Reid, Pelosi Expected to Keep Tight Rein in Both Chambers

"But it gets more complicated after that," said a former White House and congressional aide who knows Democratic lawmakers well. Especially in the Senate, he said, a party with a 51 to 49 majority will find it difficult to surgically raise, lower or leave alone certain taxes without opening the door for Republicans to push their own priorities.

Pelosi said that Democratic leaders want to demonstrate their effectiveness, and build up some trust with the White House, by tackling legislation that will have bipartisan support. Bush's "innovation agenda," laid out last year in his State of the Union address, has largely lain dormant. Democrats would like to take up Bush's proposals to expand funding for basic research and alternative energy sources such as ethanol, she said.

Democrats would also work with Bush to resurrect his proposed overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, which would pair tough border security measures with new paths to legal work and citizenship for the country's 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants, Pelosi said. And she is convinced Bush will back a higher minimum wage.

But even Pelosi questioned how quickly such legislative efforts can come together. "I guess the word 'rapid' is what gives me hesitation," she told a handful of reporters in her office.

Pelosi continues to put flesh on the bare-bones proposals that Democratic candidates campaigned on. As soon as she is elected speaker -- which does not appear in doubt -- Democrats will vote on a substantive slate of changes to the way the House operates, she said. They will include rules to diminish lobbyists' influence, ensure that lawmakers and the public have time to read legislation before lawmakers vote on it, open House-Senate legislative negotiating sessions to the media, and reinstitute lapsed budget rules that say any new spending or tax cuts must be offset by equal tax hikes or spending cuts.

Democrats also will extend new rules mandating that each home-district pet project, known as an earmark, be identified by the name of the lawmaker who sponsored it. Earmarks would have to be authorized by policymaking committees before they are approved by the Appropriations Committee.

Democrats avoided a potentially brutal intraparty fight yesterday when Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) decided not to run for the post of House majority whip next week. That would have pitted Emanuel, who has a huge well of support from this year's successful campaign, against James E. Clyburn (S.C.), the current chairman of the Democratic Caucus and the only African American in the Democratic leadership.

After delicate negotiations with Pelosi, Emanuel agreed to stand for caucus chairman, leaving the whip post to Clyburn. Under the agreement, John B. Larson (Conn.), the caucus vice chairman, will stay at that post rather than seek promotion, but both Emanuel and Larson would be offered additional power and responsibilities, according to Democratic leadership aides.

Emanuel's decision raised pressure on John P. Murtha (Pa.) to drop his challenge to House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) for the post of House majority leader. But that battle continued to heat up ahead of the Thursday vote.

Congress will reassemble next week for a lame-duck session devoted mostly to completing work on the spending bills needed to keep the government operating. But with Democrats assuming the majority in January, not much will happen, Senate Republican aides conceded.