Landmark Bills Shape 100th Congress’ Legacy : Legislators Overcome Partisanship, Iran-Contra Fallout to Act on Housing, Drugs, Other Issues

WASHINGTON — When the 100th Congress adjourned early Saturday, it left as its legacy a record of legislative accomplishment that rose above the intense partisanship of an approaching presidential election and the strain of the Iran-Contra affair.

Over the past two years, Democrats and Republicans in Congress were able to agree on a wide array of landmark legislation creating new programs dealing with housing, education, health, welfare, drugs and foreign trade--a list that Democrats sought to liken to the Great Society era of the 1960s.

“It was an outstanding Congress--the best probably since LBJ,” Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) declared. “I believe that we have delivered on our promises and that we have done more.”

The record of the 100th Congress was a matter of particular pride for leaders of the Democratic majority, who had set out two years ago to create a new national agenda for their party and to demonstrate to the electorate that they should be given control of the White House as well as the legislative branch.

“We were out to prove that not only do we want to govern, we can govern,” House Assistant Majority Leader Tony Coelho (D-Merced) said. “And I think we succeeded in doing that.”

Nevertheless, although Republicans claim equal credit for many of the achievements of the last two years, GOP leaders are quick to point out that the Democratic-controlled Congress failed to make any significant reduction in the federal deficit--a task that Democrats themselves have portrayed as critical to the nation’s future.

“I would give this Congress a C-minus, because we didn’t make any significant inroads on the debt,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said.

In fact, Congress would not have been able to produce such a remarkable record had it not been for an agreement between Democrats and Republicans last December, in the wake of the October stock market crash, that effectively deferred a major legislative assault on the deficit until after a new President takes office in January, 1989.

Nor would the Democrats have had such a free hand in setting the legislative agenda had it not been for the lame-duck status of President Reagan, who had strongly dominated the affairs of Congress over the previous six years. In addition to the normal erosion of presidential power, Reagan’s influence on Capitol Hill suffered a big setback as a result of the Iran-Contra affair, which was the focus of a highly publicized congressional inquiry during most of the first half of the two-year session.

The Iran-Contra affair poisoned the relationship between Congress and the White House, and between Democrats and Republicans. And as a direct result of the bitterness engendered by White House defiance of congressionally mandated limitations on Contra aid, Democrats succeeded earlier this year in killing what had been the President’s most prized foreign policy initiative: military support for the Nicaraguan rebels.

The Democratic majority also rebuked the President by overriding four presidential vetoes during the 100th Congress and rejecting his nomination of Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court, after one of the nastiest partisan battles in memory. In addition, Democrats forced the President to swallow a highly controversial legislative initiative that he strongly opposed requiring companies to give workers 60 days notice before closing a plant.

Focus of GOP Anger

In the House, Republicans focused their anger on Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.), whom they resented for the role he played in killing Contra aid as well as for his heavy-handed style of congressional management. Still being investigated by the House Ethics Committee are charges filed against Wright by the GOP leadership alleging that he misused his power to benefit himself and his Texas cronies.

Partisanship in Congress further intensified as the Nov. 8 election grew closer. Democrats blamed the GOP for preventing passage of a number of politically popular legislative initiatives to create child-care programs, mandate parental leaves and increase the minimum wage; Republicans accused the Democrats of keeping Congress in session until two weeks before the election in order to help defeat several vulnerable GOP incumbents.

In light of these strong political cross-currents, it is remarkable--if not miraculous--that any legislation cleared the 100th Congress, particularly major bills that required considerable compromise between Democrats and Republicans. And yet the record shows that the two parties were able to resolve their differences on difficult issues more often than not.

Among other things, the 100th Congress enacted the most sweeping overhaul in the welfare system in more than 50 years, provided assistance for Medicare patients who suffer catastrophic illnesses, established a policy for retaliation against the unfair trade practices of other nations, removed trade barriers with Canada, provided $1 billion to fight AIDS, funded a new program of assistance for the homeless, granted relief for drought-stricken farmers and established a mechanism for closing unneeded military bases.

