Goodbye Gridlock, Hello Steamroller

Bill Clinton incessantly told voters last fall that he would end gridlock between the White House and Congress. That is one campaign promise he might keep. In early tests, the heavily Democratic majority in the House of Representatives has acted like an Administration steamroller. It easily passed not only a budget resolution embodying Clinton's ideas for tax increases and spending cuts but also the President's plan to spend an extra $16 billion to give an immediate stimulus to the economy. Some conservative Democrats had fought the additional spending as unnecessary, but on the decisive vote they heeded pleas for party unity. The plan passed 235 to 190, with only 22 Democrats defecting.

In the Senate, the 57 Democrats could not break a Republican filibuster against a voter-registration bill; that would require 60 votes. So they had to weaken the measure. The bill, dubbed "motor voter," would still allow citizens to register when they applied for a driver's license, but the Senate dropped a requirement that authorities make registration forms available to people applying for welfare or unemployment compensation (G.O.P. Senators feared that most people who signed up that way would vote Democratic). Still, the bill was passed. And when motor-voter and other bills go to House-Senate conferences, that heavily Democratic majority in the House may be able to bend the measures back toward the White House's wishes. (See related story on page 25.)