CURRENT EVENTS UPDATE

In the days following the election, the headlines from Capitol Hill promised gridlock and partisan bickering, possibly forever. But behind the scenes, a group of lawmakers from both parties began conjuring a different scenario. In phone calls, over sandwiches, during chance hallway encounters, moderates from both parties talked about how they might join forces as never before. Improbable as it sounds, the 107th Congress could actually pass some important laws.

Voters almost surgically bisected Congress on Election Day, creating a 221-212 division in the House and a 50-50 split in the Senate, where Vice President Dick Cheney holds the tie-breaking vote. Given these divisions, moderates on both sides believe they may have crucial leverage to pass bills on issues such as health care, trade and possibly even campaign-finance reform. "The center is much stronger," said Senator John Breaux (D-LA). "I love operating in a 50-50 vacuum!"

Breaux is excited because it takes 60 votes in the Senate to end debate on a bill; either side will have to win the 10-plus extra votes from the opposition’s moderate ranks. The House isn’t quite so close, but the theory still applies: with a lead of just nine seats out of 435, Republicans will have to appeal to their moderates to get anything accomplished. Centrists saw the opportunity to expand their power as early as Election Day. That night, Senator Bob Graham of Florida telephoned several Democrats who had just won Senate seats and asked them to join the New Democrat Coalition, a group of centrists formed last year. As many as five are expected to join, bringing the coalition’s size to perhaps 20 members. The four other newly elected Democratic Senators, including that lady named Clinton who gets so much attention, ran as more traditional liberals, and their part in the moderate calculus remains unclear. Aides to the New Democrat Senators have begun to prepare floor strategies for bills on trade and education. They are looking suspiciously like a leadership organization apart from the official one run by minority leader Tom Daschle. Graham is respectful of the leadership in interviews, but he also notes happily, "Legislative politics is now played from the 50-yard line."

Over fruit salad and Reubens in the private Senate dining room eight days after the election, members of the G.O.P.’s moderate Wednesday Group also chalked out a plan for greater prominence. They noted that the Republican Senators who lost on Nov. 7 were mostly conservatives—men like Spencer Abraham of Michigan. "If Spence Abraham had voted the way you voted, would he still be a Senator?" Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania asked his colleagues. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island answered yes, and Maine’s Olympia Snowe nodded. The group then outlined how to push for floor votes before the 2002 elections (when 20 Republicans but only 14 Democrats in the Senate will be up for re-election) on items such as a patients’ bill of rights and campaign-finance reform. Centrists in both parties say votes on abortion and school prayer, which G.O.P. leaders sometimes schedule without warning, will go nowhere.

There is even some scheming across party lines. In the House, for the first time since anyone can remember, each party’s freshman class has established a position of liaison to the other class. (Usually new Senators only elect liaisons to their respective leadership organizations.) "The leadership got this look and said, ‘Oh, well, that’s new,’" says Rick Larsen, the congressman-elect from Washington State’s Puget Sound.

It’s important, however, not to overstate the impact of all the jockeying by the moderates. After the electoral furor and the soul searching it engenders ebbs, well-dressed lobbyists, interest-group leaders and entrenched committee chairpersons will have the run of Capitol Hill. Moreover, many members of Congress will squawk that the President’s mandate to pass laws is tinier than a ballot punch hole. Attack dogs in the House are preparing to exert party control over moderates. And everyone is talking about 2002.

Nevertheless, even in the more partisan House, the sheer number of centrists is impressive: the New Democrat Coalition will have as many as 75 members, the Republican Mainstreet Partnership about 60. "That’s a big bloc," says veteran Republican Congressman Amo Houghton. "We can do an awful lot."

—TIME, November 27, 2000

Questions
1. Why do moderates in the House and Senate believe that they may have "crucial leverage" in the 107th Congress?

2. What is the composition of the newly elected House? The Senate? Who holds the tie-breaking vote in the Senate?

TIME CLASSROOM