The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: Elizabeth Farnsworth and Margaret Warner address California's power struggle over price caps; Betty Ann Bowser takes an update look at the new victims of AIDS; former Senators Bumpers, Danforth, Boren, Brown, and Rudman assess the Jeffords shakeup of the Senate; and Ray Suarez talks to the architect who won the Pritzker Prize. It all follows our summary of the news this Wednesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Osama bin Laden will never be turned over to the United States. That was the statement today from the Taliban, the Islamic militia that rules Afghanistan where bin Laden is now. He allegedly ordered the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Yesterday a federal jury in New York convicted four of his followers in the attacks that killed 244 people and injured thousands. A Taliban spokesman said bin Laden was a great holy warrior, and he called the verdicts unfair. The sentencing phase of the bombing trial began today. Two defendants could get the death penalty. Another man allegedly tied to bin Laden has confessed he planned to bomb Los Angeles International Airport. The Los Angeles Times and the Seattle Times reported that today. Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian, was convicted last month of plotting terrorist strikes at the start of the year 2000. He was arrested in Port Angeles, Washington, in December 1999 with explosives in his rental car. The report said he's now working with prosecutors to get a lighter sentence. Indonesia's parliament today censored President Wahid and demanded he be impeached, but thousands of people again protested efforts to remove the Islamic cleric after only 19 months in office. We have a report from Lindsey Hilsum of Independent Television News.

LINDSEY HILSUM: The president's supporters marched through Jakarta. They say he should dissolve the parliament. They're threatening violence if their leader loses power. Several thousand broke into the parliament compound and clashed with police. Inside, MP's voted for a special session to impeach President Wahid. He's been cleared of two charges of corruption, but they say his leadership is erratic and Indonesia grows daily less stable. Down the road, Mr. Wahid himself, partially blind and in ill health, was talking about globalization to leaders of other developing countries. Earlier in the day paratroopers dropped into President Wahid's home island of East Java to quell his rampaging supporters. If he's impeached, the vice president, Megawati Sukarno Putri would take over.

JIM LEHRER: The impeachment proceedings against Wahid would be conducted by Indonesia's top legislative body. It's composed of a parliament, plus 200 representatives from regional legislatures and social groups. It could convene by August. President Bush today laid out plans to improve the national parks. He toured Northern California's giant sequoias and promised annual reviews of each park. He called again for spending $5 billion over five years on a maintenance backlog, and he said he'd proceed with rules from the Clinton era to reduce haze over parks. It was the final day of the President's California trip. Yesterday he again rejected price caps on electricity on the state, and we'll have more on that story right after the News Summary. Also coming, an AIDS update, a Senate shakeup assessment, and a prize winning architect.

FOCUS - POWER PLAY

JIM LEHRER: And now that California power struggle over capping prices; Elizabeth Farnsworth begins.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Despite the energy crisis, yesterday was the first time the Democratic Governor of California and the Republican President of the United States had met face to face since Mr. Bush's inauguration. The event was so unusual the Financial Times of London called it the President's third foreign trip. It's not that the two men haven't talked - at least at each other - about electricity.

SPOKESMAN: Ladies and gentlemen, Governor Gray Davis.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In the State of the State Address last January, Governor Gray Davis blamed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for keeping electricity prices high in California. President Bush recently named the chairman of the five-member commission and has appointed two other members who will join the group shortly.

GOVERNOR GRAY DAVIS: Senator Dianne Feinstein and I have repeatedly urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to use its exclusive powers to lower these record prices. But, despite our repeated demands, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has shirked its responsibilities to protect rate payers from this legalized highway robbery.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The Commission called the FERC is at the height of the dispute between California and the Administration. After California deregulated electricity five years ago, the FERC retained the power to put a cap on wholesale power prices. Typically, that energy comes from major power companies outside of California. But President Bush, who lost California to Al Gore by 16 percentage points, has rejected price caps. His national energy policy released earlier this month had little in it specifically for California. And Vice President Dick Cheney, who headed the commission that drafted the national energy policy, said on "Meet the Press" that Californians should not look to the federal government for a solution.

DICK CHENEY: They knew over a year ago they had a problem and Gray Davis refused to address that problem. He kept putting it off and putting it off and putting it off. The classic thing - if you want to see how not to do it is to look at California.

SPOKESMAN: This is a great day in California. The sun is shining; the lights are on. (applause and laughter in audience) And we're having lunch with the President of the United States. (applause)

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Bush toned down the rhetoric yesterday as he visited the state and called on the Governor to do the same. But in a speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council the President also restated his opposition to price caps.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We will not take any action that makes California's problems worse. And that's why I oppose price caps. Price caps - (applause) - price caps do nothing to reduce demand, and they do nothing to increase supply. This is not only (applause) - this is not only my Administration's position; this was the position of the prior Administration. At first blush, for those struggling to pay high energy bills, price caps may sound appealing. But their result will ultimately be more serious shortages, and, therefore, even higher prices.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The President offered some help to the nation's most popular state, saying we'd speed the approval process for expanding modernizing power transmission lines. He also called for an extra $150 million in federal aid to help low income Americans pay their power bills and promised no new drilling off the state's coast. But none of that was enough for the Governor. After his meeting with the President, Davis said California was entitled to price caps and threatened to sue federal regulators for relief.

