WASHINGTON INSIGHT

QUITTING TIME: An empty chair at the Cabinet table and the opening for the top job at the Republican National Committee are not the only major vacancies President Bush is facing as his Administration reaches the traditional midterm exit point.

Within the White House, for example, James Cicconi, a top Bush aide and a protege of Secretary of State James A. Baker III, is leaving to return to the Washington law office headed by power-broker Robert Strauss. And Constance B. Newman, who heads the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s personnel department, also plans to resign, officials say.

Their departures could have notable impact on policy, particularly in the area of civil rights. Newman, who is black, and Cicconi played key roles in efforts to avoid a veto of civil rights legislation successfully opposed by Administration conservatives.

The open Cabinet position is secretary of education.

QUITTING COLD TURKEY: Counselors who help people stop smoking say that motivation is always one of the biggest factors in success at kicking the habit. Alixe Glen, a deputy White House press secretary, has found a powerful motivation tool.

She was all set to take a job as assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services. Then a reporter called an HHS official to ask whether Glen planned to quit her pack-a-day habit. Secretary Louis W. Sullivan, who has made opposition to cigarette smoking a major crusade, promptly called Glen at the White House. “This is a serious problem,” he told her.

“My last day at the White House I smoked my last cigarette” the now smoke-free Glen reports.

CONFUSION REIGNS: Five weeks of hearings into the “Keating Five” scandal have brought members of the Senate Ethics Committee no closer to a consensus on the guilt or innocence of the five senators charged with improperly assisting former Lincoln Savings & Loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr.

In fact, the hearings appear to have deepened the partisan division of the six-member committee.

The panel’s three Democrats are said to find no fault with the conduct of any of the five senators, with the possible exception of Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.).

The three Republican members, however, are understood to be much less willing to dismiss the allegations against the other four.

When the hearings end next month, according to sources, the committee is likely to go along with special counsel Robert S. Bennett’s recommendation that the charges against John McCain (R-Ariz.) and John Glenn (R-Ohio) be dismissed, but no one involved in the investigation has the vaguest idea how the panel will resolve its differences over the conduct of Cranston, Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) or Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.).

COP SUMMIT: Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh, seeking to gain control of runaway violent crime, will convene a law enforcement summit in early February, inviting more than 300 police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors, academic experts and top federal cops to Washington. In addition to sharing information on crime-busting techniques, the law officers. will be asked to support some of the Bush Administration’s favorite get-tough remedies that were stripped at the last minute from a comprehensive crime bill passed by Congress this year. The hard-line measures include a proposal to expand use of the federal death penalty.