The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, Governor Gray Locke updates the raging wildfire in Washington State, Margaret Warner conducts an assessment of the U.S. Supreme Court's just-completed work, Jeffrey Kaye previews Sunday's important election in Mexico and Terence Smith looks at the effort to plug leaks of government secrets. It all follows our summary of the news this Thursday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: A wildfire burned out of control today at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington State. It started Tuesday and spread across more than 150,000 acres. By this morning, it was three miles from radioactive sites where workers once handled spent nuclear fuel. Governor Gray Locke activated the National Guard to help thousands of people evacuate the area. And we'll talk to the governor right after this News Summary. President Clinton today renewed his threat to veto a Republican prescription drugs bill. The house passed it last night, 217 to 214, mostly down party lines. Seniors would receive coverage under Medicare through private insurance and federal subsidies, but the President said it wouldn't provide real benefits. The Senate may take up the issue next month. The Senate today voted 92 to 6 to make certain tax-exempt groups disclose their backers. The House passed the same measure yesterday. It requires groups to say who's paying for their TV ads and other political activities. Supporters said it could lead to other campaign finance measures. Senator John McCain spoke on the Senate floor.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Perception has an unfortunate tendency to become reality. And the American people perceive the Congress as controlled by the moneyed special interests. If we're to ensure the public's faith in its government, we must obliterate that perception. This bill, although admittedly a very small step, is a step towards ending that perception. This is a step we should be proud to take.

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton has said he will sign the bill. The President today chose former California Congressman Norman Mineta to be commerce secretary. If confirmed by the Senate, he'd be the first Asian-American to hold a cabinet post. He retired from Congress in 1995 after 21 years. Since then, he's worked for Lockheed Martin. Mineta would succeed William Daley, who's leaving to run Vice President Gore's presidential campaign. The Federal Aviation Administration announced today Alaska Airlines will continue to maintain its own planes. It came under scrutiny after a crash off southern California last January that killed 88 people. The FAA said the airline had made significant improvements since then. A loss of maintenance rights could have grounded the company's planes. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the huge wildfire in Washington state, a sum-up of the Supreme Court's term, a Mexico election preview, and keeping government secrets secret.

FOCUS - WILDFIRE

JIM LEHRER: That wildfire near a nuclear facility in Washington State. Kwame Holman begins.

KWAME HOLMAN: Flames aided by 100-degree temperatures and 30-mile-an-hour wind gusts overwhelmed firefighters at the Hanford nuclear reservation. The fire was started Tuesday afternoon by a car wreck. It has spread quickly, consuming the arid sagebrush that covers most of the 560-square-mile site in southeastern Washington State. At least 25 homes have been destroyed. Some 7,000 people have been evacuated from towns just south of the sprawling reservation.

WOMAN: I was on my way home, and all of a sudden a police car pulled up to me, and I pulled my earphones down and the police officer said, "get off the street, get home, and get in your car and evacuate, and tell as many of your neighbors as possible, because the fire is headed this way."

KWAME HOLMAN: Hanford was established as part of the secret Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb during World War II. Today, its mission is cleaning up radioactive and hazardous waste created during 40 years of plutonium production for the nation's nuclear arsenal. Parts of the site still are highly radioactive, and if fire reaches them, contaminated particles could be released into the atmosphere. Energy officials said so far there were no known releases of radioactive waste.

JULIE ERICKSON, Department of Energy Spokeswoman: We are working on trying to keep the fire from the 300 area where there is nuclear materials stored, but at this time, we don't feel like there is any threat.

KWAME HOLMAN: More than 600 firefighters from across the region are expected to join the battle against the blaze.

JIM LEHRER: And now to the governor of Washington State, Gary Locke. Governor, welcome.

GOV. GARY LOCKE: Thank you very much.

JIM LEHRER: Governor, you've just returned from a hard look at the fire scene. Describe what you saw.

GOV. GARY LOCKE, Washington: Well, what we saw from the air and now we're on the ground, is just hundreds of thousands of acres of utter devastation. This fire moved so rapidly. Talking to people, they were barely to able to get out of their homes and escape with their own lives. But you could see the fire going right up to the parking lots of some of the facilities at the Hanford nuclear reservation. Thank goodness for the parking lots or the concrete that stopped it. The fire appears to be contained, but there are some still some hot spots. And if the wind picks up, then there is the risk and the danger of the fire reigniting areas. We had to evacuate whole towns last night -- tens of thousands of people. But the fire appears to be contained, thanks to the coordinated effort of federal, state and local firefighters and agencies all across the State of Washington.

JIM LEHRER: So when you use contained, you don't mean that it's under control necessarily. Contained is a different kind of word, right?

GOV. GARY LOCKE: Well, we think that most of the fire is out, but there are half a dozen actual spot fires here and there that still have flames, and with the wind picking up, it could reignite areas and still poses a danger. But right now, things are a lot calmer. People have returned to their homes, but we're keeping our fingers crossed.

JIM LEHRER: Now, what's the injuries situation thus far?

GOV. GARY LOCKE: Well, there was a fatality in the accident that caused the fire. There are some people who had to be airlifted to trauma centers because of second-degree burns, smoke inhalation problems. But entire city of Benton had to be evacuated last night, and one-third of another major city had to be evacuated because of the smoke and the... the fire is actually consuming neighborhoods. But right now, it appears that only one or two people may have passed away, and injuries were minimal.

