The Same Old Song

When Rep. Dennis Hastert became the speaker he pledged to work for a new tone of civility in the House to heal the wounds from impeachment. In a move that went beyond symbolism, he even quietly reduced the speaker’s reserve fund that had been used under his predecessor to help pay for congressional investigations of the administration.

But the 106th Congress is starting to feel a lot like the last Congress that Newt Gingrich led: bitterly adversarial, with few accomplishments, and putting a heavy emphasis on investigations.

Fresh from the August recess, congressional committees are examining the 1993 siege at Waco, President Clinton’s decision to grant clemency to 16 members of a violent Puerto Rican nationalist group, and the administration’s Russia policy in light of a criminal investigation into accusations that Russians laundered money through accounts at the Bank of New York.

And once again, with Republicans issuing subpoenas and Clinton citing executive privilege to rebuff them, the parties are hurling charges of bad faith at each other. “We’ve had very little cooperation from this White House from day one,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday on “Fox Special Report With Brit Hume.”

On the other side of the aisle, Rep. Henry Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House committee investigating both Waco and the clemency decision, accused the Republicans of being “bereft of ideas.”

“So they’re spending their time using taxpayer dollars to conduct partisan investigations against Clinton and anything that will embarrass Gore and the Democrats,” he said in an interview Friday.

In part, the tone in Congress stems from the Republican majority’s inability to push through a positive agenda that it can rally around. It is hampered by its razor-thin majority, a partisan minority, ideological divisions in its own ranks and Clinton’s opposition to such Republican initiatives as the $792 billion tax cut that was supposed to be the crown jewel of the GOP agenda.

So instead of moving an ambitious agenda of their own, the Republicans say they are hoping that Gov. George W. Bush of Texas will become the Republican presidential nominee and that they will ride his coattails to keep their majority.

The tax cut, which Clinton is planning to veto, will become a 2000 campaign issue, the Republicans’ exhibit A in arguing why the country should elect a president from their party.

Right now Republican leaders are simply trying to pass must-do spending bills and to fight off Clinton’s own spending proposals by arguing that such programs would eat into the Social Security surplus. Then they hope to emerge as best they can from debates driven in large part by the Democrats over health care, gun control, increasing the minimum wage and campaign finance overhaul.

Hastert on Friday, for example, pledged that the House would hold its debate over how to overhaul managed health care - an issue that fractures Republicans - in October. And for the first time he committed to allowing a bill favored by Democrats and some dissident Republicans to the floor.

While some Republicans would consider a managed health care bill an accomplishment they could run on, many are sharply opposed to many provisions in the legislation coming to the floor.

The speaker is also pushing to get Congress out of town by the end of October. “The speaker’s view is the longer we stay in session, the more mischief can happen,” said one leadership aide.

The Republicans’ minimalist agenda may be only practical given the divided power right now in Washington. But it has also created a vacuum that has allowed the latest investigations of the administration to come to the forefront - even though none of these were on the horizon when Congress left for its August recess.

Republicans say that this new round of inquiries has the blessings of the Republican leadership and are legitimate looks at serious policy questions: Did the FBI cover up its role in the Waco siege? Was Clinton granting clemency, as some Republicans charge, to help Hillary Rodham Clinton’s likely Senate bid in New York? Have IMF funds to Russia been misused?

They note that even such staunch Democrats as Sen. Charles Schumer of New York and Robert Torricelli of New Jersey have criticized the president’s decision to grant clemency to the Puerto Rican nationalists. And the inquiry into Russia is being led in part by Rep. Jim Leach, an Iowa Republican who is far from being a partisan firebrand.

“Maybe these are things the American public wants investigated,” said Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla. “I don’t know that anyone was happy with the voyeurism with the president’s personal life. But here, for example,” he said referring to the investigation into banking improprieties, “there are serious indications that money was stolen from the IMF.”

Still, Republicans have had their zeal for investigation hurt them before - most notably last November when their focus on impeachment helped them lose five House seats. Democrats say that the investigations will backfire again.

“Any day that Dan Burton and Henry Hyde and Bob Barr are on TV is a good day for Democrats,” said Jim Jordan, the political director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, naming three Republicans who have been prominent figures in investigating Clinton.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who will be one of those looking into the Russia situation as a member of the House Banking Committee, said his party has to be careful to keep a judicious tone and not, for example, try to target Vice President Al Gore when examining Russia’s finances. Gore has played a key role in the administration’s policy toward Russia.

“We have to keep it at a policy level and show why we think the policy’s wrong,” said King, who was a critic of how his party handled impeachment. “We can’t take it to the black helicopter stage and say Al Gore’s a Russian agent.”

“There is this almost psychological lack of willingness to sit down and talk with the Clinton administration about these issues,” said Richard May, a former Republican staff director of the House Budget Committee. “They think that whenever they negotiate with Clinton they come in second place.”