Background Check

People to watch in the new Congress

Rick Henderson from the March 1995 issue

(Page 2 of 5)

As part of the Contract with America, Cox is principal sponsor of the Securities Litigation Reform Act, a bill that would make it more difficult for investors to file class-action lawsuits against the companies they invest in or the brokerage houses from which they take advice. Cox's bill would require an investor to hold at least a 1-percent stake in a security before filing suit; force plaintiffs to prove brokerages intentionally lied rather than merely gave bad investment advice; and make investors who lost lawsuits pay the defendants' legal fees. Nuisance suits when stock prices fall are pet peeves of growth companies in particular, including the high-tech communities in both Orange County and Silicon Valley.

Both regions could prove critical to Cox's longer-term ambitions. He had considered challenging Dianne Feinstein for the Senate last year. Given the Republican year, he might very well have won the general election. When Michael Huffington promised to spend millions to win the Republican primary, however, Cox decided to hold on to his House seat. Many observers believe Cox will challenge Barbara Boxer for California's other Senate seat in 1998.

Rep. Bill Zeliff (R-N.H.)

The 1994 elections may have marked a turning point in the public perception of the pork-barrel programs that concentrate benefits in one congressional district. Skepticism of such targeted government programs helped sound the death-knell for those legislators, notably House Speaker Tom Foley, who viewed government as a patronage machine or a way to bribe voters. And few issues underscored the ossified nature of Democrats in the 103rd Congress more than their leaders' response to the A-to-Z spending-cut plan.

A-to-Z was a clever policy idea with a career-building name. It took its title from the distinctive last initial of its originator, Bill Zeliff, an affable 58-year-old from New Hampshire's north country. He went looking for a co-sponsor whose surname would complete the alphabetical spectrum and signed on Rob Andrews, a then-freshman Democrat from New Jersey.

Much like Armey's base-closing commission, which listed a group of bases that would either all continue operating or would all close, the A-to-Z program offered an ingenious method of circumventing the pork barrel. The A-to-Z plan would set aside a segment of the legislative calendar in which any member of Congress could propose cuts in any federal program or cluster of programs. The entire House would then cast an up-or-down vote on each proposal.

When the Democrat leaders refused to hold hearings on A-to- Z, and shut it out of the legislative calendar, Zeliff and Andrews responded by circulating a discharge petition for the plan. If a majority of the members of the House sign a discharge petition for a certain bill, that bill must be brought to the floor for a vote without amendments. Though A-to-Z had more than 220 co-sponsors, Speaker Tom Foley and Majority Leader Gephardt were able to threaten and cajole a handful of co-sponsors and prevent them from signing the discharge petition.

The result was a tactical win for the big spenders but a strategic loss. The A-to-Z plan became a populist touchstone, fodder for countless talk radio hosts. Zeliff will reintroduce A-to-Z in the 104th Congress, where it should get a friendlier reception.

An innkeeper whose pro-choice position led the conservative Manchester Union Leader to endorse his opponents in the 1992 primary and general elections, Zeliff's next target will probably be regulations, especially those that affect entrepreneurs. In December, he founded the Small Business Survival Caucus, a group of legislators that will work to reduce the size of the federal government by cutting taxes, spending, and regulations.

And if the new Congress changes the Superfund law, Zeliff will be one of the architects. The current law makes every polluter at a Superfund site potentially responsible for paying the entire cleanup costs, even if that company's actions were legal before Superfund was enacted. In the last Congress, Zeliff and another New Hampshire Republican, Sen. Bob Smith, co-sponsored an amendment that would have repealed the retroactive-liability provisions in the Superfund law and paid for cleanups by doubling the Superfund tax rates. Zeliff plans to reintroduce this bill in the new Congress.

The Democrats

For the Democrats, the 104th Congress represents every coach's nightmare--the rebuilding year. With a dramatically different and smaller team, Democrats have to figure out just what style of ball to play: suburban or inner city.

The suburbanites are corporatists who sag to the center, fighting broad-based tax cuts in the name of fiscal responsibility, favoring targeted credits and deductions, and supporting freer trade. The inner-city representatives, meanwhile, play a rhetorically rougher game, applying in-your-face pressure out on the fringe. They will continue to fight for income redistribution, race-based regulations, and urban pork.

Allies on many issues, both Democratic factions speak the language of business success, economic empowerment, and jobs. And both camps have politically savvy, outspoken representatives from California.

Rep. Robert Matsui (D-Calif.)