The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MAC NEIL: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MS. WARNER: And I'm Margaret Warner in Washington. After our summary of the news, we examine the political fallout from the defeat of the term limits amendment with members of Congress, grassroots lobbyists, and our own panel of regional editors, and Charles Krause reports on the difficulties of life with a devalued Mexican peso. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MAC NEIL: A day after a key element of the Republican Contract With America went down in defeat, its supporters vowed to continue the fight for passage. Last night, the House rejected four different versions of a constitutional amendment on congressional term limits. It was the first House defeat of legislation contained in the GOP contract, and it came despite polls showing broad popular support for the initiative. This morning, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and other advocates of term limits had this to say.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: Those among the professional politicians in the Democratic Party who thought this was over don't get it. This has just begun. DAVID KEENE, American Conservative Union: We're here today not just to talk about last night, but we're here today to tell you that that's just the opening shot, that this battle will continue until there is a constitutional amendment limiting terms of members of Congress. We will be back. The issue will be back. The issue will remain with us.

MR. MAC NEIL: We'll have more on this story from our regional editors and others after the News Summary. Margaret.

MS. WARNER: A federal judge ruled today that the Clinton administration's policy on gays in the military is discriminatory and unconstitutional. The administration's "don't ask, don't tell" policy was challenged by six active duty service members. It allows homosexuals to serve but only if they keep their sexual orientation private. The Justice Department said it will appeal the ruling. The Senate unanimously confirmed Dan Glickman today as Agriculture Secretary. The former Kansas Congressman succeeds Mike Espy, who resigned amid charges that he accepted illegal gifts. Espy has denied any wrongdoing.

MR. MAC NEIL: Another Republican has jumped officially into the race for president. Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter announced his candidacy this morning. The pro-choice moderate is the fifth person to seek the Republican nomination. He chose the site between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument to make his announcement. He said he will fight to remove the anti-abortion language from the Republican platform.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER, Republican Presidential Candidate: I want to take abortion out of politics. I want to keep the Republican Party focused on the critical social economic, military, foreign policy, and crime control issues, and leave moral issues such as abortion to the conscience of the individual. That is a matter to be decided by women, not by big government. Neither this nation nor this party can afford a Republican candidate so captive to the demands of the intolerant right that we end up by reelecting a president of the incompetent left.

MR. MAC NEIL: Abortion was also the subject of an encyclical by Pope John Paul II today. It was the Pontiff's 11th of his 16-year papacy. The Pope wrote that abortion could not even be justified by a woman's desire to protect her own health or a decent standard of living for her family. He also said justification for capital punishment was rare, if not non-existent. The 194-page document is the highest form of papal writing. The world's 960 million Catholics are supposed to obey its declarations.

MS. WARNER: President Clinton today ordered investigations into the alleged role of the CIA in the murders of an American innkeeper in Guatemala and a Guatemalan guerrilla leader. The killings were said to be ordered by a Guatemalan army colonel who was a paid CIA informer. He has denied any involvement. The investigations will be conducted by several U.S. agencies, including the FBI, and will focus on a possible cover-up. The killings of two American journalists in Guatemala a decade ago and the torture of other Americans will also be investigated. In Washington this afternoon, a group of U.S. citizens who say they were victims of the Guatemalan military spoke to reporters about the alleged abuses.

SISTER DIANA ORTIZ: They interrogated me and burnt my back with cigarettes 111 times. They raped me numerous times. They poured wine on me and used and abused my body in horrible ways. And if that wasn't bad enough, they lowered me into an open pit saturated with human bodies and swarming with rats.

MS. WARNER: Sister Ortiz claimed that both Guatemalan and U.S. authorities tried to block her demands for an investigation. This afternoon, Secretary of State Christopher told a congressional committee that full disclosure on the matter was urgently needed and called the allegations disturbing and said that neither he nor President Clinton were sure of the facts at the present time.

MR. MAC NEIL: Japan's top police official was shot at least four times today outside his home in Tokyo. He's been heading the investigation into last week's nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway which killed ten people and injured five thousand. A Japanese news service said an anonymous caller told two television stations that a religious cult carried out the shooting. That cult is being investigated in the gas attack. It has denied any role in either incident. The official is listed in serious condition.

MS. WARNER: Heavy fighting continued to rage today between Turkish soldiers and Kurdish rebels in Northern Iraq. Also today, a Kurdish land mine exploded during the patrol by Turkish troops near Turkey's border, injuring several soldiers. Turkey launched a military campaign ten days ago against bases in Iraq used by Turkish Kurds in their fight for independence. The Kurds say that 3,000 Iraqi forces also launched an assault on them today.

MR. MAC NEIL: That's our summary of the top stories. Now it's on to the term limits defeat reaction and Charles Krause in Mexico. FOCUS - TERM LIMITS

MS. WARNER: The defeat of term limits in the House of Representatives is where we go first tonight. We'll hear from grassroots proponents and congressional opponents of the measure, and we'll also sample editorial reaction from across the country, but first, Kwame Holman has this update on the story.

KWAME HOLMAN: One day after the House turned back term limits legislation, supporters of the initiative regrouped outside the Capitol, trying to put the best face on defeat.

DAVID KEENE, American Conservative Union: The vote last night was a benchmark vote. Now, the American people for the first time have the real ability to see which members of Congress support term limits, as are supported by more than 80 percent of the population, and which members of Congress do not.

