GOP Leaders Refuse to Bow to Nunn on Budget

Senate GOP leaders said Friday that they will not go along with Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and change their proposed balanced-budget constitutional amendment to bar enforcement by federal courts, even if it means defeat for the amendment in a showdown vote Tuesday.

“If we’re going to emasculate the amendment by putting provisions in there that are loopholes, we might as well quit now,” said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the GOP floor leader for the amendment.

The impasse created a new obstacle for the measure just as it appeared to be close to the two-thirds majority required for passage.

Nunn, one of a group of uncommitted Democrats who hold the key to the amendment’s fate, surprised many colleagues late Thursday when he took the Senate floor to announce he will vote against the measure unless it is changed to bar the courts from intervening to force tax increases or spending cuts.

At a news conference, Hatch and other backers expressed optimism that Nunn and other waverers will be won over. Hatch said Nunn appeared to have “backed off” after his speech Thursday night, assuring Hatch that he would keep an open mind. But an aide to Nunn, who was on a two-day trip to Haiti, said Friday that the senator had not backed off on anything.