Congress Returns From Recess

Monday, December 4th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) â€” The presidential transition is the first order of business as Congress returns from a three-week recess to confront lingering disputes with the current president and uncertainty about the next one.

A House Government Reform subcommittee called a hearing Monday on the refusal of the General Services Administration to release $5.3 million in transition funds to either Republican George W. Bush or Democrat Al Gore because it's still uncertain which will be sworn in as president.

Reps. Stephen Horn, R-Calif., and Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., sent a letter to the head of the GSA last week saying the money should be given immediately to Bush, and that failure to do so could impede a smooth handover of power from the Clinton administration.

Beyond the hearing, lawmakers were returning this week to a legislative schedule that provides few clues as to how they will end the ninth lame-duck session of the past half-century.

Congress has yet to complete work on four of the 13 spending bills that must be passed to operate the federal government in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. Most conspicuous among them is a $350 billion measure for labor, health and education programs that contains many of the educational priorities of the outgoing administration.

Republican congressional leaders and the White House were close to reaching agreement before the Nov. 7 election but were sidetracked by peripheral issues. Those included GOP opposition to new workplace safety regulations and Democratic efforts to make it easier for some illegal immigrants to win permanent-resident status.

Republicans are still pressing for passage of a package of tax breaks targeted at small business, community renewal and 401(k) and IRA retirement investments. The package faces an uncertain future even though it contains a $1 increase in the hourly minimum wage sought by Democrats.

Senate Republicans also want another shot at a long-stalled bill that would make it more difficult for people to sweep away credit card debt in bankruptcy court.

GOP leaders planned to hold a strategy meeting Monday. One option â€” to call it quits for the year and let the new president deal with pending tax and spending issues â€” apparently would not be welcome off Capitol Hill.

The White House has indicated that President Clinton would not agree to extend stopgap spending into the new year. The current measure funding agencies whose appropriations bills haven't been completed expires at midnight Tuesday.

Bush said last week that GOP congressional leaders were ``plenty capable themselves of how to end this legislative session.'' Should he become president, he said, ``we will have a strategy to deal with the Congress, the next Congress.''

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., taking the position that Bush will become president, said over the weekend that Bush and the new Congress convening in January will need to ``do a few things well and not try to rush through a big agenda.'

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., are expected to discuss how to deal with what could be the first even split between the two parties in their chamber in 120 years.

Daschle has stressed that if the Senate breakdown is 50-50, Democrats should get half the seats on committees and a larger say in the legislative agenda. Republicans would still be in nominal control of the Senate if Bush wins, with Vice President Dick Cheney able to cast tie-breaking votes as Senate president.

The eight Democrats â€” including first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. â€” and two Republicans elected to their first Senate terms last month will begin orientation sessions Tuesday.

The same day, House GOP leaders will listen to members hoping to become chairman of committees and subcommittees. Republicans imposed a six-year term limit on those positions when they won control of the House in 1994, leading to a scramble this year for leadership of Banking, Armed Services, International Relations, Ways and Means and other major panels.

One of the few new pieces of legislation that could make it to the House floor in the lame-duck session is an election-related bill making military absentee ballots valid even if they lack postmarks or have other technical problems.

The measure, offered by Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., is an outgrowth of the dispute in Florida over the disqualification of some votes mailed by troops serving overseas.