SPOKESMAN: Members will record their votes by electronic device.

MR. HOLMAN: Of the four term limit alternatives the House considered last night, only one plan, limiting Senators and Representatives to twelve years each, received a majority of the vote, but it still fell well short of the two hundred ninety votes needed to amend the Constitution.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: Less than the constitutionally required 2/3 of the members having voted in the affirmative, the joint resolution is not passed.

MR. HOLMAN: The promise to bring term limits to the House floor was made in the Republicans' Contract With America, and yesterday, 80 percent of House Republicans voted in favor of them.

REP. BILL McCOLLUM, [R] Florida: If you believe, as I do, that you'll bring new blood to Congress and refresh this place if we have a renewal every so often of new members with term limits, and if you believe, as I do, that while we'll lose some experienced men and women who've served well and honorably in this Congress, but that it is absolutely necessary if we're going to get rational debate into things like balanced budget issues and so forth, then you're going to vote for the term limits proposal that's here for final passage tonight that's supported in general principle by nearly 80 percent of the American people.

MR. HOLMAN: But some of the most senior Republicans, including three committee chairmen, voted against term limits.

REP. THOMAS BLILEY, Chairman, Commerce Committee: My colleagues, term limits is a bad idea. Where I come from, we have a saying: "If the pump ain't broke, don't fix it." Over 50 percent of the members of this body have come since 1990. That's four years or less experience. Now, that's turning 'em over pretty fast.

MR. HOLMAN: And term limits supporters got very little help from the Democrats.

REP. BARNEY FRANK, [D] Massachusetts: My friend from Florida said, you know, if you're here more than 12 years, you start to get sour, you start to lose your integrity to the process. And I asked him at what point did this happen to him, but he told me he was an exception. If some people think that you should not serve for more than 12 years and others think you should, let them contest that at the polls. Do not rig our basic document and say from now on we won't have free and open elections, we will from here on never have elections that reflect one particular viewpoint, and we will lock that in. This is the most restrictive amendment ever adopted to the Constitution.

MR. HOLMAN: With the outcome apparent even before the final votes were cast, members took some parting partisan shots.

REP. PAT WILLIAMS, [D] Montana: My colleagues, can you hear that sound? That is the sound of the Good Ship Contract With America breaking apart and sinking at sea only three months away from port on what was supposed to have been a two-year cruise.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: I believe this is a historic vote. I've been frankly surprised by our friends on the left. I would have thought, having been defeated last fall for the first time in forty years, that paying some attention to the American people would have been useful. But I can promise you if the Democratic Party tonight defeats term limits, the contract may have been postponed in one of its ten items, but it will be back, and we have picked up enough additional seats in 1996, we will pass it as HR-1 in '97.

MR. HOLMAN: But speaking with reporters this morning, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt says he doesn't believe term limits is a high priority issue for most Americans.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT, Minority Leader: That doesn't mean that they don't have an opinion. Many people do have an opinion for term limits. And I understand that. But what I'm telling you is that I do not believe that it is an issue that people live with every day. What people are worried about is their standard of living. They're worried about their job. They're worried about health care. They're worried about education.

MR. HOLMAN: Nevertheless, Republicans in the Senate are vowing to bring term limits to a floor vote there within the next six months.

SEN. FRED THOMPSON, [R] Tennessee: I don't think the question is whether or not term limits is going to pass. I think the question is: When is term limits going to pass?

MS. WARNER: Now we assess the political fallout from last night's term limits defeat. We have two congressmen who voted against the constitutional amendment: Rep. John Porter, a Republican from Illinois, and Rep. Kweisi Mfume, a Democrat from Maryland. They're joined by two grassroots supporters of term limits: Cleta Mitchell, director of the Term Limits Legal Institute; and Connie Smith, the Washington State Director for United We Stand, America. Congressman Porter, let me start with you. Why do you think the term limits amendment went down to defeat?

REP. JOHN PORTER, [R] Illinois: I think the basic premise of the amendment that somehow we can solve all of our problems in America if we can only amend a faulty Constitution that the founders gave us is a, a ludicrous proposition. That isn't where our problems lie at all, and I think that people in Congress do not put their finger in the wind in voting on a constitutional amendment. They realize they were sent here to make their best judgment for the policies that govern our country, and when you amend the Constitution, that's for all time, and they searched their consciences and found that this was not a proposition that they wanted to support. If you look back to 1787, when the Constitution was written, it was revolutionary to place in the hands of individual, ordinary people the governing power. This amendment would put a government restraint on the judgment of ordinary people in our society. I don't think that is even a, a conservative concept at all, and I think people realize deep down that if our founders could trust the American people to make these judgments, we should trust the American people to make these judgments, without restraint.

MS. WARNER: Congressman Mfume, do you see it that way, that this was really a vote of conscience?

REP. KWEISI MFUME, [D] Maryland: I think it was, but to some extent, it was a vote of hypocrisy. Every member of the chamber, every member last night knew that those bills were not going to pass. And yet, they participated in the charade, some of them, voting yes and praying no, as Barney Frank said, because they wanted to give the opinion that they were doing something when they knew and half the press and most the people watching knew that that was not going to take place. I think at some point in time we have to be honest with people. We were not sent here to stick our fingers in the air and measure the velocity or the direction of the wind and then make policy. A constitutional amendment is serious change, and I think those who argue that public opinion polls are what we ought to be looking at are doing a disservice. There was a time in this country when slavery would have won every public opinion poll as something that should have been tolerated. Thank God it was not. There were times when in 1939 Jews were turned away on a ship St. Louis because most Americans didn't want 'em here, and so they went back to Hitler. And there were times in this country leading up to women's suffrage when a woman was not supposed to vote at all. Thank God that those members of Congress at those times did not read a public opinion poll before making a decision.

