Diary of a Congressman.

November 8, 1994, election night. An incredible night. What else is there to say? My wife Sandy, the volunteers, and I huddled around three TV sets in a hotel banquet room. I came out okay - actuary a little better than we expected.

Only morbid curiosity kept us watching the rest of the night. It felt less like an election than a plane crash, with us left looking for the names of friends on the list of passengers. We turned off the light at 3 a.m., but I tossed until six. The ramifications rolled over me. Sandy would likely lose her job as Ways and Means staff director. I will lose my subcommittee chairmanship. Even the doorkeepers owed their jobs to patronage. The life I've known for 12 years disappeared in three hours.

November 14. My first day back on the Hill. Walking down the tomblike Rayburn Office Building corridor, I could almost hear the medieval cry, "Bring out your dead, bring out your dead." Even a week later, Democratic staffers are looking dazed.

November 21. We've been having strategy meetings in the Hay-Adams Hotel. There is general agreement on three bills to push. First, a constitutional amendment overriding the Buckley v. Valeo case, which said campaign spending is tantamount to free speech and can't be limited. Second is some sort of middle-income tax out. Third is another in-your-face, we'll-go-one-better amendment with lobby reform rules. The hope is the Republicans will vote "no," giving us the chance to fire press releases off to the new members' districts charging their first vote was against curbing lobbyists. Welcome to Washington, Mr. Smith.

December 7. An eventful week. Elected Gephardt (who delivered a passionate speech, then retreated to Bethesda Hospital for gall bladder surgery) to minority leader, Bonior, Fazio, and Kennelly to other party offices.

Republicans terminate 1,500 clerical and service workers as of January 4, delaying severance and denying accrued leave. One middle-aged elevator operator just shakes her head, "That's cold."

The Democratic and Republican Study Groups have been abolished. This bugs me. It reduces the legislative literacy rate 50 percent, guaranteeing a bumper sticker floor debate: Empowering Tax Cut vs. Food Stamps for the Rich.

December 16. A senior Democratic Staffer notes the change in Christmas gift giving. Whereas her office was once a magnet for lobbyist food gifts, this year, she's received just one jar of pitted olives and a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau. The fine wines are now going to her soon-to-be majority counterpart.

January 3, 1995. The first fun day back on the Hill and the last 24 hours during which the House is officially under Democratic control. The Republicans are conducting dress rehearsals for the first day in the chamber.

I meet with Barney Frank and David Bonior to discuss the "parliamentary monitor" positions Barney and I are taking. We're supposed to prowl the floor, make sure Democrats get heard, and help members combat Republicans. We feel we should make sure the Republicans always pay a price for what they do. Even routine unanimous consent requests must get us chits to be used down the road.

We're going to push the lobbying reform bill that Newt helped stall in the last days of the 103rd. Embarrass their new members by forcing them to vote against the Holy Grail of their campaign speeches.

January 4, day one. Packed House floor. Kids everywhere. Ted Kennedy is on the floor, the proud father watching his son Patrick sworn in.

Newt has his moments of eloquence, but he talks too much. New members are hanging on every word. Others' eyes glaze over. Some of Newt's story is stepped on by his mother's telling CBS's Connie Chung that Newt believes Hillary Clinton is a bitch.

The detail of this day is not important. People probably weren't glued to C-Span until 2 a.m. But it was the pictures, the montage, the impression that registered. Something is being done. The feckless, do-nothing Congress is out. CNN would break into floor debate from regular programming, Gulf War-style. Its reporters kept a running tally of the reform measures passed and those still waiting. How will this inaugural day play on the small screen in St. Louis? I give it five stars.

Balanchine would envy the choreography. Legislation and media coverage are designed to produce exactly the desired perceptions: urgency, responsiveness, revolution. I attend a ballet once every five years and don't know an arabesque from a pirouette. But I sure know artistry when I see it.

In the evening, Democrats jammed the cloakroom drinking cans of Coke and eating hot dogs and microwave popcorn. We cheer when the Ma Gingrich clip comes on. Meanwhile, TV America is channel surfing and seeing Republicans on every channel: "Heck, I don't know what is going on except apparently these guys are finally moving Congress.... Where is Roseanne? This must be serious."

