The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

RAY SUAREZ: Good evening. I'm Ray Suarez. Jim Lehrer is off today. On the NewsHour tonight: Senate and House of Representatives, a Newsmaker interview with the new Ways and Means Chairman, Bill Thomas of California; Mark Shields and David Brooks review the week in politics; Lee Hochberg looks at parents who lose control over children's sports; and Bruce Babbitt sums up his years at the Department of the Interior. It all follows our summary of the news this Friday.

NEWS SUMMARY

RAY SUAREZ: The Senate today approved a power-sharing plan. It calls for committees to be evenly divided, reflecting the 50/50 split between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans will serve as chairmen, because they'll control the Senate after Vice President-elect Cheney takes office. In case of tie votes in committee, party leaders can bring bills before the full Senate. The House of Representatives will have 13 new committee chairmen. Republicans made the changes last night, under rules limiting chairmen to six years in one post. Among the changes: Bill Thomas of California takes over Ways and Means, and Henry Hyde of Illinois moves from judiciary, to head international relations. We'll have more on the developments in Congress right after this News Summary. President Clinton today banned road building in nearly a third of all federal forest lands. He also imposed strict new limits on logging, but said existing contracts would be honored. The order affects more than 58 million acres in 39 states, mostly in the West. The President spoke in Washington.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Only about 4 or 5% of our country's timber comes from our national forests. And less than 5% of that is now being cut in roadless areas. Surely we can adjust to federal programs to replace 5% of 5%. But we can never replace what we might destroy if we don't protect those 58 million acres.

RAY SUAREZ: This was the latest in a series of environmental actions President Clinton has taken in his final weeks in office. Environmental groups quickly praised the plan, but Republicans said it was too restrictive, and they promised to fight it. Also today, President Clinton urged the Senate to ratify the nuclear test ban treaty it rejected in 1999. He did so after receiving a report from retired General John Shalikashvili, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The report called for spending more to monitor arms testing worldwide, as a way to make the pact more acceptable. At the White House, the general addressed critics.

GENERAL JOHN SHALIKASHVILI: It is one of the tools that we ought to consider in our tool box, that would help us to deal with what, after all, is one of the recognized important dangers to our security and that is nuclear proliferation. I think there are lots of issues that argue for the treaty, but like any other treaty, there are some risks associated with it. And the issue is whether we can mitigate those risks to ensure that the advantages far outweigh those risks.

RAY SUAREZ: President-elect Bush opposes the treaty as unenforceable. It can't take effect until the U.S., and 43 other nations with nuclear capability, approve it. Unemployment was unchanged at 4% in December, according to the Labor Department today. But it also said American businesses hired workers at the slowestpace in four months. Separately, the Commerce Department said home sales fell 2.2% in November, due partly to high energy prices and stock market volatility. On Wall Street today, stocks dropped, mainly on concerns about earnings and banking stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 250 points, or about 2%, to close at 10,660. And the NASDAQ index was down 159, about 6%, at 2407. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to reorganizing the House and Senate, Shields and Brooks, bad sports, and a conversation with Interior Secretary Babbitt.

FOCUS - POWER SHIFTS

RAY SUAREZ: Power shifts on Capitol Hill. Kwame Holman begins our coverage.

KWAME HOLMAN: A new Congress always has organizational details to dispose of before launching into the legislative session. But organizing the 107th Congress has been far from routine. For only the second time in history, the Senate is evenly split-- 50 Republicans, 50 Democrats. That puts the incoming Vice President, Dick Cheney, in a heightened position of authority. As President of the Senate, he casts the final vote to break any tie. Today, Alaska Republican Ted Stevens reflected on the importance of that vote.

SEN. TED STEVENS: It was the only vote, this time we start with a tie. It's the only vote that Vice President Agnew cast broke that broke the time on the Alaskan pipeline and brought our nation billions of barrels of oil. We face issues all the time that tie. This time we start with a tie.

KWAME HOLMAN: But as this new Senate takes shape, the concern hasn't been the votes on the floor but the work in the committees where legislation is born. Democrats were demanding an equal party representation on each committee. Republican leader Trent Lott, and Democratic leader Tom Daschle, negotiated for weeks over that issue and this afternoon announced their agreement for sharing power. Each committee will have a Republican chairman, but that chairman will be among an equal number of committee Republicans and Democrats. Any committee vote resulting in a tie will pass that matter on to the full Senate. In the past a tie vote would kill a piece of legislation.

SEN. TRENT LOTT: So what we have here, as difficult as it may make life for us, as difficult as it may be for our committee members and our chairman and the ranking member and the ranking member to make this situation work, it is going to require additional work, but it can be done. It's going to force us to work together more than we have in the past. No doubt. I don't think that's bad.