GOVERNOR GRAY DAVIS: The big enchilada, the thing that really matters above all else, temporary price relief, I'm disappointedthat we do have a fundamental disagreement, and I did tell him that if we have to pay $50 billion for power, it could well trigger a recession in California, which could drag down the American economy into recession as well. That is not good for any American.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Meanwhile, the electricity shortage continues in the golden state with predictions of widespread blackouts this summer. Governor Davis's popularity ratings have fallen in California, as have those of President Bush.

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner takes it from there.

MARGARET WARNER: For more on the debate over price caps we're joined by David Freeman, Chief Energy Adviser to California Governor Gray Davis and former head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power; and Craig Roach, an energy economist and partner at Boston Pacific, a consulting and investment firm that advises power companies. Welcome, gentlemen.

David Freeman, the crux of the dispute between the Governor and the President is, of course, over whether to impose the price caps of wholesale power. How would the caps work and what justifies the case?

S. DAVID FREEMAN: Well, the law justifies them. I happened to have worked for the old Federal Power Commission under the same statute that was passed by Sam Rayburn in '35, which requires as a matter of duty that the wholesale price be just and reasonable. And the FERC is just simply not carrying out their duty. This is a matter of an agency not doing what the law requires them to do, and, as a result, we're paying 50/60 billion dollars this year for electricity that cost $7 billion two years ago. The issue is pretty straight forward. We're not talking about cabbages or carrots where the marketplace, the law of supply and demand are okay. We're talking about the oxygen of life in a high energy civilization, and we're talking about depriving people of funds to pay for groceries and clothes and necessities of life. I mean, to say that the caps are not going to affect supply and demand is to leave out the key element in the equation - the people who are being overcharged at a rate that's unheard of in the 100 year history of the electric power business.

MARGARET WARNER: Craig Roach, do you think the FERC can make a case that the rates are just and reasonable, and, if not, why not impose price caps?

CRAIG ROACH: I think they can make a case, as the President did in the opening clip, that price caps are going to make matters worse. I don't think we've taken the people out of our concern, out of the issue, out of the equation. We have a shortage in California. We just don't have enough power plant capacity to supply all the need. In a shortage we want suppliers to supply more. We want consumers to consume less. And that price signal is what orchestrates all those actions, and at this point somehow artificially lowering that price is just not going to do what we need to do; it's going to work in the opposite direction.

MARGARET WARNER: What about that point, Mr. Freeman, because the President makes it too, that it's actually counter productive to impose price caps because it ultimately discourages exploration and production and therefore restrains the need - restrains the ability of the producers or the willingness of producers to produce more power?

S. DAVID FREEMAN: Well, in the first place we're building power plants in California. We'll have this problem behind us in a couple of years if we have any money left. I think the law is very clear. We have had price caps based upon costs at a reasonable profit in this country for almost a hundredyears, and the power system has grown from teakettles to one of the best in the world. It all depends on what level the cap is; if it reflects all of their costs and a good profit, people have built power plants on that basis from time immemorial. It is outrageous to just say in the abstract that any cap is going to discourage power plants from being built. They don't need to make obscene profits that go from $200 million to $600 million in one year for the energy companies in order to build power plants. We have contracts long term for power plants to provide electricity at our existing rates. There is a shortage, the gentleman is correct, and they're taking advantage of the shortage and disobeying the law, which is on the books, that requires that prices be just and reasonable. And the very same FERC has found the existing prices are not just and reasonable.

CRAIG ROACH: I think let's clarify one thing. There is a price cap right now. I don't believe that California state government likes the level of the price caps.

MARGARET WARNER: You're talking about the price cap that the FERC did say would go into effect during an emergency state.

CRAIG ROACH: That's right. And there have been price caps all along ever since deregulation, but, you're right; in April of this year, FERC did impose a price cap; anytime reserves fall below a safe level, they trigger that price cap. In fact, I understand that today that price cap is being imposed; there's a stage one emergency. And FERC is acting on principle; they're saying, look, if there is a shortage, what we're going to do is we're going to go in, we're going to calculate the price of electricity that will prevail in a fully competitive market, and if any supplier charges over that, we're going to come and scrutinize that price and essentially seek refunds.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. And how much -

S. DAVID FREEMAN: Let's be quite honest about this, though.

MARGARET WARNER: Go ahead.

S. DAVID FREEMAN: They've set a price at the highest cost that anybody has, and it doesn't apply to out of state producers of electricity and applies only when we're in a stage one emergency. This is Swiss cheese; this is not a cap.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let's go back, though, to the bigger dispute between the Governor and the President, which has to do with the Governor's desire for wholesale widespread price caps, not just in emergencies. What about the point Mr. Freeman's made a couple of times now that the law says FERC is supposed to keep the prices just and reasonable? Do you think the prices are just and reasonable, or do you think the Governor has a point, Mr. Roach, when he says that these producers are engaging in price gouging?

