LEGISLATION : Crafting of Welfare Reform in Hands of an Inside Few, Critics Complain : Administration officials defend the process, contending that it really is an attempt at ‘collaborative’ policy-making.

President Clinton’s 32-member welfare reform working group was meeting for the first time in three months, just weeks before the Administration’s policy initiative was expected to be introduced in Congress.

The co-chairmen of the group distributed copies of a thick document, the most detailed version yet of the Administration’s proposal for fulfilling Clinton’s popular campaign pledge to “end welfare as we know it.”

Each page of the draft was marked with the word confidential and the name of the member of the working group who received the document so no one could remove a page without its being detected. The working group was given 45 minutes to read the draft before the copies were collected.

Some members bristled at the treatment, later saying that the scenario reflected two important dynamics of the way in which the Administration is crafting welfare reform.

The first is that, although theoretically the working group is designing the policy, in reality only the three co-chairmen and a few others have had real influence.

The second is that those in control have gone to unusual lengths to try to keep as much of their plan as possible away from public purview.

The Administration has repeatedly stressed its preference for an “inclusive” style of policy-making that builds consensus around an initiative before pressing for it. But some members of Congress and even some Administration officials say that, in designing a package to overhaul the country’s health care system and in formulating a plan to redesign the welfare system, real influence is in the hands of a few.

While the chief designers of the Administration’s initiatives may meet with many lawmakers and groups potentially affected by the measures, the participants often come away feeling that the meetings were more for show than substance. As a result, they feel little enthusiasm for defending the details of the Administration’s proposals.

David Ellwood, a co-chairman of the group and a widely recognized welfare reform expert, defended the strategy: “The principals ought to have a chance to think about things first before seeing it in the newspaper,” he said, reflecting concern over inopportune leaks of information to the media.

But at least one member of the working group disagreed: “Who made them think that they can do business in a vacuum and not tell the American people what you’re planning to do?”

Ellwood argued that the working group has played a key role. “I really do think it has been a collaborative effort,” he said.

But Administration insiders and observers say that the most important decisions have been made by Ellwood; Mary Jo Bane, an assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services; and Bruce Reed, a domestic policy adviser to the President. The three jointly head the group. The handful of large working group meetings over the last few months have not been nearly as important as the smaller 7:30 a.m. gatherings of selected experts that occur several times a week at the Department of Heath and Human Services headquarters, they say.

Ellwood also insisted that “Congress has played a key role” in shaping the Administration’s plan.

Clearly, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Paul Offner, an influential committee staff member, have had an effect.

Shortly after an article by Offner in the New Republic advocated beginning the reforms with the youngest and newest welfare recipients, the working group leaders adopted a similar stance.

“His article was influential,” Ellwood said.

But other lawmakers said the Administration has done nothing to make them feel they have a stake in its plan.

“We’ve had meetings, but they have not been substantive,” said Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento), an influential member of a House Ways and Means subcommittee that will consider the bill. “I don’t feel any loyalty to this piece of legislation. We’ll look at it very objectively, and we’ll do what we think needs to be done to change it or we’ll pass something else.”

The potential danger in the approach is that members of Congress will feel no responsibility for the plan and will be easily persuaded to abandon it for competing proposals, a fate that seems to have befallen the Clinton health care reform effort.

Members of Congress and task force members cautioned that even if the co-chairmen design a terrific policy, they may not be politically astute enough to get it through Congress.

“Mary Jo and Ellwood are in way over their heads,” said a working group member, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They are both academics. They have no sense of politics, period.”