Intraparty Divisions Pose Legislative Agenda Threat

WASHINGTON —  It is fast becoming the consensus on Capitol Hill: This is a Congress at sea, adrift with no one at the helm to guide it.

As the House and Senate return today from a two-week recess, both parties are struggling with internal divisions that threaten to stymie progress on the federal budget, taxes and other issues that three months ago seemed ripe for bipartisan compromise.

Increasingly, the political interests of congressional Democrats are diverging from those of President Clinton: Many are cool to the kind of budget-balancing deal he wants to strike with the GOP and eager to keep their distance from White House fund-raising travail.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said Sunday that Clinton’s campaign finance woes may be delaying progress toward a balanced-budget agreement.

Speaking on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press,” Lott said he was disappointed and basically tired of waiting for serious negotiations to begin on a package to balance the budget by the year 2002.

“If we don’t see some quick action here, in the next week or 10 days, the president, I think, is beginning to get in the position of marginalizing himself,” he said.

Republicans, meanwhile, are at war with themselves over tax cuts and budget strategy, and the future of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) remains shrouded in uncertainty.

The next two months--the longest continuous period of congressional activity this year--will be an important test of whether the Republican Congress or the Clinton White House can seize the rudder and set the course for the rest of the year.

“There’s nobody on the bridge--they are all down doing damage control on the hull,” said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University. “The last thing this Congress needs, in addition to all the accusations of campaign finance irregularities, is to have a session barren of accomplishment.”

In stark contrast to the fast-paced opening of the Republican Congress in 1995, this session is off to a sluggish start. Initial hopes for early action on the budget were quickly dashed. The calendar has been riddled with long weekends and recesses, with little heavy lifting in between. During one week, the House voted on little more than a resolution endorsing the public display of the Ten Commandments and on measures praising the governments of Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Republican leaders say the light load is not a sign of malaise but a shift to a more traditional congressional pace: It typically takes time for major bills to work their way through committees and get to the House and Senate floors.

The pace began to pick up by the end of March, when the House passed one bill banning a form of late-term abortion and another to give more workers compensatory time off in lieu of overtime pay. The schedule for the next two months is uncertain but, this week, the House will take up a ban on federal aid for assisted suicide. The Senate plans to take up a nuclear waste disposal bill and later act on the antiabortion bill and a chemical weapons treaty.

But even with stepped-up activity, this year’s agenda has seemed to lack a driving sense of purpose. “We’ve been saying the right words but we’ve been saying it without conviction,” said Rep. Joe Scarborough (R-Fla.).

Until Congress finds a more gripping legislative focus, the atmosphere probably will continue to be dominated by two dark clouds: anxiety among Democrats about the allegations of fund-raising improprieties in the 1996 campaign and infighting among Republicans as Gingrich struggles to repair the damage done to his prestige by a protracted ethics investigation.

As Lott indicated on the NBC program, the coming weeks will be a crucial period for both Clinton and congressional Republicans in their efforts to strike a budget-balancing deal, a goal widely seen as Clinton’s best hope for jump-starting a second term that has been dogged by scandal. It is also seen as Republicans’ best shot at a major legislative accomplishment this year.

Clinton has said the budget will be his top priority after Congress reconvenes. But Lott said Sunday that allegations of improper Democratic fund-raising on behalf of Clinton’s reelection must be a “distraction” for the president.

“I assume, maybe, that has something to do with it,” he said of the delay in getting negotiations going. Congress is supposed to pass a resolution setting budget priorities by April 15, but Lott blamed what he described as Clinton’s inaction for making that unlikely to happen.

Lott also said he understood that little or nothing had come from low-level talks during the past two weeks between Clinton administration and congressional staff members.

“The reports I’m getting is that basically they’ve been talking about how nice it is they’re talking,” he said.

Congressional budget leaders are expected to meet with White House negotiators this week.

No one knows when or how--or even if--a compromise will be struck, but one thing is clear: In the process of reaching a deal with Republicans, Clinton runs the risk of alienating the liberal wing of his party, which has included many reluctant recruits to the cause of budget balancing.

“A lot of Democrats will give lip service” to balancing the budget, confided one House Democrat who asked not to be named. “But if it doesn’t happen and it’s not seen as their fault, it may not be a problem for them.”

Tensions within the party over budget strategy became apparent last month, when administration officials flirted with the idea of setting up a commission to propose adjustments in the consumer price index, an idea that could make it much easier to eliminate the deficit because it would roll back increases in Social Security and other benefits.

But the idea met stiff opposition from Democrats in Congress, most notably House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), a leading potential challenger to Vice President Al Gore’s probable claim to the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000.

The budget is not the only upcoming issue that threatens to divide Democrats. Gephardt and other Democrats also are at odds with Clinton over his efforts to expand the North American Free Trade Agreement and to get expedited authority to negotiate new trade agreements.

“One of the things that’s unnerving is that a lot of the Democrats disagree with what is likely to be on the president’s immediate agenda,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster. “If you’re trying to use these issue initiatives to break out of the political controversy and then you disagree on the issues, that muddles the message.”

The coming months also will test Democrats’ willingness to defend or distance themselves from the allegations of fund-raising improprieties that have occupied the White House.

Until now, debate about the issue on Capitol Hill has focused largely on procedural aspects of congressional inquiries: their budgets, duration and scope. Democrats have stood by Clinton in fighting what they regarded as efforts to stack the deck against him and by trying to expose questionable practices by Republicans. But increasingly, as the hearings get underway this summer, they will have to decide how far to go in defending the White House.

“Most people have taken the attitude that they are going to defend the administration, but they are not going to be a shill for the administration,” said a Democratic strategist, who asked not to be named. “The real test comes when the hearings start.”

For all the tensions within the Democratic Party, Republicans’ ability to exploit them will be limited by the disarray in their own ranks. They have been deeply divided over a core question about their agenda: whether balancing the budget should take priority over cutting taxes. Gingrich has been roundly criticized by conservatives for suggesting that tax cuts may take a back seat.

“The soul of the party is up for grabs,” said Stanley E. Collender, a budget specialist with Burson-Marsteller, a public relations firm. Before any budget deal can be reached with the White House, he said, “Republicans have to decide among themselves what they want to do.”

Further complicating the picture, Republican backbenchers have been rumbling with discontent over Gingrich’s leadership.

Two Republicans who have been highly critical of Gingrich said Sunday that his leadership job remains in jeopardy but he can redeem himself by moving forcefully to achieve such conservative goals as a major tax cut.

“I believe that unless Newt Gingrich dramatically reverses his positions . . . he will have to go,” said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.). But if Gingrich “can get on the path to redemption, I will certainly follow him on that.”

“There’s a real sense of malaise, that we need to get moving back on the agenda that we talked to the voters about in the last two elections,” added Rep. David M. McIntosh (R-Ind.).

McIntosh, who joined King on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation,” said it was important for Gingrich to schedule votes on a tax cut and other issues, such as eliminating federal funds for the National Endowment for the Arts and the renewal of trade status for China.

Gingrich’s allies say the speaker will return from Congress’ recess in fighting form. He has been buoyed by favorable press from his trip to Asia, where he took a get-tough approach with Chinese officials.

“Many members believe [Gingrich] is still the person who can lead our conference and deliver on the agenda we have set forward.” Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican Conference chairman, said on the CBS program.

But until Gingrich consolidates his power--or passes it on to someone else--analysts said it may be hard for Congress and the White House to consummate a deal on the budget or other major issues.

Times wire services contributed to this story.