Give a hand to the new Speaker. Newt does good TV.

January 5. Democrats on the Government Operations Committee caucus in 2154. I see the former chairmen's portraits stacked in a comer. Jack Brooks is at the top of the pile. Fifteen minutes of civility, then "You touch my seniority and I'll cut your hand off."

Silly fight over ranking minority memberships, which are useless anyway. You get no staff. You get no right to set an agenda. You can't call witnesses.

The Government Operations Committee will mark up an unfunded mandates bill next week. No hearing. No subcommittee markup. Slam, bam, right to the floor with legislation that would effect every aspect of federal regulation.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Jones, but your daughter is hospitalized because the federal government did not mandate elimination of cryptosporidium." Is this what we want to say?

Federal health and safety standards are important because sewage treatment, for example, transcends local boundaries. Even if your own town's treatment plant meets the highest standards, aren't you the least bit worried about the town upstream? This is the concern of conservative Democrat Gene Taylor. His district at the foot of the Mississippi collects 41 percent of die nation's sewage dumped by the 80 million people upstream.

January 10. Second day of balanced budget amendment hearings. I make the pitch for capital budgeting. Chairman Henry Hyde criticizes the "casual" way taxes are sometimes raised. Casual? Try being in a parade at home the day after you voted to raise taxes. It is not a casual experience.

More seriously, do we really want more than a simple majority on tax matters? Some argue that wresting money from citizens is an extraordinary act. What is it when Congress orders my son or daughter to fight a war?

January 12. Deficit reduction comes home. I met this afternoon with a group of unhappy home builders from the fast-growing Eastern panhandle and officials from the federal Farmers Home Administration. Last year, Congress appropriated half as much as previous years for the mortgage loan program that subsidizes lower income home buyers. Only four months into the fiscal year, our state office has already allocated 80 percent of its allotment. Home builders are left with a lot of customers and little financing. We press FHA from every quarter. This is an investment; these loans create jobs and tax money. No luck.

No one leaves happy. Many at the meeting today were sending me postcards two years ago complaining there weren't real spending cuts in the Clinton budget. Wait until they see Kasich's budget. They'll love that.

January 18. The press secretary asks about doing some TV shows. I've been invited on "Crossfire" tonight and the local Fox affiliate roundtable discussion tomorrow. Why me? Probably because I was one of the first throwing parliamentary inquiries at the Speaker after Carrie Meek's mild criticism of Gingrich's book deal was stricken from the record.

I decline. I feel a little guilty that I may be letting the party down. Here is another chance to get out our message. But another Democrat who revels in these type of shows win be asked. I don't enjoy "Crossfire." There's enough political strife without elevating it to a spectator sport.

Another more selfish reason. Years ago I abandoned desire to be president or speaker. It's important that West Virginia knows what I am doing and thinking; I am not seeking a national voice. So I drive home in time to sit in our big bed with a pajama-clad child on either side of me and read stories for 45 minutes.

January 21, the State of the Union address. The White House sent green talking-cards to the Hill this morning. Main points: new government, new economy, new covenant. Also talking points of accomplishments, in case anyone wondered. I do TV interviews ahead of speech so I will be one of the first beamed up. At least I don't start out with, "The President sounded strong..." But I talk off the green cue cards - new government, new economy, etc.

The President keeps facing the Republicans. Hey Bill - over here. We support you. We stood up for you when they sat down. They want you to fail. Talk to the American people. They're the ones we need to hear you, to catch a spirit, to believe again.

Speech goes too long, more than an hour. Members slip out to catch the satellite feed. But we're too conditioned to getting our information in quick, digestible bites. We ought to be able to listen to one speech a year that's longer than a Nordic Track infomercial.

January 27. Anticlimactic day, the balanced budget amendment having passed yesterday.

Majority Leader Dick Armey is coming through as hoped. On a radio interview this morning he referred to openly homosexual Barney Frank as "Barney Fag." CNN begins running the transcript on the half-hour. Armey goes to the House Floor to castigate the press for running with what he says was an unintended mispronunciation. Listening to the tape, I don't hear a deliberate slur. As Barney points out, maybe that's the problem. It was in the back of his mind.

A top priority for Democrats must be constantly reintroducing the American public to the Republican leadership.

