Lame-duck Congress faces unfinished business

Congress returns to work Tuesday facing the uneasy task of wrapping up this year's unfinished legislative business in a fluid political environment that has exacerbated partisan tensions.

Key officials, distracted by the presidential election controversy, are preparing for a possible congressional role. Nevertheless, Republicans and Democrats said they hope to resolve outstanding business quickly.

"I think there's a desire in the speaker's view to get out of here," said a spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

"Do you really want to add to what is already an extremely complicated and convoluted political environment?" asked another GOP leadership aide. "There is no desire to keep members in town unless it is truly necessary."

At the top of the agenda will be a continuing resolution to keep parts of the government running beyond midnight Tuesday, when the current CR expires.

Aides said no final decision has been made about the length of the next CR, although a two-day CR appeared most likely. GOP and Democratic aides said Republicans had floated the idea of a longer CR to fund programs until the end of the Clinton administration--thereby avoiding the messy contest of the presidential election. But White House officials indicated they preferred shorter CRs and completion of the 106th Congress' work.

That would leave the two parties with the task of coming to agreement on four FY2001 appropriations bills that have not been enacted.

Key to whether leaders can engineer a graceful exit is whether an agreement reached in negotiations between Republican and Democratic appropriators serves as the starting point for final negotiations, or whether leaders seek to rewrite those agreements.

The remaining appropriations bills are the Treasury-Postal, Legislative Branch, Labor-HHS, and Commerce-Justice-State measures.

House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, suggested before the recess that agreements reached on education funding and other issues were not final.

A Senate GOP aide said that the key to how final issues are resolved is the administration's proposed ergonomics rules. The aide said that there was "strong sentiment on the part of the members to try to find some middle ground."