Nuclear Treaty Ratified

In addition, despite severe Democratic criticism of Reagan’s approach to arms control, the Senate overwhelmingly ratified the U.S.-Soviet treaty banning medium-range nuclear missiles shortly before it was signed by Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Although Democrats like to compare this legislative record to the heyday of the Johnson Administration, there is little similarity between the two. “I don’t think that it ranks along with either the New Deal or the Great Society,” Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) remarked.

Not only were these bills no match for the big-spending legislation of the 1960s, but some of them incorporated conservative notions about less government and less bureaucracy--in essence, dismantling the Great Society. The welfare reform bill, for example, was designed primarily to get people off of the welfare rolls by providing work incentives.

Likewise, the omnibus drug bill enacted early Saturday reflects conservative goals of “zero tolerance” for people who buy and sell drugs and “user accountability” to exact stiff penalties on even the most casual drug user.

Among its many provisions, the bill, which the House passed 346 to 11 and the Senate cleared by voice vote just before it adjourned at 3:17 a.m., imposes the death penalty in drug-related murder cases, establishes a Cabinet-level drug czar to coordinate efforts to battle drugs, and greatly expands the federal role in drug abuse prevention, drug treatment and research.

The GOP minority had a bigger role in shaping the bill than any other legislation that cleared the 100th Congress.

Resolved by Compromise

Even many initiatives that began as contentious, partisan matters, such as the trade legislation, which was drafted initially by Democrats to capitalize politically on the U.S. trade deficit, ultimately were resolved by compromise. After months of haggling, Democrats agreed to Republican-proposed changes to the trade bill, and Reagan eventually accepted the plant-closing notification provision, even though this controversial idea had initially prompted him to veto the bill.

But even though the President was in no position to set the agenda for Congress at the end of his tenure, he did extract some major concessions from the Democratic majority from time to time. Most notably, Reagan forced the Democrats to eliminate restrictions on development of the so-called “Star Wars” missile defense system after he made an issue of it by vetoing the bill authorizing Pentagon spending for fiscal 1989.

Reagan also demonstrated that his powers of persuasion had not failed him when he successfully goaded the Congress into becoming more efficient in the way it funds the federal government. During his last State of the Union speech this year, the President dropped on the lectern a copy of the 1,000-plus-page omnibus spending bill that Congress had enacted the previous December, almost three months after the start of the 1988 fiscal year. Never again, he declared, would he sign such a monstrosity.

As a result, Congress this year succeeded in funding all agencies of the federal government before the beginning of the 1989 fiscal year--the first time in more than a decade that it has been done. The timing was touch-and-go, however. The last appropriations bill cleared the Senate with only two minutes to spare before the 1988 fiscal year ended at midnight, Sept. 30.

Firm Against Tax Increase

As he had over the previous six years, Reagan continued to hold firm against an increase in income taxes. Even after the stock market crash, the White House opposed raising additional revenues to trim the deficit--forcing Congress to settle for a modest, $76-billion cut in spending over two years.

But as a rule, Congress had the upper hand in most of its struggles with the President. In fact, this pattern was set almost from the first days of the 100th Congress, when the new Democratic majority showed its muscle by overriding his vetoes of two bills providing for clean water and highway construction programs.

For the Administration and the Republican minority, the Senate’s 58-42 rejection of the Bork nomination in October, 1987, was--in the words of Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah)--the “single most painful thing” about the 100th Congress. Democrats were repeatedly accused by the White House of opposing Bork simply because they disagreed with his judicial views, and the battle created such lingering bitterness that it probably will color the way the Senate proceeds in considering all future Supreme Court nominees.

Democrats even left their mark on the INF treaty, which was ratified by the Senate last May 27. As a result of questions raised by the Senate Democratic leadership, Secretary of State George P. Shultz was forced to clarify several issues, such as the impact of the treaty on futuristic weapons, in negotiations with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze.