Budget Ax Brings on Fencing Match : Congress: As GOP rushes to meet ‘contract’ goals, lobbyists fight for favorite funding. A more adversarial situation makes road rougher for all.

Alvin Jones may not fit the image of a lobbyist, but as a reformed substance abuser he was in some ways an ideal candidate to deliver a message to a Congress intent on slashing federal spending.

So a national advocacy group sent Jones from his Skid Row rooming house in Los Angeles to tell lawmakers in Washington how federal money helped him put his life in order and to urge them not to end financial support for public housing.

“They will greatly handicap me if low-income housing is rejected,” Jones, 43, said at a news conference organized by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

As Jones and his sponsors made their way through the corridors of Congress, they had to queue up behind a procession of anxious Cabinet officials, interest groups and angry citizens engaged in similar political slam dances, each trying to protect an endangered program from spending cuts promised by the new Republican-controlled Congress.

The groups cut across a broad swath of interests and ideologies--from welfare to arts and entertainment, from civil rights to military spending, from public housing to crime prevention.

For many, jostling for face time with legislators considering cuts under the “contract with America” was a humbling and disorienting reversal of fortunes. In recent years, some of the same lobbyists enjoyed a smoother ride on Capitol Hill. Anticipating blessings from an activist Clinton Administration and Democrat-run Congress, some had even dared to hope for expanding federal support for social programs.

Instead, they are now fighting to save what they have. “Every civil rights group feels under terrible pressure right now, absolutely inundated,” said Barbara Arnwine, executive director for the Lawyer Committee on Civil Rights Under Law, a rights-advocacy organization based in Washington.

“Since 1964, Congress has been generally supportive of civil rights,” Arnwine said in an interview. “This is the first time our groups have to say: ‘Oh my goodness, Congress is potentially opposed.’ ”

In their appeals, some groups point fingers at the White House as well as the Republicans.

For example, representatives of the Common Agenda Coalition, an umbrella organization for 60 grass-roots peace and social activist groups, recently took up positions on the east steps of the Capitol to criticize President Clinton and Congress for supporting an increase in spending for military programs while proposing cuts in social programs.

“We ask the President and Congress how it is possible to cut taxes, slash government, substantially increase military spending and still balance the budget without decimating Social Security, Medicare and other vital human needs programs,” said Angelia Smith, a leader of the coalition. “Even conservative economists say it can’t be done.”

Still other groups are organizing into combative alliances to increase their clout in the fight against budget cuts, said Gary D. Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, a nonprofit research group that tracks federal spending, including activities in the Office of Management and Budget.

Bass said his organization is one among more than 200 so worried about the future of social programs that they are putting aside individual concerns to join forces in a group called Citizens for Sensible Safeguards. The organization isn’t yet fully formed. Nevertheless, some founding members have begun lobbying legislators.

For example, officials of the Service Employees International Union appeared on behalf of the coalition at a recent Senate hearing, arguing against legislation to restrict Congress from forcing state and local governments to pay for federally mandated programs. The measure was approved by the Senate on Friday.

Other members of the coalition--the AFL-CIO and the Natural Resources Defense Council--spoke out at a House hearing against legislation to impose a moratorium on new federal regulations.

“We hope we will be given an opportunity to testify at other hearings,” Bass said. “. . . our only hope is to educate the public to our point of view. Maybe we can stop the Republicans from going too far with their ‘contract with America.’ ”

Still others have attempted to circumvent the protocol of congressional hearings by striking out with defiance and confrontation.

A group of welfare recipients, alarmed that all the talk about welfare reform featured too little testimony from people like them, went uninvited to a House hearing in an effort to be heard. When denied an opportunity to speak, they hooted at the lawmakers as security guards escorted them from the hearing room.

“We need to be here,” one of the women shouted. “We should testify.”

At a calmer meeting of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, Jane Alexander, head of the National Endowment for the Arts, said federal money for the arts is “the absolute critical catalyst” for attracting private funding to theater, dance and performing arts groups. “There are few institutions able to fly on their own,” she said. “We’re a jump-start that works.”

As the pleas mount, many on Capitol Hill know this is just the beginning--a fact clearly demonstrated by the hoopla generated when Republicans suggested cuts in federal support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Keith Appell is a senior account executive at Creative Response Concepts, a public relations firm based in Arlington, Va., that promotes the GOP’s contract and other budget-cutting initiatives. He said he was surprised by the heated debate the proposal generated during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing.

“The public broadcasting issue is a small amount of the budget, but look at the circus it created,” he said, noting that lobbyists recruited celebrities to generate media attention.

“That was just one minuscule program the Republicans are talking about cutting . . . ,” Appell said. “If they do the same with housing, agriculture and energy programs, which we haven’t gotten to yet, what’s to prevent all these special interests from throwing freak shows on each and every one of their sacred cows?”

Times staff writer Kelly Owen contributed to this story.