National Journal articles from March 1999

National Journal archives from March 1999

EARTHQUAKE IN P.C. LAND.
March 6, 1999... We in Washington, as you know, have a pretty good handle on this country. The United States is best thought of as a system of laws, rules, regulations, programs, agencies, court cases, bills, findings, judgments, allowances, deductions,...

THINKING ABOUT JUANITA BROADDRICK.
March 6, 1999... One of the most important questions raised by Juanita Broaddrick's allegations is how we would react if someone just like her claimed to have been raped 21 years ago by (for example) George W. Bush, or Al Gore, or Henry Hyde. Would the...

The Rise and Fall of Newt.
March 6, 1999... HOW THE AGITATING BACKBENCH ER BECAME THE VISIONARY SPEAKER, ONLY TO TAKE A SENSATIONAL PLUNGE FOUR YEARS LATER. In their political backgrounds, Reps. Bill Archer, J.D. Hayworth, and Mary Bono share little in common. But last November,...

A Pox on Both Our Parties.(the Republican Party's public view)
March 6, 1999... MAYBE JESSE VENTURA WASN'T A FLUKE, BUT A SIGN THAT VOTERS HAVE GROWN WEARY OF PARTISAN BICKERING. MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, BOTH REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS HAVE REASON TO WORRY. It is a given among political professionals to say that...

Affirmatively Acting.(Department of Justice appointee Bill Lann Lee)
March 6, 1999... FOR THE THIRD TIME, BILL CLINTON WILL NOMINATE BILL LANN LEE AS CHIEF OF THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT'S CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION. AND FOR THE THIRD TIME, CONGRESSIONAL CONSERVATIVES ARE GUNNING FOR HIM. Buoyed by his impeachment victory, President...

COLD FEET ON BUSTING THE BUDGET DEAL.
March 6, 1999... For at least the past few weeks, the conventional wisdom on Capitol Hill has been that the spending caps imposed in 1997 by the five-year balanced-budget deal are history. They're outdated, given the emergence of the budget surplus, which...

MEDICARE REFORM IS ON THE SICK LIST.
March 6, 1999... Sen. John B. Breaux, D-La., is known for his gift for negotiation and for his ability to make things happen on controversial issues. But sometimes even the most skillful of legislators can't get Congress to budge when it's not squeezed by a...

GAVELING DOWN THE CHAIRMEN.
March 6, 1999... Remember the old days on Capitol Hill, when committee chairmen ruled with iron fists? They set the course and the tone for their panels, and they were ready to duke it out with anybody who had the temerity to challenge their turf. Critics...

DOUBTS ABOUT ELECTRICITY DEREGULATION.
March 6, 1999... Electricity deregulation, much ballyhooed as the way to slash energy costs for all Americans, could raise power rates for homeowners in 19 states, according to an internal Administration study by the Agriculture Department's chief economist's...

MONEY AND MENTORS MAKE A+ TEACHERS.
March 6, 1999... Every day, Jason Kamras' sixth-grade math students shuffle into class, grab their individual math binders off a shelf and quickly take their seats. Within 20 seconds, they're focused on a warm-up math problem flashed in front of them by an...

SOME RAIN ON THE GAY-RIGHTS PARADE.
March 6, 1999... Bill Turner said yes, but reluctantly. Turner, the director of the Lesbian and Gay Coalition for Justice, Tennessee's biggest gay-rights group, always puts the movement first. And so, on March 6, he's joining 400 other activists at a...

FROM PIZZA TO K STREET TO PRESIDENT?(Herman Cain)
March 6, 1999... Most presidential candidates spend a term or two as a Governor or a U.S. Senator before daring to launch a White House bid. Herman Cain wants to jump from his current job as the head of a Washington trade association straight to President of...

FROM THE K STREET CORRIDOR.
March 6, 1999... The Importance of Air Power The Airports Council International-North America, with an especially meaty agenda this Congress, has hired some of' the priciest talent in the transportation business, including former Bush White House Chief of...

VIEWS ON THE AMERICAN SCENE.
March 6, 1999... VIEWS ON THE AMERICAN SCENE Justice vs. Microsoft A lawsuit by-the Justice Department against the Microsoft Corp. is currently being tried in court. Based on what you know about the case, do you side more with the Justice Department...

