Clinton Meets Lawmakers, Discusses Legislative Agenda : Congress: The President-elect seeks to renew acquaintances with the Democratic leadership. Mitchell sees quick action on job stimulus plan.

President-elect Bill Clinton on Sunday began mapping a hit-the-ground-running legislative strategy to revive the economy, and Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) predicted that Congress will move quickly on such a job stimulus plan and enact health care reform later in 1993.

“We’ve got a big job to do and we’ve got to do it together,” Clinton said as he prepared to host a working dinner here with Mitchell, House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) and House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.).

Clinton said his first post-election meeting with the Democratic congressional leadership was intended to “kind of renew our acquaintance, talk about our obligations, look to the future a little bit, talk a little bit about next week, when I go to Washington for the first time.”

Clinton told reporters at the end of his customary morning jog that he was “very much” looking forward to meeting President Bush at the White House on Wednesday.

“I think it’s time we met and talked,” he said. “His people so far have been quite cooperative and I think it’s time for us to get together.”

George Stephanopoulos, Clinton’s assistant transition director for communications, said the congressional dinner session was “an important way to break the ice and talk about what is coming ahead on the legislative calendar and talk about how they are going to work together for the next years.”

Clinton also planned to discuss with the congressional leaders health care and political campaign reforms, Stephanopoulos told reporters upon arriving at the governor’s mansion Sunday afternoon.

Afterward, Mitchell and Foley both called the dinner “very pleasant” and said without elaboration that they had discussed a wide range of subjects during the three-hour dinner.

“It was very helpful to exchange ideas, to exchange plans and to exchange hopes,” Mitchell told reporters upon returning to his Little Rock hotel.

Stephanopoulos also sounded upbeat, saying: “They cemented their relationship. It was very warm, very friendly.”

Vice President-elect Al Gore and Hillary Clinton also were at the table.

This morning, the five men will hold a press conference here to discuss their strategy session.

“When you see them up there tomorrow, it will set a tone for the next four years,” Stephanopoulos said.

Various legislative strategies are under discussion, but one that is held in particular esteem by top Clinton transition planners is the formation of a high-level legislative strategy group to take charge of driving the new President’s agenda through Congress, sources said.

Under such an arrangement, top White House aides would assume hands-on control of the complicated process--beginning with the drafting of legislation itself--in hopes of seizing the opportunities available to Clinton in the early days of his Administration.

Although such tasks often are delegated to lower-level officials, Clinton advisers said they hope to model their plan upon the successes won in the early days of the Ronald Reagan Administration by a similar team headed by James A. Baker III and Richard G. Darman, then top White House officials.

The Clinton team has not reached a final decision on whether to establish a similar structure, but aides to the President-elect said the White House will be the focus of legislative strategy in the new Administration.

Such an approach would reflect the wariness of a Clinton team keenly aware that Congress, though also under Democratic control, has priorities of its own that could easily leave the new Administration’s agenda tangled in the legislative process.

But the strategy could ultimately lead to frictions between the White House and the Democratic leaders in Congress, who have flown the party standard in Washington for 12 years and have longed all the while for the freedom to maneuver without threat of a Republican veto.

Among the Clinton aides who could play a central role in that legislative process is Stephanopoulos, previously a top aide to Gephardt, who was a key figure during the 1990 budget summit.

Clinton advisers said they expect that the as-yet-unnamed new director of the Office of Management and Budget also would become a major participant in the strategy group, as was Budget Director David A. Stockman in the early days of the Reagan Administration.

Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mitchell said he was encouraged by the pace and direction of Clinton’s transition.

“My hope is that there will be good bipartisan cooperation on the important agenda that the President-elect will place before the Congress,” he said. “I think he’s right on track.”

Although Clinton campaigned as a Washington outsider--and kept congressional Democratic leaders at arm’s length--the Sunday night strategy session clearly demonstrates that Clinton is intently focused on breaking the stalemate that has become a hallmark of relations between Congress and the outgoing Bush Administration.

But Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) warned the Democrats against an overly ambitious legislative agenda, saying that it could “overload the circuit.”

Dole, also appearing on “Meet the Press,” said that Republicans intend to “give Bill Clinton a chance,” adding: “We’re not trying to pick a fight with Gov. Clinton but, at the same time, we need to speak for those who’ve had other views.”

Dole said the Republicans have already begun crafting their own economic stimulus plan lest Clinton’s economic revival package not contain what they might regard as sufficient deficit-reduction measures.

“I would caution President-elect Clinton not to try to overload the circuit,” Dole said. “I don’t think there’s any magic in how much you do in the first 100 days, and when you push too hard to do too much in too short a time span, you may end up on the reef somewhere.”

Dole was especially wary that Clinton would emphasize short-term spending programs to create jobs while taking more time to tackle the deficit--a tactic that Clinton enunciated at his press conference last week.

Dole added: “I think I owe it to a lot of Republicans who are out there looking for leadership who don’t agree with Bill Clinton, may never agree with Bill Clinton, to at least indicate we’re not going to be patsies and floor mats and rubber stamps.”