CONGRESS AND REFORM

When the 103rd Congress convened at the beginning of 1993, President Clinton and Speaker of the House Tom Foley declared that it would be famous for reform. The country demanded change, they said, and Washington was going to produce. Their confidence was founded in their party's control of both houses of Congress and the presidency.

But when members of Congres fled Washington week before last to try to placate angry voters before next month's elections, they left a record stunningly short of what their leaders promised most. While some matters proved just too complicated to address in a single session, other issues, less complicated and already with strong consensus, also met a grisly fate. Among these were campaign finance and lobby reform.

Candidate Clinton fostered hope when he promised to change the way political campaigns were conducted. But once in office, he conceded to Democrat leaders in the House by not making this goal a priority. While the Senate passed its version of campaign finance reform early on, Speaker Foley held the House version hostage. By the time it passed from under his thumb, it was too late. Little time remained to reconcile the House version with the Senate's, and the issue died in the train wreck that was the end of the session.

The demise of lobby reform, meanwhile, bears mainly the fingerprints of Republicans. Earlier this year, 95 senators voted for a bill to stop various free trips, meals and gifts that typically flow to members of Congress and to tighten the rules of lobbying registration. But by the time final legislation was ready, Republican senators were prepared with a filibuster to keep it from coming to a vote. They were given political cover by a grass-roots movement drummed up by a diverse group of interests, including radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, Christian evangelist Pat Robertson, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, the Coalition Against Gun Violence and the NRA.

At issue was whether or not the legislation would require unpaid grass-roots lobbyists to disclose their names. But when the Republican and Democratic sponsors of the bill agreed to drop the contested section, they had no takers. In the end, 36 Republicans and 10 Democrats voted to maintain a filibuster, keeping the legislation from coming to a vote. Lobbyists cheered and many Democrats secretly thanked their Republican counterparts.

After the lobby reform went down, Senate minority leader Bob Dole was asked why so many Republicans switched their position from early in the year. "We read the bill," said the Republican. Democratic senators who voted against it said that it was poorly written, threatening to create more problems than it would solve. They were right, notwithstanding the promises of Clinton, Foley and company. But it doesn't mean that the issue should be killed forever.

If Republicans take the majority in the House and Senate, as they say they might, the American people should expect them to do better than the Democratic leaders have on issues like campaign finance and lobby reform. If the Republicans don't, some of their protestations of principled obstructionism will be revealed as little more than partisan politics as usual.