People.
March 6, 1999... Interest Groups American Health Care Association President Paul R. Willging says he's "free at last." After leading AHCA for 16 years, Willging, 57, is stepping down to pursue a new career in academe and on the public-speaking circuit. He...

HIGH-VOLTAGE INNOVATION.
March 6, 1999... BOSTON--"Reinventing government," like "total quality management," is the type of overused phrase that gradually loses its meaning as it becomes a catchall for every new notion that wanders along. In the end, such a slogan effectively negates...

WILSON CENTER'S NEW LEAGUE OF SCHOLARS.
March 6, 1999... In a horse-trading city such as Washington, Woodrow Wilson was an oddity. He was known as "the schoolmaster in politics," a Presbyterian minister's son and lifelong pedant (and racist). He was a university president (of Princeton) who became...

AFTER RUBIN, WHO?
March 6, 1999... Those recurring rumors about an impending resignation of Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin have resurfaced with a splash nearly big enough to swamp Manhattan's financial district. Informed (naturally) speculation has it that Rubin, a former...

LABOR'S MATING DANCE WITH GORE.
March 6, 1999... Just over seven years ago, some of the biggest unions in organized labor were falling on a sword. The blade was the White House bid of Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. Although he had just finished fourth in the 1992 New Hampshire Democratic...

IT'S TRUE: DEMOCRATS' SEATS ARE NUMBERED.
March 6, 1999... When House members get together for a "civility retreat" in Hershey, Pa., March 19-21, the goal will be for Republicans and Democrats to see one another as colleagues, not just political adversaries. The weekend gathering, fashioned after a...

Hotline Extra.
March 6, 1999... Women 2000 With a credible candidate at the top of the Republican race for the White House. and others waiting in the wings to vie for high office, women are on the move for campaign 2000. Mark Mueller of the Boston Herald writes that...

A STARR-CROSSED PROCESS.
March 6, 1999... Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr hasn't been able to nail President Clinton (so far), but it appears that the way Start has conducted his inquiry will lead to the scuttling of the law that created the office he heads--or, at the very least,...

IT COULD BE A FAMILY LEGACY THING.
March 6, 1999... Hillary for Senate? Why in the world would she want to do that? It would mean abandoning herself to the tender mercies of the New York press corps. Think: Don Imus. the New York Post. The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. And for what? Six...

Corrections.
March 13, 1999... Jonas Neihardt, the head of Qualcomm Inc.'s Washington office, was quoted incorrectly in a caption accompanying a story on lobbying about cellular telephones (2/27/99, p. 557). Neihardt said that the Europeans' support for Wideband-CDMA "is...

Court to Congress: you can't regulate everything.
March 13, 1999... A March 5 federal appeals court ruling has propelled toward the Supreme Court a dispute that could have a major impact on the relative powers of Congress, the states, and the high court itself. The immediate question is whether the 7-4...

THE GREAT BANANA TRADE WAR--AND WHY IT MATTERS.
March 13, 1999... The Marx Brothers could have made something of it: You've seen A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, now enjoy Four Years at the WTO, ending with that marvelous set piece of ensemble slapstick, the great banana trade war. Hear...

The New Great Game.(Central Asian foreign relations)
March 13, 1999... FIRED BY OIL AND GAS, INSPIRED BY IDEALISM, AND PULLED BY GEOPOLITICS, AMERICA IS MOVING INTO CENTRAL ASIA'S CASPIAN SEA REGION, WHERE ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS STRIFE, AND RUSSIAN MANIPULATIONS, HAVE RULED FOR CENTURIES. The United States,...

Stars and Stripes on the Silk Route.(Central Asia relations)
March 13, 1999... AMERICAN SOLDIERS AND NATO TROOPS MOVE EVER EASTWARD, FORGING CLOSER TIES WITH CASPIAN NATIONS. In the final quarter of the 20th century, the United States, the West's premier power, has spent more and more time warily watching and,...

