Scandal Is Grist for D.C. Comedy Mill : Satire: Fifteen present and former congressional aides have banded together for a little bipartisan spoofing.

Hey, that sounds like the President singing, to the tune of “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover”. . . .

You heard my campaign promise I would never raise a tax

And if I tr y , I know that I would face right-wing attacks

But since I got myself elected, I have seen the budget facts

Now I need fifty ways to hide new taxes

I found nifty ways to hide new taxes:

Just call it a fee, Lee

A revenue plan, Stan ...

So count up the cost, boss

My lips were crossed!

Actually, the singer is not George Bush himself, but the best imitation this side of a White House shower curtain.

Crooning the yes-new-taxes spoof is Dave Werner, a former Senate lawyer accompanied by a bunch of other present and former congressional aides known as the Capitol Steps. Many think they are a funnier, more biting fountain of satire than the press’ famed Gridiron Dinner here, mainly because their appeal reaches far beyond the Washington Beltway.

Ten of the group’s newest skits, including the Bush tax number and a skewering of movie sequels, were taped recently at a local nightclub for a half-hour PBS special airing this month. In Southern California, the show can be seen at 11 tonight on KCET Channel 28 and on Saturday at 11 p.m. on KOCE Channel 50.

The group, which has performed “in 38 states and New Jersey” and made eight recordings, began in 1981 at a Christmas party in the office of then-Sen. Charles H. Percy (R-Ill.). “We were supposed to do a Nativity play,” Werner deadpans, “but in the entire Congress we couldn’t find three wise men or a virgin.”

The 15-member troupe took the name Capitol Steps because, according to its chief of new ideas, Elaina Newport, “that’s where John and Rita got caught.” The reference is to former Rep. John Jenrette (D-S.C.) and his wife. Before he went off to jail in the Abscam scandal and they were divorced, the flamboyant pair bragged about making love on the Capitol steps.

“Our tradition has been to go after the scandal of the day,” says Newport, a former Senate aide.

The group’s popularity springs in large part from the bipartisan flavor of its roasts.

“Their political satire seems to cut both ways, and in this town that’s pretty healthy,” says Victoria Lion, an aide to Senate Democratic Whip Alan Cranston of California. “They’ve gone after Quayle, Hart, the Keating Five--people on both sides of the aisle.”

Indeed, some of the group’s funniest pieces slam Vice President Quayle, former Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.) and five Democratic and Republican senators, including Cranston, who are being investigated for helping Charles H. Keating Jr., a savings and loan executive who gave them large political donations.

Walt Riker, press secretary to Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, agrees that the Capitol Steps are “refreshingly bipartisan.” Moreover, he says, “they are good singers and their stuff is clever. They keep it fresh.”

One pitfall the group tries to avoid is being too inside-Washington for its far-flung audiences, which range from college students to Seventh-day Adventist dentists to Presidents. (Bush called them “really neat.” Ronald Reagan quipped, “All of you are under arrest.”)

“We have a rule that an item has to be on the front page of newspapers or the nightly news for a couple of days,” Newport says. But the hard part is converting those headlines into parodies.

“A lot of people turn on the radio and worry about what the news has to do with the future of mankind,” says chief lyricist Bill Strauss, a former Senate subcommittee counsel. “We turn it on and worry about what rhymes with Gorbachev.” (The solution that time was “Slav,” as in “the world’s first yuppie Slav.”)

The PBS special, second of three that the Capitol Steps is doing this year, knocks everything from Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and his crusade against federally funded “obscene art” to Woodstock alumni who have become barbecuing Republicans.

A rollicking show-closer features ABC News loudmouth Sam Donaldson in a skit lacerating former President Reagan. To the tune of “Ol’ Man River,” the skit mocks the memory lapses that “ol’ man Gipper” had while testifying about the late CIA director William Casey and others at the trial of former White House aide Oliver North.

He don’t know Ollie is on probation

He thinks Bill Casey is on vacation

Tell ol’ man Gipper they keep parolin’ them all

For the first few years, the Capitol Steps gave its meager proceeds to charity.

“We were strictly off the record and nonprofessional then,” Newport says. “We were concerned about the press angle being ‘congressional staffers bite the hands that feed them,’ and what our bosses would think.” But after their bosses and many others applauded loudly, they became a profit-making venture now employing six persons full-time.

The Capitol Steps appears Saturdays at a club in Georgetown and makes frequent appearances elsewhere--college campuses, charity benefits, trade associations and, on several occasions, the White House. In addition, the group is heard regularly on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” and on quarterly radio specials produced by KCRW in Santa Monica and picked up by 180 stations nationwide.

Three of the Capitol Steps still work on Capitol Hill--at the Senate Budget Committee, the House Document Room and the Congressional Research Service. The rest once toiled for the likes of Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.), Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) and other lawmakers, but now have jobs off the Hill.

According to Strauss, the group roughly breaks down into thirds among Democrats, Republicans and independents.

“We try hard to be bipartisan, but of course,” he says with a twinkle, “Washington is a two-party town. First one party screws up and then the other party parties!”