Party aims to keep it going.

Byline: David Steves The Register-Guard

SALEM - Tony Blair just stepped down as Britain's prime minister, but the Labour Party's 1994 win that swept him to power is still running the show.

That same year, Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America" brought down the Democrats in Congress. And though Gingrich's grip on the House speaker's gavel was soon loosened, Republican rule wasn't overturned until 12 years later.

So what about Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley's Democrats?

His party's improbable takeover of the House in November's elections ended a 16-year run by the GOP. In the 2007 legislative session, which adjourned Thursday, this unification of power gave the Democrat-led Senate and same-party governor the chance to place their party's mark on a broad swath of policy initiatives - from bolstered consumer protection to increased classroom spending.

Merkley recently acknowledged publicly the rumors that have been around for weeks about his exploration of a possible run for the U.S. Senate. Win or lose, that would mean giving up his House seat and the chance to continue as one of the most powerful politicians in the state.

But with or without Merkley at the helm of the House, does this first lap of the Democrats represent a new political order for Oregon, or is it something closer to a novelty act that will be swept aside by a restoration of Republican power when the 2008 elections results are tallied?

The most Republicans could gain would be a return to divided government, and a leg up on eventually returning the entire Legislature to their control. Too few Democrat-held seats are up for grabs for the Republicans to hold any hope of winning the Senate back next year.

But all 60 seats are up in the House, where the Democrats can't afford a net loss of even one of their 31 seats if they want to keep the majority.

Rep. Bruce Hanna, Lane County's only GOP lawmaker, recalled, as the election results sank in last November, a foreboding about his party's future in the Legislature, given the Democrats' talk of a restrained, middle-of-the-road agenda.

"I would have said, when they first won, that that did not bode well for Republicans," said Hanna, a front-runner to succeed House Republican Leader Wayne Scott as his caucus' head of campaigning going into the 2008 elections.

But Democrats helped "level the playing field for Republicans," he said. They raised a variety of fees, seeking to raise taxes (on cigarettes and corporations that pay the current $10 annual minimum) and fulfilling the agendas of gay-rights, labor and environmental movements.

And Democrats failed to pair the $1 billion increase in public school funding with heightened accountability measures, Hanna said, or limit the issuance of driver's licenses to citizens and legal residents.

"They got greedy," said the Roseburg lawmaker, whose district includes Cottage Grove and Oakridge.

`I liken it to a kid who says, `Look, I like cookies and there are a lot of cookies in the cookie jar, and I'm going to go get them.' '

Not every Republican shares that sentiment.

"They are not a one-hit wonder," said former House Speaker Lynn Lundquist, a Republican, when assessing the future of legislative Democrats.

"They didn't go off and do crazy things. There was a cautionary philosophy from the beginning; a positioning of themselves for future elections to remain in the majority."

Another factor that could help the Democrats hold on to power is the tendency of interest groups to use campaign contributions to stay on the good side of those with the power to decide which bills get heard and voted on and which get left behind.

"The Democrats are going to be able to collect a lot of money," said Jon Chandler, a lobbyist for the Oregon Home Builders Association. He said that while Democrats aren't the natural allies of development and construction industries as Republicans tend to be, they didn't push for drastic policy changesaffecting his clients - which meant the kind of stability industry trade groups look for.

"The Democrats have been pretty centrist, and as long as the center holds, things will be OK," he said.

Rod Harder, the National Rifle Association's Oregon lobbyist, offered a similar assessment. Democrats did not push for gun restrictions, even after the Virginia Tech massacre. Harder said enough members of the freshman Democratic surge, including Reps. Chris Edwards of Eugene and Brian Clem of Salem, were Second Amendment supporters to douse any such impulse. And with such a narrow 31-to-29-seat edge, it only took a small fraction of the Democrats to take something off the majority agenda.

"These 31 Democrats were OK. Thirty-five Democrats could change that," Harder said, explaining that when either party secures an overwhelming majority, the moderate fringe gets marginalized.

Those 31 Democrats would like to see Harder's 35 and raise him one. Bringing their majority to 36 would be enough to overcome the three-fifths "supermajority" requirement for revenue-raising bills.

House Majority Leader Dave Hunt said despite the $2.5 billion run-up in spending on education, public safety and human services, "we need to do even more, and to do that, we're going to need additional resources."

The Gladstone Democrat cited the stalled efforts to get passed an increase in the corporate minimum tax for higher education, an increase in real estate filing fees to expand affordable housing units, and the plan to raise license-plate fees to jump-start highway projects.

Doesn't such pining for a chance to raise taxes and fees play into Republicans' hands?

Not the way Democrats see it. Hunt said the voters sent more than one message to Salem when they voted in November. Not only did they select a Democratic majority in the House and Senate and return a Democratic governor to the Capitol, they also voted down measures that would have cut taxes and restrained future budget growth.

"They chose targeted investment in good services over random pledges of no new taxes or spending caps," Hunt said. "I think voters are thoughtful and voters are looking for results."