Fate of Balanced Budget Vote Left to 12 Senators

Both sides lack the votes they’ll need to win the Senate’s looming fight over a balanced budget constitutional amendment, leaving its fate up to 12 fence-sitting senators, an Associated Press survey shows.

With supporters needing 67 votes for the two-thirds majority constitutional amendments require, 60 senators said they would vote “yes” or were likely to do so. Twenty-seven others said they opposed the proposal or probably would--seven short of the 34 “no” votes foes will need to prevail.

Only Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) refused to answer the survey, which was conducted last week.

“Neither side has enough votes as of today,” chief opponent Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) said Friday, a sentiment echoed by main sponsor, Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.).

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said Saturday that he thinks the margin might be even smaller than the AP found. “I would say we’re two or three votes short,” Dole, who supports the amendment, said on NBC-TV.

The amendment would require balanced federal budgets beginning in the year 2001 unless three-fifths of the members of the House and Senate voted to allow a deficit. But it does not state how deficits will be eliminated.

The Senate’s showdown debate on the measure could begin as early as Tuesday and could last a week or more. Its outcome is crucial because should the chamber vote its approval, House passage is considered likely. The amendment fell one vote short of passage the last time the Senate debated it in 1986.

The measure has been the focus of all-out lobbying on both sides. The Clinton Administration and labor groups unleashed studies predicting widespread havoc in federal programs should the amendment be enacted. Simon produced a letter of support from 254 economists. And Simon and Byrd paraded platoons of supportive witnesses at rival hearings.

Of the 12 senators who told the AP they remain undecided, three are Republicans: Nancy Landon Kassebaum of Kansas, John C. Danforth of Missouri and Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico. Both sides expect Kassebaum, who has opposed balanced budget amendments in the past, to do so again.

Nine are Democrats, making them appealing targets for the White House. They are David Pryor of Arkansas, Sam Nunn of Georgia, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland, Harry Reid of Nevada, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, John Glenn of Ohio, Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island and Jim Sasser of Tennessee.