
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 12, 1991                   TAG: 9103120353
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From The New York Times and The Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

ROBB: FISCAL FRUGALITY COST PANEL SEAT

Virginia Sen. Charles Robb's fellow Democrats took the unusual step last week of quietly ousting him from the Senate Budget Committee, and on Monday he accused the panel's chairman of engineering the move to punish him for his fiscal conservatism.

Fanning what is becoming a public intraparty squabble, Robb said in a telephone interview that the panel's chairman, Sen. Jim Sasser of Tennessee, admitted to him that he was acting because of his displeasure about the senator's positions.

"The chairman and I had a private discussion on the issue," Robb said. "And he admitted to me that although his public position was to reduce the size of the committee, that, as he put it, if I would have been more willing to cooperate, then he would have been more willing to go to bat for me. It is clear that, for whatever reason, he viewed me as an impediment for the way he wanted to operate the committee."

Speaking through a spokesman on Monday, Sasser disputed that account, insisting that Robb's removal stemmed from efforts to shrink the panel. He said Robb, who has served on the committee since he took office in 1989, was selected because he was the junior member.

"I'm surprised that Senator Robb feels that there's anything personal here," said Sasser. "I hold Senator Robb in the very highest regard. I campaigned for him in the southern half of his state when he ran for governor. I invited him to address the most important Democratic gathering in my state."

From time to time, Senate committees seek changes in their size, but the removal of members is unusual, particularly when one is singled out.

Robb has attempted to balance the federal budget by pushing for deeper spending cuts than favored by several Budget Committee Democrats, including Sasser. Although Robb supported last year's budget summit agreement between Congress and President Bush, he said that he "expressed my unhappiness with the whole process" to Sasser afterward.

Robb said he had wanted to be a "good soldier" and did not intend to go public with the matter. He said he had no choice, though, when he was asked Sunday on the NBC News program "Meet the Press" if he was being punished for his vote to authorize military force in the Persian Gulf, which most Senate Democrats opposed.

Both he and Sasser's spokesman said the vote had nothing to do with Robb's departure from the committee.

by CNB