Few places in Washington were as festive on election night as Heads, a Capitol Hill watering hole where the NRA had its victory party. Hundreds of gun lobbyists and their allies whooped and hollered as one pro-gun-control Democrat after another went down to defeat. Having suffered the passage of the Brady bill’s waiting period on handgun purchases and the crime bill’s ban on assault weapons during the past two years, the NRA struck back with fury, pouring more than $3.2 million into GOP congressional campaigns. Record numbers of NRA members ran phone banks, distributed leaflets and knocked on doors to get out the vote. It worked. Of the 24 ““priority’’ races they targeted, the NRA won 19. More incredible, an absolute majority of the new House, 224 members, are ““A-rated’’ by the NRA.
One of the first legislative targets may be the ban on assault weapons. Oklahoma’s new Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, a waterfowl hunter and owner of ““quite a few handguns,’’ calls scrapping the ban ““part of the mandate.’’ The House GOP contract promises a new crime bill within 100 days. President Bill Clinton is likely to veto a total repeal of the assault-weapons ban, so some Republicans advise the NRA to adopt the lower-profile strategy of gutting it through technical amendments instead.
The MOD Squad’s resurgence also means trouble for the federal agency that enforces the gun laws and collects taxes on tobacco and liquor. Determined to crack down on illegal-firearms trafficking, Clinton had given the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) broad new powers to fingerprint and photograph arms dealers. But the NRA’s Knox warned that his group has been ““getting a lot of complaints’’ about ““abuses’’ by ATF agents. ““It’s going to be ugly,’’ says one top ATF official, who fears budget cuts and restrictions on the agency’s powers. ““I ran into one Republican staffer on the Hill who already told me, “You guys are toast’.''
Makers of alcoholic beverages also had reason to celebrate. Before the election, they worried about a doomsday scenario of new taxes on beer, wine and spirits to pay for ambitious social programs such as health reform. Health care is not even mentioned in the GOP’s Contract With America. What’s more, Rep. Bill Archer of Texas, the new chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and fellow Texan Richard Armey, the new majority leader, philosophically oppose taxing the industry. ““They have been very receptive to our arguments,’’ said one much-relieved alcohol-industry lobbyist last week.
For the tobacco industry, the election was the best news in years. Rep. Henry Waxman, the antismoking crusader who chairs the health and environment subcommittee, dragged company executives to Washington for highly publicized hearings – even forcing the titans of tobacco to squirm while a 7-year-old schoolgirl lectured them about the evils of smoking. Waxman’s panel also subpoenaed millions of internal documents dating back 40 years in an effort to show that tobacco companies had concealed evidence of the health hazards of their products. The likely new chairman of the committee that overseas the health panel is Rep. Tom Bliley, whose district’s biggest private employer is Philip Morris. Bliley has already said he will end Waxman’s ““witch hunt.’’ ““Mr. Bliley does not feel the subcommittee should be used to harass businessmen,’’ says his press spokesman, Charlie Boesel.
But Bliley’s rise provides only a hint of how well positioned tobacco is in the new Congress. The industry this year became the single biggest supporter of the Republican National Committee, contributing more than $600,000 in soft money since last July. A lobbyist for one tobacco firm, RJR Nabisco, is also a charter member of GOPAC, Newt Gingrich’s political committee, and has given it more than $50,000 since 1990. Gingrich last week lashed out against Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler, who is contemplating whether to regulate tobacco as a drug. Gingrich called him a ““bully and a thug’’ in an interview on NBC. Publicly, Kessler vowed to push on with his tobacco probe, but privately tobacco’s new clout on the Hill has the FDA spooked. ““We’re pausing and taking a deep breath,’’ said one agency official.
Perhaps the most telling atmospheric change is in the offices of the congressional leaders. Armey smokes cigarettes, Bliley enjoys pipes and visitors to Speaker-to-be Gingrich’s office walk through a thick cigarette fog created by aides. Republicans may try to clean up politics, but they will do it from inside smoke-filled rooms.
