GOP Moderates Key to Clinton Fate

WASHINGTON —  Now that President Clinton’s defense has rested in the House Judiciary Committee, his fate almost assuredly lies in the jittery hands of two dozen Republican moderates, who share a deep ambivalence about the impeachment issue but are proving difficult to pin down.

As a result, Clinton’s fight for survival has turned an unaccustomed spotlight on a small group of Republicans often thrust deep into the shadows of a conservative-dominated GOP.

They include the party’s black-sheep environmentalist, a maverick who backed regulation of health maintenance organizations and the lawmaker who had the unenviable job of overseeing the ethics investigation of House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia. It is a ragtag band of independent thinkers whose votes--assuming the House Judiciary Committee passes one or more articles of impeachment--are expected to make or break Clinton’s bid to thwart their passage.

These GOP moderates have managed to be a fairly cohesive bloc supporting Clinton on issues such as the environment and education. But they are splintering on impeachment, a highly personal question that has assumed enormous--and unique--political ramifications.

A Halting Process for Support

Clinton and his allies will have to work this group gingerly, member by member, to win their support. So far, his progress has been halting, measured by one step forward and two steps back.

Just as Rep. Amo Houghton (R-N.Y.) was announcing Tuesday that he would oppose impeachment, another moderate the White House had counted on, Rep. John Edward Porter (R-Ill.), was backpedaling from his previously stated plan to vote against any articles that the House Judiciary panel may recommend. Porter is now undecided.

Some of the GOP moderates were encouraged by this week’s two-day presentation of Clinton’s defense in the Judiciary Committee but others were disappointed and urged Clinton to get more directly involved in making the case against impeachment.

“The legal department of the Clinton team has taken over this thing and they are not helping themselves in trying to persuade members,” said Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.). “But I think there’s a possibility he could throw a Hail Mary pass if he got intimately involved and told everyone else to shut up.”

Will Moderates Band Together?

A key question is whether undecided moderates band together to throw their weight around--or to give each other political cover--on impeachment.

“I think we may,” Rep. Brian P. Bilbray (R-San Diego) said Wednesday on NBC-TV’s “Today” show. “But you’ve got to remember, we’re independents.”

Bilbray, who only narrowly won reelection this fall, is one of two California moderate Republicans whom Democrats have targeted as potential converts to the anti-impeachment cause. The other is Rep. Stephen Horn of Long Beach.

Most of the fence sitters are from the Northeast and Midwest, the last bastions of moderate Republicanism. That once-dominant wing of the party has been eclipsed by the GOP’s growth in the more-conservative Sun Belt. That trend has made moderate Republicans a distinct minority in a party that took control of Congress in the 1994 elections on a tidal wave of conservative activism.

As each side counts votes on the anticipated impeachment battle, every move the moderate Republicans make is under scrutiny. The House has 228 Republicans, 206 Democrats and one Independent who usually votes with the Democrats. Republicans expect no more than eight Democrats to support impeachment. That means impeachment could not pass if more than 18 Republicans voted no.

“Moderates seem to be all over the lot,” said Mike Johnson, a former House leadership aide who helped found the Republican Main Street Partnership, a coalition of GOP moderates. “But there is going to be enough moderates to defeat it.”

They are natural swing votes, precisely because they do not have a hard-edged ideology that drives them quickly to a conclusion on tough issues. And they tend to come from districts with large blocs of Democratic voters. Indeed, Clinton carried many of their districts in one or both of his presidential campaigns. So for these lawmakers, supporting impeachment would amount to overturning the electoral judgment of their own constituents.

But if the moderates fear angering many of the folks back home by voting for impeachment, they risk the wrath of GOP conservative activists if they do not.

Porter was an early and outspoken opponent of impeachment. But after he was deluged with complaints from conservatives about his position, he issued a “clarification” of his position Tuesday, saying that “he never ruled out voting for impeachment.”

In scouring the horizon for potential defectors, Clinton and his supporters have high hopes for the New York delegation. Houghton, whose upstate district voted for Clinton in 1996, is the kind of maverick the president could not afford to lose. He was one of the GOP rebels who forced House leaders to take up campaign finance reform this year.

Backing for D’Amato Response

Clinton allies hope that other New Yorkers will be emboldened by Houghton’s announcement--and by recent criticism of impeachment by lame-duck Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.), who was defeated, in part, because of his refusal to take a position on the issue in this fall’s campaign.

Among the most likely defectors is Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.), the leading environmentalist among Republicans. Even impeachment advocates count him as an expected “no” vote.

In Connecticut, the Clinton forces hope to win over Rep. Nancy L. Johnson. The other leading Republicans in the state--Gov. John Rowland and Rep. Christopher Shays--have spoken out against impeachment. But complicating Johnson’s decision is that she does not have the luxury of a safe seat--she was nearly defeated in 1996 after presiding over the Gingrich investigation as House Ethics Committee chairwoman.

In New Jersey, moderates seem to be turning away from Clinton. Rep. Bob Franks has announced that he will support impeachment unless Clinton admits lying under oath. His GOP colleague from a nearby district, Rep. Marge Roukema, surprised many when she came out in favor of impeachment. But by doing so, she may have shored up support among party conservatives, who earlier this year backed a stiff challenge from the right in her GOP primary election.

Another Republican who may want to rebuild bridges to party conservatives is Greg Ganske (R-Iowa). He drew the wrath of GOP leaders in this year’s Congress by leading the charge for an HMO regulation bill sponsored by Democrats. Ganske has said he would vote for impeachment, even though his district voted for Clinton in 1992 and ’96.

Some conservatives are irritated by colleagues who have announced their opposition to impeachment before the Judiciary Committee acts. But they are not surprised that most of those voices are coming from the North.

“It’s a civil war all over again, eh?” said Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), a leading impeachment advocate. “We’ve always had a split between the Northeast and the South.”

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Times staff writer Marc Lacey contributed to this story.