JIM LEHRER: Now, what is the risk that remains? You say that wind could come along. What's the extent of the risk?

GOV. GARY LOCKE: Well, it's something that we're working with, and we have Forest Service, we have our state natural services or natural resource agencies, people who normally fight forest fires, here on the scene, along with local fire officials. They're really trying to put out these hot spots so that later on tonight or this afternoon as the wind picks up, we will not have those flames carried, sparking another fire because last night, the fires were jumping roads that were 150 yards across, or rivers that were 200 yards across. It was that intense. And so trying to contain these fires and put them out is absolutely essential to prevent any new flare-up.

JIM LEHRER: Explain what that's like, Governor. I mean a fire comes up, say, to a road and essentially it stops. But then a wind can come along and literally lift it up over the concrete and into wherever it could catch on and continue the fire?

GOV. GARY LOCKE: That's right. We heard reports from law enforcement officials, fire officials and citizens that said that the... a wall of fire 20, 30 feet high was coming at them 20, 30 miles an hour. They could barely keep ahead of it in their own cars. And then the flames would just jump over the entire roadway and go to the other side of the road and ignite the grass and the debris and just keep on traveling at great, great speeds. So a land break of even 100 yards, 100 feet did not stop this wall of fire.

JIM LEHRER: Now, what's your assessment of the risk involving these old nuclear buildings and areas which still have some radioactive material in them?

GOV. GARY LOCKE: Well, I've flown over the area. We've talked with officials from the Department of Energy. Everything seems to be safe. We've been monitoring and testing the air all night.-- the smoke from the fire and there's no evidence of any type of radioactivity, no evidence of any hazardous or toxic chemicals in the air as a result of the fire. So apparently everything is okay, and people can be reassured about that. But we're still continuing to monitor, test the air sample and making sure that there is no type of toxic exposure to the citizens or even the firefighters working on this blaze.

JIM LEHRER: Is there a plan in waiting in case you do run a test and, "oh, my goodness, "somebody says there is radioactive particles in the air? What do you then?

GOV. GARY LOCKE: Well, we have been testing constantly. And it's been continuous testing ever since the fire started. And we're getting the results back immediately. And so if that were to happen, but because the fire appears to be virtually out now, but we're still working on a few hot spots here and there, I don't think there's much danger to that. But if there is a danger, even in the future, a future year, we have emergency response teams and evacuation programs in place. And that was tested last night when entire towns had to be immediately evacuated. So everything's working well.

JIM LEHRER: Now, you've declared a state of emergency for one county and called up the National Guard. Why did you do that, and what will they do?

GOV. GARY LOCKE: Well, last night when the fire was still raging and the fire didn't really appear to subside until 6:00 or 7:00 this morning. Last night I declared a state of emergency to mobilize our National Guard to have them available in the help of the evacuation of the town, to make sure that there was no crime or looting occurring and that the evacuation was orderly -- but also to help reinforce local law enforcement and fire fighter... fire fighting officials as they concentrated on the fires itself. We've had incredible coordination, cooperation by all levels of government, from the federal agencies to our state agencies, health departments, local fire officials and police agencies. And fire agencies came from all across the state to help out last night. And they were able to put virtually the entire fire out this morning. But again, a couple of hot spots -- they're still focusing on that. And with the winds, we want to make sure that we're able to get every location of a fire completely out and cooled down so that there are no flare-ups. And we don't want this to suddenly flare up again and have another 200,000 acres on fire.

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton today offered to do whatever the federal government could do to assist in this effort. Do you have everything you need, Governor, to fight this fire?

GOV. GARY LOCKE: Well, we're working with everybody. And we've had incredible support from the federal agencies, from the Forest Service to the Bureau of Land Management, our own state natural resource people and local fire officials, U.S. Secretary of Energy Richardson will be coming tomorrow... or actually tonight and will be touring the reservation, the nuclear reservation tomorrow, and we'll give him a thorough briefing. and we'll have a better assessment of all the damage. But if you look around here, a lot of homes have been destroyed, a lot of structures, over 30 homes have been wiped out, and entire towns evacuated as a precaution. People are pulling together. They're in grief over their loss of property and homes,their possessions, their photographers, their memories. But thank goodness, it appears that almost nobody was killed.

JIM LEHRER: Governor, what are we looking at there behind you? Are these cars that were destroyed in the fire?

GOV. GARY LOCKE: Yeah, right behind me is what used to be a carport and a garage. And if you look inside the vehicles, molten glass, bumpers that have been completely melted, tires that are completely gone, and all you see are just a few carp and shreds. It's utterly amazing, how hot, how intense this fire was and how quickly it spread.

JIM LEHRER: Where exactly are you, Governor? Where are you standing now -- in what town and try to set it for us in terms of Seattle or other markers that the rest of us might recognize.

GOV. GARY LOCKE: Well, I'm in the northern part of the City of Benton, which is in the part of the tri-cities area. We're just about five, ten miles from the Hanford nuclear reservation, where the Cold War... the development of the atomic bomb was done and the research conducted. We're about 200 miles from the City of Seattle. We're in eastern Washington, in the arid part, the agricultural part of the State of Washington. We're about 200 miles from the city of Seattle.