KWAME HOLMAN: West Virginia Democrat, Robert Byrd congratulated both Senate leaders and added the agreement was a victory for the incoming President as well.

SEN. ROBERT BYRD: He's going to have some elbow here. Who knows, I may be one who votes with him from time to time - there will be others on this -- but this agreement is exceedingly important to him. It sets the right example. It should give heart and encouragement to the people of the nation. And I view it as a pact, which will make it possible for us to rise above the interests of party, to rise above it even of ourselves from time to time, and enable us to accomplish something.

KWAME HOLMAN: But several Republicans, including Texas' Phil Gramm, the new banking chairman, expressed reservations.

SEN. PHIL GRAMM: Let me say - and it is awfully easy to say it when the Vice President is a Republican -- but let me make it clear, if the Vice President were a Democrat, I would expect the Democrats to be the majority in the Senate. I personally would have never contemplated that they would not have a majority on each of the committees because they would have the responsibility under the Constitution for governing.

KWAME HOLMAN: Democratic leader Daschle responded to the Republicans' concerns.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: This issue is based on a premise, in fact, this whole agreement is based on a premise, and the premise is that both parties are going to be invested in this legislative process. And in this Congress, that we both will have ownership in this process; that we both will have a reason to want to move the legislative agenda forward. And it's that realization, that premise, that really gives me the confidence that we are going to be able to work together and find agreement on conferees and find agreement on the legislative agenda and all of the other issues that this premise is based on.

KWAME HOLMAN: The resolution passed the Senate by voice vote. Meanwhile, on the house side, Republicans who still hold a slim majority there, worked into last evening to rectify a different leadership problem: Who would be chosen to replace 13 senior committee chairmen, all in place since Republicans took control of the House six years ago. Four of those chairmen retired at the end of the last Congress-- Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich, Ways and Means Chairman Bill Archer, Commerce Chairman Tom Bliley, and Education and Workforce Chairman Bill Goodling. But Banking Committee Chairman Jim Leach did not retire; neither did Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde. They lost their chairmanships, to term limits.

REP. HENRY HYDE: I don't like it. I think it is unwise but it's there and a lot of people like it because it gives them an opportunity to serve in leadership, and I can understand that.

KWAME HOLMAN: Hoping to win back the majority in the 1994 mid- term elections, Republicans put a six-year limit on committee chairmanships into their Contract with America, which House GOP candidates were asked to sign. The limit was aimed at putting an end to the almost-dictatorial power wielded by some committee chairmen during four decades of Democratic rule. Republicans often mentioned Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski as an example. Ohio's Rob Portman signed the contract.

REP. ROB PORTMAN: I think it was a good idea. It causes a lot of dislocation. It happens all at once. Over time it won't be quite like this because there will be more staggered terms as people naturally leave office. The problem we had for so many years is chairmen who stayed and stayed and stayed and developed almost a thief dom in committees. And it was not good with regard to legislation and special interest influence was greater; this gives more younger members a chance. So it ain't perfect. There are problems with it because there are some good members you don't want to lose who happen to be chairs. But overall I think it is healthier for the institution.

KWAME HOLMAN: The term-limited chairmanships almost certainly played a role in the decisions by four former chairmen not to return for this Congress. And just yesterday, former Transportation Committee Chairman, Bud Shuster, suddenly resigned from the House, one day after being sworn in for his 15th term, and hours before his colleagues were to replace him as chair because of the term limit. Shuster said he was leaving in part because he had reached the pinnacle of his Congressional career. But other term-limited former chairmen, including Jim Leach and the Armed Services Committee's Floyd Spence, remain in the House without major committee leadership posts. Ben Gilman also remains, though his chairmanship of the International Relations Committee now belongs to Henry Hyde.

REP. HENRY HYDE: I think international relations is the appropriate venue because of the term limit rule.

KWAME HOLMAN: Selection of the new chairmen by a group of House Republican leaders was a delicate process. Louisiana's Billy Tauzin was given the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee, but not before some of it's jurisdiction was taken away and given to what was the Banking Committee. It's now the Financial Services Committee, and its new chairman is Michael Oxley of Ohio. Oxley was selected over New Jersey's Marge Roukema, who was next in seniority to lead the committee. And in the Ways and Means Committee, California's Bill Thomas was chosen as chairman over Illinois' Phil Crane, despite Crane's seniority edge. This morning, Illinois' Jerry Weller used an appearance with members of the Republican freshmen class to defend term limited chairmanships.

REP. JERRY WELLER: If you just look at the 28- member freshman Republican class, there's a tremendous amount of talent here, and our belief is someday each of these individuals are going to be terrific strong chairs of the committees that they will serve on.

