The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, the Supreme Court rules on double jeopardy, among other things, Stuart Taylor recaps; the Senate debates campaign finance reform, Kwame Holman reports, Senators Feingold and McConnell disagree; Texas Republicans fight over abortion, Betty Ann Bowser reports; "Where They Stand," President Clinton speaks in Nashville; and the man who runs with the wind as explained by track coach Pat Connolly. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today the government may take the property as well as the liberty of drug defendants. The court overruled lower court decisions in Michigan and in California in saying civil forfeitures are not double jeopardy for drug offenders. The Justices also put a sexual harassment suit against President Clinton on hold. They decided not to decide immediately whether the case should be delayed until the President leaves office. The suit was brought by Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee. Today's decision means the case will not be argued and resolved until sometime next year. We'll have more on the court decisions right after the News Summary. In the Middle East today, the Israeli foreign minister rejected demands that Israel give up the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. He was responding to a communique by Arab leaders at a weekend summit in Cairo. It said they would reconsider relationships with Israel if the new Israeli government rejected the land for peace formula accepted by both sides for five years. Secretary of State Christopher traveled to the Middle East today. A State Department spokesman discussed the purpose of the trip.

GLYN DAVIES, State Department Spokesman: I think what we're in a position to do is, and the Secretary is doing this, is to go out there to look at firsthand what's been developing recently in the region and then to decide what's in America's interest to do next as we continue to try to play our role as a friend to the peace process. I think what I can say about what's positive, of course, is that both parties are essentially talking about how to go forward with peace, and that's positive.

MR. LEHRER: Christopher will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Egyptian President Mubarak. In Canada today, some 2,000 rioters broke hundreds of windows, looted shops, and set fire to a government building in Quebec City. Five police officers were injured, eighty people were arrested after overnight celebrations for Quebec's national holiday turned violent. Damage was estimated at nearly $400,000. More wildfires broke out in the Western United States over the weekend. In New Mexico, there were two fires in the Jemez Mountains 50 miles north of Albuquerque. In Western Nevada, at least 3,000 people living 60 miles south of Reno evacuated their homes, and in central Utah, drought conditions were blamed for dozens of small fires started by lightning. Yesterday in Arizona 10 hikers were rescued by helicopter from a blaze on the northern rim of the Grand Canyon. Fifteen hundred acres have burned there since the end of last week. The first in a new class of AIDS drugs was approved today by the Food & Drug Administration. Nevirapine works in the same way as established AIDS drugs to inhibit an enzyme essential to the reproduction of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, but it has a somewhat different chemical composition. It must be used in combination with older AIDS medicines. The judge who presided over several key civil rights cases in the 1960's has died. Elbert Parr Tuttle died of kidney failure yesterday in Atlanta. He ordered the readmission of more than 1,000 Birmingham, Alabama students who had been disciplined for taking part in civil rights demonstrations. His ruling led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Tuttle retired last year as senior judge on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. He was 98 years old. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the U.S. Supreme Court, campaign finance reform, Texas Republicans, "Where They Stand," and the fastest man in the world. FOCUS - SUPREME COURT WATCH

MR. LEHRER: We go first to today's action at the Supreme Court and to Charlayne Hunter-Gault.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The Supreme Court ruled today in two cases involving double jeopardy and the way this country has fought the drug problem. One case was from Michigan and the other from California. We begin with this report on the California case by Jeffrey Kaye of KCET-Los Angeles.

JEFFREY KAYE: In 1992, Charles Wesley Arlt and James Ely Wren were convicted of violating federal drug and money laundering laws. Prosecutors charged that over a 15-month period their ring transported 36 tons of chemicals to southern California, then distributed the chemicals to makers of the illegal drug methamphetamine. Arlt and Wren pleaded "not guilty" and claimed the chemicals were used in a gold mine Arlt owned in the California desert. The men were sentenced to life in prison, but the government deprived them of more than their liberty.

CHARLES ARLT, Defendant: They took everything we had. We didn't hide a dime, every transaction was done by the law.

JAMES WREN, Defendant: The government took vehicles, automobiles, and they took aircraft, they took--

MR. KAYE: After the men were indicted on criminal charges, the government filed a civil forfeiture suit in order to confiscate their property. Wren's lawyer, Shawn Perez, says the government punished the men twice for the same crime. That was double jeopardy, says Perez, a violation of the Constitution's Fifth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.

SHAWN PEREZ, Lawyer: I see nothing wrong with punishing a person once, and the Constitution says, yes, we can punish you once, but we cannot punish you twice for the same offense in two separate proceedings. Arlt and Wren were punished twice by the forfeiture of their property. After they had already been prosecuted and convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, the government came back and said, we're taking everything you own--resulted in a second punishment.

MR. KAYE: Government prosecutors appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The assets confiscated by the federal government were worth close to a million dollars. They included this shrimp boat, as well as a helicopter and a plane. There was a pleasure boat, 11 cars, 138 silver bars, and more than $1/2 million in cash and in bank accounts. The government maintains confiscating this property wasn't punishment since the defendants never legally earned it. In order to put the men in jail, the government had to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. That's the standard required for a criminal conviction. But to seize assets in civil proceedings, authorities need only prove there is probable cause connecting the crime to the property. Many defense lawyers claim law enforcement has been too eager to seize property since they get to use the proceeds. In the last decade, the U.S. Justice Department has seized more than $4 billion worth of assets.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Now more on this ruling and other action at the court today from NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, correspondent for the "American Lawyer" and "Legal Times." And Stuart, starting with the forfeiture case, there were actually--there was a California case and another case, but the same ruling on the same issue. Explain that.

