`Reps split votes on key issues`

By Mark Wigfield
Ottaway News Service

WASHINGTON _ Although they are from different parties, Reps. Phil English, R-Erie, and Jim Traficant, D-Poland, Ohio, voted the same way on seven out of eight key House votes this year.

In fact, they voted alike more than did Pennsylvania's two GOP senators. Sens. Rick Santorum of Pittsburgh and Arlen Specter of Philadelphia. They disagreed on three of eight issues identified by Roll Call Report Syndicate, a news service that tracks congressional votes.

English and Traficant disagreed only over funding for a gender preference program contained in a job training law. Specter and Santorum differed on Medicare eligibility age, spending on youth anti-smoking programs and campaign finance reform.

Ohio's senators, Mike DeWine, R-Cedarville, and John Glenn, D-Columbus, parted ways over campaign finance and tax cuts.

Following are the key votes and a record of how the lawmakers voted. While some bills were debated in both the House and Senate, others only reached one chamber.

Budget
Probably the most far-reaching vote of the year was on a fiscal package designed to produce a balanced budget in 2002 while providing nearly $100 billion in multi-year tax cuts. It was contained in two separate bills, one of which cut the growth in Medicare and other programs while the other cut taxes.

Traficant, English, Specter, Santorum and DeWine voted for both bills. Glenn voted for the program cuts but against the tax cuts. Both bills passed by comfortable margins.

Tobacco
Critics of tobacco forced several votes on amendments to end government support of the leaf and increase spending on anti-smoking programs aimed at teen-agers. English and Traficant voted to remove $34 million in subsidies for tobacco farmers' crop insurance.

In the Senate, all but Santorum voted with a broad majority to increase by sevenfold spending on a program meant to curb smoking by youth. Santorum voted against increasing spending on the youth anti-smoking program, which is run by the Food and Drug Administration. The higher funding level was enacted.

Gender equity
Traficant voted with the vast majority of Democrats for a House bill to support continuation of gender-equity mandates in the government's main job training law. English voted against it. Republicans opposing the mandates prevailed by a slim margin.

Supporters of the mandate wanted to set aside 10.5 percent of the money in the Carl D. Perkins Vocational-Technical Education Act to train displaced homemakers, single pregnant women and single women with children.

School choice
English and Traficant voted against a House bill giving states the option to set up school voucher programs for students in grades K-12. Under the bill, federal funds could be used for vouchers that would enable children from low-income families to attend private or parochial schools. The bill failed to pass by a relatively narrow margin.

Congressional pay
House members were forced to vote on the ticklish subject of congressional pay when opponents tried to block a supposedly automatic 2.3 percent cost-of-living increase. Both English and Traficant voted against a pay increase.

House members make $133,600. The raise amounts to about $3,100, bringing total pay to $136,700.

IRS overhaul
Both English and Traficant voted for a popular bill to overhaul the Internal Revenue Service. The bill would shift the burden of proof in tax disputes to the government, giving taxpayers the presumption of innocence in U.S. Tax Court. Also, taxpayers harmed by IRS negligence can sue the government for up to $100,000 in civil damages. The measure passed overwhelmingly.

Abortion
So-called ``partial birth'' abortions were opposed by both House members, who voted for a bill that makes it a federal crime for doctors to perform a late-term abortion in which they partially deliver the fetus and then kill it. Critics call this infanticide, while defenders say it is sometimes necessary to protect the mother's life or long-term health.

The bill passed easily

The Senate voted on a more moderate alternative to the House bill. But opponent Don Nickles, R-Okla., said it would wrongly allow the attending physician _ ``the abortionist'' _ to be the judge of viability. The measure failed, with all four Pennsylvania and Ohio senators voting against it.

Chemical weapons
All four senators supported a treaty that would curb the production, use, storage and transfer of chemical weapons around the globe. The United States thus joined 74 other countries that had ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, which took effect April 29, with the aim of keeping poison gas from inflicting mass civilian and military casualties. In part, ratifying nations must dismantle by 2007 any chemical weapons stockpiles.

The Senate ratified the treaty easily.

Medicare eligibility
Specter was the only senator of the four to oppose raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67. The higher age was supported by the Concord Coalition, an anti-deficit lobby, and opposed by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).

The measure passed, but it wasn't included in the final budget package.

Campaign finance
Specter and Glenn supported a Senate campaign finance bill sponsored by maverick Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. McCain needed 60 votes to end a Republican filibuster against the bill, but only got 53 votes. Santorum and DeWine voted against ending the filibuster. In part, the bill would bar unregulated ``soft money'' from federal races.

Fast track
Both Specter and Santorum rejected President Clinton's bid for authority to negotiate international trade agreements that Congress must then accept or reject on an all-or-nothing basis. Both of Ohio's senators voted for it, as did most other senators, ending a filibuster against the so-called ``fast track'' bill.

The president withdrew the legislation after it became apparent it would not pass in the House.

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Updated Dec. 26, 1997
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