Perot Backers Seek Pledges if House Votes : Politics: Wisconsin candidates are asked to follow constituents’ lead in case of a presidential tossup. Campaign leaders disavow the tactic.

Supporters of Ross Perot’s independent presidential campaign are seeking pledges from congressional candidates in at least one state that they will follow the votes of their constituents if the election is thrown into the House of Representatives.

Acting against the wishes of the campaign’s national headquarters in Dallas, Perot volunteers in Wisconsin are issuing veiled threats to work against those congressional candidates who do not make such a commitment. The state Perot coordinator has sent a letter to all congressional incumbents and challengers warning that their position on the question will be sent to every Perot supporter in the state.

Many congressional hopefuls are declining to state their intentions because of intense pressure from the national Republican and Democratic parties to toe the party line in the event that no presidential candidate wins a majority of electoral votes and the election is decided in the House in January.

If no candidate ends up with 270 electoral votes, the winner is determined by the newly elected House of Representatives. Each state delegation is given one vote and there is no requirement that the state’s vote reflect outcome of the November popular vote.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Ronald H. Brown has stated publicly that he expects all Democrats in Congress to support their party’s nominee, regardless of the winner of the popular vote in their districts.

A GOP spokesman, Gary Koops, predicted that Republican House members would support President Bush under such a scenario. But, he added: “We’re not requiring them to. Of course not.”

Democrats currently control 31 of the 50 state delegations in the House; overall, they outnumber Republicans, 267 to 167, in the chamber.

Cindy Schultz of Mequon, Wis., coordinator of that state’s Perot campaign, has gone further than any Perot backers in seeking pledges from congressional candidates that they will vote for him if a plurality of their constituents had done so.

In a letter sent in late June to all congressional candidates in Wisconsin, Schultz wrote, “Wisconsin supporters of Ross Perot seek your assurance that, if you are elected to the House of Representatives, you will vote for the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in your congressional district on Nov. 3, 1992.” The letter asks the candidates to sign an attached “solemn pledge” to do so and return the form by July 10.

Schultz, in an interview, said: “As Perot supporters, we want to know what these guys are going to do. . . . We’re not threatening. But we are going to let people know what their position is. People have a right to know.”

She added: “It’s good strategy and it’s good politics.”

The spokesman for Perot’s national campaign, James Squires, rejected the tactics of the Wisconsin committee, saying: “That is certainly not anything we would advocate from here. We are not involved in any effort to pressure or intimidate (congressional) candidates.”

He said that the Perot campaign has no strategy regarding a possible presidential vote in the House. But, he added: “We expect (House members) to follow the popular vote.”

Schultz said she had not yet received any replies to her pledge form, although two members of the current Wisconsin delegation--Republicans Toby Roth and Thomas E. Petri--have indicated they would follow the wishes of their constituents as expressed in the November vote.

But GOP Rep. Steve Gunderson said he had no intention of making such a promise.

“I have made my position very clear to anybody and everybody who asks: I won’t pledge to Perot, (presumptive Democratic nominee Bill) Clinton or Bush,” Gunderson said in an interview. “When you consider the economic, political and constitutional crisis that would face this country between November and January if we don’t have a clear-cut President-elect, you should be prepared to do whatever is in the best interest of the country at that time, regardless of its impact on your personal political career or advancement of your party’s philosophy.”

Perot campaign officials in several other states said they had no current intention of following the Wisconsin ploy.

“We’re not sending any pledge forms out. There have been discussions about how to handle this problem, but no decision has been made by the executive committee,” said Jack Brodbeck, a Perot coordinator in Orange County.

In Massachusetts, state co-coordinator Dick Norman said that the question was “necessary and appropriate,” but that Perot supporters in that state have made no decision on whether to seek formal pledges from candidates. He noted that the state Perot organization had received no guidance from Dallas on the question.

Colorado state coordinator John Schenk said the Wisconsin tactic was self-defeating, an expression of old-style pressure politics that goes against everything the Perot drive stands for.

“Veiled threats like that are not a really efficient way of tapping into the sentiment that’s driving the Perot movement,” Schenk said. “I wouldn’t make those kinds of threats. I just don’t think I can deliver. And people don’t want to be dictated to.”