Gloom Under the Dome

Americans seem to be divided into two camps on the subject of the Congress of the United States: those who consider it an ethical swamp and those who regard that comparison as unfair to swamps. As the members return to work this week, they have an even worse public image to contemplate: not only sleazier but more paralyzed as well. Last week's indictment and demotion of Dan Rostenkowski, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, was a double whammy. In a short time he has come to symbolize both Congress's lingering tawdriness and its desperate need for a dealmaker to keep the place functioning. "Most people think members of Congress -- all members of | Congress -- have their hands in the till," worries Indiana Democrat Lee Hamilton, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "This simply confirms it for them."

The Rostenkowski case is especially painful because it joins a roll call of recent roguery. The Keating Five, the congressional post office, the House bank, the dubious book scheme of House Speaker Jim Wright -- that litany is at least partly the result of new regulations that Congress has imposed on itself. Even so, will voters care that tighter rules and closer scrutiny are part of the reason? Probably not.

Which is why, as they head toward this year's midterm elections, incumbents worry about fallout from the Rostenkowski indictment. Former Illinois Senator Alan Dixon remembers how, just weeks before his unsuccessful 1992 primary bid against Carol Moseley-Braun, the House banking scandal erupted onto Chicago's front pages. "My polls dropped 7 points in one day, and we didn't even have a bank in the Senate."

Lost seats on Election Day aren't the only reason for the gloom in Washington. With voters also complaining about a do-nothing Congress -- a criticism that is not entirely deserved after the adoption of NAFTA and significant deficit-reduction measures -- much of Washington was concerned last week that Rostenkowski's plight would deprive Congress of a rare power broker who helped push through the 1986 tax-reform bill and NAFTA. "No capital ever has a surplus of politicians with those qualities," the columnist David Broder lamented last week in the Washington Post. "Seeing him brought down . . . is a citywide sorrow."

And the dealmakers are dwindling. Former House Speaker Wright was famously willing to force House members into line on important votes. His courtly successor, Tom Foley, is more apt simply to gauge their wishes over and over again. The rising generation of younger lawmakers seems even less inclined toward Rostenkowski-style leadership, part back slapping, part arm twisting. The new crowd tends to be more attuned to polls and job preservation. "Dealmakers are willing to take risks, willing to be tough," says Tony Coelho, the former House Democratic whip who resigned in 1989 after reports about misuse of campaign funds. "They're not coming to Congress anymore."