Caspian Wells Come in for K Street.(Central Asia relations)
March 13, 1999... YOUNG NATIONS FLUSH WITH PETRODOLLARS, AND NEEDING NEW IMAGES, MAKE FOR A FEW GUSHERS, AND EVEN A GOLD MINE, FOR WASHINGTON CONSULTANTS. Last summer, Heydar Aliyev, the not-so-democratic president of the Caspian Sea oil giant of Azerbaijan,...

Meanwhile, in Oil Patch USA.(oil industry)
March 13, 1999... CASPIAN OIL ASIDE, LOW WORLD PRICES FOR CRUDE OIL ARE HURTING INDEPENDENT DRILLERS IN OKLAHOMA AND TEXAS. The complex and fickle politics and economics of the world market for oil can sometimes make for stark contradictions at home....

Government on Autopilot.(Federal program oversight)
March 13, 1999... SOME $100 BILLION WORTH OF FEDERAL PROGRAMS HAVEN'T RECEIVED A CONGRESSIONAL ONCE-OVER IN YEARS. Political science textbooks teach that Congress's authorizing committees are supposed to create federal programs and then conduct oversight by...

WALKIN' IN A BUDGET WONDERLAND.(Republican spending policy)
March 13, 1999... It has become a cliche for members of Congress to declare a President's budget proposal Dead on Arrival. This year, congressional Republicans have added a new wrinkle: They're getting ready to adopt a budget resolution that many admit will be...

YES, WE HAVE NO BANANA WAR.
March 13, 1999... There's no denying that the press sometimes declares a war is under way a little sooner than the generals do. It happened again in early March, when front pages everywhere announced that an obscure and all but incomprehensible spat with Europe...

ONE RULE FOR CARRY-ONS?
March 13, 1999... Like so many of the other travelers at Reagan National Airport this week, Alex Decker was saddled with carry-on bags. Three pieces, to be exact. One held his computer, another his overnight necessities, and the final an overhead projector for a...

People.
March 13, 1999... Media People Trolling for a new man in Washington since its acrimonious breakup with former Washington Bureau Chief Jonathan Broder last September, Salon magazine has tapped Jake Tapper, of "I Dated Monica Lewinsky" fame. Tapper, 30, will...

BAROODY'S BOTTOM LINE.(Michael E. Baroody)(Interview)
March 13, 1999... As part of a recent restructuring at the National Association of Manufacturers, Michael E. Baroody, 52, was named the group's senior vice president and top lobbyist. Baroody's no stranger to the NAM: Except for a year-long stint with the now...

INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCE-PEDDLING.
March 13, 1999... Foreign interests--governments, corporations, and advocacy groups--spent almost $80 million lobbying Congress and the executive branch in 1997, according to the most recent annual report that the Justice Department has filed with Congress....

BEAT THE SYSTEM.(Bob Livingston lobbying strategy)
March 13, 1999... For years, Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La., grumbled to his New Orleans pals that the lobbyists seeking federal bucks for their clients made a lot more money than he did. So after a forced admission of marital infidelities kept him from becoming...

YOU CAN'T HIDE YOUR SPYING LIES.
March 13, 1999... On March 3, in a cover story headlined "MONICA PHONE SEX SHOCKER," the New York Post published a breathtaking new allegation about President Clinton. Citing a just published book, Post writer Neal Travis reported that Clinton had been...

WYE RIVER PART TWO: HEALTH CARE REFORM.
March 13, 1999... Maryland's secluded Wye River Plantation, which played host to a President, a king, a prime minister, and a former terrorist during last October's Middle East peace talks, is once again the scene of big-power summitry. Only this time, the talks...

LAMAR, PLAID NO MORE.(Lamar Alexander's presidential campaign)
March 13, 1999... When Lamar Alexander announced his second bid for the presidency on March 9, he was wearing a gray business suit, not the red-and-black plaid shirt that was his trademark four years ago. And therein lies an important clue to how Alexander will...

Campaign Circuit.
March 13, 1999... Playing Different Horses The Republican lobbying firm of Barbour, Griffith & Rogers may be K Street's hottest greenhouse for advisers to GOP presidential candidates. Former Republican Party Chairman Haley Barbour has signed on to the...

