Congress Poised to Finish Budget Work After Election Day

Congress laid the groundwork Wednesday for a rare lame-duck session, postponing major spending and tax cut decisions until after next week’s election.

The Senate voted to recess until Nov. 14. Although the House decided to stay in town at least until Friday, it now seems inevitable that Congress will not finish its work before the election.

The different approaches by the two Republican-controlled chambers underscored just how difficult it is now to get anybody in Washington--even members of the same party--to agree on anything. It is perhaps a fitting finale to this Congress that the end is so uncertain.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) persuaded his colleagues to declare a cooling-off period in Congress’ dispute with the Clinton administration over the remaining budget bills that must be passed to fund the government in fiscal 2001.

But in the House, Republicans were deeply divided about the political wisdom of ending the session now and finishing its business in a lame-duck session.

Concerns About ‘Do-Nothing’ Label

At a contentious closed-door meeting of the House Republican Conference, many argued that such a strategy would put the GOP in political peril by giving ammunition to Democrats who argue that a “do-nothing” Republican-controlled Congress has fallen down on the job.

“Unless the politics of this time completely obfuscates the ability to get things done, we’re going to stay here and work,” said House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.).

Some GOP lawmakers in tight races fear that it would be politically risky to leave town without trying to finish their business.

“There is concern,” said Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), that Democrats are trying to lure the GOP into a political trap. “They could run around the country and say: ‘[Republicans] can’t get their work done.’ ”

Some other Republican lawmakers worried that every day spent in Washington is a day lost with voters. Said a House Democratic leadership aide: “From our perspective, it’s over. It’s done. The Senate is gone. Congress has failed. If House Republicans want to keep up some artifice we’re working for the next four or five days, fine. Obviously we are not.”

Congress approved a 12th stopgap funding measure Wednesday, this one to keep government agencies operating through midnight tonight.

After the Senate also approved a resolution to fund the government to Nov. 14, many senators left town, assuming that the House would go along. But with the House balking at the longer stopgap funding measure, the Senate must reconvene today to approve another one-day funding measure.

“Their chaos speaks for itself,” said a White House official. President Clinton, who previously declared that he would approve no more than one-day stopgap funding measures, is expected to sign the longer stopgap measure if it is approved by the House. “We’re resigned to the fact that this is a do-nothing Congress, and keeping them here will not change that reality,” the White House official said.

Environment Projects Among Pending Bills

One of the issues facing the House before it adjourns is final approval of a bill to restore the Florida Everglades at a cost of $7.8 billion and authorize other environmental projects.

Although the House may stay in session longer than the Senate, Republicans conceded that a lame-duck session is inevitable.

“There’s no way we can get all the appropriations bills done before the election,” said House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas). Only seven of the 13 spending bills for the 2001 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, have been signed into law.

If they do meet in lame-duck session, Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.) said, the post-election environment would be an invitation to irresponsible legislating.

“It would be a recipe for absolute chaos,” he said. “It’s garbage time.”

Both sides, however, appeared willing to engage in a political roll of the dice, betting that their bargaining positions will be strengthened if their party’s nominee wins the presidency.

“This is a gamble on both sides that the election will turn out in a way that will give them more leverage,” said Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington-based think tank.

Although Clinton will still be president and the same members of Congress will be back after the election, both parties are expected to be heavily influenced by the political message voters send when they make their choices for president and Congress.

Whether Republican George W. Bush or Democrat Al Gore is elected president--and whether Republicans or Democrats control the House--would carry weight in negotiations over funding for schools, amnesty for illegal immigrants, an increase in the minimum wage and tax cuts.

Congress’ inability to resolve the budget before the election is the perfect emblem of this legislative session as a whole.

This is a Congress that has fought to a draw on a wide array of issues: tax cuts, Medicare prescription drug benefits, new protections for members of health maintenance organizations and new gun safety requirements.

Despite bipartisan support for each of those measures in principle, all have died rather than being part of legislative deal-cutting and compromise.

Many of those measures have stalled precisely because of the prospects of the 2000 election. Both sides, at different times, have concluded that there was little incentive to compromise on core issues--in part because of the belief that better deals might be made after the election.

Despite the heated rhetoric of the immigration debate, the administration and Republican leaders actually appear fairly close to agreement on some issues--including a proposal to help many thousands of foreign nationals who entered the United States illegally before 1982 and for years have sought unsuccessfully to take advantage of a landmark 1986 federal amnesty.

But a key issue that remains unresolved is whether to help Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Haitians and Hondurans who came to the country in the late 1980s and early 1990s, many of them illegally. Republicans so far have resisted a Democratic effort to cut a deal for such immigrants--even though Congress cut special deals previously for Cuban and Nicaraguan refugees.

Lott told reporters that immigration reform remains a huge legislative stumbling block.

Among other measures that Lott said could “complicate” prospects for an agreement is an eleventh-hour push by farm lobbyists to expand an agricultural guest-worker program.

Asked whether such a proposal is still alive, Lott told reporters: “Everything’s alive--until everything’s finished or dead.”

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Times staff writer Nick Anderson contributed to this story.