JIM LEHRER: And this 150,000, 200,000 acres that burned, what actually burned? Was it grass? Was it trees? A combination? What?

GOV. GARY LOCKE: Mostly grass, sagebrush, brush area, grass, agricultural land, just... but grass lands throughout the Hanford nuclear reservation a lot of the hillsides where cattle and farming are occurring.

JIM LEHRER: And like the town where you are now, this is outside the reservation and there was just no way to deep it inside the reservation, correct?

GOV. GARY LOCKE: This fire was jumping over highways and jumping over rivers that are several hundred yards wide. This moved so quickly, people were lucky to escape the fire.

JIM LEHRER: And the worst is over, right, Governor?

GOV. GARY LOCKE: It appears the worst is over, but we still have a lot of hot spots that a lot of different groups are working on. We want to make sure that we douse them 100% so that there's no chance of a new flare-up that would spread back onto the reservation or into the neighboring communities.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Well, Governor, thank you and good luck, sir.

GOV. GARY LOCKE: Thank you.

FOCUS - SUPREME COURT WRAP

JIM LEHRER: Now Margaret Warner has the Supreme Court wrap.

MARGARET WARNER: The Supreme Court term that just ended was chock full of high-profile cases on subjects ranging from abortion to school prayer; from suspects' rights to privacy rights. Here to put it all in perspective are four Constitutional law professors: Douglas Kmiec, from Pepperdine University Law School; Laurence Tribe, from Harvard law school; John Yoo, from the University of California Law School at Berkeley; and ACLU President Nadine Strossen, who teaches at New York Law School. Welcome, all. Doug Kmiec, the dean of the Stanford Law School, whom I know you know, Kathleen Sullivan, writing in today's "New York Times" called this a rich and important term for the Court. Do you see it that way?

DOUGLAS KMIEC: I do, Margaret. It is a rich and important term. It was about the same number of cases as last year, but it was the breadth of the cases and it was the fact that it touched issues that touch people's lives. If I was to group the cases, Margaret, I'd put them in two different groups. One dealt with the basic structural components of the Constitution, the relationship between the federal and the state government, what's the respective authority between Congress and Court and also, as you mentioned in your introduction, there were tremendously important cases in the context of individual rights, dealing with abortion, school prayer, aid to religious schools, parental rights, various types of associations, both public and private. If you look at them, there is both liberal and conservative victories. There are cases that I think by and large are highly defensible and there are a few that are tragically outrageous.

MARGARET WARNER: Larry Tribe, for what do you think this... do you agree that this was a big term, and if so, for what will it be remembered?

LAURENCE TRIBE: Well, it was certainly a big term, Margaret, in the sense that it touched, as Doug says, virtually every area of the Constitution. It was panoramic, it was sweeping, and it will certainly be remembered as a term with lots of big hits. But if you really step back and ask historically: Is this term going to be remembered because any new direction was established, because any major surprises occurred, because the Court established some landmark in a novel area -- then I think the true answer is no, because although the Court continued the trend of protecting the states and cutting back on the power of Congress, and although it continued, by and large, the trend of protecting abortion rights, though in some ways the Court was closer in its division there than some expected, it was not a term that made new law. And in that sense, it was under whelming and it was anti-climactic.

MARGARET WARNER: John Yoo, how do you see the significance of this term?

JOHN YOO: Well, there's one issue that I think Doug and Larry have skipped, which I think will be the significant signal lesson of this term and perhaps maybe the Rehnquist Court which I think is the stride enter declarations of judicial supremacy by the Supreme Court. And three of the biggest decisions, and particularly the decision on Miranda and the decision striking down the Violence Against Women Act, this Court was quite clear that it is the final and supreme arbiter of the meaning of the Constitution to the exclusion of the other branches, and that I think is a very striking development. Now, it began four years ago, but in this term, you really saw it come to fruition.

MARGARET WARNER: Nadine Strossen, how do you see it in terms of both its significance and for what?

NADINE STROSSEN: I agree with all of the comments that have been made so far. I think two really significant trends are, number one, the continuing judicial activism on the part of Justices who were appointed mostly with the stated purpose of not being activists. They have broken all records in striking down Congressional statutes. Margaret, in the first two centuries of this country, the Supreme Court struck down only 128 acts of Congress. In the last five terms, including this one, the Court has struck down two dozen acts of Congress. And some of the cases that involve individual rights, the Court really hasn't focused on through an individual rights perspective, but rather in terms of the power of Congress vis- -vis the Supreme Court, to go back to a theme that John mentioned. For example, the Miranda case, the reason that Chief Justice Rehnquist emphasized in striking down, in overturning the fourth circuit decision was really the power...

MARGARET WARNER: Let me interrupt you and just explain that this was striking down a federal law that tried to say the Miranda decision of 30 years ago wasn't operative anymore.

NADINE STROSSEN: So really the Chief Justice didn't stress so much that the warren Court had been correct in interpreting the Fifth Amendment, privilege against self-incrimination, as much as he emphasized that this was a determination to be made by the Court, rather than by Congress.

MARGARET WARNER: Doug Kmiec, let's go to this federalism or the power and reach of the Congress. What message, when you look at all these laws that the Court struck down, what message is the Court trying to send to Congress in terms of the limits they think Congress should observe vis- -vis both the states and the Court?

