Deep Rift Awaits Bush in Capital

With the presidential contest at last concluded, Congress is awash with earnest promises of bipartisanship and plans to cooperate with George W. Bush’s new administration.

But if all the harmonious talk is to take root, it will take something like a personality transplant for Congress and its leaders.

Even if the passions of the postelection struggle soon dissipate, Bush’s efforts to build coalitions in Congress that cross party lines will be up against deep, enduring forces that have driven a wedge between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill. Those forces risk turning the traditional honeymoon period for a president into an ugly battle for custody over the legislative agenda.

Ever since--and even before--President Clinton’s impeachment trial, Congress has been a deeply partisan place where political opponents do not just disagree with one another, they often loathe each other. Disputes quickly escalate into scorched-earth political war, such as the 1995-96 budget dispute that ended in government shutdowns.

“Right now, everyone’s on their best behavior,” said G. Calvin Mackenzie, professor of government at Colby College in Maine. “That will last until the first controversy comes along. . . . Those fissure lines will open very quickly.”

Already there are signs that President-elect Bush’s most ambitious campaign promises--Social Security reform, an across-the-board tax cut and school vouchers--face resistance, even among fellow Republicans.

“It’s likely to be, at least in the first year, a presidency of small advances rather than broad, sweeping changes,” said Rep. Mark E. Souder (R-Ind.).

Undaunted, Bush aides and their GOP allies in Congress said that the new president will be reaching out to Democrats and planning a legislative strategy that begins with issues he hopes will enjoy bipartisan support, such as education and Medicare reform. They acknowledge that the wafer-thin majority Republicans enjoy in the House and the 50-50 partisan split in the Senate make bipartisanship a necessity, not a luxury.

Some centrists in both parties hold out hope that the very trauma of the postelection fight will weaken old partisan reflexes. And they forecast that the narrow margins in Congress could serve as a catalyst--rather than an impediment--to bipartisanship.

“We’re going to have to have a totally different working relationship,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) tried to start the process by calling Bush in Austin, Texas, on Thursday to congratulate him on his election victory. Bush called back and arranged to meet with them while he is in Washington on Monday.

The president-elect is to meet today with Sen. John B. Breaux of Louisiana, a moderate Democrat who already has emerged as potentially a key link between his party and the new White House.

Still, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) has cautioned that it will take a “Herculean effort” for Congress to change its ways.

And Bush will take office lacking many of the tools that have helped other presidents bend Congress to their will. For instance, he does not wield the political clout that often comes with a commanding victory. Few if any Republicans in Congress believe that they owe their election to him.

By contrast, the strength of President Reagan’s coattails gave him a powerful hold on the loyalty of a vast number of GOP lawmakers elected in 1980. And they responded by helping him push his domestic agenda through a Democratic-controlled Congress.

Ari Fleischer, a Bush spokesman, said that the president-elect can still do a great deal, even if he did not win big.

“The measure of how much you’re able to enact is tied less to your margin of victory than to your quality as a leader and the quality of your ideas,” said Fleischer.

But Bush also lacks a team of legislative leaders who are pragmatic deal-makers in the mold of former Rep. Robert H. Michel of Illinois and former Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, who were House and Senate GOP leaders under Reagan. They brought vast legislative experience that helped shepherd Reagan’s program through Congress. Today’s congressional leaders, by contrast, are schooled more in the art of partisan combat than legislative compromise.

Indeed, the tensions between the parties remain on display, despite promises of cooperation.

“President-elect Bush says he will bring a new spirit to Washington,” said Gephardt. “There are still some Republicans in Washington who have not heard this message.”

GOP lawmakers, for their part, question the commitment among Democrats to achieve legislative compromises.

“My friends on the other side of the aisle--I know how they define bipartisanship: when we agree with them,” said Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho), a member of the Republican leadership.

Daschle did little Thursday to quell such attitudes. At a news conference calling for bipartisanship, he essentially brushed off Bush’s claim to set the agenda. “The issues that [Democrat] Al Gore and Joe Lieberman ran on [in the presidential race] are the issues that will dominate the next Congress.”

Other obstacles to bipartisanship reside in Bush’s own party. Conservatives are already battling with moderate Republicans over just how far the GOP should go in reaching out to Democrats.

GOP moderates have moved more aggressively to counter the more partisan tactics of conservatives such as House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), one of the party’s most combative leaders. Last week, for example, moderates openly challenged DeLay’s proposal to take a hard line in current budget negotiations with President Clinton.

Moderate Republicans also met recently with conservative Democrats in both the House and Senate and announced formation of a centrist coalition. That infuriated many conservative Republicans such as DeLay, who voiced concern about the new coalition in a closed-door GOP leadership meeting.

“Conservatives understand that Bush is going to have to reach toward the middle,” said Souder. But he added: “We’re not going to put up with the sellouts.”

Given these political crosscurrents, many Republican lawmakers have been advising Bush to use his first 100 days to push some of his smaller initiatives--advice that upends the traditional view that new presidents should move quickly on their most ambitious proposals.

House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) is urging Bush to go slow on his ambitious plan to allow some private investment of Social Security taxes. Republicans expect the president-elect to start by proposing a commission to study options for the retirement program.

Other House Republicans are suggesting that Bush move quickly on some elements of his tax cut package--elimination of the estate tax, for example--rather than push his entire plan for slashing $1.3 trillion in taxes.

“We’re the most successful when we take tax ideas a piece at a time,” House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said Thursday.

Fleischer, Bush’s spokesman, said it is too early to say exactly how the tax plan will move through Congress. But he reiterated the president-elect’s commitment to an across-the-board cut.

The perils of partisanship also could plague Bush if, as he and his allies have indicated, he makes education reform one of his first initiatives in Congress. The problem is that, although both sides say they want to improve education, it will take considerable political skill to find a plan that can win broad bipartisan support.

Republicans and Democrats continually battle over the question of federal versus local control in education issues. The polarization was so pronounced this year that Congress could not even finish work on routine reauthorization of the federal government’s major education aid law before the Nov. 7 election.

To avoid such impasses, GOP moderates are recommending that Bush hold off pushing for a school voucher system, which would provide parents with federal subsidies they could use for public or private education.

“That would be controversial and, in a divided Senate, would not be wise,” said Sen. James M. Jeffords (R-Vt.), chairman of the Senate committee that oversees education. “My advice would be let’s go with something we could get passed.”

No one is more aware than Lott of how hard it will be to build habits of bipartisanship--and he is not betting on the proposition.

“We’ll all start off, I think, trying to help and reach across the aisle and be positive,” said Lott. “How long will it last? How difficult will it be? Only time will tell.”

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Times staff writer Alissa J. Rubin contributed to this story.