WHERE THE RACE FOR THE HOUSE NOW STANDS.
March 13, 1999... Though overshadowed in recent weeks by announcements of potential presidential candidacies and high-profile Senate retirements, the fight for control of the House remains the best political story in town. Republicans have their work cut out for...

House ODDS.(vulnerable congressional seats)
March 13, 1999... As of now, both Republicans and Democrats have about the same number of potentially vulnerable House seats for the 2000 election. Democrats need to pick up six seats to regain a majority in the House. REPUBLICANS-HELD SEATS (27) LEAN...

Hotline Extra.
March 13, 1999... Mack Out The decision by Sen. Connie Mack III, R-Fla., to retire has made the race for his seat the first hard-fought Senate contest in Florida in 12 years. Mack's decision stunned the political establishment in the fourth-largest...

IT MAY BE FINAL-TWO TIME ALREADY.(Democratic presidential candidates)
March 13, 1999... WEST ORANGE, N.J.--The presidential campaign headquarters of former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley is like the candidate himself--low-profile and low-volume. Tucked in a side of a nondescript office building in this pleasant Newark suburb, the...

Poll Readings.
March 13, 1999... VIEWS ON THE AMERICAN SCENE Generally Speaking Considering how things are today, would you say that the U.S. is generally headed in the right direction, or is it off on the wrong track? (Margin of error [+ or -] 3 percentage points;...

BLINK, AND ANOTHER REPUBLICAN HAS ANNOUNCED.
March 13, 1999... John Kerry out, Pat Buchanan in. It seems as if every week, another Democrat pulls out of the 2000 presidential race and another Republican drops in. What's going on? Why does the GOP field keep getting bigger and bigger, as the Democratic...

Critics, Backers Of '96 Act Joust On Phone Markets.
March 13, 1999... TELECOMMUNICATIONS MINUTES before signing the Telecommunications Act in February 1996, President Clinton predicted the law would unleash a telecom revolution by tearing down government-imposed barriers to competition -- particularly in the...

FCC Reauthorization Provides Stage For Broadband Debate.
March 13, 1999... TELECOMMUNICATION A BURGEONING digital frontier is beckoning new players to a telecommunications market once dominated by local and long distance telephone monopolies. High speed data services, once limited to corporate clients, are now...

106th Congress Poised To Leave Mark On Privacy Issues.(related story outlining privacy organizations)
March 13, 1999... JUDICIARY IN THE HIGHLY volatile world of preserving online privacy, each new outrage stirs the legislative agenda. Less than two months ago, few had heard about Intel's Pentium III microprocessor, let alone the privacy implications raised...

Similar Fights Brew Over Encryption, Supercomputers.
March 13, 1999... TECHNOLOGY THERE ARE FEW things that can unite House Majority Leader Armey and Minority Whip Bonior. Yet one morning in late February, Armey and Bonior put aside past differences to appear at a news conference to launch a new effort to...

Congress Must Chart Tricky Path On E-Commerce Rules.
March 13, 1999... TELECOMMUNICATIONS As electronic commerce explodes from an $8 billion industry in 1998 to an expected $108 billion in 2003, there have been numerous calls for Congress to write new rules for making the medium safe and secure for consumers...

Congress, Agencies Work Through The Millennium Bug.
March 13, 1999... TECHNOLOGY NO MATTER what Congress does, it cannot stop time or completely inoculate the country against the millennium bug. But that will not stop legislators from trying. Congress has watchdog committees and the White House has a...

Despite Consensus, Satellite Bill Faces Rough Liftoff.(Review)
March 13, 1999... TELECOMMUNICATIONS CONGRESSIONAL attempts this year to change an outdated satellite television law highlight the difficulty Congress faces this session in approving even popular telecommunications bills. Although there is a broad...

Are the Justices racial discriminators?(United States Supreme Court)
March 20, 1999... The Supreme Court and the National Collegiate Athletic Association, like lots of institutions, have an awkward problem. It's what lawyers call "disparate impact": the statistical underrepresentation of black and Hispanic people among those...

And don't forget your gun.(benefits of concealed weapons)
March 20, 1999... My friend Tom is running, possibly for his life. It is a sweet summer evening in San Jose, and he and a colleague have just left work and are walking through a dicey neighborhood when they catch the eye of some young men, as many as 20 of them,...