DOUGLAS KMIEC: I think the message, Margaret, is that the state governments are important. They're important parts of the constitutional system because, by dividing power between the federal and state government, we allow more choices to be implemented into law, not just those that can be implemented in Washington, DC. We protect our political liberties by dividing power. And basically there's more accountability because some of the government is closer to us. And so when the... when the Supreme Court of the United States strikes down an exercise in social policy, perhaps good social policy, it is basically saying to the Congress of the United States, "your powers are enumerated, they're listed, they're defined. Stay to the text, the history, the context of the Constitution. Don't try and legislate in the name of... Don't try and legislate social policy in the nape of commerce."

MARGARET WARNER: Larry Tribe, how do you see what the Court is trying to say here in terms of... in this subject?

LAURENCE TRIBE: I think here, although the Court has of course said that the states are important, and that's nothing new, I tend to agree a bit more with John Yoo and with Nadine Strossen that the Court is saying primarily, "we are important. Don't mess with us" -- because when the Supreme Court, for example, struck down Congressional protection of women from domestic violence in the Violence Against Women Act in the name of states' rights, the fact is 35 states were in the Court urging that this be upheld. It was not a law that commanded the states to do anything that they were not otherwise doing. It was just a supplementary remedy, and what the Court was really saying is, "it is really up to us to decide what is the right boundary between state and national authority in gray areas -- " just as the Court said, in reaffirming the famous Miranda rule, "we may not like the rule ourselves, but it's up to us to get rid of it, not you." And so that theme, protecting the Court's own turf is even more powerful than the theme of protecting the turf of the states.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, Nadine Strossen, let's turn to an area that you enumerated which was individual rights and liberties and make it a whole grab bag -- everything within the First Amendment to privacy rights -- the sort of traditional civil liberties issues. Would you call this Court a champion of individual rights and liberties?

NADINE STROSSEN: Absolutely not. But I have to say they haven't done nearly as much damage as many of us feared, considering the politics that went into some of the appointments. Two of the major issues that have been in the front burner of those who sought so-called conservative activists were of course abortion and school prayer. And both in 1992 and now again in this term, we have seen the Court reject attempts to overturn its landmark decisions striking down laws restricting abortion and allowing school-sponsored prayer in the public schools. In addition, I think we've seen major strides forward in this Court in a whole range of privacy cases and a whole range of cases involving criminal defendants' rights that were a pleasant surprise.

MARGARET WARNER: John Yoo, how do you see this individual rights and liberties area in terms of this term?

JOHN YOO: Well, I think I agree with Professor Tribe, that in area the Court didn't really do anything new or surprising, even in the abortion case, which was so contentious and evoked so many emotional responses from the Justices when they read their opinions on the bench, it really was an application of the Casey decision from 1992 where the Court in the plurality decision by Kennedy, O'Connor and Souter really reaffirmed the woman's right to an abortion. So in the individual rights area, I think what happened was it was more of a consolidation of what's already gone before, rather than striking out in new directions.

MARGARET WARNER: And what about on the issue, staying with you John Yoo, for a minute, of the separation of church and state? Now, on the one hand the Court ruled 6-3 public high schools cannot have student-sponsored prayer at football games, but then yesterday they ruled 6-3 that it's okay for the government to give computers and other equipment to religious schools. What distinction is the Court trying to draw here on this church-state issue?

JOHN YOO: If anyone knows a distinction, they should be immediately put on the Supreme Court because the jurisprudence of the Court in this area is utterly incomprehensible. Justices on both sides of these outcomes complain constantly that the Court's jurisprudence is incomprehensible. In the case about the prayer in the football games, the Court again applied a decision from 1992, which had invalidated student-led prayers at graduation exercises, and so that was pretty much the application of that case. But in this other area about federal aid, particularly in terms of schoolbooks and computers, the Court has been making small steps towards trying to put religious schools and religious institutions on the same footing as public schools, as long as the funding program doesn't have a religious purpose. And there is some struggle because there are there were four Justices who want to... clearly are looking ahead to the voucher cases that are going to be coming forward and saying "if the government is neutral, then the programs are okay." Justice O'Connor wouldn't be pulled that fast, and so she didn't give the Court a fifth vote to give it a majority opinion on that point, and she said, "I'd like to have a totality of the circumstances approach." I want to look at all the factors and make up my mind about religion and public schools."

MARGARET WARNER: And Larry Tribe, on church-state, do you see a consistency here or a line that we can draw?

LAURENCE TRIBE: I certainly do, and I think John has just nominated himself for the Court because he's fundamentally described what the Court is doing. In the prayer area, it is saying, "we don't want the government to be writing prayers or dictating when they'll be said, whether it's at football games or pursuant to votes of the students at official occasions, and when it comes to aid, the Court has been very consistently moving, though not all at once, not by giant leaps, toward a simple rule that, if the aid is neutral and secular and doesn't create a great danger of government endorsement of religion, it's fine. And even on the issue of vouchers, I think Justice O'Connor's distance from the rest of the Court is an optical illusion, because she made quite clear that if the aid goes to parents and kids, rather than the sectarian institution itself, she wasn't going to necessarily apply all those tests. So I think the trend is quite clear.

