Republican Wave Hits Rough Seas But Gingrich Says Gop Won’t Give Up The Revolution

The Republicans had a bad week on Capitol Hill.

A Democratic filibuster killed regulatory legislation in the Senate. Republicans from both houses admitted they had given up on enacting a line-item veto this year.

It became clear that the Republicans could not agree on a broad strategy to oppose affirmative-action policies, the senators remained split on welfare, and even in the more conservative House, Republicans gave up on killing public broadcasting and legal services for the poor.

But should a liberal optimist, or a conservative pessimist, think for a moment that the Republican wave in Congress has crested, that their self-proclaimed revolution has fallen on hard times?

No, not while they remain united when it matters, most of all on budget questions, where the straitjacket they made for themselves in the budget resolution still seems to fit.

The Senate may be a bit less ideological when it gets around to handling spending bills than the House has been. It likes the arts more, for example. But the budget resolution means it can’t vote to spend more in total than the House will.

And as Rep. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, president of the Republican freshman class, said, “Try as he might with his veto, the president can’t appropriate money.”

Even on the issues where Republicans suffered setbacks, the budget offers an alternate route. Republicans may not be able to pass a regulatory bill severe enough to suit them.

But they still have a blunt ax to wield - this week’s House vote in which they hope to eliminate 40 percent of the enforcement funds allotted to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Then, should a liberal pessimist, or a conservative optimist, conclude that the Republicans are sure to prevail on an agenda that has a bit less ideological purity?

No, because the big budget reconciliation bill lies ahead, involving Medicare and student loans, taxes and perhaps welfare. And that is not just a fight in Congress, where the rules make it easier to pass than most bills, but a battle with President Clinton, if he sticks to his veto threats.

As Speaker Newt Gingrich said in an interview on Friday, the short-term question is this, “Faced with a lot of problems, can we find a way to get our act together well enough to stumble through the rest of the summer, get a little rest and take on reconciliation in September and October, and perhaps November and December, and get enough signed into law so that somebody from Washington can be nominated, like Dole or Gramm?”

On lesser issues, like the regulatory bill that seemed deadlocked, it was too early to quit. He said, “When you have revolutions you never give up. You keep looking for pressure points to break through.”

Republicans know that, he said, but that still leaves the question: “Can our core team pull itself together again and again?”

Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, walked into the ornate Speaker’s Lobby between House votes one day last week to say that the rest of the session would be more difficult than the beginning, “when we deliberately selected issues on which we were virtually unanimous.”

Hyde, who has sometimes chafed at the pace demanded of his committee, said “There are many potholes and ditches ahead.”