Congressional Newcomers, but Hardly Neophytes

By Janet Hook

Nov. 13, 2002 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON —

For a crop of newcomers, these freshmen are remarkably experienced.

The 60 or so people just elected to the House and Senate have come to Washington this week to learn the ropes, but some could be viewed as almost overqualified for the job. They include two former presidential candidates, a former White House senior advisor and a governor who has deigned to become a mere House member.

But the new lawmakers all have one thing in common: They were elected in a year when President Bush dominated the political landscape.

“Part of presidential power is how members of Congress interpret what happened” in the last election, said Charles Jones, emeritus professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin. “They are going to be attentive to what Bush wants.”

The result is a new generation of Republican lawmakers who reflect the old-fashioned virtue of loyalty to their president, and a hardy cadre of Democrats who in several cases won against the odds.

The class of GOP freshmen stands in striking contrast to the Republicans who stormed Capitol Hill after the 1994 elections, when the party won control of Congress for the first time in 40 years. That group included many political amateurs determined to upend the Washington establishment.

“What we have is a group of people who have committed their lives to government service,” said Mitch Bainwol, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “These are people who are not running against government; they are running to make government work.”

The final makeup of the new Congress hinges on the outcome of four undecided House races -- in Colorado, Hawaii, Louisiana and New York -- and a Senate race in Louisiana, where Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu faces a Dec. 7 runoff against Republican Suzanne Haik Terrell. As of now, the House will include 228 Republicans, 202 Democrats and one independent who usually sides with the Democrats; the Senate will have at least 51 Republicans, 47 Democrats and one independent who sides with the Democrats.

The freshman class -- roughly 50 new House members and 10 new senators -- will not be sworn in until the new Congress convenes in January. But they are in Washington this week to get office assignments, begin assembling staff and attend orientation sessions.

The new members include a paper mill worker from Maine -- Rep.-elect Michael Michaud, a Democrat. There’s also a multimillionaire former senator, Sen.-elect Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who already has a federal building named after him, and Sen.-elect Elizabeth Hanford Dole (R-N.C.), the former Labor secretary who collected almost $900,000 in speaking fees in 2001. And Dole and Sen.-elect Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) are veterans of the presidential campaign trail; both sought the Republican nomination in 2000.

The House Republican freshman class includes a celebrity of the disputed 2000 presidential election -- Florida Rep.-elect Katherine Harris, who as Florida’s secretary of state was a key figure in the controversial recount that delivered the White House to Bush.

History was made with the election to the House of Linda T. Sanchez (D-Lakewood), which will give Congress its first sister lawmakers. Her older sibling Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) won her fourth term.

They will be joined in the House by brothers from Florida -- Rep.-elect Mario Diaz-Balart and Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who won his sixth term. Both are Republicans.

Other races rewarded people for whom politics has been a family business. New senators include not just Dole -- wife of former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) -- but John E. Sununu (R-N.H.), whose father, John H. Sununu, served as White House chief of staff in the first Bush administration. Another new senator is Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), whose father also served in the Senate and who is a former governor of Arkansas.

Both parties sent back to Washington two of their accomplished political operatives. Democrat Rahm Emmanuel, former top aide to President Clinton, won a House seat in Illinois; Republican Tom Cole, former top aide to the Republican National Committee, won a House seat in Oklahoma.

The election did little to advance the representation of women and African Americans. The new Congress will include 62 women in the House and 13 in the Senate -- the same as in the current Congress. There will continue to be no blacks in the Senate and 39 in the House. The number of Latinos in the House will increase from 19 to 23, with none in the Senate.

Another new House member will be William J. Janklow, a Bush confidant who has been governor of South Dakota for 16 of the last 24 years. Governors running for another office generally seek a Senate seat rather than one in the House.

“It’s a tough transition, from being a unitary leader to being one of 435 people,” said Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

Two members of Congress will be making return engagements. Lautenberg, 78, retired in 2000 after serving three Senate terms. But desperate New Jersey Democrats turned to him in early October as their ballot replacement for Sen. Robert Torricelli, who abruptly ended his reelection bid because of questions about his personal finances.

Rep.-elect Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) served in the House from 1983 to 1995; he is returning after giving up his seat for a failed 1994 Senate bid.

“This is an amazingly savvy group,” Jones said.

On the ideological front, the elections may have reinforced the split among Republicans between the conservative-dominated House and the more moderate Senate. Many House GOP freshmen were elected with the support of an anti-tax group that has made a practice of trying to defeat moderate Republicans in GOP primaries.

The GOP’s new senators are a mix of conservatives and moderates. But overall, the strength of the party’s conservative wing in the Senate suffered a big blow with the retirements of Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Phil Gramm of Texas and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.

Many of the Democrats who bucked the election’s GOP tide are like Pryor and Rep.-elect Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.), who campaigned on conservative, pro-gun rights’ platforms. Bush’s shadow over the election may push such Democrats into his camp on key issues.

“People in moderate districts are going to be more deferential to him initially,” said a senior House Democratic strategist said of the president. As long as Bush’s popularity remains high, the aide said, “he’s going to continue to influence Democrats.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Congress capsule

The next Congress, by the numbers:

Republicans

House* -- 228

Senate** -- 51

Democrats

House* -- 202

Senate** -- 47

Independent

House* -- 1

Senate** -- 1