GOP Backs Away From Forcing All-Night House Session on Seating of Democrat

House Republicans, worried about sabotaging their own President’s legislative program, backed away Wednesday from a proposal to force the House into the week’s second all-night session in protest against the Democrats’ intention to seat their candidate in the cliffhanger election in Indiana’s 8th Congressional District.

But Republican leaders, still not closing the door on further disruptive tactics, planned to meet again today to consider their options.

House Republican leader Robert H. Michel of Illinois told Republicans at a morning strategy session to “let me get through today before all hell is raised,” a reference to his ultimately unsuccessful effort to win House approval of President Reagan’s proposed aid to Nicaraguan rebels.

Michel outlined his reluctance to get involved in the guerrilla tactics being urged by other Republican leaders. He told reporters later: “I’ve got a job to get done here for the interests of this country.”

Possibility of Compromise

In a Republican leadership meeting, Michel said there was still “a chance the conscience of some Democrats has been pricked” by the Republican claim that the House task force investigating the controversial Indiana election counted some contested Democratic ballots but not some similar Republican ones.

He said he “didn’t want to foreclose” the possibility of a compromise, such as a special election, “by precipitous action.”

On the other Republican flank are high-profile politicians such as Reps. Newt Gingrich of Georgia and Jack Kemp of New York, who want to declare war over the Democrats’ decision to seat Democrat Frank McCloskey rather than vacate the seat and call a special election.

At one point during the day, Kemp--chairman of the House Republican Caucus--announced that his party would “keep the House in session all night tonight, all night tomorrow until . . . Democrats understand.”

But Kemp’s strategy was rejected, at least for the day, and Rep. Mickey Edwards (R-Okla.) said most Republicans are aware that obstruction has its limits.

“We’ve got a Republican President,” he said, “and so when you start tying up legislation, you’re usually tying up your own party’s program.”

Among Democrats, California Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Carmel Valley), chairman of the task force investigating the Indiana election, said he feared that the ill will generated by the controversy might adversely affect House efforts to pass such important measures as the fiscal 1986 budget.

“The only glue that keeps this place working--that keeps democracy working--is the ability to communicate, to speak to each other,” Panetta said. “If for any reason that is destroyed, you destroy the institution.”

No Signs of Buckling

Democrats showed no signs of buckling under the Republican pressure. A Democratic leadership aide said: “If we go for a special election now, we’d be saying this whole process we went through was a joke--and it wasn’t.”

The three-member House task force voted 2 to 1 on party lines to accept a recount by Congress’ nonpartisan General Accounting Office that showed McCloskey defeating Republican Richard D. McIntyre by four votes. The task force set the rules governing which contested ballots should be counted and which should not.

California Rep. William M. Thomas (R-Bakersfield), the task force’s lone Republican member, charged that the task force effectively told the GAO to stop counting disputed absentee ballots, all of which were invalid under Indiana law, when McCloskey was ahead.

House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) said the full House will vote next week on the task force’s recommendation to seat McCloskey.