Democrats Squeak Agenda Past GOP Leaders in House

Let’s get this straight: The GOP-led House, a bastion of anti-regulatory fervor, is about to approve strict regulations this week on managed health care plans. House Republicans, long in the vanguard of antilabor sentiment, also may soon help pass a minimum wage increase.

And the House already has approved a campaign finance bill that Republican leaders warned would be political hara-kiri for the party.

A full year before voters decide whether to reelect a Republican majority to Congress, it is beginning to look as though the GOP is losing control of the House.

The managed care bill, despised by Republican leaders and adored by Democrats, is the latest and perhaps most vivid example. A united Democratic House contingent, joined by a handful of Republicans, has wrested control of the issue from the GOP leadership and appears poised to push through its own version of the bill.

And HMO legislation is only this week’s example. The Democrats have forced the Republican leadership to address a succession of issues, including gun safety, that are top Democratic Party priorities. And when Republicans have pushed their own signature issues--cutting taxes and controlling government spending--they have achieved surprisingly little traction. This year’s big GOP tax cut died after Clinton vetoed it.

And as Republicans struggled to cut spending, they suffered the indignity of being repudiated by their own party’s presidential front-runner, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who criticized them for proposing changes in a tax break for the working poor.

“As a party, we have a tin ear,” acknowledged Rep. Mark E. Souder (R-Ind.), who also opposed the tax credit proposal.

“They lost the offense when their tax bill was vetoed and they decided to drop it,” said Marshall Wittmann, a congressional analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington. “Now they are playing on Democratic turf.”

The whole chaotic scene provides a glimpse of the awkward place where congressional Republicans may find themselves between now and the 2000 election: at risk of alienating restless conservatives who form the party’s political core, on the one hand, and in danger of being rebuked by Bush, on the other, as he tries to appeal to moderates and independent voters with his center-right brand of “compassionate conservatism.”

In a speech Tuesday, Bush for the second time in a week accused his own party’s conservatives of going too far.

“Too often on social issues my party has painted an image of America slouching toward Gomorrah,” Bush said in a speech about education policy. “Too often my party has confused the need for limited government with the disdain for government itself.”

On Capitol Hill, much of this fall has been dominated by budget matters. Following the demise of the tax cut, Republicans have staked their identity on keeping a lid on government spending for things other than the Pentagon.

“We’re increasing defense spending and controlling non-defense spending,” said Kevin Ring, spokesman for a caucus of conservative House Republicans. “Our accomplishments are going to be buried in appropriations bills. It’s not as good-looking as individual rifle-shot bills but we still control the agenda.”

The House, however, has also taken up an array of issues, despite fervent opposition from the GOP leadership: Campaign finance reform passed in September. A minimum wage increase is expected to come up before the end of the year. Gun control measures may yet come up.

A big part of the problem for House Republicans is the sheer narrowness of their margin of control. They lose control of an issue any time six or more Republicans defect on party line votes. That’s why Republican leaders this fall were forced to schedule debate on campaign finance reform and HMO bills they oppose: A majority of the House supported them and could force votes on those issues anyway.

The narrow margin has given Republican moderates more influence within the party. Indeed, that’s why House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) thinks his party’s agenda is making headway.

“These bills are desired by the American people and what’s happened is finally enough moderate Republicans have split off from their leadership to help us get these bills on the floor,” Gephardt said recently.

Democrats also have managed to strengthen their own position by picking their fights carefully, sticking with simple, populist issues that appeal to moderates of both parties.

“We’re in a period where a lot of people are very distrustful of government action so the issues that catch on are very narrow: raising the minimum wage, giving patients more rights,” said Robert Blendon, professor of health policy at Harvard University.

Indeed, nowhere have the tribulations of the House Republican leadership been more striking than in the debate over the bill to give patients more leverage in fighting their managed health care plans. After struggling for months to keep the issue off the floor, they now are in an eleventh-hour scramble to stem the tide sweeping toward passage of the bipartisan bill that would allow consumers to recover substantial damages from their health plans in state courts.

Indeed, even House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) announced Tuesday that, despite his opposition to expanding health plans’ liability, he would probably vote for a GOP alternative that would allow people to sue a health plan in federal court under very limited circumstances.

“They saw a train coming and they said, ‘Gosh, that’s a train, not just noise,’ ” said Rep. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who supported the GOP plan.

The issue is a political juggernaut because it matters to the middle class, involves a simple message, is espoused by a core Republican constituency--doctors--and it is essentially a limited proposal in contrast to the broader health care reform bills of past years.

What’s more, it gathered an inexorable momentum when several conservative Republicans--not just predictable moderates from swing districts--deserted their party and joined Democrats to champion the legislation because the GOP leadership repeatedly put off scheduling the debate. Led by two doctors--Charlie Norwood (R-Ga.) and Gregg Ganske (R-Iowa)--the group also included entrenched conservatives such as Graham.

“I’m a conservative but I’m a populist,” Graham said. “Most Americans want HMOs to be on the hook.”

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* BUSH ON EDUCATION

George W. Bush proposes a retooling of federal funding for schools. A11