NEWS ANALYSIS : Feinstein, Huffington Split on Role of Government : Politics: Senator believes in actively pursuing legislative agenda; challenger uses his vote against big spending.

First-term Sen. Dianne Feinstein quickly established herself as a player in a tradition-bound institution that expects newcomers to sit on the sidelines. She labored intensely on two high-octane committees and latched onto hundreds of millions of new federal dollars for California.

First-term Rep. Mike Huffington is widely regarded by his colleagues as a phantom. He attended committee hearings and cast votes, but demonstrated little interest in the craft of legislating, in using his clout to help his Santa Barbara district or even in following through on promises to shake up Congress.

California voters could not ask for a more stark contrast between the two major candidates for U.S. Senate this year, at least based on a review of their performances on Capitol Hill over the past 21 months. Feinstein and Huffington hold such contrary views about the role of government in today’s world--and pursue their lawmaking roles so differently--that they seem to be operating in separate universes.

What’s more, both candidates agree to a large extent on their differences.

Feinstein, a career Democratic politician, boasts of her ability to work the layers of government bureaucracy, and unapologetically goes after every crumb of the federal pie for California.

“My record has been that of a real senator, with hands-on impact in constituent service as well as legislation,” Feinstein said in an interview. “I’m there at every turn to fight for California’s interests.”

Huffington, a Republican oil and gas tycoon, rails against federal intervention and backs that up with his record as a legislative naysayer. He regularly voted against multibillion-dollar spending bills, even though their defeat would deny funding for programs he supports.

“You will not find me producing a lot of new laws and regulations, that’s for certain,” said Huffington, speaking proudly of his legislative record. “My point is that I want to try to remove the federal government’s intrusiveness from people’s lives.”

Despite their different approaches, their disagreement on the role of government and on many economic issues, the 47-year-old Huffington and 61-year-old Feinstein agree to a surprising extent on a range of social issues. They both favor abortion rights, the death penalty, inclusion of gays in the military, stricter handgun registration provisions and laws requiring businesses to grant their employees unpaid family and medical leave. They also support a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget and a presidential line-item veto.

Overall, voting studies show that Feinstein is nearly the political clone of President Clinton and liberal Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Both California senators cast more than 90% of their votes in line with the President’s positions last year, according to an analysis by Congressional Quarterly.

Huffington, who bills himself as an “independent Republican,” voted with his party 86% of the time. But he was one of only two California Republicans to support Feinstein’s assault weapons ban and the only one to oppose a GOP alternative to the Clinton tax plan that would have reduced the deficit by $352 billion over five years. Huffington said the Republican measure did not go far enough.

Huffington attacks Feinstein’s critical vote last year that provided the margin of victory in the Senate for the Clinton Administration’s economic plan. He claims the budget package, by some measures the largest federal tax increase in history, saddled Californians with a $37-billion tax hike. Feinstein contends that only the wealthiest Californians were affected and the Clinton economic plan is projected to reduce the federal deficit by $691 billion through 1998.

In the House, Huffington consistently opposed huge appropriations bills that pay for individual programs he supports. He is a hawk on defense, but voted five times against the Pentagon budget. He favors increased funding for an additional 1,300 Border Patrol agents to fight illegal immigration--a measure Feinstein helped get through the Senate--but voted three times against the necessary spending bills.

Huffington explained that he supports the financing of specific programs, but often opposes huge spending bills because they simply cost too much. He said his voting record demonstrates that, if elected to the Senate, he would be an extreme fiscal conservative.

“I won’t be voting for income tax increases. I will be voting against a lot of spending,” he said. “Whereas Feinstein has been gobbling up 8 million acres (in her California desert bill) and taking away guns, and she interferes in other people’s lives, I’ll be the opposite. In the Senate, I can probably get rid of a lot of that junk.”

On the campaign trail, Huffington portrays himself as part of a new generation of citizen lawmakers committed to overhauling Congress. He calls Feinstein an out-of-touch, career politician who revels in the perquisites of office.

On this point, their actions paint a less clear picture than Huffington suggests.

A comparison of their respective records during the 103rd Congress shows that Huffington played an insignificant role in shaping any kind of reform legislation, a mainstay of his campaign, while Feinstein succeeded in making reform-minded changes that she pledged to carry out during her 1992 Senate race.

When Huffington ran for the House, he vowed to repeal all perks and gratuities enjoyed by members of Congress, slash the congressional staff payroll and eliminate the franking privilege that allows lawmakers to send taxpayer-financed mail to their constituents.

Beyond donating his salary to charity and paying the cost of his government air fare, Huffington has not participated in shaping legislation that would prevent lawmakers from accepting free travel, entertainment, meals and other gifts from lobbyists. A list of reform accomplishments released by Huffington’s House office includes a floor statement endorsing term limits, an appearance with Ross Perot and a press release hailing a change in Republican Party rules.

