GOP Pares Legislative Wish List in Run-Up to Elections

Congressional Republicans are suiting up--and stripping down--for the battle of the last 100 days.

GOP lawmakers spent their first 100 days of power last year in hot pursuit of an ambitious conservative agenda. But they came up short as, one by one, their priorities fell victim to budgetary stalemate and partisan cross-fire.

Now, as they return from a weeklong recess Monday eager to pass some splashy legislation before time runs out on the 104th Congress, they are setting their sights far lower.

In a battle plan drafted just before the recess, House GOP leaders identified priority initiatives for the final three months of the session. They include health insurance reform, an overhaul of the welfare system and a crackdown on illegal immigration.

Performing the legislative equivalent of battlefield triage, GOP leaders have all but abandoned hope for substantive action on some of their signature initiatives of 1995. On the endangered list are major tax cuts, Medicare restructuring and elimination of the Commerce Department.

The legislative short list for 1996 is a faint shadow of the GOP’s initial crusade to transform the size and shape of government. Even so, Republicans face enormous election year obstacles to enacting any major laws beyond must-pass spending measures to keep the government running after lawmakers head home for the fall’s showdown campaign.

“We have a lot of work to do and not much time to do it,” said Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.).

GOP leaders, still facing major decisions about their exit strategy for this tumultuous session of Congress, find themselves whipsawed by two powerful but conflicting forces: Many in the Republican rank and file want a major legislative trophy before election day to help counter charges that theirs is a “do-nothing Congress,” but just as many are resisting compromises that could deliver that prize.

On one point, at least, Republicans are virtually unanimous: No legislation is so important that it should keep them in session after early October, when they plan to hit the campaign trail to fight a crucial battle over control of Congress. Many recall the last time a Republican majority kept its members at work deep into the fall: In 1986, when Congress did not adjourn until Oct. 18, the GOP lost control of the Senate.

“The sooner we are home the better,” said Rep. Rick White (R-Wash.), a freshman who has been the target of hard-hitting opposition advertising by the AFL-CIO. “The more we are . . . talking to people, explaining what we are trying to accomplish, the better off we’ll be.”

As soon as Congress reconvenes, the Senate will address an issue that has kept the institution hogtied for weeks. Bowing to relentless pressure from Democrats, Senate Republicans will bring up legislation to raise the minimum wage 90 cents to $5.15. The House has passed similar legislation. They also will take up a companion bill to provide new tax breaks for small businesses, which are the leading opponents of a minimum-wage increase.

That long-awaited confrontation may not end partisan warfare over the issue. The Senate may pass a GOP amendment to sharply limit the number of businesses and jobs covered by the minimum wage--a “poison pill” in the view of Democrats, who have threatened to paralyze the Senate with stalling tactics if that provision makes it into the final bill.

The prospects for Congress spending the rest of this year mired in gridlock are so great that one established Capitol watcher offered a succinct forecast: “Nothing will happen,” Michael P. Andrews, director of the Washington office of Salomon Bros. Inc., said in a newsletter for clients of the financial services firm. “And we will stop writing about nothing happening.”

That’s just what has some Republicans worried, especially rank-and-file House members who are nervous about going home to face Democratic accusations that Republicans are a pack of extremists with few concrete legislative accomplishments.

To help combat those charges, the House Republican Conference sent lawmakers home for the Fourth of July recess armed with a thick packet of “talking points” on the GOP’s accomplishments--what they call a “common sense” agenda. That list includes tax cuts, welfare reform and budget-balancing measures vetoed by President Clinton, as well as major telecommunications and farm bills that he signed.

But that apparently is not enough to quell the anxiety of many House Republicans who want to fatten their record.

A wide window onto that anxiety was provided just before the recess, when GOP leaders faced a rebellion among members clamoring for action on a new welfare reform bill. Determined to pass a measure that stands some chance of becoming law, they are challenging a decision by House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) to tie welfare reform to proposed changes in Medicaid--a linkage the White House has said is all but certain to provoke a veto. Nearly 100 House Republicans have signed a letter calling on GOP leaders to reverse field and move a separate welfare bill that Clinton can sign.

But that course is adamantly opposed by Bob Dole’s presidential campaign, Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour and other Republicans who don’t want to give Clinton the chance to claim credit for reforming welfare.

The House Republicans seem unfazed.

“Everyone is more than willing to go the extra mile for Bob Dole. But at some time we want something we can take some credit for, particularly in the last month or two before the election,” said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.). “We need some big-ticket items.”

