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

DATE: FRIDAY, September 24, 1993                   TAG: 9401140010
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Paxton Davis
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NAFTA DEFECTION

It was how legislative business got done. A party might - and often did - push programs that time proved foolish, sometimes wasteful, frequently ineffective. A good party man might concede so afterward. But while the issue was pending and his party required his loyalty, he gave it and rose or fell because of it. It was a means, and on the whole a workable one, for organizing support or opposition on matters of public policy.

Nowadays, however, party loyalty seems to have become a quaint relic from the past. Members of both houses of Congress break with party policy at will. When "counting heads" on an issue, party leaders have their work cut out for them. And the leaders themselves can no longer, it seems, be counted on, either.

This is a roundabout way of approaching the defection of House Democratic floor leader Richard Gephardt, of Missouri, who announced Tuesday that he will not support the administration of President Bill Clinton on the North American Free Trade Agreement - and will work, in fact, to defeat it.

Ratification of the NAFTA treaty with Canada and Mexico, already considered dead by some and chancy by almost everyone, became even more unlikely because of Gephardt's defection. His opposition means that with two of the top three House Democrats out of play - the third-ranking Democrat, Rep. David Bonior, of Michigan, is already vigorously working to defeat NAFTA - ratification becomes even more difficult to sell to wavering Democrats.

Please do not misunderstand my argument. A congressman is sent to Washington to vote his convictions, if he has any, and is free - and one could say, duty-bound - to do so. Nothing in the Constitution or in political history obligates him to accept views he does not share or to vote like an automaton to follow the party line.

But parties have a purpose, and it is not only to win elections. It is to give order and structure to democratic discourse by organizing fundamental political principles into coherent, if generally roughhewn, blocs. Presumably, at least, one is a Democrat or a Republican because one shares his party's general views. One can dissent, but not always.

But party leaders accept a far greater burden of loyalty, and if they are legislative leaders they accept the duty to back party policies and strive to bring them to fruition. It is widely understood that Sen. Robert Dole of Kansas, the Republican minority leader of his house, disagreed with much Bush administration policy. But he soldiered on, if grouchily, to put it over.

That is what Gephardt and Bonior have failed to do. It is not their right to dissent that is at issue. Like most Americans, I remain baffled about NAFTA and seek enlightenment. For all I know, Gephardt's distaste may be justified.

But if he believes it that strongly, he ought to resign - now - from his party's leadership. He holds that leadership not merely from popularity but because the Democratic Party needs him there - to guide legislation through the House, to win the support of other Democrats. He is not there to air his personal opposition.

Resignation is the honorable way out. In Britain, where party loyalty can be assumed on crucial issues, it is central. During the late '30s, both Duff Cooper and Anthony Eden resigned their ministerial posts because they opposed appeasement of Hitler. Only a few years ago, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance resigned because he opposed President Jimmy Carter's rescue mission to Iran.

\ Paxton Davis is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.