KWAME HOLMAN: If the limits remain, a handful of other chairmen will lose their positions over the next few years. One result of the rule will be the need to change regularly the portraits of the chairmen that adorn the walls of the committee rooms. That wasn't much of a problem when Democrats were in the majority.

RAY SUAREZ: Now to a Newsmaker interview with one of the new Republican leaders. Bill Thomas is beginning his 12th term representing California's 21st district; he's been a member of the Ways and Means Committee since 1983. As head of its subcommittee on health, he's been a leader on Medicare and Social Security issues, recently co-chairing the national Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare. He now takes over as chairman of the full Ways and Means Committee. And welcome to the program.

REP. BILL THOMAS: Thank you, Ray.

RAY SUAREZ: Let's talk a little bit about process. Under the old rules, even though you're a pretty senior member of the body, you wouldn't have been getting the gavel this time around.

REP. BILL THOMAS: No, I would not have. And I think that's the point that needs to be made. Although we may be described as new leaders; for example, I served in the House with Majority Leader Trent Lott. I served in the House with the Minority Leader Tom Daschle. The Vice President-elect was a classmate of mine, and ironically, the new chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, where they don't do the turnover quite like we do, I shared a seat on the House Agriculture Committee. So the question was whether or not it was almost permanent or whether there was a reasonable opportunity for people to lead. I was obviously very pleased and humbled at the challenge my colleagues have provided to me. But if you'll examine those people who are the new chairmen, they are veterans of the legislative process. It's just that it's true, when seniority was king, they would not have had a chance. But frankly you, we lost an awful lot of talented people when that was the only criteria for determining the chair.

RAY SUAREZ: How did you get the job? You had to, in effect, run for it?

REP. BILL THOMAS: Yes, obviously, because I was not the senior person. It was not the natural follow-on. But we haven't done that from the time that we were in the majority. What we've tried to do is take a look at where we need to get the job done, and that although it's tough, it's a competition. It's not unlike running for office and getting elected.

RAY SUAREZ: So what did you do? Do you circulate a resume? Did you make a speech to your colleagues?

REP. BILL THOMAS: Actually, the job is one that you can't really run for. You present yourself; what you've done in the past is in essence your campaign position. The best predictor of future behavior is to a very great extent oftentimes what you've done in the past. So if you've been there for more than 20 years, people kind of know what you can do and how you can do it.

RAY SUAREZ: This was the result, this changeover that we saw last night, was the result of reforms brought in by the 104th Congress of which you were, of course, a member, and these committee chairmen also supported these changes. But did anybody really know six years ago, it is a fairly abstract thing that six years from now, we have this big change coming, we'll think about it then. Did it hit home November or December of last year?

REP. BILL THOMAS: No. Some of us talked about it from the very beginning and understood that when we came into power initially, that there was no one in the House of Representatives who had been a chairman, in fact never had belonged to a majority before. So the first time was the easy one. The hard part was the second time, when these people who now had the power, had been waiting for years, sometimes decades, now had to in fact agree that they were relinquishing the power and that we would renew ourselves. I happen to think it is the sign of a very healthy party that has the confidence and courage to renew itself periodically. I also happen to think there is a good chance of better legislation because of it.

RAY SUAREZ: This didn't happen entirely without grumbling. Henry Hyde asked if perhaps the deadline might be eased a little bit in his case, at judiciary, Marge Roukema and campaign finance reform advocates said that this was really a measure of how much money you had raised for the party, not necessarily the work that had you done as a member of the House. Maybe you can answer some of those critiques.

REP. BILL THOMAS: Well, I think in the introduction that you provided for me-- thank you very much, it was very gracious-- there is ample evidence that what you have to do is be well rounded. In the old days, all had you to be was warm and vertical. Sometimes those were questionable, but you had to be the most senior. That's not the best way to do it either. If you're active in your legislative program in helping to ensure a majority, that's not the most perfect system either, but it's just as good and perhaps even better. Our job right now is to produce a work product. Ray, the system is always accommodation and compromise. Whether that accommodation or compromise inside your own party when you have a large majority to deliver product and move it or has to be between parties when you have a narrow majority. I think one of the things that you'll notice in terms of the selection of the chairman in the House this time is that there are a number of people who, I believe, have exhibited in the past the ability to put packages or products together so that we can pass legislation that the American people need and want. For example, Billy Tauzin in the Commerce Committee; what you might say about him is he is a skilled and seasoned legislator. He knows how to put a package together. I like to think that I've exhibited that ability in the past, in taking difficult areas like, for example, Medicare reform, and putting together a package that got bipartisan votes and passed the House of Representatives. The ultimate test of legislators is whether or not they legislate. Now, the ultimate test of whether the government works or not is whether that legislation gets signed into law. The really exciting part of all of this is that for the first time in our lifetime, the Republicans, who are now, by the way, in the fourth Congress of being in the majority, have a chance to work with an administration of their own party. Yes, all of the numbers are narrow. If we're good enough legislators, if our product is good enough, we'll make good law. And the opportunity to do that is a very exciting one.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, as Ways and Means chairman, you certainly have a lot of on your plate: Social Security, Medicare, taxation, big, big items.