Huffington’s House office and payroll expenses through June 30 amounted to $981,204--only 8% less than his predecessor. And Huffington spent $57,097 in mass mailings to his Santa Barbara district, ranking him fourth-lowest among California freshmen House members but far above Feinstein.

In the Senate, Feinstein has spent only $3,593 on mass mailings to date and cut her Senate payroll and office expenditures 25%, as she promised during the 1992 campaign. Moreover, Feinstein, like Huffington, has accepted no travel junkets or gifts from lobbyists, according to financial disclosure forms.

As a freshman who belongs to the minority party in the 435-member House of Representatives, Huffington seldom gets an opportunity to shape the outcome of legislation. This frustration, Huffington says, motivated him to run for the 100-member Senate because lawmakers there have much more influence in passing--and thwarting--legislation.

Consequently, based on his brief tenure in the House, it is unclear what kind of senator Huffington would make.

“Ordinarily, someone has made a record of sorts that would give you some basis for inferring what kind of senator they would be,” said Thomas E. Mann, director of governmental studies at the Brookings Institution. “But in this case, he just hasn’t left a trace.”

Mann said Huffington did not set out like most new members of Congress in pursuing an area of specialty such as serving his constituents back home or engaging in serious legislative activity on a specific issue.

Indeed, Huffington has introduced only three bills in the 103rd Congress and all three will expire without progressing to the stage of an initial hearing. Of the more than 700 pieces of legislation submitted to the House Banking Committee on which he sits, Huffington has not offered a single bill or amendment. By comparison, Feinstein has submitted 28 bills and 15 amendments in the Senate.

Huffington said he has no intention of joining his colleagues in the “charade” of building a phony legislative record for reelection purposes. In this Congress alone, Huffington points out, the House has introduced more than 6,000 legislative measures.

“Given the seriousness of the crises facing our nation, most of this legislative activity amounts to little more than reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic,” Huffington said.

The central theme of Huffington’s campaign involves a proposal to replace government welfare with private philanthropy. Yet, as a House member, he has largely ignored the ongoing congressional debate over welfare reform.

Barbara Sinclair, a congressional scholar and UC Riverside political scientist, said: “It’s taking the Reagan model to the nth degree: government is the problem and (it) should just stay the hell out of everything.”

Even fellow Republicans in the California congressional delegation privately acknowledge their dismay that Huffington, a multimillionaire political novice, opted to run for the Senate after serving only eight months in the House.

“No one takes him very seriously,” said one Southern California Republican, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Feinstein has had no such problem with her Senate colleagues. To be sure, she has been helped along by Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) and the Democratic leadership, which wants her to succeed and retain the California seat.

Feinstein said she fought for a spot as one of the first two women on the Judiciary Committee to address her top legislative priority--reducing crime and violence. She added several amendments to the $30-billion crime bill: a ban on the future manufacture, sale and possession of 19 military-style assault weapons; stiffer penalties for criminals convicted of hate crimes; $1.8 billion to reimburse states for the cost of incarcerating illegal immigrant felons, and putting carjacking homicides on the list of federal death penalty offenses. She also successfully steered the sweeping California Desert Protection Act through the Senate and has become a leading proponent for overhauling the nation’s immigration laws.

Feinstein’s success, particularly passage of an assault weapons ban that had been bottled up in the Senate, “gave her a level of credibility right from the beginning that was unusual,” said Norman J. Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

As the first Californian to sit on the Senate Appropriations Committee in 24 years, Feinstein waged hard-fought battles to secure $8.6 billon in earthquake relief assistance, continued funding for the B-2 bomber and other military aircraft that support more than 50,000 California jobs, $615 million in education funds for poor students and an additional $83 million this year for California agriculture.

“I’ve worked on agriculture appropriations to help farmers,” Feinstein said. “(Huffington) says he’s got a great uncle who has a farm, a Stetson and a belt buckle and he votes against every farm program. He says he is for more defense. He has done nothing.”

Candidate Records

Studies of votes cast by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Rep. Mike Huffington (R-Santa Barbara) reveal distinct differences between the two candidates. The following ratings, compiled by a dozen interest groups, are based on major votes during the 103rd Congress. A perfect score of 100 means the legislator voted in agreement with the particular interest group on all measures included in its survey.

INTEREST GROUP FEINSTEIN HUFFINGTON AFL-CIO 100 17 American Conservative Union 13 79 *American Security Council 40 90 Americans for Democratic Action 85 20 Chamber of Commerce 9 91 Children’s Defense Fund 83 36 **Christian Coalition 8 50 *Citizens Against Government Waste 19 72 Consumer Federation of America 80 40 League of Conservation Voters 63 35 *National Abortion Rights Action League 100 20 *National Council of Senior Citizens 90 22

** For 1994 only

* For 1993-94