MS. WARNER: Ms. Mitchell, as a proponent of the term limits amendment, who do you blame for this defeat?

CLETA MITCHELL, Term Limits Legal Institute: Well, I blame the people who voted no. We just heard a few of them.

MS. WARNER: Of both parties?

MS. MITCHELL: Yes, but I have to say that there are more of them in the Democratic Party. When 83 percent of the Republicans voted yes and 82 percent of the Democrats voted no, we just have more blame to spread around with the Democratic Party, and I think that that's a problem.

REP. MFUME: Well, with all due respect, this was not a Democratic contract item. With all due respect.

MS. MITCHELL: It doesn't matter.

REP. MFUME: This was not something the Democrats said that they wanted to do.

MS. MITCHELL: Well, I think that that's a problem. I've been a Democrat all my life, but I must tell you that I feel today I think the same way Ben Nighthorse Campbell must have felt the day after the balanced budget amendment vote, because the people have spoken, they have -- this isn't an opinion poll. There have been 25 million votes cast in favor of congressional term limits in 22 states. They're laws.

MS. WARNER: What about Congressman Mfume's point that he made earlier that if members of Congress had always voted with the majority, we would have some things we weren't terribly proud of?

MS. MITCHELL: Well, I would take issue with that for this reason. In order to end slavery, it required a constitutional amendment. In order for women to get the right to vote, it took a constitutional amendment. It took many, many years before -- between the time the amendment for woman suffrage was first voted upon, over 50 years, before it finally passed. I think that we're going to be ahead of that schedule, but in the beginning, the members of Congress didn't want those political changes.

MS. WARNER: Ms. Smith, whom do you blame for this defeat?

CONNIE SMITH, United We Stand: I blame the vote of the Congress that voted because 22 states have asked for this amendment, and it is up to the people, and our founding fathers are the ones who said we can change that Constitution when time is needed. And now is the time. We need this change.

REP. MFUME: I would respectfully say we don't. Most members of Congress, more than half, have served less than five year. It sounds to me that between death, voluntary selection of change of employment, and angry voters, we've done quite a bit to change Congress.

MS. WARNER: Let me go back to you, Ms. Mitchell. Do you think those who voted against it will be defeated at the polls, will be punished for this vote politically?

MS. MITCHELL: Well, I think that there will be some who will be. One of the problems is that many of these members -- perhaps the two here tonight -- I haven't studied their districts -- but many of these members are from safe Republican or safe Democratic seats, and the only chance of beating them is in a primary. And rarely do incumbents have primary challenges from someone in their own party. I think that this is the kind of issue, however, that can cause a challenger, potential challengers, to say maybe I need to take this guy on. And so I think that there may be more candidates coming out of the woodwork, and that's the first step to beating incumbents, obviously.

MS. WARNER: Ms. Smith, is this something your organization would be involved in, targeting these members? Do you think there will be political repercussions for them?

MS. SMITH: It's real possible. Our members were very involved here in the fifth district when Speaker Foley lost his seat, and it was because he wasn't listening to the voters when they said they wanted term limits. Washington voted for term limits.

MS. WARNER: Congressman Porter, are you feeling any political heat yet? I know it's only been less than twenty-four hours. Are you feeling any political heat for your vote?

REP. PORTER: Well, I think many Americans think that this is somehow an idea whose time has come. I have to point out, though, that the majority whip in the Republican Party voted no. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the chairman of the Ways & Means Committee, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, the chairman of the Commerce Committee, these votes are matters of conscience. When you vote for a constitutional amendment, it's not a matter that you take a poll and see which side of the line the majority falls on. These are very deep matters, and I think these people understand that people must vote with their consciences.

MS. WARNER: Is Ms. Mitchell right when she says that she believes most of those who voted against it come from safe districts?

REP. PORTER: I don't know that I could say that they do or don't. I don't think in this context, as my colleague from Maryland just pointed out, that there are any safe districts. The American people have shown that without a constitutional amendment, they have the ability to change the make-up of the House of Representatives in a revolutionary way, so is a constitutional amendment needed for Americans to participate in the system and make changes in the Congress? No. They have the power in their hands. They've always had that power in their hands. It belies the whole argument for a constitutional amendment to see the results of just the last two elections.

MS. WARNER: Congressman Mfume, are you feeling any political heat, or do you feel political repercussions for your vote?

REP. MFUME: No. What I hear and feel in my district are people who are concerned about safe streets that are free from drugs and guns. They want to make sure there's going to be a job out there, a chance for their children to have an education. They're concerned about health care and making sure that the seniors in their family are protected. They're worried about real everyday issues, making sure that their standard of living is something that they can enhance and give on to their children. That's where the pressure is.

MS. WARNER: Ms. Smith, let me ask you about the involvement of groups such as your own in this battle in Congress. You pointed out that in the Tom Foley race you were very involved. There's been a recent story in the Washington Post saying that conservative radio talk show hosts actually had trouble ginning up a lot of support or pressure on the Hill for this vote in advance of the vote. Is the term limits amendment losing, running out of gas, do you think?

