House work
November 3, 2000
By JOSE ALFREDO FLORES and DENA BUNIS
<71>Combine a narrowly divided House and a hot presidential race, and you get an election-year report card for the 106th Congress that few parents would relish signing.
As voters prepare to go to the polls Tuesday to decide whether to rehire their members of Congress, lawmakers have not finished their work and will return after the elections for a lame-duck session.
The five Republican members and one Democratic member of the delegation representing Orange County set goals for themselves in January. Not many have been achieved.
Here's a look at what they have accomplished.
The 48th Congressional District is not included because Rep. Ron Packard, R-Oceanside, is retiring.
Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Newport Beach: While much of Cox's agenda was stalled by presidential vetoes of the estate and marriage-penalty tax-cut measures he supported, he did see repeal of the tax on senior earnings under Social Security. That was the first bill he sponsored when he came to Congress in 1989. He continued to push to make the Internet free of new taxes and got a resolution approved calling on all nations to make the Web tariff-free. And, like most local lawmakers, Cox secured money for projects back home, particularly for the Newport Bay cleanup and restoration projects. As a member of the House leadership, Cox drove the effort to put out a GOP report on the Clinton administration's Russia policy. The report was hailed by fellow Republicans and branded a political document by Democrats.
Rep. Gary Miller, R-Diamond Bar: As a freshman, it's difficult to get one's name on pieces of legislation. Congress repealed the 3 percent "Spanish-American War tax" on telephone services. Though Miller wasn't listed as the prime sponsor, he did introduce it.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach: As chairman of the subcommittee on space and aeronautics, Rohrabacher presided over the reauthor-
ization of the NASA program, something that will shape U.S. policy in space. And he continued to play a role that has shaped much of his congressional career, that of a constant critic of the Clinton administration's foreign policy and of his fellow Republicans' support for continued dealings with China and other communist governments.
Rep. Ed Royce, R-Fullerton: Royce's major accomplishment of the session was seeing the Africa trade bill signed by the president. The bill fundamentally shifts U.S. policy toward Africa from one of giving aid to one of promoting trade and opening markets.
Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Santa Ana: Being in the minority has made it difficult for Sanchez to get legislation passed, and much of what she fought for this year never made it out of committee. Therefore, much of her effectiveness has been her ability to work within the administration to get funding for projects in her district that the executive has control over, such as federal money to help hire more police officers and money for a community center in Garden Grove.
There's a chance part of Sanchez's school-construction agenda could be included in the federal budget after the lame-duck session.
