COLUMN ONE : New Voices Shake Up the House : Tempers fly in debate on abortion funds for poor. The bitter floor fight signals change sparked by women and minority freshmen. They have put old guard on notice--no more business as usual.

The scene on the House floor had all the decorum of a hockey game.

Debate on a massive appropriations bill had come to a standstill over a question on federal funding of abortion. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), fresh from having given one of his fiery anti-abortion speeches, was encircled by shouting black congresswomen. A few minutes later, the same group assailed David R. Obey (D-Wis.), usually an ally, for telling one of them to “shut up.”

Summoned from his office, Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) waded into the melee to separate the combatants and restore a semblance of order.

Watching it all, George Miller (D-Martinez), a 20-year House veteran and chairman of a major committee, was struck by a larger significance in this chaotic moment: “I thought to myself: ‘Remember where I was on this day, because this is now a different Congress.’ ”

Bronx Democrat Jose Serrano said he was thinking the same thing. “It’s never going to be the same,” the three-term congressman told Miller. “The leadership better understand that that’s what diversity means in this body.”

More than any other event, last Wednesday’s debate over Medicaid funding for abortion crystallized a transformation occurring on Capitol Hill with this term’s addition of 23 women and 16 minority members to the House of Representatives.

No longer is the House chamber a sea of blue suits and white faces. For the first time, women and minorities--a largely liberal group--have numbers great enough to force Congress to consider viewpoints often ignored in the past.

It’s too early to tell what kind of lasting mark these new members will make on Capitol Hill. But they already have sparked one change: Their unprecedented boldness has put the Establishment on notice that they won’t tolerate the old way of doing business.

At the same time, they are feeling the limitations of their inexperience and lack of clout; even with their arrival, the 435-member House has only about 11% women and less than 15% minority members.

There could have been no greater demonstration of these complex, new dynamics than during the abortion debate, when Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), a single mother who represents a poor district, strode to the microphone.

After hours of listening to well-to-do white men explain their views on an issue involving impoverished women, the first black woman ever elected to Congress from Georgia made an unusually blunt attack: “Quite frankly, I have just about had it with my colleagues who vote against people of color, vote against the poor, vote against women.”

Yet before they can translate their frustration into action, McKinney and other new members have a lot to learn. That too became clear in their struggle to overturn the 16-year ban on spending federal dollars to provide abortions for poor women.

They lost by a large margin--255-178--mainly because they were trying to push the House further than the majority was willing to go on this emotional issue. Many lawmakers who support a woman’s right to abortion draw the line at forcing taxpayers to pay for it.

Indeed, on the final vote, 11 women, most of whom call themselves “pro-choice,” joined Hyde in voting to uphold the ban.

Their defeat can also be blamed on their relative newness to the intricacies of parliamentary tactics. After accomplishing a difficult maneuver that stripped the legislation of its prohibition on abortion funding, the women were blindsided when Hyde devised an even more ingenious way of forcing a vote to put it back in.

“We were rolled from the inside,” said California freshman Anna G. Eshoo (D-Atherton). “You can have the greatest commitment in the world, but if you can’t make use of what’s in the tool kit, you can’t advance what you think is meritorious.”

For all their fervor and sincerity about the issues that brought them to Washington, the newer members--along with a small group of female and minority members who preceded them--are finding that great and possibly insurmountable problems loom ahead.

Chief among their adversaries is the federal budget deficit. To many, the demise of President Clinton’s $16.3-billion jobs bill was a bitter lesson in the nation’s new budget priorities.

Now they are beginning to realize that no major new social initiative--whether it be urban aid, changes in the welfare system, job training or education--stands much of a chance against the public’s demand for cutting spending.

They are also learning that despite their gains, they remain badly outnumbered. As freshman Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky (D-Pa.) pointed out, the 48 members of the Women’s Caucus still do not present as large or as unified a special interest as the 60-member Mushroom Caucus or the 109-member Footwear Caucus. Blacks, Latinos and Asians make up even smaller groups.

As daunting as the obstacles are, experienced female and minority members are learning to work their way around them.

Last week, Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) scored a coup by winning House and Senate passage of a controversial program to provide $100-a-week stipends to jobless 17-to-30-year-olds who enroll in education or job-training programs. It is one of the few new social programs to be approved this year.

The idea is that the young hard-core unemployed--whom Waters called “our lost generation”--are more likely to stay in school if they are provided money for grooming, transportation and food. Moreover, she argued, such items are legitimate costs of seeking work.

When Waters’ proposal first went before the House in May, it was openly ridiculed by Republicans. Robert S. Walker (R-Pa.) mockingly predicted that it would amount to “an open-ended welfare program that will spend $80 million of the taxpayers’ money, perhaps to buy beer, $100 cars and grooming at the local pet salon.”

“It was just horrible,” said Waters, who is in her second term. “It was not even a debate. It was simply an attack on any legislation that would be going to poor people and people of color.”

But in the end, none of that mattered; the real action was behind the scenes. Before she brought her idea forward, Waters had quietly convinced key conservative Democrats of its merits, and the plan handily passed the House.

With the conservatives’ support as proof that the legislation had broad appeal within the party, Waters also won a commitment that the House Democratic leadership would support the proposal through difficult House-Senate conference committee proceedings. It was trimmed to $50 million, but it survived.

“I do believe that there are some ideas that make so much sense that you may be able to get some rational people to embrace them,” Waters said.

The reality is that Congress’ minority and female members will never be able to make any gains without persuading a large number of their white male counterparts to go along. “Cynthia McKinney can talk to her friends all she wants, and we will never have federal funding for abortion,” one Democrat said.

Indeed, some say they believe that the confrontational tone of last week’s debate may have cost the women some votes that they could have won through quieter persuasion. “They lost control. It wasn’t constructive,” one Democratic aide said.

The abortion debate had started in familiar fashion, with neither side advancing any fresh ideas. What had changed were the people who were listening to it.

“We were addressing something that seriously affects minorities and women, and they were present at the argument. That was the difference,” Miller said.

And so it was that Hyde met with a round of hissing when he asserted that some advocates of Medicaid-paid abortions favor them as a means of reducing the number of poor people--to “refine the breed.”

He was paraphrasing an argument that has often been made, and one that he correctly noted has many adherents among blacks who oppose abortion.

Black members saw it differently. “A lot of racist language came out, whether he intended it or not,” Waters said. “I had this sinking feeling in my stomach that there is a lot of racism underneath what goes on here. It has not been discussed or brought into the open, and I think it’s time.”

She was not alone. Cardiss Collins (D-Ill.), an 11-term lawmaker who has often worked closely with Hyde on issues affecting their state, demanded that Hyde be censured.

Later, she acknowledged that she had heard him make similar statements before and had not objected. This time, she said, “there was an electricity running through the House. . . . I had just about taken all I could take.”

Ultimately, Hyde removed the offending remarks from the Congressional Record.

Some predict that such scenes will become more common. Waters said black women in particular will not take perceived slights and insults silently.

“What I have sensed is that women are not so eager to be part of the club that they can be coaxed into not showing any anger and disgust about racism or about being talked down to,” she said. “Men tend to accept insults in an effort to be a member in good standing in the club.”