Budget: Going the Last Mile

Bill Clinton's final sales campaign began last Thursday with an anxious burst of phone calls. Yet just five hours before the House would vote on his budget bill, he still lacked a majority. On the phone with Pat Williams, Montana's sole Representative, Clinton found no bargaining leverage. Unlike most of the other legislators with whom Clinton had been cutting deals all week, Williams asked for no specific trade-off in return for his vote. "Pat," Clinton finally pleaded, "I can't pass this without your vote, and my presidency depends on getting this thing through." But Williams refused to commit. A liberal from a conservative state, he opposed some of the bill's spending cuts as well as the gasoline tax. So he went to the floor weighted with ambivalence, hoping to vote no but fearing to be the agent of paralysis.

A few minutes after 10 p.m., as the electronic counter tabulated the vote in progress, Democratic party whips realized that just three members controlled the outcome: Williams, Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky of Pennsylvania and Ray Thornton of Arkansas. If two of them voted no, the bill would be kaput. Williams went to Thornton, hoping that he would vote yes, thereby removing the need for Williams to do so, but the Representative from Little Rock had never intended to go with Clinton. He had already made his concession to the Democratic leadership, which was to withhold his no decision until late enough in the roll call so that an Arkansan would not be a bad example to fence sitters.

Williams turned to Margolies-Mezvinsky, a newcomer from a normally Republican district who had gone against the budget in the first round. She remained unsatisfied with the budget's feeble effort to curb entitlements. She too had heard from Clinton, just 15 minutes earlier: Marjorie, how can I get your support? Margolies-Mezvinsky named an unusual price: Come to my district and preside over a high-visibility conference -- including all concerned interests -- on checking the cost of entitlements. They talked it through for a few minutes until Clinton said, "Let's do it." Now, at 10:15, the electronic tabulation was complete, and the scoreboard showed 216-216. Deadlock would have meant defeat. Whereupon Williams and Margolies-Mezvinsky went to the rostrum and cast their ayes on paper. "I did it not so much for the budget," Williams said, "as for movement. My vote was to help us set sail again."