Down for the Count?

By Richard Lacayo

One day after the House voted to block the omnibus crime bill from coming to the floor, Senator Phil Gramm was only too happy to boil down the larger meaning. "Winning is a habit," said the Texas Republican, who relishes Bill Clinton's weaknesses the way Hannibal Lecter liked a nice Chianti. "And so is losing." You don't have to tell that to the Democratic leadership, which was a trauma unit after the 225-to-210 defeat, in which 58 House Democrats jumped ship. Or to the White House officials who use terms like "devastating" to describe their loss on a measure that was supposed to be Clinton's one sure legislative victory this year.

The crime measure was the legislative equivalent of a lollipop: a $33 billion bill that was filled with so many dollars for cops and prisons and crime-prevention programs that the tricky parts, meaning the gun-control and death-penalty provisions, should not have stopped it. If the Administration couldn't push that through, what were the prospects for the much more complicated contraption that is universal health care? And beyond that, for the remaining two years of the President's term? Given that losses in November's midterm elections will almost certainly shave the Democratic majority in Congress next year, the defeat had Washington asking the most unnerving question any President can hear: Could this be the beginning of the end of Bill Clinton's presidency?

The President knows very well that he has to fend off that question -- and fast. "This crime bill cannot die," he announced before flying to Minneapolis, Minnesota, for a quickly scheduled speech to a police group, where he denounced the Republicans for obstructing a measure that was supposed to fight crime, the No. 1 concern of Americans in the polls. "You are going to see some real nervousness in the Republican ranks," insists White House adviser George Stephanopoulos. "They succumbed to their leaders against their constituents."

Perhaps recognizing that they were indeed playing a risky game, Republicans asked the President for a meeting to discuss ways to rejigger the bill. The White House demurred, still hoping to gather the necessary votes among Democrats who jumped ship. But Republicans think the other party has overplayed its hand. "They have to let us be legislators too," insisted House minority whip Newt Gingrich of Georgia. "If they decide to go down the same narrow, partisan, liberal road, they'll lose health care the same way."

Is this Gridlock, Part 2? With Democrats controlling both houses of Congress, the Clinton presidency was supposed to bring an end to the legislative bind that canceled the presidency of George Bush. True to expectations, in his first year Clinton marked up a string of successes, including NAFTA, family-leave policy and the Brady Bill. But several of them, notably the one-vote majority for his deficit-reduction plan last year, were the kind of skin-of-his-teeth victories that White House staff members joke about as "Clinton landslides."

From here on the laughs come hard. The House defeat seemed like an ominous sign of erosion in the President's ability to keep old and new Democrats joined to achieve a difficult program of change. Though each new day seems to bring another favorable report on the state of the economy, Clinton's approval rating remains stalled at about 45%. His own pollster is recommending that Democratic lawmakers seeking re-election this fall should emphasize their own records, thereby implying they should distance themselves from the President. A lot of them were already planning to.

It also can't do much to encourage bipartisanship that Democrats are suspicious about the fairness of Kenneth Starr, the successor to Whitewater special prosecutor Robert Fiske, who has a long history as a Republican activist. Their doubts were heightened by news reports that Judge David B. Sentelle, one of the panel of three judges who chose Starr, had recently been lunching with North Carolina Republican Senator Lauch Faircloth, one of Fiske's harshest critics. Though Sentelle says he and Faircloth never discussed Fiske, Democratic House whip David Bonior suggested last week that their meeting "should be a subject of investigation itself."

And now this. Going into Thursday's showdown on crime, Democratic head counters thought they had a margin of one or two votes. Instead, nearly a fourth of all House Democrats balked. Most of them were rural lawmakers susceptible to the National Rifle Association, which opposed the bill's ban on 19 kinds of assault weapons and related models. Because the measure would also establish 50 new offenses punishable by the death penalty, which falls disproportionately on black defendants, 10 members of the Congressional Black Caucus voted against the bill.

The dissident Democrats provided the killer margin to an all-but-solid G.O.P. opposition, which in recent weeks had taken to denouncing the bill as a pork-barrel measure that included too many social-work incentives for activities such as midnight basketball and self-esteem counseling for inner- city kids. After it was voted down, Republican Gerald Solomon of New York danced on the grave. "This is a welfare bill with a few good things to cover it."

Beyond that, they opposed it for the simple reason that the President wanted it. Because it would have allowed them to present themselves as tough on crime, Democrats badly needed the bill for their re-election bids this fall. "Don't give it to them" was the message the Republican National Committee sent last week to 38 House Republicans who voted earlier this year in favor of the provision banning assault weapons. Each received a copy of a resolution that the Alaska branch of the party had put before the G.O.P.'s recent national meeting in Los Angeles. It called upon the Republican National Committee to deny campaign funds to the 38 dissenters. Though the resolution had not been voted on, it was enough for the party leadership to draw it to the dissidents' attention -- much as the commander of a firing squad might blandly direct his prisoners to notice that line of rifles over there. Nineteen changed their votes.