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: Yes. The court ruled lopsidedly for the United States Government in both cases, holding by nine/zero in the Los Angeles case that we just saw that the defendants lose because taking away the proceeds of theircrime, taking away things they bought with drug money is not punishment. The more controversial ruling that the court reached by eight to one with Justice John Paul Stevens dissenting was in a Michigan case in which the court had found marijuana in a man's house and growing nearby and had initially forfeited the house for--as an instrumentality of the crime and then later prosecuted him and got him sentenced to a five-year prison sentence. The court upheld that, saying that didn't violate the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment because taking a man's house away for having marijuana in it was not, the court said, punishment for purposes of the double jeopardy clause, even though it would be punishment for purposes of other constitutional provisions- -for example, the Eighth Amendment clause that prohibits excessive fines.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So that just to be clear, the double jeopardy clause is--just briefly explain that--and, and the civil procedure that doesn't violate it.

MR. TAYLOR: The Fifth Amendment double jeopardy clause bars anyone from being punished twice in two separate proceedings for the same offense, so that if you're convicted of something and sent to jail, they can't prosecute you again. There's been a lot of argumentation about what that covers and what it doesn't cover. These two cases came from lower courts that had held that it violates the double jeopardy clause to either prosecute somebody and put 'em in prison for a crime and then subsequently try and forfeit his property for the same crime, or do it in the reverse order. The lower courts held that you can do one but you can't do both. The Supreme Court held today that they were wrong, you can do both, and as a result, hundreds and hundreds of appeals by convicted prisoners all over the country who had been hoping they would be able to win their cases under the logic of these lower court decisions are now going to be thrown out.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And the logic of the court today was that it wasn't double jeopardy because what?

MR. TAYLOR: The logic of the court was it is not--that a civil forfeiture proceeding under the statutes that Congress adopted in recent years, which are very broad power for the government to forfeit either contraband, such as drugs, or fruits of crime, such as drug money, or things you buy with it, or instrumentalities in crime, such as a house in which drug crimes are committed, that the government can forfeit all those things in single proceedings, and it is not punishment, the court held today, to do that, even as in this case, the Michigan case, you're basically taking someone's house away because they had marijuana in it. That is not punishment, the court said today.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And you said this was a big victory because all of these prisoners now cannot appeal on the basis of double jeopardy, waiting to appeal. Is this a huge victory for the Justice Department?

MR. TAYLOR: Not an unexpected one, but one that they're very relieved about, because after two of the federal appeals courts had held that it is double jeopardy to have successive proceedings, forfeiture and criminal prosecution. There were hundreds of convictions they had or forfeitures they had that were in jeopardy, and prisoners all over the country had filed appeals hoping that if this case, if this case had gone the other way in the Supreme Court, suddenly they could win their cases too, and so the government's breathing a sigh of relief that they now don't have to worry about that.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Let's turn briefly to the Paula Jones case. What was the issue here?

MR. TAYLOR: The issue is whether the Supreme Court should hear President Clinton's appeal of a lower court decision. He is arguing--the President is and his lawyers are--that her lawsuit, her sexual harassment lawsuit, should be basically dismissed until after he leaves office. His argument that a President can't be sued by any individual for money while he's in office, even for unofficial acts that took place before he was in office. He lost that claim in the lower courts. The federal appeals court for the Eighth Circuit ruled that this suit could go forward. He went to the Supreme Court saying, please reverse this. The Supreme Court today, without comment, said they would hear the case which effectively postpones all proceedings in the case until after the election.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So what exactly does this mean? I mean, does it have any other broader implications for the law or for this particular case, or--

MR. TAYLOR: It, it does because there's a long history of presidents arguing that they can't be subjected to various forms of legal proceedings, and the court has ruled in their favor sometimes and against them sometimes. For example, the United States versus Nixon, during Watergate the court held that President Nixon could be forced to turn over the tapes. But in 1982, in another case involving President Nixon, the court ruled that he could not be sued and now President can be sued for official acts ever, and President Clinton is hoping to extend that to cover him for things he did that weren't official acts and before he took office to the extent of suspending the suit until after he leaves office. He's not claiming the suit is dead forever. He's claiming that it has to be suspended until after he leaves office.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Was this a surprise? I mean, was this expected?

MR. TAYLOR: Umm, I don't think people were betting heavily either way. It only takes four votes of the Supreme Court to decide what they decided today, which is to hear a case. They haven't decided to rule in his favor yet. We probably won't know for about another year whether he's going to win the case or not on that issue. The Justice Department--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: By this time--excuse me--the election will be over and gone, but he'll be into another term.

MR. TAYLOR: That's correct. And it's possible that if he loses this case in the Supreme Court, we could have a full-blown trial of the Paula Jones case in President Clinton's second term, if he has one. Umm, but the court has not really by granting a hearing in the case, has not really shown its hand as to which way it's going to rule.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Now is this one where--well, how--do they have to vote in order to decide to hear a case, and is there a public vote on it? I mean, do we know how the vote went?

MR. TAYLOR: They do have to vote. We don't know how the vote went. The only way we would know is if somebody publicly dissented. Then we'd know how they voted, but nobody did. That doesn't mean the court was unanimous in voting to hear it. It's fairly routine. Any time there are four of the nine want to hear a case, they hear it. Usually you don't know how they voted.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Okay. And so we can expect this one in the next term of the court.

MR. TAYLOR: Uh, that's correct. It will probably go to the Supreme Court for all argument after the election, although it's conceivable that it would be argued in October or November before the election.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That'll be interesting. Well, thank you, Stuart, for joining us.

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you. FOCUS - READY FOR REFORM?

