Evading Gridlock With a Pen Stroke : In some issues, Clinton isn’t bound by Congress

President-elect Bill Clinton must soon begin working on the priority measures he will send to Congress during his first months in office, that so-called honeymoon that briefly prevails before inevitable political tensions between the executive and legislative branches begin to assert themselves. Even with an accommodating Congress controlled by his own party, however, Clinton will likely have to wait some time for action on such key elements of his promised legislative agenda as economic stimulation programs and health care reform.

Meanwhile, there are things he can do to begin effecting his promise of change. Some can be accomplished with a simple stroke of the pen.

THE RIGHT TIME: By executive order, Clinton can revoke or modify policies fixed by his predecessors or set policies of his own. Clinton’s aides point to a number of areas where prompt action is likely.

He could, as he indicated he would in his election campaign, order a substantial cut in the size of the White House staff and curb such perquisites for higher-echelon officials as subsidized dining rooms. These steps would be largely symbolic; the overall savings, held up against the enormous federal deficit, would be virtually invisible. But trimming the executive branch’s costs and privileges, even minutely, would implicitly challenge a Congress that has grown steadily more costly to do the same. The intriguing political question is whether Clinton would early on risk challenging and embarrassing a Congress whose help he needs.

Far more significant would be prompt action to erase a number of the ideology-driven social policies imposed by the Reagan and Bush administrations. Among the things that Clinton could and should do promptly:

--Eliminate the gag rule on abortion counseling. Proposed in 1988 and since upheld by the Supreme Court, this severely restricts giving information on abortion in clinics that get any federal funding. This is both an unconscionable limit on speech and a cruel denial to poor women of medical counseling available to those who are better off.

--Allow the importation for personal use of RU486, an abortifacient licensed in Britain and France. RU486 also shows promise in the treatment of some advanced breast cancers. It is inhumane to deny American women legal access to this compound.

--Lift the presidentially ordered ban on transplant research using fetal tissue. Fetal tissue grafts could prove to have great benefits in treating a variety of diseases, from muscular dystrophy to diabetes. Research should be allowed to proceed.

--End the ban on homosexuals in the military, a rule that reflects only the survival of a discredited prejudice.

--Inaugurate a family leave policy for federal workers, permitting unpaid absences to care for children or ailing close relatives.

THE RIGHT THING: These cost-free actions would mark a dramatic break with the social ideology of the Reagan-Bush era. That is not, though, the major reason for taking them. The major reason is simply that they are the right thing to do, and the time for action has arrived.