CRAIG ROACH: I don't think there's any evidence of price gouging. Let's call it anti-competitive behavior. There have been several investigations at the federal and state level. One of the classic anti-competitive behaviors is to withhold supplies, and FERC, and I believe the state have gone in to investigate times when power plants weren't available. There's been no evidence of anti-competitive behavior, price gouging, and in that sense the prices are just and reasonable. But the real issue here is: How do we solve this problem, and, again, I think price caps are just going to be counter productive. And it's not just in the abstract. The New York Times had an article just a little while ago about San Diego and their consumption, San Diego residents and their consumption of electricity. Last year, they were the only ones that actually saw these price hikes, and they reduced their consumption according to the Times about 9 percent. And now that there's been a reduction, there's not a new price cap in San Diego, they've gone back to pre crisis levels. Prices orchestrate action; they work. They do what the marketplace is supposed to do in a shortage.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. What about that point, Mr. Freeman - because we've had some environmentalists make that point, that actually prices, if they go up, will get people to conserve.

S. DAVID FREEMAN: Well, let me first of all, I'll point out that the gentleman did not answer your last question on whether or not this is mandatory. But we have the highest prices for electricity of anyone in the United States of America, except Hawaii now. They're making last year's argument today. The prices have gone way up in California; and people will see them in the June bill. And we are conservative. Our consumption is 7 percent low last year. We're sending the signals to the consumers. The problem is that they're not going to have any money left to pay their grocery bill at the rate that's being charged by these wholesalers who are - it doesn't really matter whether their behavior is criminal. The prices they're charging are a crime. I mean, they're ten times what we've negotiated long-term contracts for. No one, including FERC, thinks they're just and reasonable. In fact, FERC is now just the opposite - in plain English- in their opinion; they just refuse to enforce the law.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Roach, what's the alternative to price caps? Is California just supposed to tough it out until what - a year and a half fro now - Mr. Freeman said they thought they'd have enough extra plants?

CRAIG ROACH: No. I think Mr. Freeman's already pursued and mentioned in his discussion one of the major issues. Look, there are two problems in California that have caused this crisis. One is just not enough power plants; the state has to be aggressive in bringing on power plants. Permitters, regulators, environmental regulators -

S. DAVID FREEMAN: We are.

CRAIG ROACH: -- have to - and I think you've begun to be - but they've got to consider it a victory to bring on a new power plant that is environmentally sound; they've got to have that culture. It's not okay just to delay power plants. The second thing is the rules in California had to the utilities selling at a fixed price and buying at a variable price. In answer to that, the bilateral contracts that Mr. Freeman mentioned - and I think he's right - they are going to start to solve some of the problem, and the prices in those contracts are superior; they are good prices, and some of the same people being charged with gouging are probably offering a -

MARGARET WARNER: Before we end, let me take -

S. DAVID FREEMAN: They're gouging because they sold to me at a tenth of what they're charging today ....

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Mr. Freeman, let me ask you this before we leave. Is this price cap debate, do you think, going to be tied up elsewhere in the country this summer, or other states have faced energy shortages, or is it very particular in California, just briefly?

S. DAVID FREEMAN: Well, I understand that Governor Patakis is considering action that he could take against price gouging; I heard that this afternoon.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Roach, do you think that's going to be - will you have this debate elsewhere?

CRAIG ROACH: I think there are some areas - New York City, for example, perhaps New England - but we ought to look for states that are doing it right. Texas happens to be one; Texas similar size in electric terms, they've built a lot of power plants; they probably won't have anything like this -

S. DAVID FREEMAN: They've built some price caps into their structure.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Mr. Freeman, Mr. Roach, thanks very much.

S. DAVID FREEMAN: You're very welcome.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, AIDS 20 years later; five former Senators on the Jeffords shakeup, and a Pritzker winning architect.

FOCUS - THE FACE OF AIDS

JIM LEHRER: Twenty years ago this week the Centers for Disease Control first reported on a health problem that would become to be known as AIDS. Well, tomorrow the agency will issue a new report on AIDS in America highlighting a growing new concern. Betty Ann Bowser has that story.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Basil Lucas and the men in this HIV support group are becoming the new face of AIDS in America.

BASIL LUCAS: We are able to laugh and cry and learn new things about this disease and what's really going on...

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Today...African Americans make up more than half of all new HIV cases.... 20 years ago.... when the HIV virus was first discovered.... white gay men accounted for the overwhelming number. While white men still make up the bulk of existing cases - health officials are now concerned that data on new HIV infections show AIDS becoming a disease of color. Dr. Helene Gayle heads the HIV prevention program at the centers for disease control..

DR. HELENE GAYLE, Centers for Disease Control: We're seeing staggering rates of HIV infection among young African American and also young Latino men who have sex with men. This is where increasingly the problem is going to lie.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: While some men will contract the HIV virus from iv drug use, most get the disease from having sex with other men. That makes support groups like this one - at Gay Men of African Descent - in New York's Harlem neighborhood - crucial.

MAN: There were groups for black men, groups for gay men, groups for HIV positive, but there was never a group that allowed me to be a whole person...

MAURICE FRANKLIN, Gay Men of African Descent: We want to create a safe space that they can come to, this is a home, this is a space that's non judgmental.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Maurice Franklin...program director for Gay Men of African Descent... says AIDS prevention messages have failed in the black community because gay life style is often seen by African Americans as a white lifestyle.