MS. SMITH: No, I don't think so. I think that 22 states have already passed legislation for term limits. Other states do not have the initiative and referendum process is why they haven't already passed it, so I think it'll continue to be an issue, and with the defeat of it, it's going to just say, well, we didn't work hard enough, we need to get out there and let our elected officials know we really mean business.

MS. WARNER: Let me ask Congressman Porter, did you feel a lot of political heat in advance of the vote? Did you get a lot of phone calls in your office?

REP. PORTER: No. And I have to say in district it has not been a burning issue. I have long since announced my position on it. I think the voters in my district understand my position, respect it as a matter of conscience, and I think that's probably true in many of the districts around this country.

MS. WARNER: What do you think, Ms. Mitchell, I mean, these reports that there really wasn't a lot of pressure built up on these members?

MS. MITCHELL: You know what I think is amazing. I think the American people thought that they had sent that message last November. I think they thought that they had done the work, and I really think people because the contract issues have come so quickly, so one after another, what I was finding is that people really didn't even know that the issue was coming up, and once it got on the radar screen, people were calling and saying, I can't believe this is coming up so quickly, and they will, I think they will be more angry as time goes on, and when they realize that it came up and failed.

MS. WARNER: Congressman Mfume, what was your experience in terms of political pressure?

REP. MFUME: Well, I wish that our other guests tonight would not try to speak for the people of Baltimore City and Baltimore County. Those people have spoken loudly and clearly. They want safe streets; they want jobs; they want income; they want to make sure that there is a certain sense of neighborhood within their communities; they want to make sure that our country is sound, that we deal with the deficit. They may then get around to term limits, but one of the problems with term limits is that you cannot and should not impose on people across this country your idea that their Representative or their Senator ought to serve 12 years. Let them do that. If that were the case, Bob Dole would not be the Majority Leader of the Senate, Newt Gingrich would not be the Speaker of the House, and I dare say a number of great statespersons would not have served in this country because someone else in some other part of the country decided what was best for their constituents.

MS. WARNER: Ms. Smith, let me ask you about what this means for the Republican leadership. Do you think this is any kind of blow to -- serious blow to Speaker Gingrich?

MS. SMITH: That's going to take some time. I think that in Washington, we put in seven new Congress members because of their stand on term limits. And that was a big issue here, and it will continue to be an issue, because we believe that the founding fathers allowed us to change the Constitution.

MS. WARNER: But do you -- the Speaker has said that the Contract only promised to bring it up for a vote, it didn't promise to pass it. Does that jive with what your expectations were?

MS. SMITH: No, not necessarily, and what his idea is his idea, so I can't speak for him, but I know I can speak for members that have worked very hard in our state in getting the initiative out that got term limits in our state.

MS. WARNER: Congressman Porter, how do you see this in terms of its impact on, on the Speaker, on the Republican leadership?

REP. PORTER: Well, as I said earlier, some of the Republican leadership voted against it. I don't think it has an impact on the Republican leadership. Our promise was to vote on these matters. Yes, in the previous congresses we were not permitted to vote on them. The Democrats wouldn't even bring out to the floor this idea that we voted on. We have done what we said we would do, bring it out, have a vote on it, the Senate may do the same thing. The American people are certainly entitled to that. But we are also entitled to make a judgment as to what ought to be a part of our Constitution and what shouldn't be. And once again, in my judgment, the founders had it right. Let's leave this matter to the people. Let's not put artificial government restraints on their judgment, let them make that decision in every election.

MS. WARNER: How do you see it, Ms. Mitchell, in terms of what it says about the new Republican majority and the leadership?

MS. MITCHELL: Again, 83 percent of the Republicans voted yes. The Speaker said in his closing the debate last night we will take this to the people again in 1996, we will point out that if they want term limits, this is going to be an issue in every campaign, and H.J. ResNo. 1 in the next Congress in 1997 is going to be term limits. He promised that last night. He also said today that we're going to revisit this issue after the Supreme Court ruling. I frankly think that one of the things that he did last night in closing the debate and in really making it clear that he was -- that this issue is not over, it's just beginning, and in reiterating that today, that he -- he re-energized some of the freshman and sophomore Republican members -- I was on the Hill today, and that was my sense. And, frankly, Rep. Porter has mentioned these voters who voted no. They are senior members. That's the problem. They're the most senior, and this is the one contract item that affects them personally. And I think that's why it didn't get the 2/3 but we'll be back.

REP. PORTER: I disagree with that. I don't think it affects any of us personally. I think that we will long be gone before a constitutional amendment could be adopted and implemented. We can look at this dispassionately; it wouldn't affect any of us. This is not a matter that you look at from a personal standpoint. This is a matter of providing a provision in the Constitution of the United States to last for all time. It's a very, very serious decision that must be made by each member.

MS. WARNER: Congressmen, thank you very much. That's all the time we have, and Ms. Smith, Ms. Mitchell, thanks so much. Robin.

MR. MAC NEIL: Now, editorial reaction to the defeat of the term limits amendment in the House. Three of our regular panel of regional editors are with us tonight: Ed Baumeister of the Trenton Times; Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Constitution; and Lee Cullum of the Dallas Morning News. Joining them tonight are Dan Griswold of the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph; and Mindy Cameron of the Seattle Times. Lee Cullum in Dallas, from where you sit, is this a big blow to the Republicans, or does bringing it to a vote fulfill their -- satisfy the commitment?

