Helms Expected to Retire at End of Term

Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, icon of ultraconservatives and one of Congress’ most colorful and controversial members, is expected to announce today that he plans to retire when his term expires in 2003.

His departure, along with the decision by 98-year-old Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) not to seek reelection in 2002, heightens the battle for control of the Senate. Democrats now hold a one-vote majority, thanks to Sen. James M. Jeffords’ switch from Republican to independent earlier this year.

Helms, who turns 80 on Oct. 18, is expected to announce his plans by videotape on today’s 6 p.m. news at the same Raleigh TV station where, as an executive and commentator, he began his political career with a run for the U.S. Senate. He was swept into office as part of President Nixon’s landslide victory in 1972.

His return to WRAL-TV will likely mark the beginning of the end of his 30 years in public office.

“I would be very shocked if he ran,” a senior Republican official said Tuesday. “My very strong suspicion is he won’t.”

Helms’ office would not comment in advance of the announcement. But David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, said that he expects Helms to announce his decision to retire when his term expires in January 2003. “He just felt that this was the time to retire,” Keene said.

Elizabeth Hanford Dole, a former GOP presidential candidate and the wife of former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, is among those who might run to succeed Helms. Other possible Republican contenders are U.S. Rep. Richard M. Burr, former Charlotte Mayor Richard Vinroot and former Sen. Lauch Faircloth.

Democrat Elaine Marshall, who defeated racing legend Richard Petty in 1996 to become North Carolina secretary of state, has already declared her candidacy. Dan Blue, the former state House speaker who was the first African American to hold that post, also has been mentioned as a possible Democratic contender.

In some GOP circles, it is felt that Helms’ departure might strengthen Republican hopes of holding on to the seat. Helms’ age and health might have been an issue in a reelection campaign. Helms often uses a motorized scooter to get around the Capitol because of a nerve ailment.

Some strategists believe that Dole, with her national fund-raising base, North Carolina roots and appeal to women, could be a stronger candidate than Helms.

“This is one of those unusual cases where an incumbent retiring isn’t much of a blow to his party,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of a Washington-based political newsletter. “He was going to be a weak candidate for reelection.”

For many, however, Helms’ likely retirement signals the decline of a conservative era.

“Jesse Helms never needed the modifier ‘compassionate’ to his conservatism,” said Marshall Wittmann, senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute. “The very fact that [President] Bush has to modify his conservatism indicates that the type of conservatism that began with Helms’ rise to prominence has perhaps seen its best days.”

Keene, who credits Helms with playing a crucial role in the election of President Reagan, called Helms “the last of a breed.”

“No American politician is more controversial, beloved in some quarters and hated in others, than Jesse Helms,” says the Almanac of American Politics, quoting the senator as saying, “I am what I am, as Popeye says.”

Helms, the son of the Monroe, N.C., police chief, attended but did not graduate from Wake Forest University before joining the Navy in 1942. He worked as a journalist, a Senate aide and a TV commentator before winning his first Senate race in 1972.

“Rambo of the Geritol generation,” Bob Dole once quipped about Helms.

He also was nicknamed “Sen. No” because of his opposition to so many things: abortion rights, gay rights, federal funding for “obscene” art. Helms voted against extensions of the Voting Rights Act, which he called “insulting and degrading to the South.” He opposed redress to Japanese Americans for internment and opposed making Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday.

“Jesse Helms understood the fundamental logic of the United States Senate,” said Ross K. Baker, professor of political science at Rutgers University. “The power of the senator resides in his or her ability to say no, to block legislation. If you’re willing to tolerate the criticism that comes from taking an essentially negative role, you can be quite influential.”

Helms took such unyielding stances repeatedly on issues ranging from funding for the National Endowment of the Arts to paying dues to the United Nations.

His views have often stirred strong passions.

In 1991, AIDS activists put a 15-foot-long balloon shaped like a condom on Helms’ Arlington, Va., home to protest his opposition to federal funding for AIDS research.

In 1999, as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he called on the Capitol police to remove from a hearing room a number of congresswomen who tried to present him with a letter supporting an international treaty against gender discrimination.

Last year, President Clinton assailed Helms for blocking his every effort to “integrate” the conservative, all-white U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. Since then, the Senate has confirmed an African American to the court.

This year, Helms pushed an amendment to withhold federal funding from any public school that banned the Boy Scouts from meeting on school grounds because of the group’s exclusion of gay members and leaders.