REP. BILL THOMAS: Don't leave out trade. We have not been active in this area, and we need to be. That's also part of the agenda.

RAY SUAREZ: You've talked about President-elect Bush about the possibility of tax cuts. What was the nature of your conversation?

REP. BILL THOMAS: I've been talking with that team for sometime. I just have to say that they have been the most open, cooperative and communicative group we've ever worked with. The tax question obviously is a difficult one. He proposed a position, as did Vice President Gore as a candidate. Given the results of the election, no one is going to get everything they want. Our goal is to sit down and put a package together that has a chance of becoming law. I talked today, for example, with Charlie Rangel, the ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee. We talked about that, how do we begin the process of accommodation and compromise. I'm not going to get out in front of the administration but the administration fully understands with the seasoned hands they have on board, that they can't get too far out in front of the Congress. This is going to be a cooperative effort, and we're all going to have to work together. The more we talk to each other, the better the chance of getting it right.

RAY SUAREZ: There is no shortage of input. I'm sure people are very frank about telling you what they think. President-elect Bush has made clear his decision to stick with the size and the timetable of his original plan. There are members of the House who are saying no way we can do one this big, no way we can do one this fast. What is your first assignment as the new administration comes in?

REP. BILL THOMAS: Well, first of all, take a look at the economy, take a look at the priorities and see how you can sequence some of these very difficult things; for example, Social Security needs reforming, Medicare needs reforming. It seems to me that given the timeline that we are dealing with, the ability to modify Medicare and put prescription drugs in the modified Medicare has a slightly higher calling - if you're trying to move legislation -- than fundamentally reforming Social Security. There is an educational process that needs to take place as well. But I might differ with you a little bit in terms of describing the President's position that he said, I'm sticking to the number and I'm sticking to the timetable. I think what I have been hearing and I will tell you what the discussion is, is that even though you might have a particular number that you're looking at, the sequencing, the timing, where and how it happens, can have significantly different impacts on the economy. And that's what we're beginning to talk about. No one is going to advocate a position what the look... withoutlooking alt what is going on right now in the economy and with what had been a very handsome longtime economic buildup. Nobody is going to push through a program that doesn't take into consideration its impact now, nine months, and five years from now. So that's going to be part of the discussion. You review it. Do we still want to do this? Yes or no. How would it be modified to assist now in this new economic climate versus where it was even just nine months or a year ago when many of these ideas were first formulated.

RAY SUAREZ: Chairman Bill Thomas, thanks for joining us.

REP. BILL THOMAS: Thank you.

FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

RAY SUAREZ: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Shields and Brooks, parental rage, and an exit interview with Secretary Bruce Babbitt. Terence Smith is with Mark and David.

TERENCE SMITH: That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields, and Weekly Standard Editor David Brooks. Paul Gigot is on vacation. Welcome to you both.

Mark, this 107th Congress is going to be a different breed of cat. I think we got a sense of that from Chairman Thomas right now.

MARK SHIELDS: Absolutely. Bill Thomas of California replaces Bill Archer, sort of an avuncular chairman, not known as fiery, or combative. Bill Thomas has a deserved representation for being very bright, volatile. I think it's fair to say that self-doubt and Bill Thomas are strangers. They have never met. But he will make things very interesting. I'd say this about him. Don't underestimate him. He is very product driven as a legislator. He is somebody who is not interested in taking positions. He is interested in producing a product.

TERENCE SMITH: David, the chairman is talking about these 13 new chairmen, he is one of them, as veteran legislators even though they're new people. When you look at them as a group what do you draw?

DAVID BROOKS: I think that's true. They're not the most veteran. One of the most dramatic things today is all these old King Lears wandering around the room, feeling a little betrayed, Henry Hyde a little angry, Bud Schuster, transportation, leaving the Congress entirely; wants to go home and spend more time with his highways. But I think the lesson is that these are technocrats. These are people who drive legislation. There was this story around - the theory around that Tom DeLay, who was really good, and all these Republican crazies were going to make life incredibly difficult for Bush. But I think the main story out of these 13 new chairmen is that they're work horses not show horses. They are not the most ideological members in the races for their chairmanships. They are the ones who are good at crafting legislation.