January 31. I realize that presently I am involved in a grown-up game of "Gotcha." My job is to catch the Republicans tripping up and yell it to the top of the Capitol dome. Not a real positive feeling.

February 1. I find myself hurrying to work to give a one-minute speech. Being in the minority means digging extra hard for positive topics for the hometown press. I'm going to urge baseball owners to come to an agreement or face losing their antitrust exemption. Designed to make the six o'clock news sportscast.

I end up voting for the unfunded mandate ban. The final version, which is defensible, in effect says once the mandate is pointed out as being unfunded, the House by a majority vote can then decide to approve it regardless. Sounds reasonable to me.

For those who believe so strongly that this further limits the federal government, I want to see what kind of unfunded mandate bureaucracy develops. First will be in the Congressional Budget Office, which is being allocated millions of dollars to do the estimates on every bill that could cost money. Then every federal agency must have a new "mandates division" to evaluate every regulation and proposed law.

February 2. Our office has taken this "no lobbyist gifts" pledge. Already we are suffering. Someone sought to deliver a construction hard hat full of cookies. "Were they just store bought?" I asked. "No," says Jane, my legislative director "they looked pretty damn good."

February 13. Roll Call reports that Billy Tauzin, Gary Condit, and 20 to 30 other conservative Democrats will organize to work with moderate Republicans. The article cites anger with the Democratic leadership as the main reason.

Chet Edwards, a conservative from Texas, is quoted. In the cloakroom, I thank him for the efforts of reconciliation he is making. I also express my frustration at what I have read because it seems to me there has been a real effort on the part of leadership to reach out to the conservative Democrats. Chet, after all, is a deputy whip.

February 14. Newt took leadership and key staff on a retreat. The main subject was lamenting the media's failure to report afl die legislative accomplishments being racked up.

Welcome to the majority, Newt. I'll loan you my journals from the first two Clinton years when, morning after morning, we gnashed teeth at the media's failure to appreciate our accomplishments. The first year was impressive - passage of the National Service Act; the five-year Deficit Reduction Plan; Goals 2000 for education standards; the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. One commentator billed the first year as die most productive since the Great Society.

Newt made the same mistake we did - passing too much too fast. And, as a rule, the media isn't excited about positive accomplishments.

February 17. Finally home in West Virginia, my first time since January 15.

First stop is West Virginia Wesleyan. It's a lovely campus, with colonial dormitories and classrooms tucked in one corner. Speaking to 50 students, I get intelligent questions - how to balance the budget, what is die future of prison funding, should the U.S. be assisting Mexico - but no sense that Newt's Contract has permeated the political consciousness.

Still, I'm disappointed. Newt may not have connected yet, but neither have I. The business in Washington is extremely important to these students, yet none seem engaged in even the struggles that directly affect them. At least half of these students depend upon federal financial aid. Republicans propose to cut $13 billion from student aid over five years, including charging interest on the loans while the student is in college instead of deferring interest charges until graduation. In 10 years, I have never received a letter from a student on education issues.

I meet with the campus Young Democrats. The president of the club arrives with a friend, bearing two grocery bags of chips, soft drinks and donuts for a reception. Unfortunately they are the only ones to appear. A liberal middle-aged professor happens by and for the next half-hour we sit around the table talking politics.

My impression is that Republicans organize college campuses much better than we do. And no wonder. Youth demands action and something to believe in. You have to give them policies that hit close to home and show how budget decisions made by another generation in Washington will influence their lives.

I grew up in a Republican household but had the Vietnam war and civil rights as my rallying point. And JFK and FDR were always out front as political icons, defining what I was for and against. Democrats fought the status quo, no matter what it was. Democrats provided the action.

From a 22-year-old's perspective, what action have Democrats provided lately, say, in the past 15 years? The clarity of civil rights is muddied in the confusion of affirmative action. Every possible reform - lobbying, campaign, congressional - has been muddled to mush through relentless compromise and an evident lack of enthusiasm.

And even though these kids can't tell you what the Contract is, they have a sense of where Republicans stand. A clearly defined agenda always wins against a pit of ambiguity.

February 18. I speak to 60 Upward Bound students in Elkins. They're high schoolers who get tutoring to nudge them towards college. Most are low-income and many would not be expected to continue past high school.