MARGARET WARNER: I'd like to ask you all one final question kindly quickly around, which is we love to talk about conservative Justices and liberal Justices. And my question is this: How predictable are these Justices? And starting with you, Nadine Strossen, briefly, how predictable are they and their alliances, and did we see any significant shifts this term?

NADINE STROSSEN: I think that they are all quite predictable, including Justices O'Connor and Kennedy, being predictable in their unpredictability. They are the crucial swing votes. In terms of free speech, I think it's important to stress, as an example, that conservative and liberal are meaningless terms. Some of the strongest free speech supporters are some of the most conservative justices politically.

MARGARET WARNER: Doug Kmiec, on this point - you already said you thought it was unpredictable, but...

DOUGLAS KMIEC: I think some Justices have crossed over. I mean one can find Justice Breyer taking a number of conservative positions, and I think you have to know Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote the Miranda decision, even though he was an opponent of Miranda for many years. I do have to disagree briefly, Margaret with something that was earlier said, and that is that the abortion case was a substantial break in part because Justice Kennedy, who signed on to the Casey opinion that had more or less struck a truce in the abortion area, dissented because he thought there was a common-sense distinction that could be made between early abortions and late-term abortions, between removing the cells of a child at the early state of a pregnancy and killing the child late, so that's a case that can't be overlooked.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, John Yoo on this point?

JOHN YOO: Well, I think you see two hard camps. You have the Chief Justice Scalia and Thomas who commonly vote together, and you have the four liberals, the two Clinton appointees and Stevens and Souter, and the Court's outcomes are primarily determined by Justices Kennedy and O'Connor and I think that's the way they like it because they're both very much common-law judges who like to decide cases on the facts before them. And so in that respect, it's the moderate's Court.

MARGARET WARNER: The moderate's Court, Larry Tribe?

LAURENCE TRIBE: I think it's been oversimplified a bit. I think that the supposed swing votes of Kennedy and O'Connor are beginning to split way part in many case and more and more often you find justice Thomas to the left of Justice Breyer. So rather happily, the Court is not a bunch of robots who act in the way you might expect of pre-programmed political entities. And that I think is a good development.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, well, professors, l four, thank you all.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, political change in Mexico, and going after news leaks.

FOCUS - WINDS OF CHANGE

JIM LEHRER: Jeffrey Kaye of KCET-Los Angeles has our Mexico election preview.

JEFFREY KAYE: Mexico's ruling party has perfected the art of the mass rally. The Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI, has reigned for 71 years. The PRI's hold on power permeates the machinery of government, and is reflected in the huge crowds it mobilizes for its election campaigns.

FRANCISCO LABASTIDA, Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI): (speaking through interpreter) I will work in the spirit of the best men of thisparty to create a populist government.

JEFFREY KAYE: Francisco Labastida is the PRI's candidate for president. He is in a tight race with high stakes; unless he wins Sunday's election, the PRI will lose control of the presidency for the first time since it was formed in 1929. A defeat would hasten the PRI's gradually-loosening grip on power.

VICENTE FOX, National Action Party, (PAN): (speaking through interpreter) We lack leadership. We lack good government. We lack honest government.

JEFFREY KAYE: In recent years, opposition candidates and parties have made significant inroads, attacking corruption and appealing for economic reforms. Vicente Fox is Labastida's main rival in Sunday's election. Fox is the presidential candidate of the National Action Party, or PAN, a party with close ties to the Catholic Church. Campaigning among urbanites, professionals, and young adults, Fox, a former Coca-Cola executive and state governor, rails against what he calls an authoritarian regime. Polls indicate Fox is neck-in- neck with Labastida. The prospects of a Labastida defeat, and of the PRI losing the presidency, coincide with political and economic changes that have taken place in Mexico, says Mexican political scientist Denise Dresser.

DENISE DRESSER, Political Scientist: Political reform and economic reform in Mexico for the past decade have gone hand-in-hand. We've witnessed the emergence of a more modern Mexico, economically speaking; a Mexico that has embraced free-trade, globalization, economic liberalization.

JEFFREY KAYE: To address poverty, unemployment, and high crime rates, Mexico's federal government has encouraged foreign investment and exports. At the same time, electoral reforms have empowered opposition parties. In 1997, despite a history of fraudulent elections, the PRI for the first time lost its majority in the Lower House of Congress. Voters also elected as mayor of Mexico City Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, a prominent leftist opposition politician. Cardenas is also running for president, though lagging a distant third. Opposition parties now govern ten of Mexico's 31 states; that's half the population. And in regions where trade, exports, and a middle class have flourished-- mostly in the north-- PAN, the business- oriented opposition party, has had notable success.

DENISE DRESSER: Electorally speaking, we've witnessed the rise of opposition parties, the arrival of opposition parties to state governments, and the emergence of Mexican voters who are questioning the political system and who are advocating change.

JEFFREY KAYE: Politicians like Vicente Fox have made their mark streamlining state and local governments and fighting corruption. Fox says a clean break with the past is essential.

VICENTE FOX: Are we going to keep in place and in power this party dictatorship? I ask United States audiences, which country has had 71 years of the same government -- not even communism. And Mexico, we're in that problem. Why the levels of corruption and drug traffic in Mexico? Because we have a monopoly in power, and because they inherit power from one to another, and because they have what they call the golden rule whereby one president would never go against a former one. He will cover up whatever the former one did.

