Clinton at Work on Legislative ‘100-Day’ Plan

In a bold new initiative that his own campaign concedes may be risky, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton has begun quietly consulting with the Democratic congressional leadership in drafting a detailed “100-day legislative agenda” that he would submit to Congress, Clinton confirmed Sunday.

Although the strategy may well cede the outsider’s mantle to Texas billionaire Ross Perot, a Clinton campaign aide argued that such a plan will be well received by voters.

“People . . . want a President with a plan. They want to know what the changes will look like. And they want to know how that can be accomplished,” said Dee Dee Myers, a spokeswoman for the likely Democratic presidential nominee.

“There’s always an element of risk any time you get specific about change,” Myers conceded. “But the idea is to show that if Gov. Clinton was elected, he would have a mandate to take to Congress in the first 100 days and get things rolling.”

Emerging after Sunday services at the Immanuel Baptist Church here, Clinton said he hopes to send his legislative agenda to Congress later this month to give members of Congress “some time to chew on it and hope we can get support.”

Clinton added: “We’ve got to do something to break the gridlock in Washington. This country needs action. It needs real action.”

Myers said that Clinton will announce details of the plan--and presumably its backing by congressional leaders such as Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) and House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.)--before the Democratic National Convention in mid-July.

With a “100-day legislative agenda,” Clinton also is seeking to recapture some of the campaign spotlight, which in recent weeks has been dominated by Perot, who is expected to run for President as an independent.

At the same time, public opinion polls suggest that Clinton--the nation’s longest-sitting governor--has lost the claim as a political outsider to Perot and, to a lesser extent, to President Bush.

In a Los Angeles Times Poll last month, for example, when people were asked who could best accomplish change, Clinton finished third--behind Perot, with 32%, and Bush, with 21%. Just 17% said Clinton would be best able to change the country.

But Democratic strategist Mike McCurry is not discouraged. “What people are looking for is a lot more complicated than insider versus outsider,” he said.

Voters in November will want to cast their ballots with “a sense that things are really going to get done,” McCurry said. “You have got to give people some reason to believe that things are going to be different.”

Clinton’s strategy will work “as long as the agenda is sensible and realistic and truly represents change,” McCurry said.

Myers agreed, saying: “The plan will give the American people an idea of what Bill Clinton wants to accomplish, and it will allow us to draw a sharp contrast” with both the Bush Administration and Perot’s emerging candidacy.

Although the legislative package is still in draft form, its final content is likely to include many of the domestic initiatives of Clinton’s campaign platform.

Among them are universal health care, a waiting period for handgun purchases, campaign finance reform and tax code changes to discourage manufacturers from moving plants overseas and to encourage them to invest domestically. Clinton also has promised to create an apprenticeship training program for those who choose not to attend college as well as a universal college tuition loan-guarantee that would require beneficiaries to repay the government either with a percentage of their future earnings or by performing community service.

Although Mitchell, Foley and other congressional Democratic leaders may not endorse each and every initiative in Clinton’s legislative package, they will “certainly endorse elements of it,” Myers said.

“A plan is not worth the paper it’s printed on unless it can be implemented,” she said.

The public presentation of a detailed legislative agenda is “something that Bill Clinton has been working toward since he began his campaign,” Myers said.

Clinton spoke of such an approach as early as February, but the most important discussion came in April, when he met in Washington with House and Senate Democratic leaders.

At that time, they agreed to take such a step “at an appropriate time in the campaign,” an aide to the Democratic House leadership said Sunday.

“To the extent that anyone understands the mood of the public, there is a desire on their part to end the bickering and get something done on issues they care about,” the aide said.

Advancing a legislative agenda also would address one of the chief frustrations among Democrats on Capitol Hill, who have made what the aide described as 28 “feckless attempts” to override presidential vetoes.

“You cannot overestimate the desire of the Democrats in Congress to have a President with whom they could work,” the aide said.

Since the April meeting in Washington, details of the legislative agenda have been gradually taking shape, Myers said Sunday, declining to elaborate.

Clinton also discussed the idea Friday night by telephone with New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, who also backs the notion of a detailed legislative agenda and revealed the drafting effort during a radio talk show on Saturday.

Ron Brown, the Democratic Party chairman, said the idea was one that Clinton has harbored for some time.

Speaking on ABC-TV’s “This Week with David Brinkley” Sunday, Brown said: “I’ve visited with him, with the leadership in the House and Senate, over a month and a half ago, where that subject was talked about--a 100-day agenda. . . . The American people think that change involves more than just rhetoric. Saying you want change is fine. But actually implementing change, becoming an agent for change, being able to get things done--that’s going to be the test. Bill Clinton, over his career, has proven he can do that. He can change government. He can change institutions. He can make our system work.”

Brown added: “The only way to make it work . . . is for the Congress and the President to work closely together. George Bush can’t work with the Congress. There’s nothing in Ross Perot’s background to indicate that he has any chance of working effectively with the legislative branch. Bill Clinton can do that.”

Victoria Clarke, a Bush campaign spokeswoman, disagreed. “People tend to hold the Democratically controlled Congress in great contempt right now, and if Bill Clinton thinks that’s the way to change America, he’s dead wrong,” she said Sunday.

Chen reported from Little Rock, Tumulty from Washington.