TERENCE SMITH: Is there an ideological bent that you can discern?

MARK SHIELDS: You know, Bill Thomas was criticized for not being... the chairman of the Ways and Means...for not being ardently conservative enough, and perhaps being too accommodationist, too consensus seeking. I think consensus seeking, realistic I'd say is probably the best description. But Terry, we shouldn't talk about the new chairmen without a mention of Newt Gingrich. Talk about the Gingrich revolution and certainly he has become the object of derision in many monologues around town, but this is a man who came to town and said, I'm going to break the iron triangle - the iron triangle that existed under Democratic dominance consisted of a committee chairman with specific responsibility and control over a particular area -- trucks, for example. So the trucks and the Teamsters were under that committee chairman's aegis. And the agencies downtown in the federal government that ran it had to respond to that chairman because that chairman was there in perpetuity. And the industries themselves were very respectful and almost deferential to that chairman. So that you got this iron triangle of the industry, the regulators and the legislators just running everything and the public sort of being excluded. Newt Gingrich, by limiting six-year terms, has guaranteed this turnover. And we're not seeing that again. It's certainly a legacy of which I think he can certainly be proud.

TERENCE SMITH: So it's a big change.

MARK SHIELDS: It's a major change.

TERENCE SMITH: There is a big change as well in the Senate -- this 50-50 split on the committees. That's a different breed of cat as well.

DAVID BROOKS: It certainly is a change and in some ways similar. We used to have these kings who ran the hill. Now who is king of the Senate? There is no I go king. Where does the buck stop? My personal opinion is that Tom Daschle got Christmas a little late. He picked Trent Lott's pocket. It was a move for bipartisanship but the Republicans gave up all the control. They had a small majority but they had some majority to control the committees, control the agenda on the floor. My view is that Trent Lott gave that away.

TERENCE SMITH: Is it a move for bipartisanship or prescription for gridlock?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I think it's a hope anyway that gridlock will be broken. It means-- David's right, that the leadership, the majority leadership had to recognize the reality. They couldn't control the process the way they had in the past -- that now the committees have become king. As a result, Terry, what is going to happen is consensus and coalition will be formed and built within the committees, away from the leadership of both parties.

TERENCE SMITH: But will anything get done?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I think the only way anything gets done is if it comes out of the committee with strong support, bipartisan support, then it comes to the floor with greater momentum both political and had to some degree moral in the sense that gee this, committee has worked on it, they've thought about it, they've wrestled with it. That's what they've come up with as a suggestion.

TERENCE SMITH: Is that what you see, David?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes. I think that's why Trent Lott must have had to do it -- there must have been an alliance between the Republican committee chairman, who wanted more power vis- -vis the Senate leadership and the Democrats, and those two forces forced Trent Lott's hand.

MARK SHIELDS: And two chairmen, John McCain of Arizona and chairman of the Commerce Committee and Ted Stevens of Alaska, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, had already indicated they were willing even absent, and before this agreement, to divide up the membership of their two committees 50-50. So it somewhat weakened Lott's bargaining position.

TERENCE SMITH: Speaking of John McCain, the Senate was barely sworn in which he said it would bring up his campaign finance reform bill. And, in fact, today he got some important support.

MARK SHIELDS: He produced half the Mississippi delegation. Thad Cochran, senior United States Senator from Mississippi, endorsed McCain-Feingold. And that's showing that the movement is in McCain's direction, in Feingold's direction, and John McCain told Jim Lehrer on this broadcast at the Republican convention last August that he was going to bring it up first, make no mistake about it, and if necessary there would be blood on the Senate floor. Jim said blood - blood on the Senate floor. And whatever one says about John McCain, he is somebody who's known for keeping his word.

TERENCE SMITH: What do you think?

DAVID BROOKS: He's going to take that straight talk express bus, drive it right up through the White House gate, right into the Oval Office. I think it is a little problematic actually. I think the world of John McCain -- and he is not competing on the floor for George Bush's attention but in the media. It means the first few weeks of the administration, there's going to be an intraRepublican fight and he could actually lose votes, I think, for the campaign finance - a lot of Republicans could say - a few could say I would vote for you otherwise but you stuck your finger in the eye of the president. I don't want to be with you on this.

TERENCE SMITH: Indeed, it presents the new President Bush with something he hadn't counted on.

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I mean this... This is not a surprise. He has been saying this ever since his campaign for president. I would point out that during the fall of 2000, no fewer than 77 candidates for the Republican candidates for the House and Senate, requested John McCain to do television and radio spots endorsing their candidacies. I traveled the country pretty extensively. I didn't see that many of George Bush or Al Gore endorsing congressional candidates. I mean there's an awful lot of people that could argue today, including Tom Davis is one of them, the chairman of the Republican Souse Senate campaign Committee, that John McCain was key to Republicans keeping control of the House. I mean, his message of reform and independence, maverick tell it like it is, candor, whatever, certainly struck a responsive cord with voters and helped a number of Republican candidates.