LEE CULLUM, Dallas Morning News: Well, Robin, I don't think that bringing it to a vote satisfies the commitment at all. I think people down here are very interested in term limits. I would like to take issue with some of the ideas expressed in the earlier segment. I don't think that the right to vote and the right to serve are the same thing. Of course, everybody of voting age should be able to vote in every election, but everybody of the age stipulated by the Constitution having a right to serve for 12 years in the House and 12 years in the Senate, everybody having that right strikes me as just and good for the country. I don't think that merely bringing it to a vote, going through the minuet, is enough. I think people here wanted to see the Constitution changed.

MR. MAC NEIL: Cynthia, is this a big blow for the Republicans?

CYNTHIA TUCKER, Atlanta Constitution: I think it slows down the Republican juggernaut in the House. I don't think there's anything -- any doubt about that. I think it will embolden Democrats in some areas to challenge the Republicans on even more issues and to see if they can't get some Republican allies to do so. I would be surprised, however, if this had any lasting influence on the campaign trail. There is certainly some interest here in Georgia in term limits. On the other hand, there is not enough interest in Georgia that the state legislature has voted for term limits for its members. We have some members of the Georgia legislature who have served a very long time, and there has been no great outcry on the campaign trail about that. So I don't expect that this issue will have any lasting resonance out there on the campaign trail.

MR. MAC NEIL: Dan Griswold in Denver, does this slow the Republican juggernaut, as Cynthia puts it?

DAN GRISWOLD, Colorado Springs, Gazette Telegraph: No, I don't think so. I think people will see that Republicans voted overwhelmingly for the main provision, the main term limits provision. Democrats were against it. I think it's going to feed a general discontent about the political process, and I think it is going to have implications in '96. It certainly did in '94. There are several prominent members who lost largely because of the term limits issue, including the Speaker of the House, the first Speaker of the House to lose in 130 years. This issue is not going to go away. It's very popular not only in the polls but at the election ballot.

MR. MAC NEIL: You say it'll feed the discontent, meaning that the popular opinion will say, well, why isn't the Congress doing what we want? Is that what you mean?

MR. GRISWOLD: Right. I think people see this as one more example of Congress having one idea and the overwhelming majority of voters having another idea. The Congress has -- just hasn't gotten the message on this, as it hasn't gotten the message on a lot of other issues.

MR. MAC NEIL: Ed Baumeister, Congress just hasn't got the message, what do you see as the political fallout?

ED BAUMEISTER, Trenton Times: Well, I don't know if it's that Congress didn't get the message. We're all doing it in the press and in the government, we're all speaking for the American people. If you look at what the American people are really saying, it strikes you that so few of them have participated, and the percentage who could vote, that registered to vote is so small, the percentage of people who do register and can vote is so small, that I think that it's sort of arrogant unto yourself, whether you're in the press or in the Congress, that this is the will of the American people neglects the facts, which is -- which say that people aren't that interested on the whole. But as far as this is concerned, I don't think that this is a matter of the heart. This is -- if this is a grassroots movement, it's very different, for example, from the abortion movement, the anti-abortion movement, which is really an issue of the heart, an emotional issue. I don't think because it's a matter of the head that has caught on, and I think next year we won't see the kind of retribution that people are talking about.

MR. MAC NEIL: Mindy Cameron, what do you see as the political fallout in Seattle?

MINDY CAMERON, Seattle Times: Well, I think the political fallout, and mostly what I think this vote means is that term limits is, indeed, an idea whose time came and fueled really quite a wonderful national debate, I think, but I think it's running out of gas, and it began to run out of gas last November. You can point to the toppling of the Speaker of the House, Tom Foley, in my state as an example of the great momentum that term limits had, or you can look at the very fact that he was defeated at the polls without a term limits amendment and say that that is a fact, a reason that this is running out of gas. I think the voters have demonstrated they really don't need this as much as they thought they did.

MR. MAC NEIL: Connie Smith from your state of United We Stand said it's going to haunt Republicans who voted against it. Do you think that's right?

MS. CAMERON: Oh, I just don't think so. I mean, these are people who have invested a lot of time and effort and energy in a cause that's very important to them, but I think the voters have a much broader range of interests, and this is going to -- this is a very popular state, and there is, indeed, a lot of interest in the term limits issue, but I think particularly in this state what happened at the polls last year, we've just moved beyond that here, and I think there's lots of other issues that are a much higher priority for voters in this state.

MR. MAC NEIL: Lee Cullum, is the -- is failure to vote for term limits going to haunt Republicans running for reelection in Texas?

MS. CULLUM: I think it could, Robin. I think that they could be vulnerable in the primary. I will grant that Republican districts tend to be pretty solid Republican. In fact, that's a new thing, but it's becoming more so all the time, but I think a primary challenge is certainly possible. You know, we had the same thing happen in the Texas legislature. Term limits looked like it was going to do well in the Senate, badly in the House. It turned out being bad for the session. But I'm not sure that it's time to declare victory and say we won, after all, because of last November. I don't think the term limits people will do that. I think they mean business, and I think they're going to carry on.

MR. MAC NEIL: Will it be a campaign issue in New Jersey?

MR. BAUMEISTER: I don't think so. I mean, we're not one of the twenty-two states who are already limiting terms. It's -- it's not up there among the issues that people really care about, and still, even though all the numbers in the neighborhood, if you talk to people in my neighborhoods, they still worry that government hasn't gotten it right, not that -- it hasn't gotten right so that the economy can perform, so that they will be taken care of. I think that's still -- it's still the economy.

MR. MAC NEIL: Dan Griswold, you think it will haunt Republicans who voted against it, do you?

MR. GRISWOLD: I think it'll haunt some of them. I think it'll haunt a lot of incumbents, especially long-term incumbents, who voted against term limits. This, this matters to people. Polls show it getting 70 to 80 percent of the vote; every time it's been on a state ballot, it has passed. It's 22 for 22 in the states where it's passed. And maybe one reason why people aren't participating in the process as much as they used to is they're feeling that the system is stacked in favor of incumbents, and with term limits, I think there will be more open races, there will be more competitive races, and maybe people will get more involved in the system. This isn't the answer, but it's part of the answer.

MR. MAC NEIL: But if they felt that way strongly before the November election, picking up on the argument that Congressman Porter just made, one of the Republicans who voted against it, do you think any of the steam went out of this, this issue, because so many -- there was so much turnover last November?

MR. GRISWOLD: Well --

MR. MAC NEIL: Demonstrating that the system can provide change.

MR. GRISWOLD: There was quite a bit of turnover. You have to remember only two incumbent Senators were defeated. I think that we need more change. The system is still stacked in favor of incumbents. I think what we saw in November was a healthy thing. I think term limits would provide more Novembers like we saw last year where there's going to be turnover, there's going to be fundamental change in the approach of Congress.

MR. MAC NEIL: Cynthia Tucker, do you see the November election taking steam out of this issue?

MS. TUCKER: Absolutely, Robin. I think people were very angry at many things during the November elections, and the perception that there were too many members of Congress who had served far too long and forgotten why they were sent up there by the voters was widespread, but I think that the November elections proved, made the case that term limits are not necessary; if you are angry with your representative, vote him out. Let me also say that I think that the voters are largely right that there are many members of Congress who are out of touch who favor special interests, and that in some cases that it is very difficult to take on an incumbent, but term limits are the wrong answer to that. Campaign finance reform is a much better answer. What you want to do is make those members of Congress far less dependent on the money that comes from special interests. You want to have a process that makes it much more likely that challenges can attract the kind of money that they need to win against incumbents. And that's campaign finance reform. That's not term limits.

MR. MAC NEIL: Lee Cullum, Speaker Gingrich started today blaming this defeat on the Democrats. And he even said at one point the 40 Republicans who opposed it did so on principle, whereas, the Democrats were cynical and careerists. Is it going to wash, to blame the defeat on the Democrats?

MS. CULLUM: Well, I think the principle is that everybody is supposed to sacrifice in this country, except the members of Congress. I think those 40 Republicans may find themselves in trouble, and I don't think Speaker Gingrich can exonerate them quite so casually.

MR. MAC NEIL: How do you feel about that, Mindy Cameron?

MS. CAMERON: Well, I think that's right. I think a lot depends on how the Democrats play this. I think there was a lot of, anybody who's paying close attention to how Congress was handling this, the various versions of these reforms in which the matter was put to the vote in Congress, there's plenty of hypocrisy here about this whole issue, and Congress is -- one of the Congressmen said earlier, and I think if the Democrats, as they look for ways to take advantage, if somebody stumbles on the Republicans over the contract -- I think they have -- they can make some headway out of this if they're -- if they're clever about it.

MR. MAC NEIL: Dan Griswold, let me change the subject slightly to a larger look at the Contract With America in the couple of minutes we have left. There have been stories over the last couple of days -- there's one in the New York Times today -- to the effect the Republicans are a bit worried that the contract is not really registering that deeply with, with Americans, and, therefore, they may not get -- Speaker Gingrich and company may not get the credit for what they regard as historic achievements these last hundred days or so. How do you feel? Is it really biting deeply in the public mind?

MR. GRISWOLD: I think there's some truth to that. You know, out here in Colorado, people don't live and die every day by what hinges, what happens in Congress. I think people at the end of the 100 days or even at the end of this session of Congress will stand back and say: What has really changed? Have they gotten any fundamental change on the size of government, on the intrusion of government in their lives? And if they see that the Republicans are just the same as the Democrats, I think that's when you'll see some of the disillusionment set in. You might see a third party movement. I think people aren't looking at it day to day but are probably going to stand back at the end of it all and assess what has happened.

MR.MAC NEIL: Ed Baumeister, how do you see the contract penetrating the public mind? Is it really getting a lot of resonance there?

MR. BAUMEISTER: It didn't, and I keep waiting for my publisher to tell me how much newsprint I consume by printing not only the contract but the apologia for it. I think now that we've done that and I thought it certainly organized debate in a fabulous way, I think the message of the contract was government, government programs are terrible, but here's another government program that will solve all that, and I think it, it set a climate that, you know, what's coming from Washington is terrible but here's one thing from Washington that will change all that, and I don't think people bought it. I don't think they bought it as an entity.

MR. MAC NEIL: Lee Cullum, if the Republicans are as worried as some reporters say they are, that they won't get a sort of huge national cheer when this is over for historic accomplishments, are they right to be worried about that? How does it look in Dallas?

MS. CULLUM: I think they are right, Robin. If you think about it, they did well early on with their procedural movements to limit committees and all the rest, they did rewrite the crime bill, they did reform welfare in the House, but the three linchpins of the contract, in my view, were the balanced budget amendment, term limits, and also the line-item veto. They got one out of three. That's not good enough.

MR. MAC NEIL: How does it look to you, Mindy Cameron, in Washington? Is it, is it really getting into the public mind in a big way?

MS. CAMERON: I don't think so. Of course, we're a long ways from Washington, D.C., back here in Seattle, but I think we'll be looking at this maybe, maybe sooner than even another year in another few months as the contract being a really terrific campaign gimmick, and it really worked, and it did set the debate for, for some very important and good debates, but it's proving to be not a very successful technique for governing.

MR. MAC NEIL: Yeah. And how do you see it, Cynthia?

MS. TUCKER: Well, I don't think the voters understood the contract very clearly, even though many of them were supporting Republicans. I think that the polls showed that after the elections were over, many Americans didn't know what was in the contract, and I think many Americans have been a little surprised at some of the specific bills that have emerged as a result of the contract. Who wanted, for example, to cut the school or to reduce the school lunch program to a block grant program? Even those voters who might have heard about the contract thought its basics were a good idea, look up at some of the details and are not very comfortable with that. And so, yes, I think that the -- while the contract in its broad outlines might have been a good thing, an appealing thing, some of the details are less appealing to many voters.

MR. MAC NEIL: Of course, that would argue that it's really getting through to them, that they're paying attention to the details.

MS. TUCKER: They're paying attention to some of the details, yes, and connecting the dots but whether they're concentrating that closely I'm not sure.

MR. MAC NEIL: Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you all. FOCUS - HARD TIMES

MS. WARNER: Finally tonight, the impact of the harsh austerity plan imposed by Mexico last month to get the country's economy back on track. Mexico's current economic and political crisis began in December, when the newly-elected president, Ernesto Zedillo, devalued the peso. Since then, the peso has slid further, losing half its value. In addition, Mexico's former president, Carlos Salinas, has left the country and his brother, Raul, has been arrested on murder charges. Correspondent Charles Krause spent several days in Mexico recently and reports from Morelia, a city of about a million people in Central Mexico.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Even the Mexican government acknowledges it's so- called stabilization plan has begun to create real hardships for millions of Mexican families here in provincial cites like Morelia and elsewhere throughout Mexico. By the government's own estimate, nearly 1/2 million workers have lost their jobs since January, in a country where there's no unemployment insurance. Meanwhile, the government has raised gasoline prices by a third. Interest rates have skyrocketed. Housewives complain the price of food has doubled. In Morelia, meat has now become a luxury only the very rich can afford. Butcher shops are virtually empty. Middle class families have begun to lose their homes and cars because they can't afford the monthly payments. Crime has increased because the poor are increasingly desperate.

SAMUEL MEJIA: I think things are getting very worse. I mean, there's no control on prices, and the people just do the best they can in order to survive.

MR. KRAUSE: Samuel Mejia owns a small tortilla factory in a working class neighborhood on the outskirts of Morelia.

SAMUEL MEJIA: I've seen a lot of people that come here to my shop and ask me if I can give them the tortillas for the day and they pay me the next day, or, you know, the following day, but they are, those people are very poor people, starving, and they don't have nothing to eat.

MR. KRAUSE: Morelia is a logical place to gauge the social and political impact of Mexico's austerity plan for two reasons: first, because it's the capital of Michoacan, a state which traditionally sends more illegal migrants North than any other part of Mexico. Buses and planes provide direct daily service to Tijuana and other cities along the U.S. border. Even in normal times, hundreds leave every day. Now there's been an increase, and fragmentary evidence suggests the austerity measures could well result in a new flood of illegals surging from Mexico into the United States. A second reason for selecting Morelia has to do with its history. This old colonial city was Mexico's first capital and has a long tradition of political activism. It was a hotbed of rebellion during Mexico's war for independence from Spain 185 years ago. And just three years ago, massive protests forced the Salinas administration to declare Michoacan's last gubernatorial election invalid because of alleged vote counting fraud and corruption. Today the tradition of anti-government protests continues. Since last December, Morelia's San Nicholas University has been closed on average once a week by workers demanding higher salaries and, more recently, by students protesting the government's austerity plan and its failure to negotiate a peace agreement with the Zapatista guerrillas in Chiapas. Salvador Jara is chairman of the university's physics and math department. He says the student protest movement has grown since Mexico's economy went into a tailspin last December.

SALVADOR JARA: I think on the one hand, they are really feeling the crisis themselves, I mean, they cannot support themselves. But something else is that I really think that they're conscious about the bigger problem, the political and economic problems in Mexico.

MR. KRAUSE: The question on everyone's mind is how much longer the protests will remain peaceful; how much longer not just students, but average Mexicans, will accept the severe drop in living standards before there's a social and political explosion.

FERNANDA NAVARRO, Professor: People either will accept and starve, or rebel. That's a possibility.

MR. KRAUSE: Fernanda Navarro is a philosophy professor at the university who says if things don't improve quickly, there could be violence.

FERNANDA NAVARRO: It wouldn't be surprising that that happens, and nobody really wants it because we know that violence, if it widens, is not really a solution. But then you can't stop people in a desperate situation.

MR. KRAUSE: Not everyone agrees, of course. Juan Jose Loeza is a wealthy architect-developer who says he expects Mexico to weather the current crisis.

JUAN JOSE LOEZA, Architect: We, in this country, we have a, a solid infrastructure. We have solid family ties, and we have proven as a strong people when adversity comes. Certainly we have adversity right now, pretty tough, but I feel, again, that we'll come out of it. Our spirit is not broken.

MR. KRAUSE: Yet, even Loeza says the construction industry here in Michoacan and elsewhere in Mexico has been virtually wiped out by the crisis.

JUAN JOSE LOEZA: The second or third most important industry in the country is the construction industry, so if that industry also is practically at a standstill, well, you can imagine that there's unemployment. The unemployment, well, generates all the other difficulties that come with, with not having money.

MR. KRAUSE: Historically, revolutions have not been led by the poor, but, rather, by the middle class, artists, writers, lawyers, intellectuals, the educated elite alienated by economic and/or political adversity. Gabriella Ortiz Monasterio is an artist who makes puppets and has her own children's television show in Morelia. Once a week, for an hour, she creates a make-believe fantasy world using sheer imagination to delight her young audience at home and in the studio. The rest of the week she's out on the street selling empanadas made in her own kitchen so that she, her three children, and her husband, who's also an artist, have enough to eat. What was the reaction when the government announced the latest measures, the increase in gasoline prices, the increase in taxes, the increase in other things?

GABRIELLA ORTIZ MONASTERIO, Artists: We couldn't believe our ears to start with, and then I think everybody is mad at them. Everybody got really angry because before you could see that perhaps people who were poor would be against them, but now you can find many people, I mean, middle class people, and sometimes even rich people, who are really angry because they feel they have been cheated, because everybody said that everything was perfect, that we were just going through the first world already, and everybody was very happy about it. I mean, I never believed that, but many people did.

MR. KRAUSE: Strangely enough, even though the poverty is worse, the anger felt by middle class Mexicans is not as openly evident among the poor. Instead, in barrios like the Colonia Leonara Biyaz, many of the men and even some women are simply planning to leave for the United States. Victor Bastida, for example, he spent seven years in California, learned English, somehow got a green card, saved enough money to buy a garbage truck, and returned to Morelia a year and a half ago because he really didn't want to stay in the United States. But his dream of remaining in Mexico has now become a nightmare. With gasoline prices and almost everything else up, except his earnings, Bastida told us he's barely surviving. He now earns about 30 pesos, less than $5, at the end of a seven-hour day.

VICTOR BASTIDA, Truck Driver: If the things don't get better in a couple of months, I think I'm going to park my truck, or I'm going to sell it, and I think I'm going to back to the USA. Like I told you, I have a green card, so if I get over there, I think I can find a job over there.

MR. KRAUSE: Clearly, Bastida is not alone. Cirilo Bernal spent most of 1993 working illegally in Florida. And if things don't improve soon, he says that he too will have no choice but to try to return to the United States. The trickle, Bernal says, could soon become a flood. Cirilo Bernal lives just a few blocks from Samuel Mejia's tortilla factory, where we learned about a government program which provides free tortillas to needy families. Called, Torti-Bonos, it's a welfare program run by the government that's a curious mix of old style ward politics and high tech computer technology. But Mejia says that after all that's happened in Mexico this past year, two political assassinations, the peso crisis, and now the austerity measures, free tortillas aren't enough to prevent hunger, nor to restore his faith in Mexico's political system. Do you think if this continues that at some point people here are just going to take the law into their own hands, or try to start stealing food and otherwise?

SAMUEL MEJIA: No. They don't -- the people will not take the law into their own hands because, like I said, they are afraid, they are afraid not for, for themselves but for their families.

MR. KRAUSE: But Gabriella Ortiz Monasterio is not so sure.

GABRIELLA ORTIZ MONASTERIO: Sometimes I think that middle class people think that, well, they shouldn't fight, and war is not the solution. I know it is not a solution, but if you are in a corner and you have nothing to, to live on, you have no food, your children are starving. They will do anything, and that's what we are afraid of.

MR. KRAUSE: On March 23rd, there was a simple ceremony in Morelia commemorating the first anniversary of Luis Donald Colosio's assassination. Colosio was the presidential candidate of Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI, and would almost certainly have been elected Mexico's president last year had he not been gunned down in Tijuana. [music in background] It was an act of violence that triggered the economic and political crisis that continues to threaten Mexico's political stability. What no one can be sure of now is whether Mexicans will accept the harsh austerity measures the government has put in play. Will there be more violence? Or, instead, will more and more Mexicans stampede toward the border, using Mexico's traditional safety valve for escaping hardship and poverty here by seeking jobs and a better life in the United States? RECAP

MR. MAC NEIL: Again, the major stories of this Thursday, a federal judge ruled the Clinton administration's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military unconstitutional. Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter became the fifth Republican officially to announce his candidacy for President, and President Clinton ordered investigations into whether U.S. intelligence agencies covered up the murder and torture of Americans in Guatemala. Good night, Margaret.

MS. WARNER: Good night, Robin. That's it for the NewsHour tonight. We'll be back tomorrow with a NewsMaker interview with Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. I'm Margaret Warner. Good night.