JEFFREY KAYE: Fox's anti-PRI campaign has attracted young voters. His promises to cut inflation and to spur regional development and trade have also earned him support among Mexico's business and professional class. In the town of San Pablo Del Monte in the central state of Tlaxcala, Alberto Cano is a staunch Foxsupporter who's running for Congress on the PAN ticket. Cano is a sales representative of factory that makes glazed pottery. Cano claims that bankers affiliated with the PRI don't provide decent credit to political opponents. He believes small businesses like his will benefit from a Fox government.

ALBETO CANO, National Action Party (PAN): (speaking through interpreter) We want to reactivate the economy and create jobs for people, but we don't have the economic capacity. We don't have the foreign investment with conditions to encourage them to invest. We think with Fox there will be more of an open market, a freer market where businesses like this can have access to bank credit at low interest rates.

JEFFREY KAYE: When Fox visited the town, Cano enthusiastically warmed up the crowd. And Fox gave an anti-PRI speech promising reform.

VICENTE FOX: (speaking through interpreter) We will remove PRI from the presidency. Our work will be to build bridges, to cross from a bad government of corruption and impunity to a government of competence and quality which answers to all the families of Mexico.

JEFFREY KAYE: Fox's reformist message also resonated with a more well- heeled audience in Mexico City. Corporate lawyers and other professionals turned out to hear Fox's proposals to overhaul the legal system. For Miguel Irurita and his wife Maria Luisa Campro, Fox represents basic change.

JEFFREY KAYE: Why do you like Fox?

MARIA LUISA CAMPRO: Because I want a better future for my children and I want the PRI out of...

JEFFREY KAYE: Why? What does Fox offer that PRI does not?

MARIA LUISA CAMPRO: He's honest.

JEFFREY KAYE: Honest.

MARIA LUISA CAMPRO: Honest, which is very important.

MIGUEL IRURITA: We were born... At least the guys from our age... We were born in a crisis. I was born in 1965, 1967, around there, since I've been born and I know when I have knowledge, I have always been in a crisis, a devaluation, a crisis for this, a crisis for that, and everybody has been promising changes. So at least Fox represents someone closer to us. So we have the chance to change our Mexico, our country, and to look for things differently.

JEFFREY KAYE: When he addressed the group, Fox said his government would have no tolerance for public corruption, narcotics trafficking, and crooked law enforcement.

VICENTE FOX: (speaking through interpreter) This regime does not have the prestige, the moral authority, or the willingness to make the changes that are required to put into place a real state of law. Impunity, corruption, and the violation of rights cannot be fought with the same methods that created them, or with the same people who tolerate them.

JEFFREY KAYE: For his part, Labastida often touches on many of the same themes as Fox. Labastida is an economist and a career politician. He has served as a state governor and has held cabinet secretary posts in the PRI's last two presidential administrations. (Cheers and applause)

FRANCISCO LABASTIDA: (speaking through interpreter) The laws should protect the people, not the criminals. Someone is needed with the character and the decisiveness to get their hands on the crime problem, to get their arms around the problem of corruption in this country. And I want to tell you that I want to be your president, and I am asking for your support, because I'm sure I can do these things.

JEFFREY KAYE: Although Labastida has surrounded himself with long- time PRI stalwarts, he represents what the party calls the new PRI. As contradictory as its name sounds, the Institutional Revolutionary Party is both entrenched and reformist. Labastida presents himself as both an agent for change and the candidate of stability.

DENISE DRESSER: The genius of the PRI in comparison to other dominant parties throughout the world has been it's capacity for endless reinvention, its capacity to shift with the winds of change and to ride upon those winds.

JEFFREY KAYE: Labastida is the first PRI presidential candidate not to be hand-picked by the president in power.

FRANCISCO LABASTIDA: (speaking through interpreter) The PRI is a party in the process of change. It is not just one party. It is a party in the process of change, in the process of evolution. There's a saying that goes "the new has not yet been born and the old has not yet died." What's important is that people ask of PRI what do they want of this party. Where are we going to go with this party?

JEFFREY KAYE: By championing both the old and the new, Labastida hopes to appeal to his constituency, among them the busloads of party loyalists brought in to attend PRI rallies. For many, like Lucio Alvarado, support for the PRI is more an article of faith than a political conviction.

LUCIO ALVARADO, Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI): (speaking through interpreter) We stand for an educational system, an economic system, and for liberty. Let me make a comparison. We have had PRI for 70 years, yet we've had 500 years of religion, and we aren't going to leave that behind.

JEFFREY KAYE: With a busload of fellow villagers, Alvarado shared a ride of two hours each way to see Labastida speak. Back in their small farming village of Saucillo in the northern state of Chihuahua, the PRI is the dominant political presence.

MAN USING BULLHORN: Votas por los candidatos del PRI...

JEFFREY KAYE: In villages like this, the PRI's roots run deep. This is where Labastida finds a base of support among older, less-educated, rural voters, government workers and women. Here, change and life come slowly. The PRI is such a part of the nation's establishment that many Mexicans are unable to distinguish between the party and the government. So PRI supporters credit the party with welfare programs and with public works projects; bridges, roads, and electricity. The historical connection to the PRI is too strong to abandon to an opposition party, says the town's PRI president, Ubaldo Ortiz, a high school teacher.