MR. LEHRER: Now to the Senate debate over campaign finance reform and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: Campaign finance reform, which has been lost in partisan wrangling for most of this congressional term, made it to the Senate floor today We begin with this report by Kwame Holman.

KWAME HOLMAN: It was one year ago during their joint appearance in New Hampshire that President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich promised to create a bipartisan commission to do what members of Congress have been unable to do for years, reform the campaign finance system and rein in the runaway cost of congressional campaigns.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: [June 11, 1995] I would love to have a bipartisan commission on it. That's our only chance to get anything passed. I accept.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: Let's shake hands right here in front of everybody. How's that? Is that a pretty good deal?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I accept.

MR. HOLMAN: Supporters of the idea argued a commission could find ways to limit candidates' fund-raising and spending that would be acceptable to both major political parties. The result, they said, would be a more level playing field for incumbents and their challengers. Office-holders wouldn't need to spend as much time as they do now raising money and public confidence would be restored in a Congress often viewed as beholden to special interests and big money contributors.

ROSS PEROT, United We Stand America: [1995] These special interests pragmatically give large sums to both parties without any ideological concern. It's just a function of having access to whoever is in office.

MR. HOLMAN: However, the President and the Speaker never did agree on who should sit on such a commission, and the promise of campaign finance reform never materialized, despite their famous handshake. But last fall, a bipartisan group in Congress finally took charge of the issue.

SPOKESMAN: That's 12-19--reform, the financing of federal elections, and for other purposes.

MR. HOLMAN: Senate Republican John McCain of Arizona and Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold introduced new campaign finance reform legislation, and with the help of newly-elected Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott succeeded in bringing the bill to the floor today.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN, [R] Arizona: 59 percent find this, of the American people, find it convincing. We need campaign finance reform to make politicians accountable to average voters, rather than special interests. Mr. President, the average voter in America thinks that they're not listened to here in Washington, D.C. I have to tell you from my 14 years' experience here in some cases they are right.

MR. HOLMAN: The McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill would create a system in which candidates would participate voluntarily. It would set campaign spending limits based on the size of the voting age population in a candidate's state. It would require a candidate to raise at least 60 percent of campaign funds within the state, and it would limit campaign spending from a candidate's personal funds. Taxpayer-funded mass mailings used by congressional incumbents would be banned during an election year. The bill also would place new limits on so-called soft money contributions to political parties or other organizations that were used to benefit individual candidates, and it would end the practice of combining or bundling contributions by special interest groups and outlaw all contributions by political action committees. In exchange for their voluntary participation, candidates would get 30 minutes of free TV time, reduced rates to buy additional television advertising, and lower rates for mailing campaign literature. And a candidate would be given relaxed spending limits if his or her opponent refuses to participate in the voluntary system.

SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD, [D] Wisconsin: And that's all our bill's about, making sure on a voluntary basis that every qualified American has a fair chance to participate in the process. That's what we're trying to do.

MR. HOLMAN: But opponents of the McCain-Feingold bill say it's unwanted, unworkable, and unconstitutional.

SEN. ROBERT BENNETT, [R] Utah: If in the name of campaign reform we set up the circumstance that limits the ability of a candidate to raise and spend his or her own money, therefore, limiting that candidate's ability to put forth his or her own positions, we weaken the ability of the candidate to stand up to a special interest.

SEN. MITCH McCONNELL, [R] Kentucky: Specifically in connection with the PAC discussion, most PAC's include an awful lot of Americans banding together to support the candidates of their choice. It is very, very hard for me to see how that is a bad thing for democracy.

MR. HOLMAN: Congress already has taken some steps to police itself. Last year, the House and Senate passed bills limiting gifts from lobbyists. The question now is: Are members of Congress willing to change a system of campaign financing that clearly benefits their reelection?

MS. WARNER: Now, the perspectives of two key players in this Senate debate: Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin is one of the primary sponsors of the campaign finance reform bill. Republican Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is one of the bill's principal opponents. Welcome, gentlemen. Sen. Feingold, how would--what difference would it make in the way politics is practiced in this country if this bill became law?

SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD, [D] Wisconsin: Well, I think it'd make a big difference for two reasons. First of all, it makes sure that far more people have an opportunity to participate if they voluntarily limit their spending. It wouldn't have to be a multi- millionaire or somebody who's already well connected in Washington in order to participate in a Senate election because you'd get some of the benefits of the bill. The other thing, this bill is the toughest limits on soft money, the real abuse of the system that have ever been put into a U.S. Senate or House bill. It says you can't go through the back door to violate the limits that have been set up in the early 1970's. And I think the combination of the voluntary limitations and the ban on soft money in a lot of places makes the difference between whether the average citizen can participate or not. And it's very important in a time of all this public cynicism that we do something about the money race in politics.

MS. WARNER: And just to explain what soft money is, these are these large contributions, usually made by companies or unions or sometimes individuals to parties which have had no limits on them, is that right?

SEN. FEINGOLD: Individuals now can only give $1,000 directly of hard money or tax only $5,000 of hard money, but under this--under the abuse in soft money, they're able to give any amount basically through the back door. This would crack down on that way of doing it.

MS. WARNER: Sen. McConnell, what do you think the practical effect of this bill would be?

SEN. MITCH McCONNELL, [R] Kentucky: Well, I think the practical effect of it is it would dramatically push Americans out of the political process, putting restrictions on Political Action Committees means that Americans can't band together, pool their resources, and support the candidates of their choice. The bill has an adverse impact on political parties, the one institution in America that will always support a challenger. My colleague and friend, Russ Feingold, is talking about soft money, and you were talking about soft money, but you only talked about party soft money. What about union soft money? It does nothing to impact that. The truth of the matter is that under the First Amendment to the Constitution, people are free to express themselves and the Supreme Court has said that campaign spending is speech, and, therefore, cannot be sort of doled out in equal amounts that the government decides is desirable. And this bill, in addition to pushing people out of the political process by preventing them banding together to support candidates also blatantly violates the First Amendment. That's not me saying that. That's the American Civil Liberties Union saying that, and it's the vast majority of the constitutional scholars across the country who've taken a look at this bill.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Of course, the bill does nothing of the kind. Otherwise, we would be putting ourselves in a situation where our efforts would be nullified by the Supreme Court. The difference between what my friend, Sen. McConnell, is talking about and what our bill does is that we have voluntary limits. That's the difference. It's true that Buckley V. Vallejo, the decision of 20 years ago, struck down mandatory spending limits, but all this bill does is say that if you want the benefits of the bill, you have to abide by the limits. A candidate could still spend 10 million, 20 million, 30 million. There's nothing this bill does to people today that they can't do already. They can continue the process.

MS. WARNER: Sen. McConnell, let's look at that. Since this bill is so complicated, I hope to break it up a little bit into different groups--different issues here. Let's take the voluntary campaign spending limits.

SEN. McCONNELL: Right.

MS. WARNER: Tell me, what is your basic problem with that, i.e., that this candidate makes a bargain in which he accepts certain limits in return for free TV time and so on?

SEN. McCONNELL: Well, it's not very voluntary if as a result of your refusal to comply with the government's request that you not speak too much your television ends up costing you twice as much as the other guy. I wouldn't call that very voluntary. I mean, in other words, if you say I won't speak too much in my campaign, the government says whether we're going to make the broadcasting industry sell you time at one half the charge. I wouldn't call that very voluntary, and that's what the American Civil Liberties Union finds unconstitutional about the bill. In other words, you're penalized if you don't agree with the government mandate not to speak beyond a certain government prescribed amount.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Well, there is no government prescription, and, in fact, it's inaccurate to suggest that somehow this bill makes people pay more than they already pay. Candidates will pay exactly what they pay now. It's only if they comply with the bill, if they agree with the limits, that they get an incentive to do so. But there is no change in terms of what the current rate is. Currently, the law says that a candidate is to be given the lowest commercial rate, and even the candidate who doesn't comply with the good provisions of this bill would still getthat. They're not going to be charged any more than they are now.

MS. WARNER: Sen. Feingold, let me just clarify this. I do gather that under this bill the total amount you could spend would be set based on the population of your state.

SEN. FEINGOLD: That's correct.

MS. WARNER: So there would be, if you accepted this, you would have limits, would you not?

SEN. FEINGOLD: Yes. Sen. McConnell argued that it would somehow cost you more than it does now. And that's not the case. You can still do exactly the campaign you do today. It's just that the person who does agree to limit their spending would get some benefit, and that would be to reduce television time and to reduce postal rates. It just gives people who aren't multi-millionaires and can't throw $5 million on the table a little chance to compete.

SEN. McCONNELL: Let me tell you what it does do, Margaret. What it does do is ask private industry, the broadcasting industry, to subsidize political campaigns in addition to that. The direct marketing industry--by the way, the postmaster general came out against the bill today because they know that providing the postal subsidy means they have to raise the postal rates for everybody in the country. So instead of taking the money directly out of the treasury. What the bill seeks to do is to hide the public funding by pushing the subsidy onto the broadcasting industry and the direct marketing industry, which then in turn passes along to the other advertisers in the case of the broadcasting industry or the other postal rate payers in the case of direct marketing. So there's nothing free about this.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Actually, what the bill does, this bill, not the one that Sen. McConnell is talking about, is seek to have a ban on franking by members of the House and Senate during an election year and use the money saved from that to pay for the reduced postal rates for those who comply. So we do have a plan to pay for it, and it does involve an appropriate transfer of funds within the federal government.

MS. WARNER: Let's look at one other provision of this bill. And, Sen. Feingold, tell me your reason for including this. It would bar a wealthy person who was running from the Senate or the House if he wanted to be part of this system from spending more than I think is it $250,000 of his own money, what's the rationale for that?

SEN. FEINGOLD: There has been an enormous growth in a new phenomenon, which is that of people with enormous wealth trying to, in effect, purchase Senate seats. In fact, the major political parties now seem to prefer recruiting candidates who are very, very wealthy because it makes life easier for them. Again, it's voluntary. All it says is if you limit your spending to less than $1/4 million of your own money, which isn't even relevant to most of us, then you get the benefits of the bill. If you don't want to, if you want to spend your $10 million, despite what the opponents say, you can still spend your $10 million. It just means your opponent might have something of a fair chance to win, despite all your wealth.

MS. WARNER: Sen. McConnell, what's your view of that provision?

SEN. McCONNELL: Let me say, I don't think anybody's particularly happy about the fact that under the First Amendment rich people have advantages. Frankly, they have all kinds of advantages, and the Supreme Court said you can't, the government cannot constitutionally tell an individual how to spend his money speaking. The good news is that the vast number of these people who try to buy public office fail. The two most lavishly funded campaigns in 1994, one self-funded, the Huffington campaign in California, Huffington was defeated. The other lavishly funded campaign didn't come from the candidate's own resources, but he had a lot of supporters, and that was Oliver North in Virginia, and he lost. So it's pretty clear here that this practice of occasionally people of great wealth spending a lot of money on campaigns is, is attempted but doesn't always work, and even if it did, the Supreme Court has been quite clear that it's impermissible for the government to tell an individual how much speech they can engage in, in the political process.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Clearly, the results of these campaigns show something very different than what Sen. McConnell has suggested. Anyone who takes a look at the economic status of the members of the U.S. Senate, it sure doesn't look like Main Street America. The vast majority of members, excellent members, are very wealthy people. And we have very few people who know what it is to try to make ends meet, what--

MS. WARNER: Let me ask--

SEN. FEINGOLD: --it's like to make a mortgage payment. This bill would make it possible for the average citizen to participate and make the Senate more representative of the American people.