Walking out, I note to myself the impressive students, their excited leaders, and the success rate. Federal funds seem to be working here. Then I remember the buzz over another Upward Bound program when an instructor took her students on a federally funded weekend excursion to an amusement park. Which one will be used as an example during the Budget Committee debates?

February 21. I talk with other Democratic members about what they had found at home over the last weekend. Most had held similar town meetings and reported the same constituent reaction - last year's citizen rotweilers have turned into cocker spaniels: friendly, inquisitive, housebroken.

It's so different from two ears ago. And it's funny. The economy was strong then - the last quarter had shown a 7 percent growth rate. There was a new president trying to shake things up in Washington, which was exactly what the people had asked for. Optimism should have ruled the land. The new Congress hadn't even done much, so what was there to complain about?

But I still remember the indoor shopping mall in Charleston where 50 well-dressed citizens backed me up to the edge of a fountain spewing colored water spouts. One tall, sixtyish man screamed about balancing budgets. Several of his cohorts waved Ross Perot's latest treatise like some sort of capitalist Red Guard. The next two years of attack-dog dialogue in health meetings left me wanting to give up on participatory democracy entirely.

February 22, day 50. The President comes to the Hill. Republicans give us a basement room. Classy. The crammed gray-walled room is like a crowded elevator.

Clinton says, I don't mind meeting down here in this little room. I can see you better and it concentrates our attention.

February 25. Two town meetings today in the Eastern Panhandle, which borders Washington. Refugees and retirees from inside the Beltway. Calm. The diehard, wear-your-elephant-on-your-sleeve dittoheads seem to have slept in this early Saturday morning. Maybe winning control of the place has relaxed them.

More and more, I am seeing that the value of the Contract is in how constituents are being forced to confront what they expect from government. One mother, blonde hair, white blouse, and black dress, stands and points to her 14-year-old boy next to her. "Look at him," she says, her voice trembling. "He is disabled. he will never be right. I make $14,000 a year; he needs four medicines to control his epilepsy and if they take his SSI [Supplementary Security Income], I don't know what I will do. I can't pay for these with what I make. If they take his benefits and I have to stay home to care for him, what good does that do?" She struggles to keep her composure as the confused youth stands beside her. "What can I do to stop this?" she asks me.

I stumble through various shallow statements. What you are doing now is important. Educate your neighbors. Make the black-and-white statistics of "hundreds of thousands of children now receive benefits" take on individual faces.

February 27. I'm taking on the Contract today. First I drive to the Eastern Panhandle for a press conference at Berkeley Heights Elementary School where I sit in the school cafeteria next to a full lunch tray and open with, "If some have their way, for many West Virginia schools, this lunch tray could become a thing of the past." Combining the school lunch and breakfast programs with Women, Infants, and Children, day care, and child care programs will force pregnant women to compete with their children for food.

March 1. Newly elected Republican Steve Largent stops by simply to introduce himself. He speaks sincerely about wanting to know members beyond the partisan speeches on the floor. These battles might be less bitter, he reasons, if we knew each other better. He's right. There are almost no structures for bringing members together as people, not partisans. The Thursday prayer breakfast attracts many but only for an hour a week. The House gym brings some aspiring athletes together. And there are the legislative negotiations.

But otherwise, chances to come together, to know each other as something else than the exetremist yahoo at the far microphone, barely exist. Check into your office first doing in the morning. Then party briefing. Then committees, where you sit separated from the opposition, even coming in separate doors. After black eyes all around, we adjourn late, more convinced than ever there is some DNA strain condemning the opposition.

I mention to Steve my hope that Democratic and Republican leaders will resume the tradition of having new members from both sides attend a joint orientation session. Until this year, every new member group spent several days together at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. The presentations were insignificant compared to the bonding that took place. The relationships formed in the college classroom atmosphere last for years.

March 16. Jane attends an afternoon meeting for staffers willing to volunteer in running the Child Nutrition Rally Sunday at the Capitol. The goal is to have at least 1,000 children showing their support for the existing school lunch and other nutrition programs. Do they know what they're in for? Short attention spans, walnut-sized bladders, diaper changes, formulas, and wide mood swings. Jane reports 80 staffers show up. Not one is a parent.