UBALDO ORTIZ, Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI): We cannot support a drastic change in Mexico's political system. My parents, as a personal example, have lived their lives under a Mexican political system guided by the PRI. Thanks to that political structure, we have reached a social peace that has lasted until this day.

JEFFREY KAYE: That social peace is relative. In the past six years, Mexico has seen isolated guerrilla activity, as well as demonstrations by government workers wanting more money. The unrest is helping fuel the political opposition. So, too, is changed media coverage; reform legislation has required the PRI to loosen its reins on the press, giving opposition candidates more access, so that for the first time, according to political columnist and TV commentator Sergio Sarmiento, Mexicans are getting an unvarnished view of political campaigns.

SERGIO SARMIENTO, Political Journalist: In 1988, just to give you an example, 95% of all time on television was dedicated to the candidate of the ruling party, the PRI. And the other 5% was negative coverage. And today, if you look at the national media, the coverage of the three main candidates is roughly the same, about 25% for each one and the rest goes to the smaller parties.

JEFFREY KAYE: The media are not only providing more exposure to opposition candidates. In recent weeks, the Mexican press has focused on allegations of vote buying and influence peddling among government workers promoting the PRI. But despite fraudulent elections in the past, Mexico's Independent Federal Election Institute, which has been monitoring the campaigns, expects Sunday's voting will be the cleanest in history. Thousands of observers from Mexico and around the world will be present as monitors.

FOCUS - PLUGGING LEAKS

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, there's a new plan to plug leaks of national secrets. Media correspondent Terence Smith reports.

TERENCE SMITH: CIA Director George Tenet once complained that the executive branch, in his words, "leaks like a sieve." Now some in the Senate are trying to do something about the leaking of classified information to those not authorized to receive it. Legislation discussed in a closed Intelligence Committee session this month and due for Senate debate would make government bureaucrats who intentionally leak classified information liable to up to three years in jail and a fine of $10,000. Clinton administration officials say they do not need this new authority, since leaking, while rarely prosecuted, is already against the law. Critics of the bill contend that it could entangle journalists in legal battles and restrict the flow of important information to the American public. So will the new bill protect the nation's secrets or merely politicians trying to avoid embarrassment? Here to weigh in on that issue are the sponsor of the legislation, Republican Richard Shelby of Alabama, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; and Scott Armstrong, investigative journalist and author and founder of the National Security Archive, a repository of declassified information. Gentlemen, welcome to you both.

Senator Shelby, why is this legislation necessary? Are leaks more of a problem today than they have been before?

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY: Leaks, I believe, basically we've found out come from the executive branch-- about 80%. I think they undermine national security. I think they do damage to this country. I certainly do not ever want classified... something to be classified to protect the wrongdoings of politicians. I think that would be wrong. But I do want to do everything I can to protect the integrity of the nation and the security of the nation.

TERENCE SMITH: And so who is this legislation aimed at?

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY: It's aimed basically at people who have knowledge and have access to classified information that would willfully and knowingly leak this information. They would be the culprits under the law. We believe it would fill a gap under the present law. And I've talked to Attorney General Reno about this. She testified before the closed session of the committee. She called me last Friday about this. We're trying to work this out between the administration and the Congress, but I believe there's a need for it. I know other people see not a need for classified information, period. But I know, from our perspective, there is a need.

TERENCE SMITH: And you think there's some prospect that you'll work out language that would be acceptable to the administration so that they would endorse it?

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY: Well, I hope so. You know, when you speak of the administration, I can tell you there are a lot of people in the Justice Department, there are a lot of people at are in the CIA and a lot of people in the FBI and other departments, national security agencies, that know how important classified information is to national security. I think you mentioned earlier that some people maybe hide behind classified information for wrongdoing purposes. That's wrong. We should ferret that out. And there is a process to get rid of it.

TERENCE SMITH: Scott Armstrong, what would be the effect of this legislation, if it's enacted, on the public flow of information and on journalism?

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: Well, we have to remember the public flow of information does depend upon leaks, that...

TERENCE SMITH: Should it?

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: Well, it has to to some degree. The ship of state leaks from the top primarily because there are different points of view, there are items that need discussion. And what we are calling classified information here is not a small box of carefully protected family jewels. These are things that are the elements of policy debate. They're the things that... about which government exists. And so you have people at the top who are going to continue to leak. This will not be effective against them. And then you have the people that will really... might be effected, and this could be very serious for journalism. And those are the whistleblowers, those are the smaller sources, the career bureaucrats, the people who correct things, who get outraged, who say, "I can't live with this anymore. The inspector general won't do anything. Congress isn't going to do anything, so I'm going to have to tell the "New York Times," the "Washington Post," their local paper or perhaps even a television network.

TERENCE SMITH: Senator Shelby, what about that-- as the notion that leaks play a role in the policy debate?

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY: Well, if I were a writer for the "New York Times" or a writer writing books-- and I have a lot of friends in this, and they're doing a lot of good things by writing various articles on national security-- I would want all the information I could get in probably any way I could get it, you know, short of going to jail. But I do not believe that the information, where it's classified, should be willfully and intentionally leaked. Scott is right. It has been done, and it has been done through Republican and Democratic administrations. But I think we can do better. There's a process to deal with this. What we're trying to do legislatively is to fill a gap. But one thing we're not doing here, and this has been said, not on this program, not yet anyway, but it's been said in print that this would impinge on the First Amendment rights of journalists. Well, it's not going to do this because there's nothing in this proposed legislation to prosecute a receiver of the information, like a journalist, but to prosecute the culprit, the leaker of the information -- two different things.