While the G.O.P. was turning up the heat, so was Clinton, but to somewhat less effect. All week he phoned House members to remind them that there was "a lot of good stuff" in the crime bill. To make sure that lawmakers understood just how much of it was earmarked for their districts, Democratic congressional aides prepared a state-by-state breakdown of which places would be getting which dollars. For the Black Caucus members, Clinton promised to draft an Executive Order decrying racial disparities in the application of the death penalty in federal prosecutions. Attorney General Janet Reno also pledged to take steps to rectify such imbalances. None of this, however, applies to the states, which mete out the bulk of capital sentences. While the Administration's efforts drew all but 10 of the 39 House members of the caucus back into the fold, it wasn't enough.

Any Democratic President enters office with a significant disadvantage -- his own captious party, an alliance of not-always-compatible interests who for decades have squabbled over civil rights, foreign policy and free trade. Perhaps because they are more likely to be a defensive minority, Republicans know how to form a tighter phalanx. During Ronald Reagan's first six years in office, when the G.O.P. had a rare majority in the Senate, they could be counted on to impose unity for the important floor votes that moved through the Reagan program -- with the crucial cooperation of conservative Southern Democrats. Robert Dole, then chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, regularly produced unanimous Republican stands in that body, something Pat Moynihan, its current chairman, can only wish for with his less manageable Democrats.

None of this bodes well for the President's goal of universal health care. The G.O.P. is still a mostly unified chorus of noes on any of the Democratic plans. In the House, for instance, not a single Republican is prepared to support the bill put forward by minority leader Richard Gephardt. But the President's real problem remains his fellow Democrats. That wasn't Bob Dole who was pounding the lectern during last week's debate, shouting, "We've got to stop this train right now!" It was David Boren, Democrat of Oklahoma.

Not even the First Lady seems entirely willing to get with the program. In a press conference last week, she was lukewarm toward the Mitchell plan that her husband had endorsed, pointedly preferring the Gephardt proposal. At a private meeting with House Democrats earlier this week on trade issues, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen was asked how much influence he had with the Clintons on health-care strategy. Bentsen held his thumb and forefinger about an eighth of an inch apart, shrugged and steered the conversation back to free-trade legislation. Says a House Democrat: "There is a sense of complete chaos around here."

While the Senate continues to wrestle with health care, a wary House has put off debate until next week at the earliest. One reason is the confusion over what can or cannot get through the Senate. Another is that the Congressional Budget Office, which must determine the impact of any bill on the budget deficit, is overwhelmed by the press of new proposals. A bipartisan group of 10 House members sponsored a new one last week that would depend heavily on insurance-market reforms and subsidies to the poor to achieve wider coverage. But because it aims to cover only 90% of Americans -- almost 85% have insurance now -- it falls far short of Clinton's minimum requirement.

So for this week, the Senate has health care to itself. With the Mitchell plan vulnerable, the group of 15 or so bipartisan centrists that calls itself the Mainstream Coalition -- it includes John Chafee of Rhode Island, Dave Durenberger of Minnesota, Missouri's John Danforth and Bob Kerrey of Nebraska -- is readying a set of amendments. "The weaker Mitchell seems, the stronger the core gets," says a Senate staff member. Among their likely proposals is one that will aim at Mitchell's 25% tax on high-premium insurance plans, which is one of his chief revenue raisers. Without it, it's hard to see how his plan will reduce rising health-care costs.

In the meantime the House will see if it can revive the crime bill in any form. One option would be to strip it of its assault-weapons ban and perhaps scale back some of the social-program spending. But that might cause trouble among supporters of the assault-gun ban in the Senate, such as Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio and Arizona's Dennis De Concini. California's Dianne Feinstein, sponsor of the ban, has practically staked her difficult re- election bid on it.

Bill Clinton's major legislative defeat has given a green light to moderates in both parties who are inclined to betray his legislative agenda. What may be worse: his weakness has encouraged Republicans to taunt the President ever more brazenly. Almost immediately after the crime bill went down, there was something like bloodlust on Capitol Hill. Richard Armey of Texas, chairman of the House Republican Conference, blithely told House Democrats that "your President is just not that important to us." "Our President," some of them piped up from the floor, but it did little to clear the air. The smell of blood there was irresistible. The mood is going to be like that for some time to come.

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett, Michael Duffy, Julie Johnson and Dick Thompson/Washington