WASHINGTON INSIGHT

MENACING CONGRESS: The Republican revolution that has generated intense national interest in the work of Congress also has apparently spurred an increase in the number of threats against lawmakers. The Capitol Police--the 1,075-member security force charged with protecting those who work on Capitol Hill--say threats against members of Congress through March of this year jumped by 43% over the same period in 1994. At the current rate, 1995 appears destined to be the worst year on record for such threats, said Sgt. Dan Nichols, a Capitol Police spokesman In general, the level of menacing remarks against Congress rises and falls according to the types of legislation being considered and the amount of public interest in those issues, Nichols said. “This has been a very active Congress that has taken on a lot of issues of national interest,” he said. He added that threats rose still higher after the April 19 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. Capitol Police responded by stepping up security, logging a vast amount of overtime in the process.

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R-RATED INVESTMENT: As Texas Sen. Phil Gramm chases the Republican presidential nomination, he has been doing his best to appeal to family-value conservatives. But a 21-year-old investment Gramm made in a decidedly non-family-value movie may get in his way. According to the current issue of the New Republic, Gramm and his then-brother-in-law invested $15,000 in 1974 in a movie to be called “Beauty Queens”--described to the magazine by its producer as a “sexploitation of beauty contests.” When that project fell through, the producer, George Caton, moved the money into a movie called “White House Madness,” a raunchy parody of the Richard Nixon White House. In a statement released by his office Wednesday, Gramm admitted making the investment, saying that he never saw a script of the film and had been told it was to be “an R-rated spoof.” Like many Hollywood investors, Gramm says he lost his money.

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MERGING INTERESTS: With House Republicans pushing hard to eliminate as many as three Cabinet departments in their zeal to boil down the federal budget, the White House may weigh in with a counteroffer: merging the departments of Labor and Education. Blending the two agencies would mean little real savings, but in the arena of public perception, it has the advantage of eliminating a department--if only on paper. The Education Department was created under former President Jimmy Carter, whose Administration spun it out of the old Department of Health, Education and Welfare. House Republicans are trying now to eliminate it, along with the Department of Commerce and another Carter-era creation, the Energy Department.

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BAGGAGE CLAIM: Henry G. Cisneros, a Cabinet official dogged by allegations that will be reviewed by a special prosecutor, hardly welcomed the question a fellow passenger asked as they arrived from Atlanta at Washington’s National Airport last week. As they waited to exit the aircraft, the passenger asked, “How’s your airport?” Without flinching, the HUD secretary replied, “You’ve got the wrong Hispanic.” He suggested the passenger had him confused with Transportation Secretary Federico Pena, the other Latino member of Clinton’s Cabinet. Pena’s legacy as Denver mayor, a post he held until his appointment to the Administration, is tainted by his association with the vastly over-budget Denver International Airport, which finally opened this spring after bugs were worked out of its elaborate luggage-transport system. Cisneros, who is the subject of an investigation into whether he violated federal law by lying about payments he made to his ex-mistress, hardly needs to carry Pena’s baggage too.