MAURICE FRANKLIN: There's no black neighborhood that you could say, that's where the gay people live. I mean we live in our community and we want to be a part of the community, and you know the history of racism and all the other isms that have happened to the African American communities, have, I think, created a sort of defense mechanism within the community so that in order to be part of it you have to be a certain way.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Phil Wilson says that may be because the message has so often come from the gay white world. Wilson runs an HIV think tank for African Americans.

PHIL WILSON, African-American AIDS Policy & Training Institute: Still the messenger overwhelmingly continues to be white, and that's a problem for black people I think that unless we are explicitly included we're implicitly excluded. Now if the messenger doesn't look like me, why can I trust, how can I trust that message will be relevant to me?

BETTY ANN BOWSER: So outreach associates like Jamal Roots and William Harris.... who work for Gay Men of African Descent.... go to places where they believe they'll find black gay men - places likeNew York City's West Village. Here, there may be less of a stigma about being gay and black.

MAURICE FRANKLIN: Well, the stigma plays out in many ways within the black community. I think as a child, you are taught that it's not okay to be a sissy; that being gay makes you not part of the family, that you're less then a man; regardless of you know, education, or what you know, value you may bring to the community, there's this underlying or undercurrent of what is gay.

WILLIAM: Hi, my name is William, I'm from Gay Men of African Descent. Bring your friends; we have a gaming and movie night...

BETTY ANN BOWSER: William talks to guys on street they try to dismantle the stigma of gay life by offering activities - and by reassuring men that they can be both gay and a credit to the black culture.

MAURICE FRANKLIN: I think there's this emphasis on being a credit to your family or a credit to the race and that in order to be that credit, there's certain characteristics that are more acceptable. And, you know, I've heard mothers say that they'd much rather their son be, you know, a drug dealer than be gay.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: In some cases the stigma is so great that black men who have sex with men don't want to consider themselves gay - or even bisexual - and end up living a double life. J.L. King is one of those men - for years, he was married -raising three children - all the while secretly having sex with men, or as he calls it - living life on the down low.

J. L. KING: Most down low brothers look at themselves at being nothing but a heterosexual man - with a twist, um every now and then wanting to have sex with another man. To a down low brother, it's more gratification and not orientation. It's all about, let's get together do the sexual thing, then I'm outta here. don't ask me any questions what-so-ever. That's what makes it so dangerous.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Dangerous because someone who is in denial about their own sexual orientation is unlikely to hear safe-sex messages.

J. L. KING: When I look at gay men, when I look at what they call their culture, how they have their own churches, and they have their own clubs, and bars, and they do their own thing - I don't relate to that. You will not find a down low brother in a gay bar -- a real, true down low brother -- you will not find a true down low brother going to gay pride events, or hanging out with gay people, or doing things that are part of the gay culture.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: King says he went public about his life when he saw women in his community get sick and die from AIDS after sleeping with partners they never knew were HIV infected.

J. L. KING: The black community refuses to deal with this because we are so scared of it; we're too scared to face it.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: He now addresses woman's groups about HIV prevention and is writing a book about "life on the down low."

J. L. KING: Because I have a daughter and nieces that I don't want to send to an early grave because I kept my mouth shut.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: King's worries may be well founded. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 64 percent of all women who get new HIV infections are African American.

J. L. KING: The message so far has been to the gay community. They have not sent those messages out to where down low, or men who don't relate to or are labeled. You don't see safe sex messages at barber shops in most American cities, but you don't see practice safe messages at the mall or at the beauty salons or the barber shops or at the foot locker or at the gym.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Young black men pose the toughest challenge for prevention workers. Young people of all races tend to take more risks. - but a recent federal study of six cities shows one in three young black gay men are HIV infected.

DR. HELENE GAYLE: Young people did not see - were not part of the first epidemic where they saw so many of they're friends dying and took this epidemic seriously.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: And how serious AIDS is thought to be - may also be diluted by the discovery of combination drug therapies.

DR. HELENE GAYLE: With the new therapies, we've had a tremendous successes; on the other hand I think that people have begun to think that HIV or AIDS is not so serious anymore. We see people returning to risk behaviors that could lead to increases in new HIV infections

BETTY ANN BOWSER: You mean, unprotected sex?

DR. HELENE GAYLE: Yes, unprotected sex.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Maurice Franklin worries that in communities of color - particularly lower income communities - the young can be even more cynical about their future.

MAURICE FRANKLIN: We hear from young men that they don't expect to live. It's either, you know, violence is going to take them out - or AIDS.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: For healthcare professionals it is a complicated picture which calls for complex solutions.

PHIL WILSON: We keep looking for the magic bullet. You know, we keep thinking that well, if the church gets involved, then AIDS will go away. That's not true. The church has a role to play. Civil rights organizations have a role to play. Families have a role to play. Social organizations and fraternities and black healthcare providers and the black media; within the African-American communities there are all these institutions, and there is something for all of them to do.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: This summer the Centers for Disease Control is developing new strategies that better target individual communities in AIDS prevention.

FOCUS - SENATE SHAKEUP

JIM LEHRER: Now, an assessment of the coming power change in Washington brought on by the declaration of independence by Republican Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont. It comes from five former Senators: Republicans John Danforth of Missouri, Hank Brown of Colorado, and Warren Rudman of New Hampshire; two Democrats: David Boren of Oklahoma, and Dale Bumpers of Arkansas.

