Democrats Seek to Mend Strained Labor Relations

Democratic congressional leaders, yearning to recapture the House later this year, scrambled Thursday to repair their political relations with prominent labor leaders still smarting from this week’s bipartisan approval of a controversial China trade bill.

The labor leaders warned that Wednesday’s House vote to grant China permanent normal trade relations with the United States could significantly undercut the enthusiasm with which union activists work for some Democrats this fall, while causing some rank-and-file members to simply stay home on election day.

The anxiety among Democratic leaders over organized labor’s angry reaction to the China vote is heightened by the closeness of the House campaign. Independent analysts agree that Democrats have a good shot at picking up the six seats they need to take control of the 435-member chamber for the first time since 1994.

But the House vote on the China trade deal may have made that goal more difficult to reach. That’s because more than one-third of the 211 House Democrats--73 in all--sided with President Clinton and voted for the measure, despite a strong lobbying campaign against it by organized labor.

Fueling labor’s sense of betrayal: 17 of the Democrats who voted for the China trade bill had sided with labor in 1993 to oppose the North American Free Trade Agreement in the last landmark House vote on trade.

Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and himself an opponent of the trade bill, acknowledged the need for damage control with a group that historically has been one of the party’s key constituencies.

“This is obviously an important issue for labor,” Kennedy said. “It’s going to sting for a while.”

He added that he hoped labor leaders would “see the bigger picture in November” and that they would not make the China vote “a case for separation, let alone divorce.”

But in a news conference Thursday at AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, labor leaders showed no hint of a desire to kiss and make up.

“A very real concern is that this debate will depress [voter] turnout among working people [in November], especially in districts where representatives voted to . . . grant China permanent normal trade relations,” said John J. Sweeney, president of the labor group.

He added: “It’s going to be hard for working men and women not to look at this vote and become more cynical about whether people and principles can pay off in politics--or whether big money is all powerful.”

Analysts pointed to Rep. Dennis Moore of Kansas as an example of a Democrat who could be hurt by voting for the China deal. A freshman, Moore scored a narrow victory in a closely divided district in 1998 largely on the strength of strong labor support. Now, he may have to work harder to generate such backing.

The China trade measure now goes to the Senate, where it has been widely assumed that it will easily pass. But signs surfaced Thursday that it may encounter at least a few snags in the GOP-controlled chamber.

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a leading critic of the communist regime in Beijing, vowed Thursday to push for “a robust debate” on the bill.

Also, senators from both parties could seek to change it in ways that would require another House vote--a scenario that many trade bill proponents hope to avoid.

Assuming the bill eventually becomes law, many political analysts remained skeptical that by the time November arrives, labor anger over the China vote will still be intense enough to harm many Democrats. They note that on other issues of prime importance to unions--such as minimum wage, Social Security and health care--a Democratic-controlled House is clearly in labor’s best interests.

Stuart Rothenberg, a Washington-based analyst who specializes in congressional elections, predicted that the vote on the China trade bill ultimately will mean “nothing, absolutely nothing,” to the overall dynamic of the House campaign.

But Richard J. Trumka, the AFL-CIO’s secretary-treasurer, said that the House vote “made a difficult job”--recapturing the House--”more difficult.”

Among Republican strategists, attention focused on those Democrats who sided with labor and voted against the China bill.

Rep. Thomas M. Davis of Virginia, head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said that in swing districts the GOP now would seek to target those Democrats as out of step with the “new economy” of high-technology and global trade.

Among the potential targets Davis named, all opponents of the bill Wednesday, were Reps. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), David Wu (D-Ore.), James H. Maloney (D-Conn.) and Joseph Hoeffel (D-Pa.).

“These are votes that don’t probably don’t help them,” Davis said. “It’ll hurt. It helps to define them as labor Democrats, not the ‘new Democrats’ they try to portray themselves.”

The House vote was already reverberating Thursday in California, a state with several critical House races.

“There is some major fence-mending to be done on the part of Democratic officials,” said Miguel Contreras, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Labor Federation, who came to Washington this week to lobby lawmakers in person. “What it really affects are the labor activists, the ones who go out there and walk the precincts, who make the telephone calls, man the campaign headquarters. Those are the ones I’m getting phone calls from right now, expressing their anger and disappointment.”

He added: “It’s tough to move a mountain if you don’t have the army.”

Campaigns for at least four California seats now held by Republicans are highly competitive this year: the 15th Congressional District, which Rep. Tom Campbell (R-San Jose) is vacating to run for the U.S. Senate; the 27th, where Rep. James E. Rogan (R-Glendale) faces Democratic state Sen. Adam Schiff; the 36th, where Rep. Steven T. Kuykendall (R-Rancho Palos Verdes) faces a challenge from former Democratic Rep. Jane Harman, and the 49th, where Rep. Brian P. Bilbray (R-San Diego) faces Democratic challenger Susan Davis, a state assemblywoman.

But the China bill will not offer a clear-cut contrast in any of these races. Rogan, Kuykendall and Bilbray voted for the bill and state Assemblyman Jum Cunneen, the GOP candidate for Campbell’s seat, backed it. In each race, the Democratic contenders also have said that they supported the bill.

One state political analyst, Allan Hoffenblum, predicted Thursday that in Campbell’s district, the Democratic candidate, state Sen. Mike Honda, will benefit from favoring the measure. Doing so, Hoffenblum said, should bolster Honda’s credentials with the district’s large number of Silicon Valley businesses and workers.

“I’m sure Honda realized that [supporting the bill] sent a message to high-tech that he is not in lock-step with labor,” Hoffenblum said. “If he had done otherwise, that could have caused him problems.”

The analyst added that the district includes a large number of “wine-and-cheese Democrats, not particularly fans of big labor.”

* Times staff writer Janet Hook contributed to this story.