Go back to Special Report front pageSAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 5, 1995 -- Republicans have a real chance Tuesday, for the first time in the lives of most Americans, to take control of both houses of Congress.
Despite a recent surge in the polls for Democratic candidates, a survey by the non-partisan Capitol Hill newspaper "Roll Call" found 67 congressional races "too close to call," with Democrats holding the seats in 57.
In the Senate, Republicans are favored in almost half of the 35 open seats, with another 10 too close to call. They need just seven additional seats to win a majority.
Such a political turnabout would be a sight unfamiliar to most people. Not since 1949, when Harry Truman was president, have Republicans held control of the House and Senate.
Not a single Republican member of the House has served under a Republican speaker. The House has been controlled by Democrats in 60 of the last 64 years. The Senate has been under Democratic rule for 48 of the last 60 years.
Beyond the explosive political wars that would erupt between the Clinton White House and a Republican Congress, consider the following:
-- Jesse Helms, R-N.C., who once called San Francisco's Roberta Achtenberg a "damn lesbian" and who is probably the body's most avid hawk, would chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
-- Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, whose rating from the American Civil Liberties Union is a 5 out of 100, would run the Senate Judiciary Committee.
-- Conrad Burns, R-Montana, who last month said it was a "challenge" to live in Washington with all the blacks, would head the subcommittee that oversees the District of Columbia.
-- And Alphonse D'Amato, the brash New York Republican who has been a shrill critic of President Clinton, would take over the Senate Banking Committee and its investigation into the Whitewater matter.
And that's only the Senate side. If Republicans pick up 40 seats in the House, Newt Gingrich of Georgia would take over as speaker and become third in the line of succession to the president.
Oakland's Ron Dellums, who ascended to the chair of the Armed Services Committee after two decades in the House, would be replaced by Lloyd Spence, R-S.C.
George Miller of Martinez would turn over his post as chair of the Natural Resources Committee to Don Young, R-Alaska, to whom the League of Conservation Voters, on a scale of 100, gave a zero.
"This election is not so much about incumbents, it's about Democrats and Republicans and who will have control for the '90s," said Vic Fingerhut, a pollster who has worked for Democratic candidates as far back as Hubert Humphrey.
"People got a taste of it during the Reagan years," Fingerhut said. "It means cutbacks on women's programs, all kinds of things that Democrats have stood for."
Among the most likely initiatives to come from a Republican Congress would be a balanced budget amendment that would require massive cuts in public spending. Such an amendment, which would also have to be ratified by two-thirds of the states, was defeated last year only after Robert Byrd, D-W. Va., killed it with his clout as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee -- a post he would lose in a Republican Senate.
Other Republican initiatives would likely include elimination of welfare benefits after two years, elimination of benefits for illegal immigrants, deep cuts in social programs and increases in the defense budget.
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