GOP Takes Over Congress, Starts Work on Agenda : Legislature: House Republicans move on 100-day campaign, push through rule changes, cut 28 committees and reduce staffs. Senate sticks to procedural matters.

Jubilant Republicans, claiming a sweeping public mandate to reduce the scope and reach of government, on Wednesday assumed the mantle of leadership in both the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years and embarked on a 100-day campaign to dismantle the legacy of decades of Democratic rule.

“Let the great debate begin,” said House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) as he turned over the Speaker’s gavel “with resignation but with resolve” to an exultant Newt Gingrich, the Georgia Republican who was a principal architect of the GOP’s Nov. 8 electoral victory.

Gingrich, wielding a new and bigger gavel cut from an ancient Georgia walnut tree by a constituent, immediately got down to business, plunging the 104th Congress into what he called “the hardest-working opening session in American history.”

Within hours of the noon call to order, lawmakers voted to abolish 28 congressional panels, cut more than 600 staff members and require a 60% majority to raise tax rates.

While Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas stuck to a more traditional first-day agenda of largely procedural matters, Gingrich led an opening-day assault designed to demonstrate that Republicans are serious about seizing the reins of government and using their new power to clean up Congress and shrink the government.

As midnight passed, weary House leaders moved toward consideration of their first piece of legislation--a measure that would make Congress abide by the same laws it passes for everyone else. The legislation, which has passed the House overwhelmingly in the past, was considered certain to win approval.

Pressing into the early hours today, lawmakers skipped parties organized to celebrate the new session. Republicans predicted that the House would end its historic first day sometime after 3 a.m. EST.

As the day unfolded, Democrats expressed respect for the will of voters and a desire to work with the new Republican majority in any areas where the two parties’ political principles coincide. Indeed, the Democrats jumped aboard the Republican bandwagon in great numbers, voting overwhelmingly to adopt several of the new rules proposed by the GOP.

The conciliatory stance was echoed by Gingrich in his inaugural address in the Speaker’s chair, imbuing the historic transfer of power with an unexpectedly friendly aura.

“I know I’m a very partisan figure,” Gingrich conceded in a 35-minute speech that blended personal observations with historical lessons and included an appeal to fellow Republicans to display compassion along with their budget-cutting zeal.

“If each of us will reach out prayerfully and try to genuinely understand the other, if we’ll recognize that in this building we symbolize America writ small, that we have an obligation to talk with each other, then I think a year from now we can look on the 104th as a truly amazing institution,” said Gingrich, noted more for his fiery partisan rhetoric than for his consensus-building skills.

“And without regard to party, regard to ideology, we can say: ‘Here, America comes to work and, here, we are preparing for those children a better future.’ ”

While the Senate officially enjoyed equal billing with the House in the opening activities, the spotlight was clearly on Gingrich, the first Republican to serve as Speaker since Joseph W. Martin of Massachusetts left the post in 1955. Dole acknowledged as much by leaving the Senate chamber at one point and walking across the Capitol to spend a few minutes watching Gingrich in action.

Noticeably absent from the opening-day agenda was President Clinton, who returned to Washington from Arkansas in the afternoon but did not venture down Pennsylvania Avenue to participate in the congressional activities. The President is scheduled to meet privately with congressional leaders of both parties today.

“We’re starting the 104th Congress,” Gingrich said in his opening address. “. . . And I don’t care what your ethnic background, what your ideology, I don’t care whether you’re younger or older, I don’t care whether you were born in America or you’re a naturalized citizen; every one of the 435 people have equal standing because their citizens freely sent them, and their voice should be heard, and they should have a right to participate.”

But after a morning of prayers, speeches, handshakes and appeals for bipartisanship, it quickly became clear that interparty tranquillity would rule neither the day, nor the two-year legislative session. Lawmakers quickly engaged each other in heated argument, pitting Republicans bent on decisive action against Democrats wary of the GOP’s policy prescriptions and watchful for slights by the new majority.

Within moments of the session’s formal opening ceremonies, defeated Republican Senate candidate Mike Huffington appeared before the Senate to allege “irregularities and fraud” in the election of his opponent, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), urging the Republican majority to reserve the right to unseat her.

House Democrats bridled at what they called a “gag rule” on Republicans’ ambitious opening-day agenda of rule changes. But Rep. David Dreier (R-LaVerne) dismissed the charge as “absolutely preposterous,” and declared that Republicans made their first-day proceedings more open than any in recent history.