MS. WARNER: Okay. Let me ask--let's cover two other things, if we have time. One is that there is a provision that bans all PAC money to candidates. Now you heard Sen. McConnell say that he thinks that's unconstitutional. What is your rationale for that provision?

SEN. FEINGOLD: He may be right that that particular provision could be found unconstitutional. And that's why we have a back-up provision, the only one in the bill that says that if the PAC ban is found unconstitutional, candidates to comply with the bill have to raise less than 20 percent of their money from PAC's, and by the way, Sen. McConnell voted for a provision two years ago that did exactly that. He voted for a PAC ban with a back-up provision, the Pressler amendment, so I assume that his arguments don't relate to our particular provision.

MS. WARNER: Sen. McConnell.

SEN. McCONNELL: Yeah. I might say, Margaret, I voted for that as part of a larger measure. I didn't think then and don't think now that it's constitutional. And as a matter of fact, most of the supporters of Russ's bill don't believe it's constitutional, so it shouldn't be in there. You can't constitutionally keep people from banding together to support candidates of their choice. Let me just say quickly the National Education Association, a very liberal group which today came out against this bill, wrote me and said that their average contributor gives them $6. In what way, is that bad for democracy?

MS. WARNER: All right. What about the prospects for this tomorrow? You have a vote that's going to be held on limiting debate. Sen. Feingold, do you think you have the 60 votes to override that?

SEN. FEINGOLD: I think it's going to be--I think it's going to be difficult. This is a rather high barrier we needed to agree to. Usually when we bring up a bill in the U.S. Senate, you have a debate for a while, bring up amendments, and then somebody tries to break the filibuster. Here we have been required in order to get the bill up before the Senate and the American people to get 60 votes right away. I think we'll have a majority. I think we've got a shot at 60 votes when people realize that this is "the" first bipartisan campaign finance reform bill in 10 years, and the vote tomorrow is "the" vote on campaign finance reform for the whole 104th Congress.

MS. WARNER: Sen. McConnell, why not just an up and down vote on the bill, rather than a filibuster, and then you could get 60?

SEN. McCONNELL: Well, the Democratic minority has been requiring 60 votes on virtually every bill. They shouldn't be offended by the requirement of 60 on this. The good news is the First Amendment will be secure after tomorrow. This unfortunate measure will not become law, and all of the people in America who have currently the right to participate in the political process will still have that right the day after tomorrow.

MS. WARNER: Do you think--

SEN. FEINGOLD: And most Americans will be excluded from the process because if we lose tomorrow, which I'm not sure we will, the vast majority of Americans can't even think about plunking down that kind of money and participating in this process because the right has been effectively taken away from them by the incredible increase in the cost of campaign.

MS. WARNER: But, Sen. Feingold, if you lose this vote tomorrow, will you win an issue for November? Do you think the voters care?

SEN. FEINGOLD: This is--this is a bipartisan effort. Sen. John McCain, a conservative from Arizona, is the lead author. I did not engage in this, nor do I engage in this for November. I am interested in campaign finance reform, and I'd be happy to give up any political advantage just to get this through. This is genuinely what I hope will happen.

MS. WARNER: And Sen. McConnell, what do you think will be the political fallout if you succeed tomorrow?

SEN. McCONNELL: I think absolutely none. We had an all-night filibuster to kill a bill similar to this in 1994, and five weeks later, my party won the biggest congressional mandate of this century for our side. A recent Lance Torrance poll indicated that one out of a thousand people thought this was an important issue. The 999 were correct. This would be an important issue only if we succeeded in taking away people's rights to participate in the political process, and I'm quite confident we're not going to do that.

SEN. FEINGOLD: And that's precisely the argument we heard when we tried to ban gifts in the Congress. The Senator said all week that nobody cared about it, it wasn't an important issue, but when the votes came, when the decision was made, the Senators voted to stop the gifts. And I hope the same thing happens on campaign financing.

MS. WARNER: Well, thank you both very much.

SEN. McCONNELL: Thank you.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Thank you.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Texas Republicans, "Where They Stand," and running with the wind. FOCUS - POLITICS OF PRINCIPLE

MR. LEHRER: Now the battle to be a Texas delegate to the Republican National Convention in San Diego. Dole supporters and anti-abortion advocates fought each other for the privilege this weekend at the Republican State Convention. Betty Ann Bowser has our report.

BILL PRICE, Texans United for Life: When it comes to abortion, the brutal obstruction of defenseless babies, principles cannot be compromised. [applause]

BETTY ANN BOWSER: In San Antonio this weekend, the principles of religious conservatives ruled.

[PEOPLE SINGING]

MS. BOWSER: The religious right solidified control of the state's Republican Party from top to bottom and sent a firm message to Bob Dole.

BILL PRICE, Texans United for Life: Don't mess with the pro-life plank, give us a pro-life vice presidential candidate.

MS. BOWSER: Texans United for Life Director Bill Price led a group of like-minded anti-abortion organizations in pushing through a slate of delegates to the Republican National Convention that claims to be almost entirely pro-life. Eighty-six of the one hundred and twenty-three delegates signed a pledge not to change the party's anti-abortion platform and not to vote for any vice presidential candidate who is not in sync with their anti-abortion philosophy.

SPOKESPERSON: Now we move on to the election of the district's three national delegates and three national alternate delegates.

MS. BOWSER: Nowhere was control by the religious conservatives more evident than in the 30 Congressional caucuses where the 90 delegates are picked. Another 33 at large delegates would be selected later by party officials who normally reserve those slots for Republican VIPs.

SPOKESPERSON: They're picking them up in all sorts of things-- secure things like cardboard boxes or baseball hats.

MS. BOWSER: Over and over again delegates selected by the Dole campaign went down in defeat because their anti- abortion positions weren't anti enough. One district even rejected its own anti-abortion congressman in favor of a delegate backed by religious conservatives.

TAFFY GOLDSMITH, Defeated Dole Delegate: I am pro-life. I am pro business, I'm pro smaller government, I'm pro Republican Party, and I support the party platform.

MS. BOWSER: Taffy Goldsmith is a longtime Republican Party activist and was a Dole delegate.

TAFFY GOLDSMITH: I've never attempted to be a delegate to the national convention. I want to go this time. And I don't care if I go on the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth ballot, but I want to go.

MS. BOWSER: But Goldsmith refused to sign the pledge. And when the votes were cast, she was defeated overwhelmingly by a delegate endorsed by Price's organization and three leaders of the Texas Christian Coalition.

WHITEY LINGERFELT, Dole Delegate: We agree that it was crucial that conservatives mobilized to ensure two things: One, there could be now weakening of our platform on the question of right to life. It has served us well. And secondly, the candidate selected as a vice presidential nominee must be ardently pro-life and capable of preserving this principle.

MS. BOWSER: Suggested slates of delegates supported by religious conservative organizations were circulated in every caucus. The one handed out at Goldsmith's caucus suggested that even signing the pledge might not be good enough for election as a delegate.

SPOKESMAN: According to the 1996 language--

MS. BOWSER: Paula Day was a Dole delegate from Ft. Worth who signed the pledge. She is very much opposed to abortion. Still, she was defeated by another candidate endorsed by religious conservatives she says told her: "You're not one of us."

PAULA DAY, Defeated Dole Delegate: I was told they're on a mission, and I was not to as a part of their mission. All the Dole delegates were defeated in my caucus.

SPOKESMAN: Ishmael.

MS. BOWSER: Ishmael Moran is another anti-abortion Dole delegate. He was opposed to signing any kind of pledge as the price for a ticket to San Diego but when caucus time came--

MS. BOWSER: You did sign the pledge, didn't you?

ISHMAEL MORAN, Dole Delegate: I had to.

MS. BOWSER: What happened?

ISHMAEL MORAN: I realized that you had to learn the art of compromise, and sometimes you have to be willing to, to lose a battle so you can win the war.

MS. BOWSER: Dolly Madison McKenna spent most of the convention standing in the wings. As a supporter of abortion rights, she was denied a seat to the state convention in her home congressional district. McKenna is a former congressional candidate whotwo years ago ran for state party chair.

DOLLY MADISON McKENNA, Republican Activist: When I was sitting in the caucuses when they were selecting delegates, it wasn't whether you are pro-life, it was how pro-life you are, and how many years you worked in pro-life organizations, and how involved you are in your church. The discussion really had very little to do with the Republican Party and you were talking about five people, all of who had effectively have the same philosophy, competing to be more and more and more conservative.

MS. BOWSER: Religious conservatives also tried to keep Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson from going to San Diego as an at large delegate. She was elected two years ago by the largest margin of any Republican in state history. The popular junior senator favors abortion only under some limited conditions.

SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHINSON, [R] Texas: Frankly, I think this is a very small group that is not in the mainstream of our party that decided to make an issue of whether I would be a delegate.

MS. BOWSER: Texas Sen. Phil Gramm came to her defense, saying if she didn't go, he wouldn't go either, and he condemned Price's tactics.

SEN. PHIL GRAMM, [R] Texas: I think we have heard from a very small minority and unfortunately they're bullies. And I thought that it was outrageous that people were challenging Kay's right to be a delegate.

BILL PRICE: She is doing things that are detrimental to this party.

MS. BOWSER: Like what?

BILL PRICE: Like opposing the pro-life plank in the party platform. That is a deep offense to one of the biggest core constituent groups of the Republican Party. If that group is continually offended, if it feels continually that it's being stabbed in the back by even a very popular United States Senator, those people are just going to take a walk in presidential years. What we're trying to do is actually save the Republican Party from itself.

SPOKESMAN: Chairman.

SPOKESMAN TWO: Yes.

SPOKESMAN: There is a delegate on this list that has already proclaimed not to represent our platform.

SPOKESMAN: I think that's out of order.

MS. BOWSER: When the time came for delegates to vote on the at- large delegation that included Sen. Hutchinson, it was almost too close to call.

SPOKESMAN: All in favor of accepting the last place signify by saying aye.

SOME PEOPLE IN CROWD SHOUTING: Aye!

SPOKESMAN: Those opposed signify by saying no.

PEOPLE IN CROWD SHOUTING: No!

MS. BOWSER: State Party Chairman Tom Pawkin had to fend off angry delegates who demanded a roll call vote.

DELEGATES: [chanting] Roll call! Roll Call!

MS. BOWSER: But in the end, Hutchinson won.

SPOKESMAN: The motion is defeated. The delegates are approved.

MS. BOWSER: While all this was going on, Bob Dole campaigned in another part of the country, citing a last minute scheduling problem as the reason he couldn't come. When the final gavel went down, religious conservatives had elected the strongest, largest, anti-abortion delegation ever to attend a national Republican convention.

BILL PRICE: We won, as far as I'm concerned. We achieved our mission.

