posted May 15, 2006 03:19 PM            

By Jonathan Weisman
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — From immigration policy to energy to emergency spending, House Republican leaders are publicly breaking ranks with their counterparts in the Senate, fearing that Senate efforts at compromise are jeopardizing the party's standing with conservative voters.

The breach in congressional leadership has been especially stark in the past two weeks. As the Senate returns to the immigration issue this week, House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said House Republicans will not agree to any plan granting illegal immigrants a path to citizenship that does not require them first to return to their home countries. House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, dismissed Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's proposed $100 rebate for gasoline as "insulting" and "stupid." And House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., declared a Senate-passed, $109 billion bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, hurricane relief and a bevy of home-state projects "dead on arrival."

Hastert even parted company with Frist, R-Tenn., last week on President Bush's nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden to head the Central Intelligence Agency. Hastert said, "I don't think a military guy should be head of CIA, frankly," even as Frist called him "the ideal man for the job."

"People are frustrated. They really are," said Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., who noted he is constantly hearing from conservative constituents who question why a Republican Party that controls the White House, House and Senate so often repudiates conservative goals.

Congressional leaders say recent clashes were individual policy disputes, not a sign of broader friction between the two bodies. "There is no tension," Boehner said. "You have got two different institutions, two different rhythms, and while there are always going to be some differences, if you look at Senate Republicans, you will see us agreeing on many of the same principles."

However, some House leaders privately acknowledge the tension as an inevitable byproduct of record-low approval ratings for both Congress and the president — a disaffection that has spread to conservative voters.

House members understand their constituents' anger. They rattle off bills the House has approved, to tighten border controls, repeal the estate tax, expand gasoline refineries and cap damages on civil lawsuits and medical-malpractice cases. But the Senate has not moved on any of those, Price said.

"I understand sometimes how voters get frustrated with the Senate and the way we do the things we do, but I don't think it's constructive," said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., whose home-state projects in the emergency-spending bill have drawn conservative ire. "And I have pleaded with the House, 'Let's not be shooting shots back and forth at each other, within our own party.' Whatever hurts us hurts them in the end."

The tension, in some sense, is built into the system, said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., a former House member. Because they represent an entire state, senators must tend toward compromise. Since senators stand for re-election every six years, only 15 Republicans are facing this year's stiff headwind, compared to all 231 Republicans in the House. Some House Republicans believe their Senate colleagues are insensitive to their political difficulties.

Massive street demonstrations against a House-passed bill to get tough on illegal immigration appear to have struck a sympathetic chord with many Americans. A New York Times/CBS poll last week found 66 percent of those polled oppose the House's measure to build hundreds of miles of fences along the southern border. Sixty-one percent said illegal immigrants who have lived and worked in the United States for at least two years should be given a chance to keep their jobs and eventually apply for legal status. Just 35 percent agreed with the House's position that they should be deported.

But House members say they are convinced their voters drew a very different conclusion from the marches: that the problem of illegal immigration is even more troubling than they thought, and that House Republicans must stand by their position.