Congress Spawns Array of Caucuses to Support Legislators’ Pet Causes : Politics: Groups watch over scores of special interests, championing everything from textiles to space. Critics say they bog down the lawmaking process.

One looks out for ball bearings. Another is designed to support footwear. There is one that caters to sportsmen and still another that waxes poetic about the B-2 bomber.

They are all congressional caucuses, dozens upon dozens of lawmaker subgroups formed to back pet projects--even pets themselves through the Congressional Friends of Animals.

At times, the caucuses can muster enough clout to alter bills or henpeck bureaucrats to bend to their wishes. And they are sprouting faster than, well, the mushroom caucus, 25 lawmakers who came together to legislatively defend the popular fungus.

From its earliest days, Congress has divided into small schools of like-minded members in the boarding houses that once rimmed the Capitol. Over the years they moved into more formal settings with gavels, stationery and aggressive agendas.

But in the past two decades, the caucuses have blossomed from an estimated 16 to about 120, championing everything from textiles and space to beef and steel. Some even have private spinoffs: Washington institutes that pump out reports and studies funded by corporations and foundations.

Some caucuses are blatantly political, said Hill staffers and other observers who say more than a few are created only to “look nice in the hometown newsletter.”

The Chesapeake Bay Caucus, for example, was formed by Rep. Roy P. Dyson (D-Md.) during a time he was dogged by charges of ethical lapses. He was defeated less than a year later in 1990.

The caucus, however, lives on under Rep. Thomas McMillen (D-Md.). “He’s tried to make it a more serious endeavor,” said Brad Fitch, a spokesman for the congressman who used the caucus recently as a forum on wetlands policy.

Enough is enough, said the House Administration Committee, which oversees the House caucuses and the House-Senate groups. The committee, in the mid-1980s, stopped approving the more sophisticated caucuses: legislative service organizations--LSO’s in Hill parlance--which stand at 30 and spent upward of $4 million last year for staff and expenses.

Still, the caucuses continue to flourish through more informal organizations that operate out of a member’s office with existing staff, such as the Urban Caucus formed last year and others created in the 1990s:

Animal Welfare Caucus.

Bipartisan Veterans’ Health Care Coalition.

Congressional Biomedical Research Caucus.

Congressional Boating Caucus.

The bearing caucus was formed in 1986 after the ball-bearing industry complained of foreign competition. It now boasts about 75 members.

Last fall, the caucus persuaded Pentagon officials to back a 15-month extension of a Department of Defense requirement for purchasing U.S.-made ball bearings.

Meanwhile, the mushroom caucus added an amendment to the 1990 farm bill to set aside a small portion of U.S. mushroom sales to create a research and promotional organization.

And the sportsmen’s caucus, with more than 150 House and Senate members, helped tag on the only amendment to last year’s California Desert Protection Act. It allows hunting on a portion of the federal lands.

But the caucuses have their detractors, who say they use up valuable staff and money while delaying a Congress that already moves at a snail’s pace.

“They can slow things down,” said an aide to one committee chairman. “You come out with a bill . . . the next thing you know there’s a caucus that wants to be consulted on it.”

Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, often grumbles that the caucuses undermine the committee and leadership hierarchy.

“You divide the existing power structure,” said one committee aide. “The power’s been so diffused. One (caucus) breeds another.”

“(Lawmakers) look up and say, ‘Gee, all those guys are getting all the money.’ That’s the sort of thing that leads to the other,” said one congressional official.

Indeed, the caucuses have proven Newton’s theory that for every action there’s a reaction.

The Northeast Midwest Congressional Coalition, with 200 members and an estimated $186,000 budget last year, came together in 1976 to steer federal funds toward an area derisively known as the Rust Belt.

Within three years they spurred the Sun Belt Caucus, a group of Southern and Southwestern lawmakers who try to wrangle more help from Uncle Sam.

The Rural Caucus has done a pretty good job since 1973 at shifting money away from the bright lights and the big cities. So good that the Urban Caucus was formed last year by a Philadelphia congressman.

Despite the criticism of caucuses, there are those who argue that they serve a useful purpose at a time when legislation has become voluminous and complex. Caucuses can devote time to studying issues that might go unnoticed as laws are made, said Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

“These things facilitate the legislative process,” agreed Sula P. Richardson, a national government analyst at the Library of Congress.