The new minority party escalated the squabbling by seeking to force consideration of lobbying reforms and a ban on gifts to lawmakers. Those proposals have been unpopular with Republicans and they are not included in the GOP’s 10-point “contract with America.” House Democrats tried to attach them to the Republican reform package and Senate Democrats have vowed to do the same.

“A cheap, nasty partisan shot,” Gingrich fired across the aisle at the Democrats. “I think it is sad that instead of working with us in a cooperative manner, the Democratic leadership is choosing what I think is frankly the narrowest and most foolish of partisan tactics.”

The House rule changes, which take effect immediately, could profoundly influence future deliberations in the lower chamber. Besides abolishing three full committees, culling 28 subcommittees and cutting committee staffs by one-third, the changes will bar lawmakers from voting in committee proceedings even when they are absent--a practice that analysts contend has shifted significant powers to committee chairmen.

Another important rule change will limit the terms of committee chairmen to six years, and the House Speaker to eight years. Republicans call the measure a “down payment” on comprehensive term limits that they will seek for all lawmakers and analysts predicted that the measure could have the effect of shifting power from the once-powerful committee barons of Capitol Hill to the Speaker’s office.

The most controversial rule change is one that will require a three-fifths majority in the House for approval of any income tax increases. While Republicans declared the measure would brake future efforts to raise income taxes, Democrats called it unconstitutional.

“This amendment does violence to the principles established by our forefathers,” said John J. LaFalce (D-N.Y.). “It is inherently unfair, inherently undemocratic and inherently unconstitutional.”

Republicans, however, prevailed on the measure in a 279-152 vote, largely along party lines.

As a lengthy day of floor action wore on in the House, testy exchanges broke out on the floor. Democrats, charging that they were being railroaded by Republicans in the debate over rule changes, hooted angrily until the parliamentary procedures were put to a vote. They lost soundly in each instance.

At one point, Gingrich made a courtly bow in the direction of one disgruntled Democratic lawmaker. “The gentleman’s objection is duly noted,” he said with a beneficent smile, before continuing with the Republicans’ ambitious first-day agenda.

In the Senate, Republican leader Dole declared:

“Either we’re going to run the place or we’re not,” Dole said as he prepared to grasp the reins of power in the upper chamber. “We’re going to set the agenda. That’s why we have a majority. Lobbying reform ought to be addressed, the gift ban ought to be addressed. But I think the majority should determine when they’ll be addressed.”

And so began the 104th Congress.

But Democrats made clear that they intend to counter Republicans, seeking to split the majority and woo public sentiment where they can. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) wasted no time in introducing five bills designed to position Senate Democrats as moderate champions of the middle class.

The Democrat initiatives include such hot-button items as campaign finance reform, restrictions on government services for unwed mothers and limited health care reform designed to protect families against the loss of insurance.

Proposing a Democrat-backed “fiscal responsibility act,” Daschle appeared intent on exploiting divisions within Republican ranks over a proposed balanced-budget amendment. He called the proposed constitutional change a “cop-out” that is “all show and no delivery.”

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THE 104TH CONGRESS

Developments on the Hill

IN THE HOUSE

* A total of 86 new members are sworn in, of which all but 13 are Republicans.

* Newt Gingrich of Georgia is elected as the first Republican House Speaker since 1955.

IN THE SENATE

* Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas and new members take oath of office.

* GOP introduces five measures that would: stop the passage of federal bills that cost states money; subject Congress to all federal laws; give the President a line-item veto, repeal the War Powers Act of 1973; eliminate the crime prevention measures approved in last year’s crime bill and emphasize punishment.

* Democrats present their agenda, including measures on health care, worker retraining and teen pregnancy and on limiting gifts to legislators and restricting filibuster.

UPCOMING TODAY

* Orange County’s fiscal disaster is scrutinized by the Senate Banking Committee, which invites Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and other regulators to discuss the use of financial derivatives.

* Members of the Senate Budget and Senate Government Affairs panels grapple with “unfunded mandates,” which require state and local officials to do things without providing any financial help.

* The balanced budget amendment is reviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

* Speaker Newt Gingrich outlines the reasoning behind the GOP’s “Contract with America” in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee.