Republicans, Feeling Shut Out, Question Obama’s Legislative Intentions

Four days before President Obama unveiled a sweeping $60 billion vision of free community college for millions of Americans, his staff reached out to Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, a former education secretary and a Republican authority on the issue.

But even as they invited Mr. Alexander to ride with Mr. Obama aboard Air Force One for the announcement in Knoxville, Tenn., last month, White House aides made it clear that they were informing the senator about the plan, not consulting him. In return, Mr. Alexander was uncompromising: He would not support the president’s big idea.

“They let us know what they were planning; they didn’t ask for advice on developing a proposal,” Mr. Alexander said in an interview. “I would have suggested a different approach.”

As the president travels across the country promoting a bold and expensive domestic agenda for his last two years in office — including a trip on Friday to Indiana to push his community college proposal — his strategy on Capitol Hill is raising questions about what he hopes to accomplish.

Is he trying to pass legislation in cooperation with an often hostile Republican-controlled Congress? Or is he mainly trying to bring attention to issues that he sees as burnishing his legacy and that will set the table for the 2016 presidential campaign?

Mr. Obama has so far found little traction with Congress on major domestic policy proposals related to child care, paid sick leave, tax policy and higher education. His legislative aides have struggled to find Republicans willing to endorse the legislation. Few Republicans say they have even been approached.

“You would think that he would have reached out by now to people like me who have a background on it,” said Representative Bradley Byrne, Republican of Alabama, who served for years as the chancellor of that state’s community college system. “None of that has happened.”

Mr. Byrne said he opposed Mr. Obama’s approach, but was eager to discuss other options. “It’s not like I’m hiding,” he said. “Everyone knows who I am and my background.”

Other Republicans on Capitol Hill say that if Mr. Obama’s aim is to get things done, he will have to abandon many of his domestic policy ideas to focus on areas of mutual interest like trade and a business tax overhaul.

“We think their time is much better spent on things other than the liberal, pie-in-the-sky ideas,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

The president’s team has made some headway with the opposition on a handful of issues, including efforts to improve cybersecurity, invest in infrastructure and advance trade deals. On Thursday, the White House announced a Republican sponsor for a bill to safeguard data collected from children in schools.

White House officials insist that they are pursuing an aggressive legislative strategy to win passage of the president’s college plan. They also say that the president’s efforts to win support outside Washington — among mayors, governors and the public — are intended to build pressure on Congress to act.

“We are building momentum around the country to bring the debate more forcefully back to Washington,” said Cecilia Muñoz, the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.

White House officials said the administration had reached out to a dozen Republican lawmakers about the college proposal, although Ms. Muñoz declined to name them because the discussions were private. She disputed the idea that the administration was not aggressively pursuing legislation.

“If your question is: Is this a serious proposal?” she said. “Absolutely.”

But the rollout for what the White House called “America’s College Promise” illustrates the tension between the administration’s desire to put Mr. Obama’s imprimatur on an issue and the need to enlist allies on Capitol Hill and along the lobbying corridor of K Street.

Officials from the White House and the Education Department told top lawmakers in both parties about the plan only the night before it was announced on Jan. 9.

Community college advocacy groups in Washington that would need to be on the front lines of a lobbying effort received a similar courtesy call. Officials for the groups said the president’s aides had spent little, if any, time working out the details of the proposal with their experts.

“I am not aware of any outreach,” said a member of one advocacy group, who insisted on anonymity to avoid antagonizing the White House. “I’m not aware that they have even tried.”

Now, weeks after Mr. Obama pledged in his State of the Union address to “lower the cost of community college — to zero,” White House officials acknowledge that the idea is headed for a “long slog” in the months ahead.