Hamilton Right of Clinton on Abortion Issue : Democrats: The Indiana congressman’s leanings toward restrictions could slide him off the short list of possible running mates.

Rep. Lee H. Hamilton acknowledged Sunday that he has “some ambivalence” on the abortion issue, raising questions about whether he would be acceptable to Bill Clinton as a running mate.

The Indiana Democrat, who reportedly has been on Clinton’s short list of potential vice presidential candidates, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he is more conservative on the abortion question than Clinton, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee.

“I must concede to you I have some ambivalence about it,” he said. “I don’t want to ban abortions, but neither do I want to encourage them. . . . I’m very deeply concerned about the very, very large number of abortions in the country.”

In contrast to Clinton’s criticism of last week’s Supreme Court decision, which upheld some restrictions on a woman’s right to have an abortion, Hamilton said: “I find myself comfortable” with the ruling.

“That case upheld Roe vs. Wade and the right of the woman to make the ultimate decision, but it also upheld some restrictions on that decision, so that if those restrictions did not constitute an undue burden on the woman, they were OK.

“I think it is perfectly appropriate to put some restraint on a woman seeking an abortion. That makes sense to me.”

Among other things, the court upheld Pennsylvania’s requirement that women who want an abortion must wait 24 hours before having one but struck down a provision requiring women to notify their husbands.

After the ruling last Monday, Clinton warned that Roe vs. Wade was “hanging by a thread” and vowed to make it a major issue in his campaign. The case was decided on a 5-4 vote, and the four dissenters went on record as wanting to overturn Roe. The next day, Clinton said that his running mate and his Supreme Court nominees, if he is elected, would have to support abortion rights.

Congress took up the so-called Freedom of Choice Act after the court’s ruling. The bill writes Roe’s provisions into federal law to prohibit states from outlawing abortion. Hamilton was asked Sunday if he supported the bill. He did not commit himself.

Committees in both the House and Senate approved the measure last week; it is expected to pass both houses of Congress later this summer. But President Bush has vowed to veto the bill, and proponents say they doubt they can muster a two-thirds majority to override a veto.

Hamilton, who has served 28 years in Congress, described his overall record as “solidly moderate” and said: “I think that’s where the Democratic Party is positioning itself in this election.”

He said that his vote for the Hyde Amendment in the late 1970s to cut off public funding of abortions for poor women was a reflection of “some of the more conservative votes that I have cast.”

“I have represented not the liberal wing of the Democratic Party but the middle part of the party,” he explained, saying that he did not regard Clinton as a liberal either.

Hamilton said that the government should neither ban abortions nor encourage them with federal funding because abortion is an issue that “there aren’t any quick, easy, totally satisfactory answers to.” This “mainstream” position, he said, places him “exactly where most Americans are.”

Hamilton also said he opposes a family leave bill to force employers to give workers time off for the birth of a child or a family illness. Clinton strongly supports such a bill; Bush vetoed one in 1990, and Hamilton voted to uphold that veto.

And, on CNN’s “Newsmaker Sunday,” Democratic Party Chairman Ronald H. Brown said he did not think that the abortion issue would be used as a “litmus test” for vice presidential choices. But he added that “we are going to continue to push forward legislation in the Congress to make sure that the basic constitutional rights, the rights of privacy of all women, are not infringed upon by the Supreme Court.”

Brown refused to speculate on Clinton’s choice for the No. 2 spot on the ticket. Asked if Clinton had narrowed his choices to several white males, Brown said: “I haven’t talked to him for a couple of days about it. But I know that he did consider blacks and women and might well be continuing to consider blacks and women as his vice presidential running mate.”

Brown also said that the Democratic Party is spending $30,000 to investigate Bush’s role in the savings and loan debacle and whether Bush’s friends or family got special treatment. “We think the American people deserve to know what happened,” Brown said. “How did we get into this $500-billion mess?”