The trial lawyers who gathered in a Palm Beach, Fla., oceanfront mansion on election night were some of the wealthiest in the nation. Each was a member of the Inner Circle, a club for personal-injury attorneys who have won at least one $1 million award. As they crowded around TV screens watching the Republican victories, the lawyers sipped their drinks and groaned. ““Nobody jumped in the Atlantic,’’ said their host, Robert Montgomery. ““But it wasn’t a festive night.''
The Revolution of 1994 could hit trial lawyers where it hurts most. For decades, their political clout – and fund-raising prowess – has helped preserve a legal system that encourages excessive litigation, giant jury awards and, not coincidentally, soaring legal fees. Efforts to reform the system have been blocked repeatedly in the Democratic Congress – and trial attorneys have spent millions to preserve the status quo. In 1994 alone, Newsweek estimates, lawyers and their political-action committees contributed at least $40 million to state and national office seekers – mostly Democrats – committed to beating back legal reform. This year, however, voters ruled against many of the candidates lawyers backed. Attorney Ronald Krist of Houston figures he gave about $250,000 to 22 state and national candidates and says, ““I can only think of two that won. I’m horribly depressed.''
Republicans have championed tort reform for years – in part because it stands to benefit businesses and insurance companies that now get stuck paying out huge awards. The GOP’s ““Contract With America’’ calls for ““common sense’’ reform on personal injury, product liability and securities cases. One likely change would limit punitive damages to a maximum of $250,000 – just a fraction of what plaintiffs have won in some celebrated cases, like the $2.7 million awarded to a woman burned by a very hot cup of McDonald’s coffee. ““We’ve got majorities in both houses that favor some limits on the size of settlements and some restrictions on the suits that can be brought,’’ says Bill Fay of the Product Liability Coordinating Committee. ““We’re finally going to get to vote.''
Maybe so. But trial lawyers are nothing if not resourceful. Already they are regrouping, hiring new public-relations firms and scouting out GOP lawmakers who might be open to persuasion. ““Poli-tics are very, very strange,’’ says Montgomery, with just a trace of cynicism. ““One election, the other fellow beats your candidate, and two years lat-er, the new fellow’s knock-ing on your door looking for some money.''
Environmental issues stir strong passions. Last February GOP Rep. Don Young of Alaska thwacked an oosik – a walrus penis bone – against his hand during a congressional hearing as he argued that native Alaskans should be able to sell the endangered animals’ appendages as handicrafts. Young is expected to chair the House Natural Resources Committee. His counterpart in the Senate will be Frank Murkowski, a fellow Alaskan who once infuriated environmentalists by serving blubber from protected whales at a Senate reception. Supporters say the pair will give Alaskans a stronger voice in how their land is used. But environmentalists fear they will turn the state over to industry lock, stock and oosik. ““Putting Young and Murkowski in charge of these committees is like handing Jack the Ripper the knife,’’ says Sylvia Ward of the Northern Alaska Environmental Center.
Both Young and Murkowski have called for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Both want to expand logging in the old-growth Tongass National Forest and to allow exports of Alaskan oil. Out of a possible score of 100, Young and Murkowski earn ratings as low as zero on environmental issues from the League of Conservation Voters. Together they have taken contributions of nearly $500,000 from oil, timber and mining interests since 1991.
Young and Murkowski claim the carping is self-pitying hysteria. For one thing, Newt Gingrich has supported conservation in the past and did not attack environmental laws in the Republican contract. ““There’s not going to be cataclysmic change,’’ says a Murkowski aide. ““The environmental groups may be on the losers’ list,’’ adds a Young spokesman. ““But the environment won’t.’’ Even some environmentalists hope Republicans will want to build consensus on environmen-tal issues. ““I’m not sure they want to ap-pear as handmaidens of industry right out of the blocks,’’ says the Sierra Club’s Deb-bie Sease. If her guess is wrong, environmentalists will have a consolation prize: Young and Murkowski will be the biggest boon to environmental fund raising since James Watt.