The Democratic takeover of the Senate stripped Helms of most of his power as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Since Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) became committee chairman, Helms has remained mostly in the background.

As chairman, he established a reputation as a gadfly of U.S. foreign policy and a severe critic of the United Nations. Most secretaries of State, Republican as well as Democrat, said his name only through clenched teeth.

On policy matters, he opposed all efforts to relax U.S. relations with communist countries, especially in recent years with Cuba and China. He was the author of legislation tightening the economic embargo of Cuba and imposing sanctions on foreign companies that do business with Cuba.

Although Helms is an unrelenting critic of the United Nations, he was pivotal in putting together a compromise intended to pay off most of Washington’s back dues. He agreed to the payments after the U.N. agreed to cut the future U.S. assessments, reduce the size of the debt and agree to a series of internal reforms.

Last year, Helms surprised many inside and out of Congress when he signed on to an international debt relief campaign after being lobbied by the Irish rock star Bono. So deep was Bono’s impression on Helms that in June the senator attended a U2 concert in Washington, with his hearing aid turned way down.

Even if Republicans are able to hold on to Helms’ seat, political experts said its next occupant will likely have to adopt more moderate views.

“The nature of North Carolina politics since Jesse Helms was first elected has changed quite substantially,” said Baker, citing the election in 1998 of Democratic Sen. John Edwards. “It would be difficult for [the GOP] to reconstitute a Helms-like candidacy in North Carolina. Whatever Republican is going to run is going to have to trim his or her sails.”

Indeed, some GOP operatives were dispirited Tuesday as word spread about the senator’s plans.

“There’s no question Sen. Helms has been the most significant political figure in the 20th century to come out of North Carolina,” said state Republican Party Chairman Bill Cobey. “And if he retires, well, it will be the end of an era.”

Others in North Carolina expressed feelings far more mixed. Raleigh Sheriff John Baker Jr., a lifelong Democrat, said he has always respected Helms, who befriended his father, the first African American on the city’s police force, years ago and was among the first to call with condolences when his father died.

But Baker said Helms has long provoked intense feelings among constituents, although he added “most folks in the African American community aren’t so mixed in their feelings.”

Still, he said Helms had the ability to draw votes from all communities, election after election.

“A lot of people in North Carolina feel he is a very conservative person who makes it known his views are very conservative, and after all these years I think most people respect him for that,” Baker said.

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Times staff writers Ronald Brownstein in Kansas City, Megan Garvey and Norman Kempster in Washington, and Jeffrey Gettleman in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this story.

MORE INSIDE

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

A Career Marked by Controversy

BEFORE POLITICS

1921: Born Oct. 18 in Monroe, N.C.

1939-40: Attended Wake Forest University.

1942: Marries Dorothy Jane Cox of Raleigh on Oct. 31.

1942-45: Serves in Navy.

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POLITICAL CAREER

1951-53: Administrative assistant for U.S. Sen. Willis Smith.

1953-60: Executive director of the N.C. Bankers Assn.

1960-72: Executive vice president of WRAL-TV and the Tobacco Radio Network.

1972: Elected to the U.S. Senate with 54% of the vote.

1976: Nominated for vice president at the GOP convention in Kansas City. He asked that his name be withdrawn.

1978: Reelected with 55% of the vote.

1984: Reelected with 52% of the vote, defeating Gov. James B. Hunt Jr.

1987: Opposes Clean Water Act (joined by only five other senators) and arms control agreement with Soviets (joined by only two others).

1989: Introduces legislation prohibiting the use of federal funds by the National Endowment for the Arts for art considered obscene.

1990: One of only 11 senators to oppose Clean Air Act.

Reelected with 53% of the vote.

1992: Undergoes quadruple bypass surgery and heart valve replacement; Helms quits smoking.

1993: Loses battle to renew United Daughters of the Confederacy patent on symbol incorporating the Confederate flag.

1994: Warns that then-President Clinton “better have a bodyguard” if he visits North Carolina. Helms later apologizes for the remark.

1995: Inserts language in an NEA bill that prohibits funding for art that “denigrates religion” or depicts “excretory or sexual organs or activities.”

1996: Reelected with 53% of the vote.

2000: Blocks the third black Clinton nominee to the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, James W. Wynn Jr.

2001: Offers an education bill amendment that would withhold federal funding from public schools that banned Boy Scouts of America meetings on school grounds because of their exclusion of gays. Amendment passes but is countered by amendment introduced by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

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Researched by ROBERT PATRICK/Los Angeles Times