TERENCE SMITH: And now it comes home to roost.

MARK SHIELDS: It does come home to roost. I mean, he can't have run that way through the primaries and the fall and then say well, I was just kidding with a wink and nudge and whatever the president wants.

TERENCE SMITH: The other thing, of course this week, President Bush rounded out his cabinet, David. Added a Democrat, and a possibly controversial appointment at Labor, and another at Energy. Take them one at a time. The Democrat Norm Mineta, the current Secretary of Commerce in the Clinton administration.

DAVID BROOKS: I frankly don't think it is a big step. Bill Clinton had a Republican, I don't think it helps that much. I think the overall message of the Bush White House is that he has taken governing competent conservatives. Conservatives had this march through the institutions and are now at a reasonably high level. You have guys like Spence Abraham who started the Federalist Society - a very ideological society. Then he works for Dan Quayle and then he goes to work as a Michigan party chief. Then he goes and gets in the U.S. Senate. So you take a guy who was an ideological guy who didn't really know how to work Washington, run him through the institutions and now he is nominated to be energy secretary and he actually knows Washington. He comes in at a senior level. He is supple and polished. This sort of thing has happened throughout the administration - so, whereas Ronald Reagan and George Bush had conservatives like Jim Laud, who thought the Beach Boys were evil - had guys like Pat Robertson - moving hurricanes -- George Bush can pick among conservatives who are quite polished, quite knowledgeable about Washington. It's allowed him to make a really impressive cabinet.

TERENCE SMITH: How do you see them, including the sole Democrat?

MARK SHIELDS: I like the phrase competent conservatives. We went through a bitter campaign and we went through a recount and found out that Gerry Ford won in 1976. The Ford alumni is very big in this administration, and rightly so. I think Gerry Ford is an enormously underrated man publicly. I think Norm Mineta brings something to it that is an enormous Democrat. He was a leader of his party in the House. He came as a Watergate baby in 1974 out of San Jose, out of the Silicon Valley. This isn't somebody, a Democrat in name. This isn't bringing in Griffin Bell's son by a former marriage or something, former Democratic attorney general who consistently endorses Republican candidates for president every four years. So I mean this is quite frankly a real Democrat. As far as the rest of the cabinet, the surprise to me is Ashcroft. I mean there's a building, still low level, but resistance to John Ashcroft. He is not John Tower. John tower was rejected as secretary of defense in the first Bush administration in 1989, John Tower was a prickly unpleasant man who had a lot of natural enemies in the Senate. I mean, a perfect example -- at one point he tried to get fired a Senate page who made the mistake of growing six inches over the summer to the point where he was taller than John Tower. Ahscroft doesn't have that problem. The Democrats don't have a Sam Nunn to lead the fight against him. If Joe Lieberman took him on, it would be a different fight.

TERENCE SMITH: Very quickly, David. Ashcroft a big fight?

DAVID BROOKS: Moderate fight. I think he will come through. He is being attacked like he's George Wallace, but he has got a lot of Democrats on his side already, and I think they'll stick with him.

TERENCE SMITH: Okay. David, Mark, thank you both very much.

FOCUS - BAD EXAMPLES

RAY SUAREZ: Now, bad sports at kids' games. Earlier this week, a 45-year-old Massachusetts man was arrested for assault, nothing uncommon there perhaps. But the victim in this attack was the hockey coach of the man's 14-year-old son, and that did leave many wondering what's happening in youth sports. Lee Hochberg, of Oregon Public Broadcasting, has been looking into this growing problem.

LEE HOCHBERG: Being on the football field with hyped up high school athletes can be hazardous work for a referee. But the worst injury Dave Anderson ever sustained was inflicted not by a teenager, but by an adult-- a coach who stormed the field.

DAVE ANDERSON: He was 6'3" or 6'4" and weighed somewhere between 230 and 250. So looking up to him, and I'm thinking, "My God," you know, "what is this guy doing."

LEE HOCHBERG: Anderson was refereeing a game between Sacramento California eighth graders when, as captured on home videotape, the coach erupted.

DAVE ANDERSON: So he's facing me and then proceeded to shove me three times. Then he kicked me in the groin area and I stuck my feet up in the air to try to protect myself because I didn't know what he was going to do.

LEE HOCHBERG: Anderson suffered soft tissue and back injuries, a freak incident, you'd think. But such adult misbehavior at youth sporting events isn't that unusual. Ten miles away, the principal at Sacramento High School had to cancel his school's season- ending football game last year, after parents in the stands got out of hand.

