Many Democrats Hesitate to Back Clinton’s Budget

Late Thursday morning, Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), who days earlier had declared his opposition to President Clinton’s deficit-reduction plan, was locked in loudly whispered conversation with first one, then two and finally three fellow Democrats, who were trying to change his mind.

They ringed him on three sides and pointed fingers as Abercrombie, jaw set, continued to shake his head, his frizzy, shoulder-length hair waving his unmistakable “no.”

Yards away, a top Democratic leadership aide and a Democratic whip huddled alongside a statue. With visible anxiety, they counted votes on a piece of paper carefully shielded from curious passersby.

The scenes were repeated in the corridors and anterooms of the House throughout the day and the anxious faces told the story: Rarely have so many felt so reluctant to cast a vote that meant so much for their party and their President.

“Some of the undecided folks have been really hiding out, not taking telephone calls,” Rep. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said. “Some of the whips are heading out to their offices to see them, face to face.”

As Rep. Lynn Schenk (D-San Diego) prepared to cast the most significant vote of her six-month career as a lawmaker, she acknowledged that somewhere along the way the ideals that had brought her to Washington had been shaken.

The whole process, she said with a sigh, “stopped being a vision for change . . . . It seemed like a free-for-all. One member wants this. Another member wants that. It’s very frustrating to watch.”

“There’s no agreeable choice,” said Rep. Charles Wilson (D-Tex.), who reversed an earlier vote and supported the plan. “I don’t like it very much, but it’s all we got and (doing) nothing is even worse.”

For many members, the discomfort over their budget votes promises to linger. Schenk, who voted for the package, leaves for the August recess knowing that she must confront voters in her district whose anger has been stirred by what she describes as unrelenting radio ads and talk show hosts.

On Thursday, voters took one last opportunity to make themselves heard. Over the lunch hour alone, AT&T; logged 450,000 attempts to make calls to the Capitol--and, judging by what lawmakers were hearing, the overwhelming majority were from people angry about the economic package.

But it was unclear what the outpouring, which was 10 times the normal volume of calls, really meant about public sentiment in general. The calls coming into the office of Rep. Ron Klink (D-Pa.) were running 40 to 1 against the plan. But when his staff began calling voters of his Pennsylvania district at random, they found more supporters than opponents.

“Telephone calls are not a good indicator of where the public is,” House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) said. “People who call in obviously have opinions that they are expressing and they are sincere opinions, but they are the result of, usually, highly motivated people who don’t necessarily reflect the balance of opinion.”

Wilson hopes that is true. “One of them said I better not ever show my face in my hometown,” he said.

Many lawmakers also heard from Clinton. Asked how many lawmakers he had lobbied by telephone, the President said: “I don’t know--a bunch. I’ve lost count.”

With the language of the package no longer subject to debate, some legislators tried to bargain for other considerations. Rep. Bill Sarpalius (D-Tex.), who heard from Clinton no fewer than four times Thursday, took the opportunity to make a pitch for expanding a controversial nuclear warhead facility that he hopes could produce an additional 12,000 jobs in his Texas Panhandle district. Sarpalius, who also made his case with Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary, said the Administration promised “to keep an open mind on it.”

After those discussions, Sarpalius, who had voted against the economic package when it came before the House two months ago, agreed to switch his vote. “I think I can sell it to my constituents,” he said. “I’ll be out there trying to discuss the positives.”

He also pressed a case for helium--or more specifically, for getting rid of an obscure government bookkeeping problem that has been a headache for a government helium program that employs 220 people in his district, an aide said.

His staff had been told that the problem had been taken care of but they were unable to find the language dealing with it in the 1,800-page, 15-pound document that is the budget bill.

That alone would not be enough to overcome his objections to the gasoline tax and change his vote, but it would have helped. Late Thursday afternoon, the Treasury Department still was hunting for the clause in question.

Schenk and others complained that Democrats themselves have contributed to the problems they now face, because they have done a bad job of promoting the benefits of the plan. So it was that a few months ago, she found herself in front of a San Diego grocery store engaged in a loud argument with a constituent.

The voter, whose family earns $20,000, mistakenly believed that he was in line for an income tax increase. When she tried to convince him that his taxes would go down instead, he flatly called her a liar.

“We failed in our responsibility to educate the public about what really was in the bill,” she said. “We allowed the Republican disinformation machine to take over.”

Rep. Bart Stupak, a freshman Democrat representing a Republican district in Michigan, finally turned to the Census Bureau for help in making up his mind.

He discovered that fewer than 3,000 of his constituents would be paying higher income taxes but that 36,940 would be eligible for more generous tax breaks under the Earned Income Tax Credit. And, although his district has a large elderly population, none of them is wealthy enough to be affected by increases in Social Security taxes.

“Who am I hurting?” he finally decided. “For my district, and for the country, I think it’s best.”

And what of Abercrombie’s reluctance? In the end, he voted for the package.

Vote on Deficit Reduction Plan

Here is how members of the California delegation voted on President Clinton’s deficit reduction package:

Democrats for--Becerra, Beilenson, Berman, Brown, Dellums, Dixon, Edwards, Eshoo, Farr, Fazio, Filner, Hamburg, Harman, Lantos, Martinez, Matsui, Miller, Mineta, Pelosi, Roybal-Allard, Schenk, Stark, Torres, Tucker, Waters, Waxman, Woolsey.

Republicans for--None

Democrats against--Condit, Dooley, Lehman.

Republicans against--Baker, Calvert, Cox, Cunningham, Doolittle, Dornan, Dreier, Gallegly, Herger, Horn, Huffington, Hunter, Kim, Lewis, McCandless, McKeon, Moorhead, Packard, Pombo, Rohrabacher, Royce, Thomas.