stall and it’s time to start legislating.

“The broad question for him and every other senator is: Is it confrontation or compromise?” said New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, who ran the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee last cycle when it attempted to brand Paul as an “extreme” candidate. “Is it going to be about pure ideology, or is it going to be about, ‘OK, how do I pursue my principles but do it in a way that can still make progress?’ So that’s a challenge for every new senator, when they come and balance what they said and what they do.’”

Paul said the fact that he’s never served before in elective office is a distinct advantage.

“The difference between me and others is that I haven’t been beaten down by the process for 30 years,” Paul said. “I don’t understand why I can’t do something, why I can’t change anything. I’m incredibly optimistic.”

Paul enjoys one of the biggest national profiles in his class of 13 Republican freshmen, thanks in part to the fervent grass-roots following of his libertarian-minded father, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).

Another junior senator with national name recognition is already hitting it off with the younger Paul: liberal Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, the former “Saturday Night Live” star, who attended Paul’s reception earlier this month after Paul was sworn into office. Each new senator is paired with a Democrat and a Republican to learn the Senate’s ways, and Paul has asked Franken to be his Democratic mentor.

“I first talked to Sen. Paul after election night to congratulate him on his win, and we hit it off right away,” Franken said in an e-mail. “We had a long and very friendly conversation, and we both left the call looking forward to finding some areas of legislation we can work on together.”

Paul, 48, said that “the way you win battles is by talking to independents, conservative Democrats and maybe even some liberal Democrats who might agree with you on occasion.

“So I think I will surprise some people,” said Paul, who also is trying to work out an arrangement with the Senate ethics committee so he can keep practicing as an eye surgeon in Bowling Green, Ky.

As he tries to woo his less conservative colleagues, Paul will have to be careful not to disappoint his tea party supporters.

“I can guarantee he’s going to be his own person, but he’s going to get some things done — he ran on a very specific platform of less government,” said conservative Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.). “I think that with a few people like that, I can go back to my kinder, gentler DeMint.”

DeMint has made waves by engaging in firebrand politics in urging his national following of conservative activists to pressure Senate Republicans to take hard-line stands, but senators typically are put off when they perceive that one of their colleagues is undermining them.

Whether Paul’s tactics resemble DeMint’s remains to be seen.

“I have no doubt in my mind Rand will go up there, shake things up, force some uncomfortable votes, talk about some of the things he ran on in the campaign,” said Trey Grayson, the Kentucky secretary of state who lost to Paul in the primary. “But do we want a senator who gets things done, which usually involves compromise? ... I would think he’d be more like DeMint.”

In the interview, Paul said he’d be an independent voice and would “not always take marching orders from anyone — really,” adding that he’s not always going to be “pigeonholed in one direction or another.”

But the Senate is, well, the Senate, meaning senators like to be courted and wooed so they can tweak measures and join as co-sponsors and eventually get credit for certain proposals. It’s not clear that Paul is doing much of that with any of his early proposals.

However, Paul isn’t completely freelancing — he has kept Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in the loop so far and is continuing to build a positive relationship with the senior senator from his home state.

“I would say our relationship is cordial, friendly and much better than anything reported in the media,” Paul said of McConnell, who backed Grayson in the primary but later worked aggressively in the general election on Paul’s behalf. “We won’t be exactly the same, and we won’t be always different, either.”

Already, the Republican leadership is embracing some of Paul’s rhetoric. At a closed-door Senate GOP meeting at the Library of Congress, Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander of Tennessee cited Paul’s calls to “expand prosperity” when talking about America’s “exceptionalism” and the deep spending cuts that the GOP will push.

“He’s mischaracterized and underestimated — [he’s] very smart, very principled,” Alexander said in an interview. “One of the first things I noticed about him is he’s very comfortable with himself; he laughs easily; he rolls with the punches; he has good relationships with other people.”

But Paul didn’t roll with the punches after a May appearance with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in which he took issue with the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s reach into private business, inciting an onslaught of criticism. Paul later backtracked, reiterated his call for equal rights and largely ducked the national media for the rest of the campaign.

Free from campaign pressures, Paul said he welcomes the scrutiny.

“Actually, I don’t regret it at all,” Paul said of the interview with Maddow. “In fact, I might even go back on [the show] again. That might get her some ratings, ya think?”