Senator Danforth, could you imagine your ever doing what Jim Jeffords did?

FORMER SEN. JOHN DANFORTH: No, I couldn't. There were times, particularly in the early '90s when they could make it very tough on Republicans who didn't absolutely tow the line in the Senate, particularly in the Tuesday lunches where Republicans got together and were given pep talks about what the party line was. And if you were on the wrong side of the party on an issue, they could make it very, very tough. There were times when I thought, "gee, if they don't want me, why be here?" But I never for any long period of time considered leaving the party.

JIM LEHRER: Senator Boren, could you do it?

FORMER SEN. DAVID BOREN: I could, I seriously thought about it at one time, and thought if I ran for reelection I might run as an independent, because I felt what the center of American politics was being left out. As Jack had said, when you're part of a group and they very often talk about winning for the team, let's win for the party, and it doesn't coincide with your view about what's best for the country, it is very, very difficult. And I used to go home at night sometimes very discouraged, feeling very unpopular in the building.

JIM LEHRER: Because you were a Democrat among Democrats?

FORMER SEN. DAVID BOREN: I was a Democrat among Democrats, but I was an Oklahoma Democrat. I was trying to represent my own convictions, the people that had sent me there, elected me. And I honestly felt, and I'm sure it's true in both parties, that both of those luncheons on Tuesday, the real discussion was how can we win for the Democratic Party, and the other room, how can we win for the Republican Party. And I remember once in frustration saying -- and Senator Mitchell was one of those leaders who let us all speak our mind. He was wonderfully respectful to all of us of all points of view. He said, "does anybody want to put something on the on the agenda next week?" I said maybe the national interest, we haven't talked about that in a while, but that was really as close as I came to publicly expressing my frustrations.

JIM LEHRER: Senator Rudman, could you do it?

FORMER SEN. WARREN RUDMAN: I don't think so, for purely practical reasons. I think to truly be effective in the Senate you really have to be a member one of the two major parties. Even if you were an independent organized with the Democrats or the Republicans, I don't think you could get very much done. And I also have to say, as you know, I disagreed with my party on numerous occasions.

JIM LEHRER: You were a moderate Republican from a New England state, similar to Vermont.

FORMER SEN. WARREN RUDMAN: That's correct, but I never got treated in the way that evidently Jim feels he was treated. And remember, this is a different time. I left the Senate in 1992. I served under men like Howard Baker and Bob Dole, and I was telling my colleagues here before we came on, I remember Howard Baker on occasion in a situation where a Republican really did us harm on a vote and people wanted retribution and Howard said, "no, he may be our opponent today, but he will be our ally tomorrow." So I would have difficulty doing that.

JIM LEHRER: Senator Brown, could you ever switch parties?

FORMER SEN. HANK BROWN: I never felt intimidated by the actions of others, and frankly I don't think that happens in the Senate to any significant degree. They're not talking about disciplining people or taking a wear their chairmanships. I don't think that was Senator Jeffords' concern. Obviously he is able to speak for himself on it, but Jim for 20 years had a liberal voting record, one that reflected his conscience. So I think for him, it wasn't a switch in terms of how he felt.

JIM LEHRER: But for you personally, I mean, are you such a Republican that you couldn't conceive of anything that would ever happen-- I don't mean similar to what happened to Jim Jeffords-- anything that would cause you to change parties?

FORMER SEN. HANK BROWN: Oh, I think people of good conscience can change parties. When you're in elective office, there's a different factor, that is you make a commitment to your constituents on how you'll vote to organize the Senate or House, and that's a very important vote, one where your commitment is important. For me personally, I never felt intimidated either in the legislature, or the U.S. House or Senate, in a way by party considerations that would cause me to change a vote or change a party. But I suspect each of us as an individual and perceive things differently.

JIM LEHRER: Senator Bumpers, could you imagine a situation where you would no longer be a Democrat?

FORMER SEN. DALE BUMPERS: I can't, but in the case of Jim Jeffords, I've watched Jim Jeffords, who is a man of much conscience I always thought. And I've watched him and I have to tell you over the years I wondered why hestayed in the Republican Party.

JIM LEHRER: Did you ever talk to him about it?

FORMER SEN. DALE BUMPERS: I did not. And at times... He's a very approachable man. I don't mean to say that. But that would have been presumptuous, in my opinion, to talk to him about something like that. I wouldn't have felt comfortable doing that, but he didn't agree with anything. But when you think about choice, on the patient's bill of rights, on the tax bill, he didn't agree on anything. And I think when you consider the way Jeffords felt, the question ought to be, how could he not do it?

JIM LEHRER: Well, Senator Danforth, Senator Lott who is the current majority leader and about to become the Senate minority leader, said today that what Jim Jeffords did was a coup of one, and that he in effect trumped the will of the American people, in other words by changing the control of the Senate. How do you view that?

FORMER SEN. JOHN DANFORTH: I think that's right. I don't think it should be up to one Senator to change the whole makeup of the Senate. The control of the Senate is a decision made, I think, by all of the people of our country. And for one Senator to decide to bolt parties and do it, I really think that's kind of nervy.

JIM LEHRER: Nervy, nervy meaning he shouldn't have done it?