MS. WARNER: Where do the moderates have to go now?

MR. PRICE: Well, I guess that they better just start organizing. I mean, they can come to these conventions if they will go to precinct meetings, if they'll get down there and they'll do the hard work on the grassroots level. But, you know, one thing I found out about moderates, they don't like to do that kind of work. They like to go to cocktail parties with the big wigs.

MS. WARNER: Dolly Madison McKenna says she hopes the moderates are listening.

DOLLY MADISON McKENNA: I'm really hoping this will be a wake-up call to mainstream Republicans to say, look, this is not really the party that I'm voting for and it's important to me to get out and get active and take it back again.

SPOKESMAN: Father Silverman will come forward and give us the benediction.

MS. BOWSER: When they get to San Diego, Texas Republicans will make up the second largest delegation. Only California will have more votes, and if Price has his way, religious conservatives will seriously interfere with a longstanding tradition--the right of a presidential candidate to pick whoever he wants as a running mate. SERIES - WHERE THEY STAND

MR. LEHRER: Now, "Where They Stand," our weekly look at major speeches delivered by candidates Dole and Clinton. Tonight, President Clinton speaking this afternoon after the Family Reunion Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: If you think about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the whole history of our nation, it's been one long struggle to make this country a country with more opportunity, more fairness, more unity, living up to the ideals that the founders enshrined, so that people can then make all their own decisions and most of the decisions made have nothing to do with government, about how they're going to organize work and hopefully the work will permit them to live good personal lives and build strong families. And that's the way I look at my job. Now, what we have been talking about today are the worries of parenthood. First of all, the family and medical leave law has done a lot of good, but it is extremely narrow in its purpose. In other words, you're entitled to time off without losing your job in a work place of 50 employees or more if there's a medical crisis involving a parent or a child, an immediate family member, or the birth of a child. That's better than it used to be, but I believe just based on--and you heard some of this today--I believe we should expand the family leave law. I would propose that we pass a Family Leave II that would allow employees to take up to 24 hours a year--that's not a lot of time--for parent-teacher conferences or for routine medical care for a child, a spouse, or a parent, because there are a lot of parents who, who cannot go to school to see the child's teacher because the work schedule and the schedule of the school don't work. And there--and there are a lot of times when there's routine- -what at least starts out to be a routine medical problem, where it really makes a difference if the parent can go, especially with a young child, or where there's nobody else to take the parents, so I am very hopeful that we can get some support for this. I also think that--[applause]--I also think it would create a more honest work place. I mean, I bet every one of us knows somebody who's called in sick and said they had car trouble so they could go meet with their child's teacher, or take a child or a parent to the doctor. Uh, so I think that we ought to pass Family Leave II, and I believe it will make a difference. Secondly, I think we need to make the work place more family-friendly, especially where a lot of overtime is concerned, and give people more flex time in taking overtime either in income or in time with their families. Now, traditionally overtime has been a very important way for a lot of American workers to realize their dreams. Overtime is really the difference between a good middle class existence and being in real trouble for a lot of workers, and I don't believe we should change that. But with more Americans working more hours, simply spending time with your family can be a dream in itself--a vacation--a maternity leave that goes beyond what's mandated by law, or if the child's in trouble and you just need some time to spend time with your child. So today what I'm proposing is that we redefine compensation in a way that reflects the value of family and community. I'm going to send the Congress a flex time initiative that will give employees this choice. If you work overtime, you can be paid time and a half, just as you are now, and just as the law requires, but if you want, you can take that payment in time and for every hour you work overtime, you could take off an hour and a half. In this sense, the proposal is fundamental to redefining work time. Workers can put in time and get money, or they can put in time and get time. You can choose money in the bank or time on the clock. It's important that this be a choice for employees. I should say that most employers in America would like this option. And there's a law to support among employers for giving this kind of option. But it's also important how it's designed because it will only work as a family-friendly decision if there's a genuine partnership, which means to go back to what our friend from Saturn days, this is a case where the employee has to make the decision. And that's very important. There must be complete freedom to choose between if you're required to work overtime in your job or you're given the chance to work overtime and you, the employee, must get the choice of whether to take the overtime and money or time. Otherwise, it could simply open the door wide for abuse of the overtime laws, so the families that need the overtime income could fall behind. But if it is honestly administered and fairly given to the employee, think what a difference it could make in critical family situations.

MR. LEHRER: President Clinton speaking in Nashville, Tennessee today. We'll have another Bob Dole speech later in the week. FINALLY - FLYING FINISH

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, the man who runs as fast as the wind. He's Michael Johnson, and yesterday at the Olympic trials in Atlanta, he broke a 17-year-old world record in the 200 meter run. Watch him do it.

ANNOUNCER: And they're underway, and Michael Johnson is taking it out early. Johnson is racing as they come through the turn and approach the top of the home straight-away. Michael Johnson is there. Mike Marsh, Jeff Williams, Carl Lewis down in one--through the final meters--Michael Johnson wins it. [shouting] And it's a record. The march on Atlanta has begun! [crowd shouting]

MR. LEHRER: Now some thoughts about the Michael Johnson way and art of running from Pat Connolly, a track and field coach who trained Olympians Evelyn Ashford and Renaldo Nehemiah. Connolly, herself, is a three-time Olympian. Welcome.

PAT CONNOLLY, Track Coach: Thank you.

MR. LEHRER: How amazing is it, what Michael Johnson did?

MS. CONNOLLY: It's utterly amazing. It's so amazing I haven't even been able to digest it myself yet. 1966, that's the year my son was born, but aside from that, lowering the world record, which was 1979, I believe, Pietro Minet--

MR. LEHRER: Nineteen seconds.

