WASHINGTON INSIGHT

SEN. CONGENIALITY? Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) may be seeking broad voter support in his bid to become governor of California, but he isn’t winning any popularity contests back in the Senate.

Wilson ran into the Senate equivalent of a voter backlash last week when he tried to push through an amendment that would have mandated the death penalty for civil rights violations that result in the killing of the victim. The Senate already had approved the placement of 33 other crimes on the federal death penalty list.

The proposal was so non-controversial that Democratic leaders offered to accept the amendment without debate or a roll call vote, but Wilson insisted on making a speech and forcing senators to put themselves on record. To his astonishment, the amendment was scuttled, 55 to 43.

Senate sources said that Democrats voted against Wilson because they suspected him of blatant publicity-seeking for his gubernatorial campaign and feared that he was trying to lay the groundwork for attacking some Democrats who had opposed the death penalty.

A Wilson aide claimed that the senator had sought a recorded vote only to bolster his amendment in a Senate-House conference. But he acknowledged that there had been “some Democrat animus” against his boss.

Republicans apparently opposed the bill because they thought it would cover negligent homicide as well as murder, the aide said.

MOTHER KNOWS BEST? First Lady Barbara Bush was responsible for persuading her son, Neil, to fight government conflict-of-interest charges against him stemming from his actions as a director of Silverado Banking, Savings & Loan Assn., according to knowledgeable sources.

The charges against Neil Bush--and his decision to fight them--have caused a recent flurry of unfavorable publicity for his presidential father. Among other things, the President’s son is battling charges by the Office of Thrift Supervision that he failed to disclose his business relationship with two major borrowers from the Colorado S&L.;

According to officials, Neil Bush initially had been willing to agree to an out-of-court settlement by signing an agreement--known as a cease-and-desist order--that would have barred him from ever serving as a thrift institution officer again. Several other Silverado directors had accepted similar orders.

At the eleventh hour, however, the President’s son abruptly changed his mind and refused to sign a less-stringent agreement later. The case is still under review at the OTS.

LAME DUCK$? There’s growing support in Congress for holding an unscheduled lame-duck session after the November elections. The reason: to give senators a chance to approve an increase in congressional pay to a new level of $124,400 starting next Jan. 1. Senators’ pay currently is fixed at $98,400, and ethics laws permit them to retain $39,260 in honorariums each year.

But there has been increasing public pressure on the Senate to forbid the lucrative speaking fees from special interest groups, just as the House did in conjunction with its own pay raise. Voting after the election would allow some senators running for reelection to avoid any political pain stemming from a pre-election pay boost.