RICHARD OLSON, School Principal: Cursing at kids, harassing other parents, really foul language. I saw people getting almost to the point of violence. I saw kids cursing at their coaches because their parents were cursing at them.

LEE HOCHBERG: Nationwide, incidents of parental rage at youth sporting events-- fathers and mothers punching and spitting and swearing at umpires and coaches-- have tripled since 1995. This summer, two dozen adults stormed the Florida baseball field on which their four-year- olds were playing T-ball. Police had to be called in to break up the ruckus. A coach in another Florida case was charged with aggravated battery after he broke an umpire's jaw. And in the nation's first fatal instance of parental rage this July, a team of Massachusetts ten-year-olds watched as an angry parent beat their hockey coach, a father of four, to death.

FRED ENGH, National Alliance for Youth Sports: Think of that. We now have situations where somebody got killed with parents killing other parents in children's sports. We've never had that before.

LEE HOCHBERG: Youth sports leaders, like Fred Engh of the Florida-based National Alliance for Youth Sports, are stunned at what's happening. 30 million kids, aged four to fourteen, play organized sports in the U.S., and Engh estimates 15% of their parents step over the line in sports of all kinds, boys and girls.

FRED ENGH: Yesterday they had to throw a surgeon out of the game for attacking an official, so it isn't leveled or aimed at any segment of our society, it's the parent of today.

LEE HOCHBERG: Parental misbehavior is nothing new. I played baseball as a boy and quit Little League at the age of 13 as a silent protest against hollering grown-ups. But experts say, today things around the fields are much worse.

TONY FARRENKOPF, Clinical Psychologist: We are much more competitive. People are fighting much more for getting all they can. We are not here to have fun, we're here to win. See, that puts it in the category of everyday competitive living-- it matters.

LEE HOCHBERG: Tony Farrenkopf is an Oregon clinical psychologist and youth soccer coach. He says today's parents bring to their children's games the same competitiveness they bring to their own workplace. And they copy what they see professional sports stars doing on TV, from spitting on umpires, to fighting with fans in the stands.

NEWSCASTER: You've got morons throwing things and morons cheering 'em for doing it. Folks, this is an absolute disgrace!

TONY FARRENKOPF: We do what we see. We have seen it done. You can go do it. So people are now free. Hey, no big deal. I can punch someone.

LEE HOCHBERG: Referees take the brunt of the abuse, and youth leagues are having trouble recruiting them.

SPOKESMAN: They want a time-out, Joe.

LEE HOCHBERG: Referee Anderson still officiates high school sports where coaches are accountable to school districts. But as for other youth sports, usually run by community volunteers, he says he's done.

DAVE ANDERSON: I won't do it, probably because I'm a little scared. Who is going to stop the parents from coming out of the stands? Who is going to stop the coaches from coming on the field? There's nobody there.

LEE HOCHBERG: The National Association of Sports Officials has begun offering assault insurance to its 19,000 umpire members. And many schools are hiring security guards to keep grown-up fans in line. Some referees think new laws are needed.

SPOKESMAN: I'm warning them there. And as I turn to the coach, he head butts me in the left temple and it's lights out.

LEE HOCHBERG: Bob West of Spokane, Washington, suffered a concussion when a student wrestler assaulted him. It convinced him that Washington State needs a law to make assaults on officials a worse crime than other assaults; 14 states have such laws. In California, the man who attacked referee Anderson was sentenced to community service and fined $350, but he could have served a year in jail. West testified before Washington lawmakers that referees deserve the same added protections as police officers.

BOB WEST: A sports official puts himself in harm's way. A referee is a police officer on a sports field. He's the same thing.

JENNIFER SHAW: I don't think it's the same thing. A referee is not in a community care taking position.

LEE HOCHBERG: But Jennifer Shaw, of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, convinced the legislature to reject the idea. She argued adding a new law won't change parental behavior.

JENNIFER SHAW: Every time that you get some new headliner crime, somebody says there ought to be a law. I just don't think that it helps us any in controlling society to create these little categories of victims.

LEE HOCHBERG: Without laws to help them, some towns now say if parents are going to act like children, they'll be punished like children. Soccer programs in Ohio and Maryland have instituted so- called silent Saturdays, in which parents can come to their kids' games but have to keep their mouths shut. Experts say that's no solution.

FRED ENGH: Sports, because of the scoreboards, are going to create emotions. And it's not wrong for me to cheer for my child if my child scores a goal.

LEE HOCHBERG: Engh argues instead for a wholesale reeducation of parents who go to games. Many schools have taken to pre- game warning.