TERENCE SMITH: Right. Scott, is that sufficient protection?

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: No. It's going to have an impact on... Particularly on the source that's most valuable to us, which is the person that's down on the front line, the person that does not have a basic... a huge policy interest, but the person who can speak directly to it. It makes them intimidated. That's the only person that it will get to. Secondly, once you get into... once you start going after our sources, even though you're not going after them through us, inevitably, it becomes a contest to see who can figure out who's talking to whom. And phone records, other records, contacts, everything becomes... comes into the public domain. It becomes very, very difficult for us to do our business.

TERENCE SMITH: Senator?

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY: It might be difficult for a lot of us to do business, but we have laws, and the laws ought to be obeyed in the spirit, as well as literally at times. And this would fill a gap that we believe is long overdue. And I hope that we're going to be able to work this legislation through the Congress. This legislation was part of our authorization bill, but it came out and we discussed it in the committee-- Democrats and Republicans-- and we discussed the merits of it. And it came out unanimously. I believe we've got a good chance this year to pass a meaningful piece of legislation dealing with leaks.

TERENCE SMITH: Senator, can you give examples of leaks that have been harmful-- since they're not public if they've been leaked-- to the national security?

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY: Well, I'm not going to go into specifics, because a lot of those things... you know, maybe there has been a lot of damage. But I can tell you where there have been leaks, and there have been at times-- and I can over privately some of that with you- - but I can tell you that when sources and methods...

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: Wouldn't that be leaking?

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY: ...Sources and methods are leaked, and you could possibly put... Or probably put some of our agents' lives in danger, it's time to stop that.

TERENCE SMITH: All right. Scott Armstrong, how do you fairly balance the legitimate need of the government to protect genuine secrets and the legitimate need of the public to know what its government's up to?

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: The problem is a balancing that is clearly now skewed in the wrong direction. There's over classification. Things that have no business being classified are classified. This bill makes no differentiation in that regard. Things that are inconvenient, embarrassing to the administration become classified. The balance that we presently have... General Stillwell, in 1985, in an environment that had less classification than today, but who was the czar of classification, said that 80% of what he had could be declassified the next day. He made the same point that Potter Stewart made in the Pentagon Papers case. When everything is secret, nothing is secret. No one knows what to protect. If you want to protect things, you get everything else out of the system, you protect the little jewels that are there. The second thing is: Who controls this information? And the system we have now, I've gotten leaks from the national security advisor, I've gotten leaks from the Secretary of state, from the secretary of defense, the head of the CIA I don't see the committee prosecuting those people. I mean, it just isn't likely to happen. And so what you have is a debate where the administration gets to rule the roost, put their information out, and the classification system's used to keep everything else out of the way.

TERENCE SMITH: Senator?

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY: Scott, you make a good point. The point one being that there's too much classified information, and a lot of it is classified for the wrong reasons, to probably withhold things from the public that should never have been withheld. Now, how do we work through that process? This legislation doesn't attempt to do this, but it needs to be done. And the public does have a right to know a lot of stuff, especially wrongdoing and things like that, and the bad policy. But where it goes to the integrity of our national defense and security of the nation, I think that's a different game.

TERENCE SMITH: Senator, respond to Scott Armstrong's earlier point, which is that inevitably this would lead to subpoenas and perhaps even wiretaps of reporters and journalists. There it would become a First Amendment issue.

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY: Well, I don't believe that would ever happen. For the past 20 years, under Democrat and Republican administrations, they've basically got a policy of leaving the journalists alone. And I think this would happen. But if we could stop people from really leaking-- and it is the administration, it is the executive branch for the most part-- I think we'd be better off.

TERENCE SMITH: Scott, final word?

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: Well, I think it's clear that there will have to be some intrusion into the journalists' daily operations. I know back in the Reagan administration, I was picked up on a wiretap of a government official who they were trying to find out if he was leaking. They subsequently gave up on trying to find out who was doing the leaking, but in the meantime, they listened in to the conversations he was having with several journalists, information that I would argue was not in fact classified. The real question is: Who gets to decide what the public gets to know? And presently there's a balance. And when it gets too tight at the top, when there's too much control of information, when the President and a few people are the only ones that can determine what goes out, then people from the bottom begin to leak things out, things get corrected. That's going to change, and we're going to have less information, and we're going to be less able to understand what's going on in our public domain.

TERENCE SMITH: Perhaps a very last word from you, Senator?

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY: Well, I think we all like information, and we need information, you know, as a free nation, free people. But I think we still need to have a balance to protect the vital security of this nation.

TERENCE SMITH: Okay, gentlemen. Thank you both.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Thursday. On the NewsHour tonight, Washington State Governor Gray Locke said a wildfire at the Hanford nuclear reservation was contained. And he said there was no evidence that any radiation was released from contaminated sites. And President Clinton renewed his threat to veto a Republican prescription drugs bill. We'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening with Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader, plus Shields and Gigot, among others. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.