Winner Take All.(fund raising for 2000 House of Representatives elections)
March 20, 1999... DEMOCRAT PATRICK KENNEDY AND REPUBLICAN TOM DAVIS, THE CHAIRMEN OF THE HOUSE CAMPAIGN COMMITTEES, ARE BOTH INTENT ON CAPTURING THE MAJORITY. In planning the National Republican Congressional Committee's annual dinner on March 9, Rep....

Head Start on a Fresh Track.(government program for underprivileged children; includes related article on Texas anti-poverty program)
March 20, 1999... PRESSURED BY WASHINGTON AND LOCAL HISPANIC PARENTS, A HOUSTON HEAD START AGENCY RUN LARGELY BY AND FOR BLACKS SINCE THE 1960s YIELDS TO 1990s REALITIES. HOUSTON--In 1966, Great Society policy-makers in Washington created a program with one...

Divided We Stand.(Republicans and Democrates in the United States)(includes related article on state-by-state party support)
March 20, 1999... WHAT DO CONFLICTS BETWEEN THE TWO POLITICAL PARTIES AND SCHISMS WITHIN THEM HAVE IN COMMON? HERE'S A CLUE: GEOGRAPHY. One of the most mysterious and disquieting aspects of the Clinton impeachment saga was the schism it laid bare: How could...

Tentative steps on social security.(reforming social security finance)
March 20, 1999... Remember Social Security reform? It seemed to be off to a rollicking start in January when President Clinton made it the centerpiece of his State of the Union address, and unveiled a plan he said would keep Social Security solvent until 2055....

BUDGETARY HARMONY.
March 20, 1999... Congressional Republicans, quite remarkably, stood in unison this week behind a message of restraining spending, cutting taxes, and saving Social Security, as they worked toward the passage of a budget resolution. In fact, GOP leaders appear to...

AN INTERVIEW WITH SPEAKER HASTERT.(J. Dennis Hastert)
March 20, 1999... It has been 10 weeks since Rep. J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., was elevated, thanks to a stunning and strange set of circumstances, from a chief deputy whip who was little-known even to some Washington insiders, to House Speaker. During a March 17...

TWO FRESHMEN WHO NEED NO INITIATION.(George V. Voinovich, Evan Bayh)
March 20, 1999... SENS. VOINOVICH AND BAYH ARE WARY AS CONGRESS PLOTS ITS BUDGET STRATEGY. For freshman Sen. George V. Voinovich, R-Ohio, watching Congress crank up its budget-making grinder has been a learning experience. A somewhat disturbing learning...

People.
March 20, 1999... Interest Groups The new Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers fueled up last week by hiring Josephine "Jo" Cooper as its first president. Cooper, who's the first woman to head a major automobile lobbying group, will play a key role in...

BLESSED (AND FETED) ARE THE PEACEMAKERS.
March 20, 1999... It was the day before St. Patrick's Day, and everybody who was anybody (at least everybody who was anybody Irish) seemed to be in Washington, D.C. At the ABC News bureau on DeSales Street, Irish public radio and television host Pat Kenny had...

A FAST BOAT TO MIAMI.
March 20, 1999... MIAMI, Fla.--After only a few minutes on the phone with local police, Dan Geoghegan, an assistant chief with the U.S. Border Patrol, began to doubt the story he was heating about two Cuban refugees who claimed they had just splashed ashore amid...

CLINTON'S CURIOUS COMMITMENT.(Bill Clinton, Medicare)
March 20, 1999... PARDON THE SUSPICIONS ABOUT THE TIMING OF CLINTON'S VOW TO PRODUCE A MEDICARE PLAN. Much to the amazement of some in the Clinton Administration, the President this week said he will send Congress his own Medicare-salvation plan for...

PLAYING THE IDENTITY CARD.(biometrics)
March 20, 1999... Biometrics--the technology that recognizes individuals electronically by the unique characteristics of their eyes, hands, or voices--is booming. Now, after 15 years of growing sales and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, the...

FROM THE K STREET CORRIDOR.
March 20, 1999... Feuding With Fannie Mae The threat of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac poaching on their turf has spurred a group of mortgage insurance companies to build a lobbying coalition strong enough to challenge those quasi-public institutions, which are...

