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Senate Takes Conservative Turn

The Senate that President Clinton will face in January is considerably more conservative than the Senate he often relied on over the past two years to calm the revolutionary impulses of House Republican freshmen and Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).

But Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) sent mixed signals yesterday about likely relations between Clinton and Congress in the president's second term, suggesting opportunities for cooperation so long as certain Republican conditions are met.

Two years after Senate Republicans took a back seat to their more aggressive House colleagues at the start of the 104th Congress, Lott appeared ready to take a leading role in setting the tone for the 105th. He was clearly buoyed by Senate GOP gains in Tuesday's elections, which contrasted with a shrinking of the party's majority in the House and its failure to win the presidency.

While House Republicans were losing a handful of seats, the Senate GOP expanded its 53-47 majority by at least one seat--two if it wins a still-undecided race in Oregon--and continued to solidify its conservative base.

Nearly all of the eight or nine new Senate Republicans will be more conservative than the senators they are replacing, some vastly more so. This is true both for most of those replacing retiring Republicans, many of whom are moderates, and for those taking seats of departing Democrats.

This is likely to put the Senate more in step with the Gingrich-led House. But Lott, a longtime ally of the speaker's, went out of his way yesterday to signal that Senate Republicans were willing to deal with Clinton and his agenda--even though their political price might be high on some issues, such as Medicare.

Moving quickly to occupy a Capitol Hill stage left virtually empty because most legislators were at home for the election, Lott held a mid-morning news conference to serve notice on Clinton that Senate Republicans were prepared to make sure he stays on a smaller-government, less-spending, lower-taxes track. "If Clinton goes back to big-government solutions and tax increases, we certainly will resist that with all our energy," he said.

But Lott also said Clinton was entitled to lay out his program without having to deal with the kind of 100-day legislative blitz that House Republicans mounted, based on their "Contract With America" pledges, after the GOP took control of Congress in 1994. Many of these initiatives were rejected or modified by the Senate.

"The president is sort of entitled to the first at-bat," Lott said. "We're not going to rush out there . . . and start trying to pass 'X' number of bills in the first 100 days."

Lest Clinton begin to relax, Lott made it clear that he expected the president to take the initiative on tough, dangerous issues as well as the easy, rewarding ones.

For instance, on Medicare, which Clinton accused the Republicans of jeopardizing in order to finance tax cuts for the wealthy, the president would have to "basically admit that he demagogued it" and come up with specific proposals to cut costs, Lott said. "Let's see how he swings at this problem, since he has ducked it," Lott said.

Lott also said he had no intention of letting investigations into alleged wrongdoing by the Clinton administration and Democratic fund-raisers dominate the agenda of the 105th Congress. But hearings should be held and an independent counsel should be appointed, he added.

As for campaign finance reform, he expressed misgivings about pending legislation by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) that was endorsed by Clinton and suggested a broader look at campaigns as a whole, which could take a while and raise even more controversies than McCain-Feingold bill.

The post-election message from Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) seemed directed at Lott as well as Clinton. "If there's a mandate in this election, it's a mandate for moderation and bipartisan cooperation," Daschle said in a statement. Republicans were able to win in the Senate only because they rejected an "extreme agenda" and worked with Democrats to pass health care and minimum wage legislation, he argued.

Tuesday's voting showed none of the anti-incumbent anger that marked the 1994 elections and resulted in reelection of all but one of the 20 incumbents of both parties who chose to run again.

The single exception was three-term Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.), who was defeated by Rep. Tim Johnson (D) in what many observers attributed at least in part to reports--published by the news media and exploited by Johnson--that Pressler may have used campaign funds to support a lavish lifestyle.

The Republicans offset the Pressler loss and added to their own majority by winning three open seats being vacated by retiring Democrats, two of them in the South, adding to the already heavy southern tilt of the Republican Senate.

The victors in these races were investment banker Chuck Hagel in Nebraska, state Attorney General Jeff Sessions in Alabama and Rep. Tim Hutchinson in Arkansas--with Republicans taking special delight in snatching away a seat in Clinton's home state.

This would give Republicans a two-seat gain if they can keep a Republican-held seat in Oregon.

With about 500,000 absentee ballots still to be counted in Oregon, Republican state legislative leader Gordon Smith, who was narrowly defeated in a special election for the Senate last year, was leading Democratic businessman Tom Bruggere by about 16,000 votes, 49 percent to 47 percent. The race was close enough that it could be decided by whether the preponderance of absentee votes comes from the largely Democratic Portland area or from more Republican areas. Final returns may not be available until Friday.

Other Republican victors in races for open seats included Rep. Wayne Allard in Colorado, Reps. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback in Kansas, Susan Collins in Maine, Mike Enzi in Wyoming, all of whom ran for seats that were previously held by Republicans.

Collins, a former aide to retiring Sen. William S. Cohen (R-Maine), is the only one of the new Republican senators who is generally regarded as likely to join the dwindling band of political middle-of-the-roaders in the Senate.

Democratic victors in races for seats held by retiring Democrats included former Veterans Administration chief Max Cleland (Ga.), Rep. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), Rep. Robert G. Torricelli (N.J.), Rep. Jack Reed (R.I.), and former state treasurer Mary Landrieu (La.).

Lott also suggested that Louisiana is "still in play" because of possible voting irregularities, which he did not specify except to suggest that lawyers will be looking over "voting and transportation to the polls." By late yesterday, Landrieu was leading by 13,000 votes out of 1.7 million.

In some of the most closely watched races involving incumbents: Sen. John F. Kerry (D) defeated Gov. William Weld (R) in Massachusetts; Sen. Jesse Helms (R) prevailed for a second time over former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt in North Carolina; Sen. Paul Wellstone (D) defeated former Sen. Rudy Boschwitz (R) for a second time in Minnesota; and Sen. Robert C. Smith (R) turned back a strong challenge from former Rep. Dick Swett (D) in New Hampshire.

Incumbents who were reelected yesterday included Republicans Ted Stevens (Alaska), Larry E. Craig (Idaho), Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Thad Cochran (Miss.), Pete V. Domenici (N.M.), James M. Inhofe (Okla.), Strom Thurmond (S.C.), Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.), Phil Gramm (Tex.) and John W. Warner (Va.). Reelected Democratic incumbents included Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), Tom Harkin (Iowa), Carl Levin (Mich.), Max Baucus (Mont.) and John D. (Jay) Rockfeller IV (W.Va.).

While no major changes are anticipated in the top Senate leadership, several committee chairmanships will change. Stevens is in line to succeed retiring Sen. Mark O. Hatfield (R-Ore.) as chairman of the appropriations committee, and McCain is in line to follow Pressler as chairman of the Commerce, Science and Technology Committee. Sen. James M. Jeffords (R-Vt.), a moderate, is positioned by seniority to succeed retiring Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum (R-Kan.) as chairman of the Labor and Human Resources Committee but could be challenged by Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), a conservative.