FORMER SEN. JOHN DANFORTH: I think he should not have done it. I think I understand the dynamics behind it. I think the Republican Party has to broaden itself. I think it's a shame that we don't have Jim Jeffords in the Republican Party to provide us with the breadth that we had when I first went to the Senate. But having said that, do I think that it's right for a single Senator having been elected in one party to change the control of the Senate by changing on his own? No, I don't think that's right.

JIM LEHRER: Senator Boren?

FORMER SEN. DAVID BOREN: I think it's right for him to do that if that's what h conscience led him to do. I think we can overestimate what this has done. It hasn't really changed the political dynamic very much. Let's be honest about it. Neither party has a mandate, we had a virtual tie in the Senate, you don't have a workable majority by either party in the House, you have a group of moderates who can swing either way in both political parties. You had as close to a tie in the presidential election as you can get. What we really have is coalition government. People will admit that. You have to form a coalition on every issue. There's not suddenly a Democratic majority in the Senate. You have four or five Democrats who are moderates who are apt to vote with Republicans on some issues; you're still going to have to reach out and bring some Republicans to form a majority; on every issue a new coalition has to be built. So this isn't a sea change. This isn't dramatic. The party that will gain the most from us is the party that learns the lesson that what the American people most want right now is bipartisanship. George Bush as Governor of Texas won high marks for bipartisanship, for working with the legislative leaders of another party. It could be ironic that this may, in a sense-- and I see the White House as trying to decide how to react to this-- this may be a blessing in disguise for the President who once again has to operate in a very openly bipartisan fashion as he reaches out to leaders of the other party.

JIM LEHRER: You see this as not that big a deal?

FORMER SEN. WARREN RUDMAN: I agree with some of what David said, but I disagree with most of it, not surprisingly. If politics were a Richter Scale, this would be a nine. This is an upheaval of the most serious measure. For instance, look at two committees: Jesse Helms replaced by Joe Biden; Orrin Hatch of the Judiciary replaced by Pat Leahy -- changes dynamics of a number of things including nominations, foreign policy. In addition to that, Tom Daschle will now set the agenda. President Bush could tend up what he wanted to send up, and he had a House and Senate that would act on it. No more. I agree to this extent, that this is a slim majority. It will take a reaching out of the President, something that he's had a lot of experience doing, and I think he can do it. But the bully pulpit becomes very important. There's another side of this, which we haven't talked about. It could benefit the President in this way. If things go awry in the next 18 months, he's at least got someone to blame.

JIM LEHRER: And he didn't before.

FORMER SEN. WARREN RUDMAN: And he didn't have anyone to blame, except himself. So obviously if he picks the issues correctly and builds coalitions, fine. If he attempts to bully it through, they're going to have some trouble. So I guess my feeling is there's enormous change here. This cannot be underestimated. But it can be overcome by a strong, charismatic president that knows how to use that office.

JIM LEHRER: How do you see the magnitude of the change Senator Bumpers?

FORMER SEN. DALE BUMPERS: Well, I think it's monumental in one way, Jim. I agree with David Boren, you're not going to see any 51-49 votes. That's very unusual.

JIM LEHRER: You wouldn't have before either?

FORMER SEN. DALE BUMPERS: No. The change, as Warren has said, is in studying the agenda. The majority leader won't even bring up bills that the Republicans divinely want him to bring up.

JIM LEHRER: And they can't do anything about it?

FORMER SEN. DALE BUMPERS: They can offer a bill as an amendment on anything coming through. But when it comes to the agenda, that's a great power. You think about Joe Biden replacing Jesse Helms, that's a sea change.

JIM LEHRER: In what way? Give me an example of how that could change things.

FORMER SEN. DALE BUMPERS: For example, in my opinion you're not going to have all those United Nations debates going on in that committee. You're not going to be... He will not have the ability just to say, "I don't like the President's nominee to the State Department so we're not going to hold a hearing on it." Joe Biden will hold hearings, they'll vote in the committee and they'll have the majority votes, and it'll go to the floor; they'll have to filibuster it to stop it. I mean, it's a big, big power that Joe Biden will have, that Pat Leahy will have, that Senator Levin and the Defense Department, you think about what sea change that is to have Carl Levin setting the agenda in the Armed Services Committee rather than John Warner, and that's not to denigrate John Warner, but he's from Virginia which is all defense.

JIM LEHRER: Senator Brown, How do you see the magnitude of this? On the Brown scale, where is this?

FORMER SEN. HANK BROWN: This is probably a 9.5, maybe more than a nine. It's a 9.5 if you look at Judiciary, because you think you'll see a lot of judges that are not going to get hearings, or if they have hearings, they'll be much delayed. You'll have far fewer votes; you'll have many judgeships simply not filled because of the delays, and both parties have delayed the other President's nominees. The Democrats probably been a little more effective at it and I suspect you'll see Patrick Leahy very effective at it. I think it'll make a big difference in what'sinvestigated, and I suspect the number of subpoenas that will go to executive departments is going up tenfold with this move, but let me suggest something. I think one of the great strengths of the American system that makes it better than the British is that we do allow people to vote their conscience, even to do extreme things such as Senator Jeffords, I think, is fairly described as doing. We do accept the fact that you can buck your party's leadership or even change parties and somehow as Americans we kind of respect that. I wish Jim hadn't have done it. But I think it's one of the strengths of American system that we allow people to vote their conscience. A lot of good things as well as bad have happened because people voted their conscience.