SOBRIETY TEST.(alcoholic beverage industry)
March 20, 1999... BEFORE FAXING A RESUME, CONSIDER THE DOWNSIDE TO DISCUS'S TOP JOB. Ready to become a trade group's top dog? Undaunted by a challenge? Salivating at the prospect of an annual salary of $750,000? Still interested? Contact Korn/Ferry...

WANTED: MORE HELL-RAISERS.
March 20, 1999... SACRAMENTO, Calif.-- Corruption and chaos once ruled American cities to an extent that is hard to imagine today. Ethnic clans battled in the streets and at the polls; old money and entrenched party bosses dictated the results of elections. The...

THE 4 PERCENT SOLUTION.(college admissions)
March 20, 1999... California Gov. Gray Davis last month came to Washington, D.C., touting what he called "a simple but very powerful idea" for higher education: Automatically admit the top 4 percent of graduates in every high school in his state to the...

THE RISKS OF WTO-BASHING.
March 20, 1999... WHAT HAPPENS WHEN AMERICA LOSES A CASE AND FINDS IT POLITICALLY DIFFICULT TO CARRY OUT THE JUDGMENT? The current fight between Washington and Brussels over bananas is a preview of other, weightier challenges ahead for the international...

AS THE ELDERLY GO ...(the senior vote)
March 20, 1999... In 1996, elderly voters saved Bob Dole's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. In the Iowa caucuses, Dole would not have achieved his narrow (26 percent to 23 percent) victory over conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan...

Campaign Circuit.
March 20, 1999... Save the Managers! Rep. David McIntosh, R-Ind., is furious. "The impeachment of Bill Clinton isn't over yet." McIntosh wrote in a recent fund-raising solicitation for the "House Managers Defense Fund," a new drive aimed at protecting the...

IS THE PROBLEM GORE OR HIS JOB?(Albert Gore, Jr.)
March 20, 1999... Democrats remain quite bullish about their chances of recapturing control of the U.S. House, but they're increasingly nervous about their prospects of keeping the White House. National polls show Al Gore trailing Texas Gov. George W. Bush by a...

Hotline Extra.
March 20, 1999... Webbed Feat Steve Forbes made campaign history at 8 a.m. on March 16 when he announced his presidential intentions on the World Wide Web. Forbes posted this message, with accompanying video, on his Web site: "I'm going to run the first...

VIEWS ON THE ECONOMY.
March 20, 1999... Good Times Would you describe the state of the nation's economy these days as excellent, good, not so good, or poor? (margin of error [+ or -] 3 percentage points; International Communications Research for ABC News-Money magazine) ...

NOW, HERE'S THE PLAN.(presidential candidates)
March 20, 1999... House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt's endorsement of Vice President Al Gore for the 2000 Democratic presidential nomination is just the most recent confirmation of the Democratic establishment's rush to crown President Clinton's heir...

PAT'S BACK. BUT WHY?(Patrick Buchanan)
March 20, 1999... PAT BUCHANAN, ONCE A GAIN A GOP PRESIDENTIAL CONTENDER, IS THE ANGRY WITH MAN'S CANDIDATE. What exactly does Pat Buchanan think he's doing? Isn't the GOP presidential field crowded enough? Haven't we already seen enough of his act? ...

Corrections.
March 27, 1999... An article on the regionalization of politics (3/20/99, p. 748) reported incorrectly that Rep. Amory Houghton Jr., R-N.Y., will not seek re-election in 2000. Houghton has no plans to retire, according to a spokesman. A State Department...

Letters.
March 27, 1999... SNIDE SWIPES & NONSENSE William Powers' "You Can't Hide Your Spying Lies" [3/13/99, p. 703] makes some well-judged and worthwhile points. However, it is a pity he had to spoil a well-argued case with snide swipes. Powers writes: "Author...

WHY INEQUALITY MATTERS--AND HOW TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
March 27, 1999... The politics of inequality move in peculiar ways. For years, the gap between rich and poor has been widening in the United States, so you might have thought that the issue would have moved to the center of the political debate. As the country...