The yearning to place another legislative notch on the belt is not so strong in the Senate, where only one-third of the GOP members are up for reelection.

“The general Senate reaction is: If it’s a do-nothing Congress, it’s because [Clinton’s] vetoed everything we did,” said a top Senate GOP leadership aide. “We don’t need any more vetoes, we don’t need any more legislation.”

Nevertheless, Lott, who became majority leader in June after Dole left the Senate to campaign for president full time, has been working hard to broker an agreement on a long-stalled bill to make it easier for people to keep their health insurance coverage when they change or lose jobs.

Negotiations between Democrats and Republicans have foundered on GOP proposals to authorize medical savings accounts, which would allow people to save tax-free money for medical expenses. Opponents claim such accounts would benefit the wealthy at the expense of those who remain in the insurance pool. The warring sides have agreed on a compromise calling for a pilot project to study the accounts, but they have fought almost to a standstill over the details of how it would work.

Republicans are planning this week to try to pin the blame for the deadlock on Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), a leading opponent of the savings account plan, possibly by bringing the measure to the floor and forcing him to filibuster it.

“The only person standing between America and health care reform is Ted Kennedy,” said House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

Despite broad support for most elements of the bill, many are skeptical that the remaining differences can be resolved in the supercharged political atmosphere of this election year.

Similar questions surround the fate of immigration reform legislation, which has passed the House and Senate in different forms. Although House GOP leaders identify the immigration bill as a priority, they have been unwilling to drop a provision--adamantly opposed by Clinton--to deny illegal immigrants access to public education. Gingrich, in a July 3 letter to two Republican senators, personally reaffirmed his commitment to keeping that provision in the immigration bill.

House Republican leaders, in a recent memo outlining their legislative plans for the rest of the year, identified a number of priority bills in addition to ones on welfare, health and immigration and the 13 appropriations that must be passed before the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1. The memo gave high priority to enacting bills to reform housing programs, renew the Safe Drinking Water Act and provide tax credits to families who adopt children.

In addition, the leaders are hoping for action on bills that highlight campaign issues, including opposition to same-sex marriages and measures to curb juvenile crime. The memo indicates that the House may vote--with little hope of further action--on measures to limit affirmative action, make English the official language of government and overhaul the campaign-finance system.

Absent from the legislative radar screen is much talk of last year’s cornerstone GOP proposals to give families a $500-per-child tax credit, reduce the tax on capital gains and cut a variety of other individual and business taxes.

Lott and other GOP leaders say they are still committed to cutting taxes, but the modest small-business tax breaks headed to the Senate floor this week may be as far as Congress goes. It is not even certain that Republicans will bring up legislation to roll back the gasoline tax--an idea touted by Dole in his presidential campaign. GOP leaders recently considered, then rejected, the idea of adding the family tax credit to the bill to reform welfare and Medicaid.

“It doesn’t look good,” said a top aide to DeLay. “It’s going to take another election to enact major tax relief.”

It seems even less likely that Republicans will revive their efforts to curb the growth in spending for Medicare--changes they say are needed to shore up the program’s ailing trust fund. “I see that absolutely off the map,” said G. William Hoagland, staff director of the Senate Budget Committee.

Assistant Senate Majority Leader Don Nickles (R-Okla.) said his hopes for action on Medicare and tax cuts have dimmed markedly in light of the deep partisan divisions over the Medicaid-welfare bill, which was supposed to be the least controversial of the deficit-reduction measures.

Said Nickles: “I hate to throw in the towel. I don’t want to throw in the towel. But maybe it’s not possible.”

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The GOP Wish List

Republican leaders have identified several priority bills they want Congress to act on before the session ends this fall:

* Appropriations: 13 bills Congress must pass by Oct. 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year, to keep the government operating.

* Health: Legislation to make it easier for people to keep their health insurance when then change or lose jobs, including a GOP proposal to allow people to set up tax-exempt accounts to save for medical expenses.

* Welfare: Legislation to overhaul the welfare system by converting cash assistance programs into block grants to states, possibly linked to proposals to give states more flexibility to administer the Medicaid health care program for the poor.

* Immigration: Legislation to crack down on illegal immigration. House Republicans are insisting on a provision to deny illegal immigrants access to public education.

* Adoption: Legislation to provide tax credits for families to help offset the cost of adopting children.

* Housing: Legislation to overhaul federal public housing programs by shifting authority to communities.

* Pollution: Legislation to improve the quality of drinking water by helping states and cities upgrade treatment systems.