The terrorist attacks on the United States have forced the creation of new and unexpected political alliances and major shifts in the balance of power among special interest groups.
The post-Sept. 11 agenda has prompted a detente between business and labor. It has strengthened the hand of the energy industry and weakened, at least momentarily, the environmental movement. And it has forced civil libertarians on both the left and the right into a united defensive posture in the face of calls for the expansion of government surveillance, search and arrest powers.
"For the moment, at least, the electorate is on a war footing and everything else about politics flows from that fact," said Democratic pollster Geoff Garin. "The voters ask themselves on every issue the fundamental question: How does it relate to defeating terrorism and making the country more secure?"
The new alliance between business and labor is unlike any since the prosperous days of the 1960s, when corporate America and the large industrial unions sought to share the growing economic bounty with a minimum of strife.
Earlier this week, John J. Sweeney and Thomas J. Donohue, presidents of the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, respectively, and bitter political adversaries in recent years, together announced their support for major public and private investment in rebuilding the nation's economy and fighting foreign enemies.
The Chamber has long opposed much domestic spending as a waste of taxpayer money to benefit special interests. But given the precariousness of the economy and the severity of the blow to New York, a commercial and financial center, Chamber leadership has shifted.
"We will support the thoughtful expenditure of new dollars from the Congress and the private sector to make available a stimulus that this economy needs to create jobs and expand the work force," Donohue said.
Declared Sweeney: "We will work together to enact a program of national investment to rebuild shattered lives and shattered infrastructure."
The calls for an expansion of government surveillance and search powers have united elements of the left and right in opposition. The Senate has already passed legislation making warrants for electronic computer searches easier to obtain, and the administration is preparing a package of proposals that could include encryption restrictions, extended use of facial recognition technology, and facilitated search warrants in terrorism investigations and other matters.
The liberal Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union and such conservative groups as the Free Congress Foundation and the Gun Owners of America are expected to hold a news conference tomorrow to declare their concerns that increased surveillance initiatives would invade privacy.
Separately, the Coalition for Constitutional Liberties, an alliance of 99 conservative groups from right-to-life organizations to property rights groups, warned in a statement: "Our most basic and fundamental freedoms are under attack unlike any time since the Revolutionary Era." Among the issues the coalition will engage: wiretapping, encryption, biometric identification technology, government surveillance and the development of national databases.
Another group facing an uphill legislative struggle now is the environmental movement, as support for domestic energy exploration is expected to grow because of anxiety over the U.S. dependence on the Middle East for oil and the possibility of a cutoff.
The issue that has environmentalists most concerned is the pending Bush administration legislation calling for the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling.
"If you assume that bad decisions in Washington are made at times of crisis, like any bad decision this one gets a leg up right now," said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club.
Environmentalists, who had some confidence they could defeat the drilling plan in the Senate, are now concerned that wavering senators will back the development of domestic energy sources.
"The vote count [before Sept. 11] was close, but we felt we could have won on the floor," said Debra J. Callahan, president of the League of Conservation Voters. Now, "if it moves, it is hard in the face of an argument about national security to vote against additional resource extraction."
Advocates of immigration liberalization have also lost leverage, and they, like environmentalists and privacy advocates, have fallen back on a strategy of seeking the postponement of any legislative action to wait out the period of strong reaction.
Cecilia Muñoz, vice president of the National Council of La Raza, which supports granting legal status leading to possible citizenship to illegal immigrants, said congressional action should be put off until the terrorist crisis is resolved.
"I think a whole number of issues are on hold, and rightly so," said Kevin Appleby, director of immigration policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The terrorist attacks "make it difficult but not fatal," he said.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company