CLINTON AND THE VA. DELEGATION

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

DATE: THURSDAY, April 8, 1993                   TAG: 9304080625
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A17   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RAY L.  GARLAND
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long
CLINTON AND THE VA. DELEGATION
PRESIDENT CLINTON'S bravura performance before Congress Feb. 17 apparently convinced most Americans that here was a man with a plan that ought to be tried. We can now draw some conclusions as to how the 11 members of Virginia's House delegation are reacting to the Clinton Terror.
The delegation is divided into three blocs. The four Republicans, Herb Bateman, Tom Bliley, Bob Goodlatte and Frank Wolf, are maintaining a solid conservative, anti-Clinton front. Democrats Bobby Scott, James Moran, Rick Boucher and Leslie Byrne form an equally solid liberal front.
The other three Democrats, Owen Pickett, Norman Sisisky and L.F. Payne, are a special case. In years past, they cultivated conservative images at home not always supported by their voting records. But with Democrats in command in Washington, we see Pickett and Sisisky moving a tad to the right while Payne gravitates to the left.
This shift may represent some subtle repositioning. When Pickett first came up, in 1987, he seemed to be trying to groove with the Democratic leadership. The problem is, that crowd expects down-the-line obedience. When Pickett gagged on some of the more outrageous demands, he may have got the message that he wasn't going to be a fair-haired boy and decided it wasn't worth it anyway.
But Payne, in his third term, fancies himself something of a bridge between his party's dominant liberal wing and its rump of moderates, and may have his eye on a leadership post down the road.
In adopting the rules for the new House, the Democratic leadership showed its teeth. They proposed allowing the delegates (Democrats all) from the Virgin Islands, Guam, Samoa, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia to vote on the floor of the House (provided it didn't change the outcome) and to give the speaker new powers to work the majority's will. In the vote on the new rules, Pickett, Sisisky and Payne joined the four Republicans in voting no.
Then it was down to business on the issue Democrats had chosen to proclaim the end of gridlock, the bill granting employees 12 weeks of unpaid leave (with benefits) to attend to family emergencies. Pickett and Sisisky absented themselves. Payne was the only Virginia Democrat voting with the Republicans against the bill.
The same pattern held on the motor-voter bill that required states to permit registration by mail, and to register voters at motor-vehicle offices and where people apply for public assistance or unemployment benefits. But when the House was asked to instruct its conferees to accept a Senate amendment making registration optional at public assistance and unemployment offices, Pickett, Sisisky and Payne voted no.
On the bill extending unemployment benefits to a maximum of 52 weeks, Pickett joined the four Republicans in voting no.
A more interesting vote was cast on a bill gutting the Hatch Act. This law, on the books for more than 50 years, prohibits federal workers from engaging in partisan political activity. When the bill passed, only Pickett again among Virginia Democrats joined the Republicans in voting against it.
In the celebrations that took place when Clinton's budget resolution passed, you might have thought we had a real budget instead of an outline. If the resolution solved the problem of the deficit, it wasn't apparent in the $254 billion in red ink upon which it was based.
Be that as it may, in votes cast on Clinton's $1.5 trillion budget outline and his $16 billion stimulus (jobs) package, Pickett and Sisisky showed commendable courage and independence by being among the few Democrats joining Republicans in opposition.
But Republicans haven't shown much stomach for real deficit medicine. When Rep. John Kasich, R-Ohio, presented a plan that was even praised by The New York Times, balancing the budget over five years by spending cuts alone, only Bliley among Virginia Republicans voted for it.
Only on abortion did we find a straight, party-line vote in the delegation. On the bill permitting research on fetal tissue obtained from induced abortions, all Virginia Democrats except Boucher, who didn't vote, voted in favor while all the Republicans voted against.
The bill appropriating $238 million for 4,000 family-planning clinics also codified Clinton's position allowing these clinics to counsel abortion, and to make referrals to abortionists. Again, all seven Democrats voted yes while all four Republicans voted no.
When Bliley offered a motion to recommit the family-planning bill with instructions that it be reported back with an amendment giving parents 48 hours' notice before an abortion could be performed on a minor, all seven Democrats voted no and all four Republicans voted yes.
The only social issue that caused Democrats to scuttle for safety away from Clinton's position was Bliley's motion instructing House conferees to agree to a Senate amendment prohibiting permanent immigration to the United States of people testing HIV-positive. For once, the Virginia delegation united, with all members favoring the motion except Boucher, who didn't vote.
Ideological divisions among Virginia Congress members are now almost a mirror-image of the House as a whole. While Clinton prospers, the votes are there to give him a majority. But let him show the least sign of foundering, and Democrats like Pickett and Sisisky will swamp the lifeboats.
\ AUTHOR Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB