Congress leaders weigh next year's agenda

With most members of Congress still out of Washington and impeachment talk preoccupying the Capitol, the House Republican and Democratic leadership teams sat down this afternoon to plan their agendas for the 106th Congress.

Although the uncertainty of how the House will vote on impeachment has nearly overshadowed all other considerations, the nuts-and-bolts questions of how the floor debate will be structured and how long it will take also remain unanswered, although House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, told reporters as he went into the GOP meeting that the impeachment votes likely would be Friday.

Laura Nichols, spokeswoman for House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., confirmed Gephardt has asked the Republican leadership to allot 12 hours for the impeachment debate.

Gephardt earlier told CongressDaily that Democrats "need a lot more" debate time than the six hours Armey has suggested. Armey spokeswoman Michele Davis said bipartisan staff-level discussions are under way to set the amount of debate time, as the leadership of both parties tries to balance their members' desire to speak with some members' hope the debate and vote can be completed in one day.

Said Davis, "I think the balance is leaning in favor of providing ample time." She added that a final decision is not likely before Thursday morning.

With a number of undecided Republicans announcing today they will vote to impeach President Clinton, Nichols conceded, "I don't think the initial indications are good" for the president's defenders, but that they still hope to derail impeachment by offering a motion to recommit with instructions that would include a censure motion.

Despite the talk of impeachment swirling around them, House Speaker-designate Bob Livingston, R-La., and his leadership team for the 106th Congress held their second meeting in as many weeks to forge an agenda for 1999. Livingston's meeting agenda calls for the new team to determine its top legislative issues, map out an early floor schedule and flesh out a communications strategy.

Among the issues Livingston intends to raise are Social Security reform, foreign policy and national security, tax cuts, education, health care and technology.

Livingston also intends to discuss how the party should counter the Democratic agenda, how to frame the GOP response to the State of the Union address, and will hand out the following issue assignments to GOP leaders: health care to Chief Deputy Majority Whip Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.; tobacco to Republican Conference Secretary Deborah Pryce of Ohio; minimum wage to Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas; gun control to newly elected Conference Vice Chairwoman Tillie Fowler of Florida; and school construction to Armey.