Democrats Act to Cut Trade Bill for GOP Votes

In a legislative maneuver aimed at extracting maximum political advantage from President Reagan’s declared plan to veto the trade bill, House Democrats on Tuesday prepared an unusual last-minute amendment to remove from the massive package a minor provision opposed by the two Republican senators from Alaska.

The House Rules Committee, in a move Republicans branded as unprecedented, rammed through by an 8-1 vote a resolution to insert a “technical amendment” into the trade bill in the brief period between final passage of the bill last week and the formal printing of the bill before it can be sent to Reagan for his signature or veto.

Reagan has repeatedly threatened to veto the bill so long as it contains another provision requiring companies with 100 or more employees to provide 60 days’ notice of plant closings and major layoffs.

Blunting Plant Issue

But Reagan aides who have been preparing his veto message are trying to blunt the plant-closing issue by naming other objectionable features as well. In that category is the provision, supported by U.S. maritime interests, to limit oil exports from future refineries in Alaska.

It was to counter that plan that House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.), with Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) offering tacit support, pushed Tuesday for a resolution that would strip the bill of the Alaskan oil export limitation.

Wright and other Democratic leaders insisted that they were merely trying to gain two more Senate votes--those of Alaska Republican Sens. Ted Stevens and Frank H. Murkowski--to override Reagan’s expected veto.

But sources in the Senate majority leader’s office conceded that even if “we pick up the two Alaskans, we’ll probably lose two others.” The Senate vote approving the trade bill last week was 63 to 36, three votes short of the two-thirds’ margin needed to override Reagan’s veto.