Posted At Businessday.co.za

By: Holly Rosenkrantz, Laura Litvan and Nicole Ostrow

THE TIGHTLY disciplined, Republican-controlled US congress that gave US President George Bush key pro-business victories in the first few months of his second term may now put political survival ahead of party unity.

Bush has outlined an aggressive agenda ? including restructuring Social Security, cutting a record budget deficit and easing immigration policies ? that he hopes will secure his legacy for posterity.

His party?s legislators have a simpler goal: winning re-election and maintaining or enlarging their congress and senate majorities in 2006.

?Bush sees himself as a consequential president in history who accomplished big things,? says Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster. ?Most members of congress are very happy just strolling along saying, ?Here is all the money I delivered to my district?.?

Congressional Republicans are pushing for legislation to allow pharmaceutical imports from Canada, a measure opposed by Bush and manufacturers such as Pfizer and Merck.

Bush also faces resistance on his plan to ease immigration laws, which food-service companies such as Outback Steakhouse and Wendy?s support.

And Wall Street analysts and economists hoping for measures to restrain the budget deficit are concerned that legislators facing re-election will not be inclined to cut spending.

?There are some great challenges,? says White House spokesman Trent Duffy. ?This president is a big-game hunter. The process is just beginning.?

The Republicans, who gained expanded majorities in both chambers of congress in the November elections, gave Bush some early successes this year with measures that curbed class-action lawsuits, rewrote bankruptcy laws and paved the way for oil drilling in Alaska?s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

These ?were easy wins that were left over from the last congress?, says Ethan Siegal, president of the Washington Exchange, which tracks policy for institutional investors. ?Everything else Bush has on the table is very difficult, and the discipline in his party is breaking apart.?

The first stirrings of dissent were heard when legislators took up Bush?s 2006 budget, which calls for trimming federal benefits and other domestic programmes while extending portions of his first-term tax cuts.

Last month senator Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican, led six other Republicans in blocking Bush?s plan to cut $14bn from the Medicaid health programme over five years.

And when a senate committee approved Bush?s $284bn highway bill, senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma assured his fellow Republicans that the funding might be increased later.

Republicans are also at odds with Bush?s position on allowing Americans to import cheaper drugs from Canada.

Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the powerful chairman of the finance committee, is pushing for legislation that would allow the imports, which Bush and drug makers oppose.

Representative Jo Ann Emerson, a Missouri Republican, says she is confident the bill allowing imports can clear congress.

Legislators? ?constituents are saying, find any means possible to bring down the cost of drugs?, she says.

Drug makers such as New York-based Pfizer, and New Jersey-based Merck and Wyeth, say the measure will not address those concerns adequately.

?We don?t believe that reimportation is a solution,? a Wyeth spokesman says. ?And it does pose a safety risk.?

Bush?s call for a guest-worker visa programme aimed at allowing migrants to fill low-skilled jobs may be the toughest to pass, because so many Republicans are opposed to it, says Bruce Josten, a lobbyist at the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington.

Representative John Hostettler, an Indiana Republican who heads the house judiciary subcommittee on immigration, said he would not allow any bill easing immigration to be brought before his panel for a vote.

?It is my concern and others? concerns that if you legalise those who have illegally obtained residency here, you will open the floodgates,? he said in an interview on March 31.

The National Restaurant Association backs Bush?s plan. The food-service industry is the largest US employer of undocumented workers ? about 1,4-million of the country?s 8-million immigrants.

These kinds of defections are common in a president?s second term, particularly when his party is in power in congress, says Stephen Wayne, a government professor at Georgetown University in Washington.

In four of five second-term mid-term elections since the Second World War, the party that controlled the White House has lost seats in both chambers, says Jennifer Duffy, an analyst at the Cook Political Report, which tracks political races.

Most legislators are aware of this phenomenon, called the ?sixth-year itch?, Duffy says, and Republicans will cast their votes on Bush?s agenda items with this precedent in mind. ?It?s a self-preservation issue,? she says.

There are 15 Republican-held senate seats on the ballot next year. In congress, where all members are up for re-election, 24 Republicans won their 2004 elections with 55% of the vote or less.