GOP Eager to Wrap Up Session and Hit the Trail

On a tax-cutting crusade for most of the year, the Republican congressional majority is now pursuing one overriding goal as the House and Senate resume work this week amid the tumult of a close-fought presidential campaign: Get out of town as soon as possible.

A speedy finale to a legislative year marked by bitter partisan warfare and, so far, few major accomplishments, would help GOP leaders on Capitol Hill in at least two ways. First, they would limit the extent to which gridlock in the 106th Congress becomes a live issue that hinders Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush. Second, they would give themselves precious days on the campaign trail before the Nov. 7 election to defend their own imperiled majority.

Their haste to adjourn--and to neutralize potentially potent Democratic lines of attack--already has led top Republicans to make concessions on some spending and economic issues, to the dismay of their conservative ranks.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) last week proposed a compromise that would raise the minimum wage to $6.15 an hour, from $5.15, over two years--an increase anathema to business lobbyists even though it would be packaged with tax breaks.

President Clinton, a master of the annual ritual of year-end negotiations with Congress, wasted little time Saturday seizing the opening.

“Month after month, even with bipartisan support in Congress, the Republican leadership has sat on our proposal to raise the minimum wage,” Clinton said in his weekly radio address. “So my message to Congress is simple: Stop stalling.

“If the subject is tax breaks for the wealthy, or legislative loopholes for special interests, this Congress moves with breathtaking speed.”

Republicans still plan to launch their own political missiles. On Thursday, one day after it returns from its summer break, the House is expected to vote on overriding Clinton’s veto of a bill to repeal the federal estate tax.

Even if the effort survives the House, it will in all likelihood die in the Senate. But another vote concerning the issue nonetheless will expose deep divisions among Democrats; earlier this year, nearly one-third of the House minority supported the measure.

Clearly, the end of the congressional session will pose risks for Republicans and Democrats alike, as lawmakers decide where to cut deals and where to draw bright lines of division to woo voters. All of them also will want to go home--by the target adjournment date of Oct. 6 or soon after.

“With the elections so close for the White House and Capitol Hill, both parties naturally are interested in campaigning,” said William Connelly, a professor of politics at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va. “They know that what matters is each of them getting home to their constituencies and explaining what it is that they’ve done for their folks back home.”

Republicans, defending a modest Senate majority and a slimmer House majority, are especially anxious. They learned the hard way in 1995-96 that shutting down the government over ideological disputes alienates more voters than it impresses.

“They don’t want another high-profile confrontation with a very adept and adroit Bill Clinton that will embarrass them just before the election,” Connelly said.

Key lawmakers say that, on a range of issues--from the minimum wage to education spending to, perhaps, a tax cut for married couples--Capitol Hill is shifting into deal-cutting mode.

“We’re probably going to have an interesting September,” said Rep. J.C. Watts Jr. of Oklahoma, chairman of the House Republican Conference, usually a leading source of partisan invective. Asked about possible compromises, Watts said: “We don’t know what the president’s wanting. We’re willing to talk with him.”

In fact, Clinton already has suggested a deal on the so-called “marriage penalty” bill, which would reduce taxes for married couples, both those who benefit and those who lose under the current tax code.

In June, before he vetoed the GOP-sponsored bill, Clinton offered to sign it if Republicans would consent to a Democratic-sponsored bill to create a new prescription drug benefit for senior citizens under the government health insurance program Medicare.

Republicans dismissed Clinton’s offer at the time. But it is notable that they have not yet scheduled a vote to override his veto of that tax-cutting bill--unlike their strategy on the bill to repeal the estate tax. Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho), leaders in their chamber, said in separate interviews that there is hope of a compromise on the marriage tax issue.

What separates the two major tax bills, Craig said, is Democratic rhetoric. “They’ve gone too far out on the estate tax, using it as a cultural war game of rich versus poor. I don’t want to give it to them,” he said, “because it’s a phony argument.”

But an attempt to deal on the marriage tax issue would raise questions about how Congress would handle prescription drug coverage for the elderly. Democrats want a standard benefit guaranteed under Medicare, while House Republicans have approved a less expensive plan that relies on private insurers to provide coverage options.

The prescription drug issue resonates among voters. Candidates across the country are talking about it. Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee, has attacked Texas Gov. Bush for failing to detail what he would do to expand drug coverage; Bush is expected to respond soon with specifics.

Republicans on Capitol Hill are aware that they may need to do more on the issue to help themselves and Bush. But whether that means a real compromise is unclear. “We want to have a prescription drug bill at the end of the day,” said Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas), chairman of the House Rules Committee. “But we don’t want to have a bill that is tantamount to an entitlement. . . . We want to focus on those who are really in need.”

Another volatile health-care issue that could generate more action before Congress breaks is HMO reform. Lawmakers for months have struggled, and failed, to reconcile differences between two major bills that would reshape the relationship between patients and health maintenance organizations. A House-approved bill, backed by Democrats and a minority of Republicans, would give more patients more leverage, but critics say it also would give too much power to trial lawyers.

Senate Democrats are seeking to force a fresh vote on the House HMO bill, thwarted until now in the Senate only by a narrow majority of Republicans. The death in July of a Republican senator who opposed the bill, Paul Coverdell of Georgia, allowed the appointment of a Democrat who supports it, Sen. Zell Miller. That, in turn, has fueled speculation that another showdown would be so close that Gore could, as vice president, cast a rare tie-breaking vote--a nightmare scenario for Republicans.

The end of any Congress is packed with bills. Among those that appear headed for passage this time is a controversial measure to normalize trade relations with China. After surviving a tough fight in the House in May, the trade bill has languished in the Senate as Republicans were in no hurry to act on legislation that deeply splits Democrats. But the Senate now seems poised to clear the bill within about two weeks, an outcome that would mark a major victory for Clinton and Republican leaders.

But Republicans face trouble on critical bills that fund government operations. So far, only two of the 13 annual spending bills have been enacted. Familiar battles are taking shape. Among them: Republicans will aim to hold down spending; limit initiatives to hire teachers and rebuild schools; and stop new federal regulations meant to protect workers from repetitive-motion injuries. Democrats will fight them at nearly every turn.

Whether Republicans will fare any better now on spending issues that have worked to Clinton’s advantage in previous years is unclear.

White House spokesman Joe Lockhart pledged cooperation. But he warned that Republicans “need to understand that we’re going to come with priorities: priorities about investing in health care; investing in education; making sure we protect our environment. And they need to understand that we will have problems if they decide that those are not their priorities and that those shouldn’t be priorities for this country.”