JIM LEHRER: Senator Danforth, let's pick up on that point. Forget now the immediate thing and the committees and all of that, the power in the Senate today. What is it going to do to individual Senators? Is it going to change? In other words, "Jim Jeffords did this and look what happened. I as an individual Senator can do..." Is it going to change the attitude?

FORMER SEN. JOHN DANFORTH: No, I think this is a very different type of situation, because Senators do vote their own consciences, they should vote their own consciences. The difference in this is that one Senator changed the control of the Senate. That is highly unusual.

JIM LEHRER: But I'm not talking in necessarily about voting either. I'm just talking about the attitude that a Senator might have as a result that Jim Jeffords did this thing, and he's on the cover of all the magazines. He is now - he became - out of nowhere - has become a national figure from now to eternity.

FORMER SEN. JOHN DANFORTH: I think from the other side of the question is, will Republicans be as likely to be hectoring of their colleagues, to be exclusive of their colleagues, to woodshed their colleagues as a result of this? I would hope that Republicans would learn the lesson that we have to be a big tent party. We can't have walls on the tent, as I think we have right now. I'm not sure we've learned that lesson. I wish it were true, but I'm not sure of that.

FORMER SEN. DAVID BOREN: Surely, Jim, if there is a lesson here, it isn't just how you act in the Senate, it's a lesson on where the whole country is. The country really is centrist. The country is really composed of a moderate majority. The American people are fed up with anything, it's partisan bickering. They don't want any more of it. They don't want it to return. I would suggest that the party that's going to profit the most from this change-- and it's too early to tell-- will be the party that reaches out, tries to form a moderate consensus that is viewed as least partisan. If my fellow Democrats take this opportunity to be very partisan, to try to stop the President from doing what he wants to do, they're going lose in the long run because people don't want one party to be fighting the other. If the President reaches out to the Democratic majority and says, "we're going to do things together, let's do it together," the side that appeals the most to the center that is the least partisan will have the most to gain from the situation.

JIM LEHRER: The side that appeals to the center has the most to gain here, Senator Bumpers? Are you Democrats on the rack here too?

FORMER SEN. DALE BUMPERS: I'm not sure I agree with David on that. When it comes to partnership, that's a beautiful thing to talk about on the floor of the Senate and in public speeches or at the Jefferson Jackson dinner or whatever...

JIM LEHRER: Or on the NewsHour.

FORMER SEN. DALE BUMPERS: Or Jim Lehrer's NewsHour. It depends on people like partisanship if things are going their way. It's only when they're not going their way that they call for bipartisanship. Because if it's not going their way, then they see partisanship as the culprit.

JIM LEHRER: What is your view of this, Senator Rudman, that some conservative Republicans have suggested very straight, "good- bye Jim Jeffords, get out of here. This is great. We're the party of the conservatives, they're the party of the liberals, good-bye."

FORMER SEN. WARREN RUDMAN: If they want to say that, they're going to be a dwindling party, because I agree with the way the country is, the country is in the center.

JIM LEHRER: You can't govern from off on the right or off on the left?

FORMER SEN. WARREN RUDMAN: I don't believe so. And let me just add this. If there's a wake up call here for the Republican Party, it is simply this. There are a number of people in the House and in the Senate who are what we call moderates. That's because maybe they're conservative on fiscal issues and foreign policy issues.

JIM LEHRER: That's what they called you - that's what they called you, both of you.

FORMER SEN. WARREN RUDMAN: But, you know, if you look at our voting records, we were probably 95% as the same as people who were called conservatives, but we tend to differ on social issues such as abortion, school prayer and so forth. The lesson is that with the people that I look at up there the Republican leadership-- and I'm sure the White House recognizes this-- is going to have to reach out to people and try to be much more inclusive, as Jack Danforth as said. If they don't, I see the potential of more abuse happening.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree, Senator Brown, that the Republicans should go after people who are not of the conservative bent and keep them in the party, Jim Jeffords and others like him?

FORMER SEN. HANK BROWN: Well, I think they followed a pattern of that in the past and it's part of why they've recruited so many Democrats to do the opposite thing, that is switch over to Republicans. They have courted them. Frankly, as I look back over the last decade or two of the Senate, you haven't had people take them to the woodshed. I don't mean that people haven't had comments, perhaps Jack had people make comment to him that he took offense to, but I haven't seen people lose their chairmanships or be kicked out of the party. And I suspect both parties, particularly with them being closer, are not going to do that. I think you're going to see both parties reach out, and I think Senator Boren is correct, with President Bush reaching out, trying to develop bipartisan atmosphere, the Democratic leadership needs to take his hand, or they'll be injured by the failure to follow up.

JIM LEHRER: All right, we have to leave it there. Thank you all five very much.