MS. CONNOLLY: Nineteen seconds and seventy-nine hundredths.

MR. LEHRER: Yes.

MS. CONNOLLY: Was set a long time ago by Pietro Minet of Italy, over 20 years ago, and to imagine a record that has stood that long, set at altitude where he had a much greater advantage, altitude is thin air. In Atlanta, the air's not so thin, as we know, and he ran so fast, even faster than he did.

MR. LEHRER: Has he always run fast, or is this something that's he's groomed into through training, hard work, or what? How does that work?

MS. CONNOLLY: Michael Johnson has worked very hard to get where he is today. He is not what coaches would go out and say is a beautiful, gifted runner. If you take a look at that race again, you would see that he was--legs seem shorter than the average runner--and that he's arching his back. He's running--

MR. LEHRER: That's unusual, isn't it?

MS. CONNOLLY: It's very unusual to run leaning, like you're leaning back because most runners, in particular Evelyn Ashford, wanted a forward lean because it helps you keep your momentum, keep you going forward. Sprinting is overcoming the fear of falling, and that's a real good definition of it, because you can go so fast that you feel like you're going to fall down, and then you have to manage not to fall down. And one of the signs that you look for in a sprinter is slowing down, like Carl Lewis, who has also run about faster, nearly that fast. When Carl starts going so fast he can hardly control himself, you'll see him arch his back just slightly, and that arch is how they start to decelerate, to slow down, to get control to keep from falling.

MR. LEHRER: But Michael does just the opposite.

MS. CONNOLLY: But Michael Johnson is arching his back all the way around the track, and it's just unbelievable.

MR. LEHRER: What does it take in terms of physical attributes to be a great sprinter like Michael Johnson or Carl Lewis?

MS. CONNOLLY: Well, the two, the two factors that determine your time is your stride rate, how fast your feet are moving, and your stride length. So with your stride rate and your stride length you want to get the optimum combination of both. For Carl, when he starts a race, his stride rate is lower and it takes a long time for his long legs to get moving at a fast rate. But once they're moving at a fast rate, they're also moving at a longer stride length than Michael Johnson. So it's, it's those two things. In Michael Johnson's case, he has shorter legs. He can really turn fast. He almost reminds me of a sewing machine going up and down and up and down, or a piston, just up and down and up and down, and it's just atypical of most sprinters, where you're chewing up more of the track. So when he runs around the turn, if you notice the 200 meters is around a turn--

MR. LEHRER: One turn.

MS. CONNOLLY: The first hundred meters is on the turn, and then the last hundred meters is a straightaway, and it's hard for the longer-legged people to go. With the shorter-legged guys, they can really get up a lot of speed, churn it out because they're taking a shorter stride, and come off the turn with great momentum and, and fly.

MR. LEHRER: Is there a relationship between speed and strength in the legs? Do you have to have strong, muscular legs?

MS. CONNOLLY: You have to be incredibly strong and powerful. And what's really unique, along with the strength that we normally think, what's really unique about Michael Johnson is that he can maintain--he has the strength to maintain his high rate of turnover, his speed, his foot speed, for a long period of time than anybody else. He--

MR. LEHRER: He gets to his top speed just like that?

MS. CONNOLLY: Right.

MR. LEHRER: And he can hold it for 19.6 seconds?

MS. CONNOLLY: And he's had to work really hard, but the other factor you watch in most sprint races is who was slowing down the most the last 10 meters, because everybody starts to decelerate.

MR. LEHRER: Why do they do that?

MS. CONNOLLY: Well, the chemical byproducts of all this exercise is lactic acid, and when it starts to burn in your legs, you can't move your muscles anymore. And so people gradually slow down, and it happens to the best of sprinters, no matter how well-conditioned they are, but in Michael Johnson's case, he doesn't slow down. He just has worked so hard.

MR. LEHRER: Why is that? Is that something he's trained himself to do?

MS. CONNOLLY: Yes, he has had to train very hard because in order to do double that he has done--

MR. LEHRER: The double?

MS. CONNOLLY: The double is--he ran 400 meters in three rounds in the Olympic trials, and he won the Olympic trials in the 400 meters. The average, well-conditioned athlete would be feeling pretty tired and sore and full of a lot of lactic acid after that. But, instead, Michael Johnson came back and he ran 200 meters faster, faster, and faster. I mean, they ought to change the Olympic motto.

MR. LEHRER: And he's still got--he's still got to win some gold medals in Atlanta. What has he got riding on all of this? He's 28 years old. How big a deal is this for him now?

MS. CONNOLLY: Well, it's everything, and it's even bigger than money, and it's a hard thing to explain what the Olympics are about. When I competed in the Olympics, the athletes were all amateurs, and we did it for the love, and we would do everything we could because it was in us, we had to do it, it was something that you--if you're in NASA, and you're putting a man on the Moon, you want to get that man on the Moon--well, it's the same thing for runners. They want to see how fast they can run, how fast can they go. And so to do it on the right day, at the right time, in the Olympic games is just the pinnacle, and you can't do anything better than that. And that's waiting for him, and that's a lot of pressure.

MR. LEHRER: Is it now or never for him? I mean, if he--he's 28- -could he come back in four years?

MS. CONNOLLY: It always seems like it's now or never. Of course, there's always comebacks, but right now for him not to win a gold medal would put him into dejection that would be hard to overcome.

MR. LEHRER: Pat Connolly, thank you very much.

MS. CONNOLLY: My pleasure. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the government may seize the property as well as the liberty of convicted drug dealers without subjecting them to double jeopardy, and the Justices also put a sexual harassment suit against President Clinton on hold until the next court term which begins in October. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.