A tactic that Newt employed successfully for many years is using symbols that become the whole debate. For us, the last two weeks, school lunch met that purpose. When Americans think of the welfare reform bill, AFDC, work requirements, job training, even cost savings, all they will ask is, "Did you vote to cut out the school lunch?"

March 21. An afternoon meeting with two political consultants who want to raise finds for my next campaign. This congressional term is only three months old. If I am to run a competitive race in '96, 1 have to start now.

Both men are burly, casually dressed, and straightforward. Subtlety is not a major part of their firm's operating procedure. First, my fundraising background. I raise about two-thirds from PACs with an almost even split between business and labor union organizations. In-state solicitation has not been strong.

Their enthusiasm sounds like an Amway pitch: "Here's how you can get rich." Their latest success stories, etc. They have candidates aggressively making telephone solicitations under the direct supervision, and coercion, of their staff.

I'm apathetic. Fourteen-hour days. I'm heading into another week of no kids and I'm supposed to add die daily task of making two hours of distasteful telephone calls to raise money.

They point out the obvious - that I can no longer count on the business portion of my fundraising base. They don't need me. Something I had not thought about - even organized labor may not be the solid prospect. Labor leaders, at least the lobbyists, are being reminded forcefully about who controls the flow of legislation.

We talk some about their other clients. Already private offices across Washington are filled with people like me; seated at a bare desk, legal pad and a computerized list of names and telephone numbers in front of us, telephone in hand - just dialing for dollars.

March 26. Sandy was reading seven-year-old Robert excerpts from letters to the newspaper editor debating at what age should children be taught Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. One of the writers referred to the "N-word."

"What does the `N' word mean?" Robert asked. "Newt?"

March 29. Sonny Bono makes his maiden speech. He is yielded only 30 seconds and most of it consists of an anguished "stop that - you're gaming." Not as good as "I've Got You, Babe," but it's a start. This will be a big question for generations of C-Span viewers: "Where were you when Sonny first spoke on the floor?"

March 30. Report at the whip's meeting on recent focus groups. I'm leery. Focus groups are more credible than town meetings only because of their price tag.

Mixed reviews from these sessions. The public doesn't know much about the Contract. They are still mad at Congress for constantly indulging in partisan bickering. Newt is seen as being too mouthy and arrogant. (Maybe these focus groups are more perceptive than I thought.) Neither party is resonating.

April 5. Riding in the Capitol subway to vote with lobby reform advocate John Bryant, I joke about the impact of taking his "no gifts or dinners" pledge. We should have done it two years ago. Now we're in the minority and no one wants to take us to dinner anyway.

During the last hours of debate, the Republicans erupt again over Democratic language to "remove the fleeing billionaire tax cut." Their vehemence, particularly from their leadership, only activates the Democrats further. Usually restrained Republican leaders like Tom Delay rail about Democrats resembling the Soviet Communists forcing fleeing Jews to pay exit taxes.

Even in politics, the constant prospector can find gold in the most unpredictable places. No one at home is following this issue ... now. But it's one that will be used to define candidates in a number of races in die fall. For a party still saddled with constant poll results that it represents the wealthy, why this rabid defense of the inalienable right to take all the money and run - untaxed - after enjoying all the protections and benefits of our nation in amassing an overwhelming fortune?

April 6. A New York Times poll has some good news for Democrats. While 70 percent said they liked that idea of $500 child credit, 80 percent said it should be limited to families with incomes of $95,000 or less.

April 7. Republicans set up for Contract ceremony on West Front. Technically, they needed permission from the Public Buildings and Grounds Committee. The Democratic committee staff asks me to make a one-minute on this issue. Somehow I don't think the American people will be too upset.

A flurry of post-Contract polls. Happily, the percentage disgusted with Congress but satisfied with their representative has climbed back up to 65 percent. Other polls register general satisfaction - and ambivalence.

April 11. Nathan Deal (D ... whoops, R-GA) announced his transition to the church of Newt, the first House Democrat to change party.

More will probably go before the year is out. The Contract has only hastened the political realignments and hardenings that have been occurring in the past decade. No one likes to lose numbers, but I would rather have the caucus down to the truly committed so that we can begin the long process of building back.