GOVERNOR : Wilson Straddles President’s Fine Line

Hours after he voted against a Senate budget plan endorsed by President Bush, Pete Wilson was asked by a reporter how he felt about being left out of a meeting Bush arranged to thank loyal senators.

“He’s what?” asked Wilson, who was en route to the members’ dining room Friday and unaware of the Capitol event. “. . . I don’t have any comment. I don’t know anything about it.”

Only hours before in Los Angeles, Wilson, although absent, had been the beneficiary of a fund-raising visit by Vice President Dan Quayle, wherein Quayle scorned members of Congress who voted against the President. Then he turned around and praised what he called Wilson’s “independence” for making the same move.

The White House is walking a fine line between getting Republicans elected in November and punishing those who defect from the fold on the ongoing budget negotiations. And Friday, Pete Wilson found himself straddling the divide.

In return, the Republican candidate for governor got what amounted to a good cop, bad cop routine from the country’s two top elected Republicans.

Bush’s reception with senators who supported the bipartisan budget plan was a none-too-subtle reminder of the Administration’s disappointment in those who voted against the Senate bill--which passed despite the objections of Wilson and 22 other Republicans. Most of the opponents, like Wilson, are involved in competitive elections next month.

Quayle, while lavishing praise on Wilson, underscored the sentiment.

“He thinks voting against the budget was the right thing,” Quayle said of Wilson. “I respect his independence. I respect his integrity and intellect. I just wish he could have been with us.”

Wilson explained his vote against the Senate plan in an early-morning address in the Senate chamber. He said his vote “reflected the lack of pleasure that we see in this particular package and the lack of certainty that it would reduce the deficit.” He also opposed the bill’s proposed 9.5-cent-per-gallon increase in gasoline taxes.

The vice president, in a breakfast meeting with reporters, lamented that Congress “doesn’t pay attention to the leadership.”

“You have a Congress that doesn’t want to do anything but come home and campaign,” he said. “They’re very good at campaigning; they’re very good at getting reelected. But they’re very bad at conducting the nation’s business.”

Although Quayle’s remarks were not directed at Wilson, they mimicked attacks by Democrat Dianne Feinstein, who has berated the senator for weeks for not tending to Senate business. Under that fire, Wilson returned to Washington Monday for the first time since the August recess.

When the similarity between his comments and Feinstein’s criticism was raised, Quayle defended Wilson.

“Look, he wants to be governor of the state of California and you’re not going to be able to run for governor of the state of California by spending a lot of time in Washington, D.C.,” he said.

“He is back there right now because this is the most crucial vote of the Congressional session. . . . And therefore he could have, from a theoretical point of view, spent the entire two years (of the session) in California but be back there in the budget and not miss a thing.”

Wilson, who had been planning to return to California on Saturday, decided late Friday to remain in Washington several more days to vote on upcoming appropriation bills. Feinstein, who spent the last two days holding fund-raisers in the Bay Area, has scheduled a busy weekend of campaign events in Southern California.

In his remarks, Quayle said that some of those who had rebelled against an earlier bipartisan budget package sanctioned by Congressional leaders and Bush--and then defeated in the House--were intent on producing “chaos.” Their behavior, he said, would be quelledby passage of initiatives limiting terms of lawmakers.

Wilson jumped aboard the term limits bandwagon for the first time on Oct. 7 during a televised debate with Feinstein. Polls show he has benefited from his endorsement of Proposition 140, a term limits initiative on the November ballot.

The vice president has advocated term limits since 1976, when he won a congressional seat by defeating an veteran legislator. In his first speech to Congress the next year, his spokesman said, Quayle proposed 12-year limits on senators and representatives.

“Why not apply it to Congress as well?” Quayle asked, referring to constitutional limits of two terms for president. “I say what’s good for the President is good for the Congress.”

Wilson’s staff said the senator has not endorsed the idea of federal term limits, which would affect the job he holds. “He said, ‘Let’s see what the voters in California do first,’ ” explained his Washington spokeswoman, Lynda Schuler.

Quayle compared the movement to limit the lawmakers’ terms to the tax revolt of the late 1970s. While saying his motive is to replace current legislators with members who would “look at the national interest rather than their own parochial interest,” the vice president also acknowledged that Republicans would probably benefit. Democrats currently hold power in both houses of Congress.

At a Koreatown fund-raiser later in the morning, Quayle repeated his support of term limits. The event earned Wilson’s campaign $100,000.

Throughout the day, the vice president also did his best to spread the Administration’s view that increasing user fees, like the gasoline tax, is a better way to reduce the deficit than raising income taxes, as House Democrats wish. While Democrats have characterized their bill as one that would increase taxes on the rich, Administration officials have countered that the plan would affect all taxpayers.

“The Democrats’ idea of rich is anyone who has a job,” Quayle said.

Houston reported from Washington and Decker from Los Angeles.