FINALLY - MASTER BUILDER

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, a conversation with a prize- winning architect, and to Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: The Pritzker Prize, now in its 22nd year, is architecture's most prestigious honor. Pritzker laureates, who have included Jeoh Ming Pei and Philip Johnson, are chosen from the ranks of living architects worldwide, and receive $100,000 from the Hyatt Foundation. This year's winners are a team, Jacques Herzog and Pierre Du Meuron, the first Swiss recipients of the prize. Childhood friends, they formed a partnership in 1978 and have designed buildings in eight countries -- a private art collection in Munich, a shopping and office building in Tokyo, a house in France, an apartment building and other structures in their hometown of Basil, Switzerland. Their highest profile project to date is the new Tate Modern museum in London, built on the Thames River out of a converted power plant, and completed last year. In the United States, the pair has designed the Dominus winery in California's Napa Valley, and they have several projects under way, including the new De Young Museum in San Francisco, which is scheduled for completion in 2004. One of the winners, Jacques Herzog, joins us now.

Good to have you with us. Maybe for people who are just hearing about the Pritzker Prize for the first time, you can tell us as an architect whether this is a life changing event?

JACQUES HERZOG, Pritzker Architecture Prize: It's a wonderful situation to hear you get the prize this year, and we sort of knew we were on the list -- and for two or three years, and we didn't know when or if we were selected. And once we heard this, it was really a wonderful thing. I think for everybody, for every architect this is something you can only dream of.

RAY SUAREZ: It puts you in company with some of the greatest architects of the 20th century.

JACQUES HERZOG: Yeah, that's true, that's true. And... But we never thought of it this way. It's just something that somehow shows towards the outside that things have been well received by clients, by critics, by many different people. And it's great to get such a prize in America, in a country where we always wanted to do work and we always wanted to do things that we could not do in Europe in terms of scale, in terms of landscape, et cetera, et cetera. So in many ways it's a wonderful situation.

RAY SUAREZ: During the time just following the announcement of the Pritzker Prize, several critics noted that it's difficult to look at a building in your range of work and say, "oh, yes, that's a Herzog and De Meuron." Do you want it that way?

JACQUES HERZOG: Not really. I mean, I don't think you can plan such things. It's more that we are two people and our work is based more on dialogue and concept rather than personal individual gesture. And that's one reason why it is so. And secondly, we also wanted to have the freedom to go in all different directions possible, depending on the site, depending on the client, depending on the money, depending on, you know, the culture we find. In fact, this gives us a lot of freedom and a lot of... a big field to explore in the future, rather than being fixed with a corporate kind of design.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, if there's no, let's say, immediately identifiable style, what's sort of the conceptual thread that runs through all this work? What do you bring to the blank page that does unite all your work?

JACQUES HERZOG: It's difficult to say this so in a few sentences, but I guess one thing is, I mentioned the freedom for the design, but also for the freedom of the people to see things in a different way. An ideal object I always found is a tree. You can use a tree as shelter. You can have it as a kind of an image in your garden. You have the smell of a tree. You have the different seasons. You have all these variety of things, and ideally architecture comes close to natural objects, natural phenomena, natural things which have more than one way to see it. So it's a two-sided experience that we are actually aiming at.

RAY SUAREZ: In a lot of the critiques of your work, a lot of people write about architecture, praise your use of materials. And if we look at something like the Dominus Winery, the idea of bundling stones and making a wall out of them is at once utilitarian and at the same time beautiful and intriguing at the same time. How did you come up with that?

JACQUES HERZOG: That's the ideal case. I think it's a good example, namely in this country or in America, I think it was important for us to make such a statement -- where a wall can be more than just a painted wallpaper, you know, and a wall which sometimes looks like stone, sometimes looks like glass, sometimes look like - but stone as an object which displays physical qualities and also visual qualities like - kind of a transparency. At the same time it releases the heat that it captures during the day, so something that has been done thousands of years ago but has been lost, especially here in this country -- where energy was very cheap for many, many decades, unlike Europe, for instance, and which has somehow brought architects in a situation where walls were reduced to just visual, visual things.

RAY SUAREZ: And the Tate, which has received so much attention, you're really being given a great deal of credit for reimagining a building that already existed. How is that different from doing a project that's yours from the ground up?

JACQUES HERZOG: Very different. And it took us a while find a way to deal with this big, brick monster as it came on us across. But then we discovered it has potential that a new building wouldn't have, like the big scale, the big spaces one couldn't afford to build from scratch. So we tried to take all that and use it and don't... Not work against that, but take that and add new things in a way that the outcome is a kind of ambiguous and intriguing mix of very contemporary -- almost traditional.

RAY SUAREZ: I notice again and again you've said "we." So often we perceive architecture as kind of a heroic solo act. How do you manage creative decisions with a close collaborator, like a man you've known most of your life?

JACQUES HERZOG: That's exactly the reason. I think if you've known each other for so many years, either it works really well, it's almost part of yourself, or then you can't do it. And in our case, without knowing that - of the years we have been developing talents, we have been enhancing some of our talents and maybe neglecting others, so we work together almost like a computer that you put together to one single thing. And I think it has brought us a lot of advantages, rather than just working as a single author kind of thing. And it also enables us to do other collaborations with artists. That's something we've always done over the years, and more recently also with a few architects of our time.

RAY SUAREZ: Jacques Herzog, thanks for being with us.

JACQUES HERZOG: Thank you very much.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday: Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia said it would never surrender Osama bin Laden to the United States. He allegedly ordered the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa in 1998. And Indonesia's parliament censured President Wahid, and demanded that he be impeached. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.