Maverick Lawmaker Trying to Force Colleagues to Take a Stand on Kosovo

WASHINGTON —  When it comes to the war in Kosovo, most members of Congress can be found closing the doors and drawing the blinds, preferring to wait until public opinion gels before taking a stand on a mission Americans are decidedly uneasy about.

But one House member is bent on smoking them out--San Jose Republican Tom Campbell, who wants Congress to vote within the month to formally declare war on Yugoslavia or get out.

It’s a position his cautious colleagues are less than eager to take, and it threatens to put the maverick Silicon Valley congressman on the political outs--a spot that for him is getting to be as comfortable and familiar as a pair of broken-in sneakers.

Campbell hopes to force Congress off the sidelines with two resolutions brought under the 1973 War Powers Act. One would formally declare war on Yugoslavia by May 4; the other would withdraw troops by May 1. Under the law, the votes must be held before the end of this month.

“As to putting folks on the spot, that’s our job,” said Campbell, a three-term moderate and former Stanford law professor. “There’s a reason the Constitution requires that Congress declare war . . . and if we go to war, it’s with a lot of popular support.”

Reaction to Campbell’s initiative so far has been mixed. A dozen or so colleagues slapped him on the back in the hours after he offered the resolutions Tuesday, congratulating him for bringing a divisive matter to a head. Some members of the Senate have asked for copies.

But the House GOP leadership seems unamused. “He’s very bright. He is a man of what seems at times unbending resolve,” Majority Leader Dick Armey said of the independent-minded lawmaker.

Less diplomatic jabs were whispered in the halls. “Everybody’s really [ticked] off at him about it,” one leadership aide said.

This is not the first time that Campbell, a notorious iconoclast, has put personal conviction before political well-being. Two years ago, he was one of only four Republicans to vote against the reelection of then-Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) as House speaker because of ethics violations--a move that earned him the enmity of his party leadership.

The vote did not hurt him in his largely upscale, suburban district, where Gingrich’s brand of conservatism enjoyed little support. But many who praised him then for independence howled in protest last December when Campbell again listened to his conscience--but not his constituents--and strongly supported President Clinton’s impeachment.

Campbell seeks to avoid a Vietnam-style quagmire with U.S. troops caught in a conflict that has all the risks of a war but was never authorized by the one branch of Congress empowered to do so. Congress has not exercised that power since 1941, although U.S. forces have been in combat time and again since then.

He even has a backup plan if, as some expect, both his resolutions are defeated, effectively deciding nothing. Again drawing upon a provision in the War Powers Act, he is prepared to ask the federal courts to order the United States to withdraw from the conflict over Kosovo, a province of Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic.

Calls from his district are running 9 to 1 in favor of forcing a vote, Campbell said. And some experts believe Americans in general might be glad to see their representatives get off the fence.

“There is a sense that despite the bravado, our policymakers don’t know what they are doing,” said Larry Sabato, political science professor at the University of Virginia. “Campbell by his actions is doing a better job reflecting Americans’ unease than its leaders are.”

As a member of the House International Relations Committee, Campbell has long opposed military intervention in Yugoslavia. He favors withdrawal with a diplomatic solution that helps Kosovo Albanians settle in Albania.

That effectively gives Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic what he set out to achieve--a Kosovo free of ethnic Albanians. But “the fact that the other side will crow about it is the worst reason to avoid a solution,” Campbell said.