Evans & Novak

The Republican agenda for this year is small. but defanging the labor unions before they flood Democratic coffers for the 1998 elections is the top priority of GOP leadership in both houses. After transportation funding is settled. expect leadershipsponsored legislation requiring labor to secure written permission from workers to use union dues for politics.

1) The merits of linking this effort to campaign finance reform or introducing it as stand-alone legislation are still being debated. As part of a larger package, it may slide under the radar in the name of fixing the political system. Alone, it would have to be sold as a workers' rights issue.

2) Attracting Democratic votes for this will be difficult and keeping Northeastern Republicans on board will be harder. Securing GOP loyalty on this issue will become nearly impossible if James P. Hoffa becomes president of the Teamsters and begins wooing Republicans. Business has shown some signs of mobilization, however, evidenced by Sen. Fred Thompson's (R.-Tenn.) recent return to the fold.

3) There is no guarantee that leadership will have the votes to pass this measure this spring, and there is intense internal disagreement over whether to hold a vote that won't go anywhere.

4) The Democratic demand that most confounds the GOP is analogous treatment of corporate shareholder money. So far, Republican response to this protest is timid and disorganized.

Apart from the resolution to block party funds for candidates who don't oppose partial-birth abortion [see page 6], these developments from the Palm Springs, Calif., meeting of the Republican National Committee (RNC):

1) The first informal 2000 presidential "straw poll" of party officials was held at a closed meeting of state chairmen, and the result was an overwhelming victory for Texas Gov. George W. Bush, with nobody else even close.

2) The RNC quietly and without debate adopted a resolution supporting anti-tax activist Grover Norquist's no-tax-increase pledge for Republican candidates (but certainly without the funds cutoff binding provision of the Lambert resolution). The only dissenter in the resolutions committee: Florida State Chainnan Tom Slade, whose candidate for governor-Jeb Bush-has declined to sign the Norquist pledge.

Many Republicans had hoped that top staff changes at the Joint Tax Committee and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this year would belatedly calculate a dynamic effect of tax cuts to minimize their revenue loss. But that does not appear likely.

1) With Kenneth Kies resigning as Joint Tax Committee chief counsel, the leading prospect to replace him is Senate Finance Committee staffer Lindy Paull-who, like Kies, takes a static view of revenue scoring. Majority Leader Trent Lott (R.Miss.) would prefer a supply-sider, but Finance Chairman William Roth (R.-Del.) insists on Paull. This is the Senate's turn for the job, and Ways and Means Chairman Bill Archer (R.-Tex.) supports Paul.

2) Conservatives are exasperated with June O'Neill as CBO head and have tried to ease her out, but she seems determined to serve out her four-year term, which has another year to run.

The special report, by Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, appears exclusively in HUMAN Ev.rS. For subscription information on their Evans-Novak Political Report call 800-789-5367

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Jan 30, 1998
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