Family Leave Bill Gets Green Light in Congress : Agenda: Measure leads the list of legislation Democrats have put on the fast track. Some fear health care reform may be bogged down.

Hoping to get the Clinton Administration off to a fast start, congressional Democrats have laid out an ambitious agenda for swift passage of family leave legislation, a measure that was vetoed last year by former President George Bush.

Dozens of bills have already been introduced, but Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill, buoyed by the knowledge that Clinton supports family leave, have put that measure on a fast track for passage.

“We have the opportunity to symbolize with concrete action the end of government gridlock,” said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), the Senate’s chief sponsor of the family leave bill.

An aide to one senior Republican senator had a different view. “This is the year when we Republicans can expect to get rolled,” he said.

Democratic strategists put the family leave bill back at the top of their agenda because it is strongly backed by the Clinton Administration, commands bipartisan support in both the House and Senate and should be relatively easy to pass, despite opposition from business groups and conservative Republicans.

The bill, identical to the version Bush vetoed last year, would require companies with at least 50 employees to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid maternity and sick leave. Smaller firms would be exempted.

Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich told a Senate hearing Friday that passage of the family leave bill would mark a reversal of “our country’s drift toward a two-track economy, where some American workers are treated as valued partners and others as disposable parts.” Clinton, he added, “is eager to sign this legislation into law.”

While the bill enjoyed broad bipartisan support last year, the House fell 27 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto by Bush, who feared the measure would impose more costly burdens on businesses.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over the legislation, said the bill could go to the Senate floor by the end of next week.

House Education and Labor Committee Chairman Rep. William D. Ford (D-Mich.) promised similarly fast action on the bill. “When Bill Clinton signs this bill, the word will go out that now we know where the gridlock was,” he said.

Other legislation slated for fast-track treatment in the 103rd Congress includes the “motor-voter” bill, campaign finance reform, a $2-billion reauthorization for health research conducted by the National Institutes of Health and a new competitiveness measure designed to assist private-sector technology development.

The motor-voter bill, which would require states to register people to vote by mail or when they apply for their drivers’ licenses, is expected to be passed over Republican protests that it is unnecessary and could open the door to widespread voting fraud.

But the Democrats’ hopes of swift approval of other legislation could start to founder after that.

Campaign finance reform passed last year largely because Democrats, including many with misgivings about the bill, knew Bush would veto it. This year, with Clinton promising to sign a similar bill, several competing versions have been introduced, underscoring differences within the Democratic ranks and making early passage unlikely.