The Gridlock Breakers

By GEORGE J.CHURCH

T'was the day before Thanksgiving and all through the House, not a creature was stirring; by then they had knocked off for the year. And only a handful of Senators were on the floor Wednesday when majority leader George Mitchell asked if there were any objections to a compromise worked out behind closed doors by Republican and Democratic leaders anxious to finish one last piece of legislation. No one said a word. So Vice President Al Gore, presiding, declared that "the Brady bill has been passed" -- theoretically by "unanimous consent" of the three remaining Senators. Bill Clinton hailed the move as a "wonderful Thanksgiving present."

If the method of its passage was less than inspiring, the enactment of the Brady gun-control bill still put a fitting capstone on an unusually solid record of congressional accomplishment. For seven years, its passage had been blocked, as pro- and anti-gun-control forces angrily debated, drafted and redrafted its language. That it finally got through signaled that the 103rd Congress was serious about breaking gridlock in its own ranks and with the White House.

There were many previous signals that the partisan logjam had loosened. The legislators cleaned up some other long-pending business, passing bills to make voter registration easier and mandating family leaves for workers; earlier measures had been blocked by George Bush vetoes. Congress passed the two big measures Clinton fought hard for: a five-year, $500 billion deficit-reduction plan and the North American Free Trade Agreement. Most remarkable of all, perhaps, the lawmakers' work did not draw even one presidential veto -- the first time that has happened since 1969.

Congressman David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat, burbled, "Gridlock is what you have when the traffic isn't moving. The traffic is now moving, baby, and we're moving some pretty big trucks." Senate minority leader Bob Dole claimed a share of the credit for his party, bragging that "Republicans made a difference."

The self-congratulation went a bit too far. Some of the asserted accomplishments are still incomplete. Anticrime and campaign-finance-reform bills passed the House and Senate in different versions that must be reconciled by conference committees next year; it is far from certain how strong the final measures will be. A law enabling students to repay college loans with volunteer national service, often listed as a success, applies to so few people that it is really only tokenism. Even the Brady bill, as enacted, has some loose ends. In the last-minute wrangling, Republicans won a token concession: they can get a vote next February on a separate bill incorporating weakening amendments -- though those amendments are pretty sure to be defeated.

The record of the 103rd is still striking, not only by comparison with past Congresses but also with its own performance early on. Part of the reason is simply that for the first time in a dozen years, the same party controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress. No longer did legislators design measures, like an early version of campaign-finance reform, to provoke a President into casting politically embarrassing vetoes. Paradoxically, though, campaign reform is being delayed by the absence of any veto threat; Congress is moving cautiously because it knows that almost anything it passes will become law. In the beginning, Clinton's economic-stimulus plan was killed by a Republican filibuster; deficit reduction passed only after a tie in the Senate that Gore had to break.

"There is almost always a greater sense of expectation -- and to some extent disappointment -- when a new Administration of your own party comes to office," comments House Speaker Tom Foley. The President tends to think his nominal allies in Congress will simply follow his lead. But "our guys are used to being independent contractors," as George Mitchell puts it.

Clinton, however, has got much better at wooing and arm twisting Democrats, - who, for their part, are getting the message that they dare not bring down their President. And if he still cannot muster a majority of Democrats, as was the case with NAFTA, the President is now willing to reach out to Republicans -- meanwhile dealing enthusiastically for votes from both sides.

He has been helped by a perception in both parties that most voters are sick of deadlock and are demanding action. The ability of a relatively small group of Senators to come close to strangling the Brady bill again proved that the potential for gridlock still exists. But their failure proves that the fear of voter anger can overcome gridlock. Dole and other G.O.P. leaders did not dare let the public think that Republicans filibustered a popular bill to death. None of which guarantees that Clinton can repeat his successes next session. Congress will reconvene in an election year, which always intensifies partisan maneuvering. The issues will be tougher -- in particular, health care and welfare reform.

More important, Clinton has yet to form a stable coalition, as Reagan did with the so-called Boll Weevil Democrats. Quite the opposite: he prevailed on deficit reduction without a single Republican vote, and on NAFTA with more votes from the G.O.P. than from Democrats. Forming two totally different winning alliances is an impressive feat, but pasting together an ad hoc grouping on every issue is an exhausting and chancy task. Yet it is one that Clinton may well have to keep repeating.

Deep divisions continue within the majority Democratic caucuses. Louisiana Senator John Breaux, who succeeded Clinton as head of the Democratic Leadership Council, predicts that the President will have to rely increasingly on center-right groupings of conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans. NAFTA aside, however, those alliances have been more inclined to oppose the President than to back him. Examples: a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget that the Administration vehemently opposes has important Democratic sponsorship, and bipartisan support has formed behind a health-care reform bill that Clinton dislikes but that has been introduced in the Senate by -- guess who? -- Breaux.

Still, this year's congressional session proves that public opinion and a politically savvy President can prevail -- though only after a succession of hairbreadth escapes. Clinton, says a senior White House official, is "a guy who lies down in front of trains with great frequency and gets up at the last ( minute every time." Every time in 1993, that is; it is going to be a tough act to keep repeating.

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett and James Carney/Washington