Daschle - Home Security bill will pass soon

WASHINGTON -- The Senate majority leader said Sunday that Congress will pass legislation before the November elections creating a Homeland Security Department despite a dispute over the president's power to hire and fire agency workers.

President Bush is threatening to veto the bill, which the GOP-led House passed and the Democratic-controlled Senate is considering, unless it gives him flexibility over the estimated 170,000 employees that would become part of the Cabinet agency.

"I can't believe he'd veto a bill over the issue of accountability," said Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D. "I can't believe he'd veto the bill over the issue of politicization of the federal work force."

Daschle has called Bush's proposal "a power grab of unprecedented magnitude" that would undermine the government's nonpolitical civil service system and threaten labor union rights and protections for one-third of the workers.

The White House says the new department needs broader powers to hire, fire, promote or demote and pay employees, and to waive union rights in matters of national security, to meet emerging terrorist threats.

"We've put this in place for good reason. The politicization of the federal work force is not something we should have, and that's all we're saying now," Daschle said on ABC's "This Week."

The House version, passed in July, closely tracks Bush's proposal.

Both the House and Senate bills give Bush much of what he wants in the department, including transfer of more than 22 agencies such as the Coast Guard, Border Patrol, Transportation Security Administration, Customs Service and Secret Service.