Congress’ Course Awaits Selection of GOP Leaders

For all the talk about the new Republican agenda and the sea change that swept across American politics on Nov. 8, it will take one more set of elections to chart the ideological course that the 104th Congress will follow in January.

Those elections, to be held over the next two weeks as Republicans and Democrats vote to fill leadership positions in the House and the Senate, will help determine just how confrontational or cooperative the new Congress will be in its dealings with the Clinton White House.

With Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas and Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia running uncontested for the top Senate and House leadership spots on the Republican side, the most interesting GOP contest is the battle between Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming and Trent Lott of Mississippi for the job of Senate majority whip.

Senate leadership races usually turn into personality contests in which egos and grudges and favors given and received play decisive roles in the outcome. But in this case, Lott’s challenge to Simpson, the incumbent GOP whip, reflects a broader ideological struggle over who will control the GOP agenda next year--Gingrich as House Speaker (Lott is his ally) or Dole as Senate majority leader (Simpson is his man).

Among Democrats, the race for minority leader in the House is seen as a signpost of the direction the dispirited former majority party will take as it tries to recover from its resounding defeat at the polls.

For the White House, one thing is ominously clear: Be they old-fashioned liberals or more conservative “new Democrats,” most of the candidates in the Democratic races are already signaling their independence from President Clinton, whom they blame in large measure for their party’s midterm losses.

House Democrats will meet to fill their leadership slots Wednesday, while House Republicans vote the following Monday. The leadership races in the Senate, for both Republicans and Democrats, will be decided Friday.

Here are the key leadership races, and what’s at stake:

In the Senate, the race for Republican whip is capturing most of the attention. Not only is it the No. 2 leadership spot, it is seen by Republicans and Democrats alike as a proxy struggle between Dole and Gingrich. Although they put on a good show of unity at the recent Republican Governors Assn. meeting in Williamsburg, Va., Dole and Gingrich have made little secret of their dislike for each other.

“Dole’s not the barn-burner that Gingrich is,” said a Senate colleague, describing the difference between the two men. “He’d rather redecorate the barn than raze it to the ground.”

Dole’s more pragmatic and flexible approach to governing worries Gingrich supporters in the House, who fear some of the GOP’s more ambitious ideas for economic and social reform will stall in the Senate. Their concerns are not unfounded, considering Dole’s disdain for the supply-side economic theory that underpins the Gingrich camp’s tax-cut proposals.

The extremely close Lott-Simpson race is a byproduct of these differences, and the outcome could sharply limit Dole’s maneuvering room in running the Senate, as well as complicate his likely presidential campaign in 1996.

Lott, a close ally of Gingrich’s, is expected to team up with another Dole rival, Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas. Working together, they could force Dole to move further to the right or isolate him within the GOP Senate leadership in much the same way that retiring Minority Leader Robert H. Michel of Illinois was hemmed in by Gingrich and other GOP conservatives during his last year in the House.

“If Lott wins the No. 2 spot, it will also make it very difficult for Dole to go off campaigning for the presidency, because he won’t be able to trust Lott to mind the store in his absence,” said a senior GOP Senate aide.

Not surprisingly, Dole has endorsed Simpson for whip, while Gramm, who has already announced his intention to seek the presidency in 1996, has endorsed Lott.

With the Senate leadership elections only a week away, the Simpson-Lott race is considered too close to call. Lott’s supporters say they are confident he will win. Simpson says that calculation is based on the shaky assumption that all 11 freshman senators will vote for Lott.

“The job of whip is learned in the third grade. It’s learning how to count, and I’ve got my count,” Simpson says, indicating he is comfortable with his tally, even though he refuses to reveal it. Lott, he adds, “assumes he will get all the new guys, but he won’t.”

Among the Democrats, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut is mounting a strong challenge to Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota for Senate minority leader. Still the front-runner, Daschle thought when he entered the race to succeed retiring Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) that he would be running for a different job and against another opponent. But that was before the Nov. 8 elections, which threw the Democrats into the minority and resulted in the defeat of Daschle’s leadership opponent, Sen. Jim Sasser of Tennessee.

Dodd entered the race after the elections. He has picked up most of Sasser’s support in what is seen as a generational and personality contest rather than an ideological dispute, given the fact both men represent the liberal wing of the party. Daschle is 46 and has served in the Senate since 1986; Dodd is 50 and was first elected in 1980.

Whereas Daschle appeals to younger colleagues who feel the Democrats need a new and energetic leader to guide them safely through the post-election political desert, Dodd draws his strength more from senior senators who fear Daschle may be too young and inexperienced to deal with Dole.

A Daschle aide says the senator already has enough votes to win. A Dodd spokesman disputes that count, saying both men are “neck-and-neck,” with the outcome hinging on a few undecided votes.

A more ideological confrontation is unfolding in the House, where conservative Democrats are challenging their party’s liberal leadership for the top two minority positions.

Charlie Rose of North Carolina and Charles W. Stenholm of Texas are portraying themselves as centrist alternatives to the remnants of a liberal leadership that many Democrats blame for squandering their chances of governing effectively over the past two years.

Both Rose, who is challenging current Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri for the minority leader’s job, and Stenholm, who is seeking to take the whip’s job away from David E. Bonior of Michigan, are rated as dark-horse candidates at best.

But the fact they are challenging the leadership is a sign of turbulence and unrest within the Democratic Party as it gropes for answers and seeks to redefine itself in the aftermath of the elections.

“The legitimacy of the Democratic leadership is completely open right now,” said William Schneider, a political scientist with the American Enterprise Institute. “There really is no leadership now because their old leadership has been discredited, and there is no obvious heir, . . . no one who’s shown they can pick up the pieces of a party that’s just falling apart.”

No such divisions are yet apparent on the GOP side of the House, where Gingrich is certain to become Speaker and Dick Armey of Texas is running unopposed for majority leader. But a tight three-way race is shaping up for the whip’s post among Robert S. Walker of Pennsylvania, Bill McCollum of Florida and Tom DeLay of Texas.

‘Contract With America’

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