Stalemate Seen in Cranston Case : Ethics: Committee is deadlocked on seeking a full Senate trial in ‘Keating Five’ scandal, sources say. But the panel is likely to agree on a severe reprimand, they add.

The six-member Senate Ethics Committee is evenly divided along party lines on whether to ask the full Senate to hear allegations against Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) in connection with the “Keating Five” scandal, according to committee sources.

The political stalemate means that Cranston may still be able to avoid a Senate trial, which seemed virtually inevitable last January when the panel found evidence that the senator had “engaged in an impermissible pattern of conduct” by intervening with regulators on behalf of Lincoln Savings & Loan while soliciting large contributions from owner Charles H. Keating Jr.

Yet even if the deadlocked committee fails to send the case to the full Senate for a hearing, sources said, the panel is likely to agree to severely reprimand Cranston for what Republican members have portrayed as a serious breach of ethics.

The four-term, 77-year-old California senator, who has already announced that he will retire at the end of next year, has argued forcefully that his conduct does not justify any form of punishment by the Senate.

While Democrats on the panel are opposed to sending Cranston’s case to the full Senate, sources said, Republicans are demanding that the committee recommend censure of the California senator by the full Senate after charges have been aired in a hearing on the chamber floor.

Both sides are said to be resisting any compromise on that point.

As a result of the stalemate, sources said, the committee staff has researched the possibility that the committee could refer Cranston’s case to the full Senate without any recommendation. But Democrats are understood to be strongly opposed to that idea as well.

Cranston’s spokesman, Murray Flander, said Cranston was unaware of the internal deliberations of the committee and would have no comment.

In judging ethics cases involving members of the Senate, the Ethics Committee has broad latitude to hand out a variety of punishments--everything from a mild letter of reprimand to recommending expulsion by the full Senate. In Cranston’s case, the committee has never considered any penalty as serious as expulsion.

Cranston, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, is accused of acting improperly by intervening with federal regulators on behalf of Lincoln while at the same time soliciting nearly $1 million in contributions from Keating for his campaign, the California Democratic Party and several nonprofit voter registration groups supported by the senator. In response, Cranston has denied that his actions on Keating’s behalf were linked to the contributions. He says that he believes that his actions were no different from those of any other senator in similar circumstances.

When the panel ruled last January that it had found substantial evidence to support the charges against Cranston, it also dropped its investigation of four other senators--Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.), John Glenn (D-Ohio), Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.). DeConcini and Riegle were, nevertheless, criticized by the committee for their actions.

As the committee’s closed-door deliberations in Cranston’s case have worn on over the past few months, all parties to the case have expressed frustration with the delay in making a decision. A week ago, Common Cause, the citizens’ lobby that originally brought the charges against Cranston and four other senators in connection with the Keating Five scandal, called on the panel to make its decision as soon as possible.

Likewise, Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) last month made public a 250-page report of the committee’s findings, indicating that he had grown impatient with the slow pace of decision-making. He noted that the panel has been considering the Keating case for more than a year and a half, and concluded 26 days of public hearings on it last December.

“I strongly believe that the full Senate should censure Sen. Cranston for his conduct relating to Charles H. Keating Jr. and Lincoln Savings & Loan Assn.,” Helms said.

The long delay in deciding Cranston’s case cannot be blamed entirely on the failure of the committee members to reach a compromise, however. The deliberations had to be suspended earlier this year after one of the panel members, Sen. David Pryor (D-Ark.), suffered a serious heart attack. He was later replaced on the panel by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.).

But after studying the case for many weeks, Bingaman announced in July that he was recusing himself from sitting in judgment in the Cranston case because two of Cranston’s aides have been represented by a law firm that employs Bingaman’s wife. Furthermore, he said, Cranston, who had promised to pay the legal fees of his aides in connection with the case, had not yet paid the bill. Bingaman said this situation had created the appearance of a conflict of interest for him.

After Bingaman’s resignation, Pryor, who by that time had recovered from his heart attack and planned to return in early September, agreed to return to deliberating the Cranston case. Since his return, however, the committee has met only sporadically because some committee members have been involved in hearings on the nominations of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court and Robert M. Gates to head the CIA.

Meanwhile, Cranston has returned with interest $275,000 in contributions that he had collected for a possible 1992 reelection bid. At the same time, some contributors--at Cranston’s request--have given the money instead to his legal defense fund. The fund is believed to owe as much as $500,000 to William W. Taylor III, who represented the senator before the ethics panel.