SPOKESPERSON: Sportsmanship extends beyond the field to the fans in the stands. Respect players, the coaches as well as the officials.

LEE HOCHBERG: And soccer clubs, like this one, celebrating positive play day in Scotts Valley, California, are using the kids themselves to give parents the message.

SPOKESPERSON: Everybody get a button and a card to give to a parent so you know what this is all about. They get upset and they argue with each other, they argue with the refs; it sort of reminds me of, you know, it's about sportsmanship and fun...

LEE HOCHBERG: Some experts say community leaders should restructure youth sports, hiring a paid superintendent who would urge parents to go through sportsmanship training if their children want to use sports facilities. The National Alliance for Youth Sports now offers such training.

SPOKESMAN: You are pioneers.

LEE HOCHBERG: But when Glendale, Arizona, asked 2,000 sports parents to come to its sportsmanship seminar this fall, only a handful showed up. Engh says parental attendance should be mandatory if kids are to play ball. A required session for parents in Jupiter, Florida, did induce 2,000 to show up. The program costs five dollars per parent, but there's a cost in doing nothing as well. Some athletics programs had to spend as much as an extra $10,000 this year to find officials willing to work, and Engh says there's a cost of doing nothing that isn't about money.

FRED ENGH: Who cares what the cost is financially? If we don't fix this now, then we stand the danger of parents across this country saying, "i don't want my child in this." That's a serious danger that we face.

LEE HOCHBERG: A danger -- the children themselves deciding they want no part of youth sports that seem like they're played more for adults.

SERIES - SUMMING UP

RAY SUAREZ: President Clinton's land conservation action today is just the latest in a series of efforts to put public lands off-limits from development. His order would set aside nearly a third of national forest lands, prohibiting road building and logging. In its eight years, the Clinton administration has taken actions impacting millions of acres of federal land, including the designation of a dozen national monuments. One of the people who's led that effort is Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. Yesterday, he talked with Gwen Ifill in the first of a series of conversations we're conducting with some of the outgoing members of the Clinton administration.

GWEN IFILL: Welcome, Secretary Babbitt.

BRUCE BABBITT: Gwen, it's a pleasure.

GWEN IFILL: In the eight years that you served as Interior Secretary, what would you say you were most proud of?

BRUCE BABBITT: Well, I think breathing life into the Endangered Species Act, taking those wolves back into Yellowstone, restoring the salmon in the rivers of the Pacific Northwest. I'd say that's at the top. Protecting all this land, working with the President to establish all these monuments, to, you know... I think the President has a land protection record that's second to no one in this century, maybe Teddy Roosevelt. But that's all been a wonderful experience.

GWEN IFILL: It's also an experience that you kind of jump-started that effort to have the President establish this land's legacy, didn't you?

BRUCE BABBITT: Oh, yeah, sure. I grew up in the West, grew up on the land, was educated as a geologist. And I came here with a vision of what it is we ought to be doing. We had kind of a rocky start, but I spent a lot of time working with the President and handing him statistics and showing him what we were doing as we went along and kind of saying to him, you know, this is really important. This isn't just about today, this about generations to come. And you've got a chance to be the greatest conservation President since Theodore Roosevelt, and I think he's done it.

GWEN IFILL: You alluded to the rocky start. What in this eight years have you regretted the most?

BRUCE BABBITT: Oh, gosh.

GWEN IFILL: Just pick one.

BRUCE BABBITT: I wish that we could have taken all of the stuff we've done with the Endangered Species Act-- the wolves in Yellowstone or the salmon back in the rivers, the bald eagles-- all of the work that we've done-- the land we protected-- and got the Endangered Species Act rewritten and reauthorized in the Congress. That was a big failure last year. But I think we've laid the groundwork, and I think it will inevitably happen.

GWEN IFILL: You talk about growing up and being very appreciative of the environment, growing up in the West. As you know, you have your critics who think that you declared war on the West rather than saving the West, as i'm sure you would like to describe it. How did you find a way to find a middle ground in all that dispute?

BRUCE BABBITT: Well, what I tried to do is simply to get out on the land. And when I came to Washington, I think one of the mistakes we made early on was kind of having an ideological dispute up in the Congress. We would often talk abstractions about is there too much public land, is there not too much public land? Should we have stricter laws about mining and logging or shouldn't we? And it got very polarized and very abstract. What I finally did in 1995 was I said, I'm going to get out of this town and I'm going to go out West. And if we're going to talk about a particular thing, we're going to get out on the landscape and we're going to talk about it right out there on the rim of the Grand Canyon. I'm going to go out and get everybody together and say I think we ought to protect this for generations to come. Now, let's get down to work and walk the land and talk about the conflictsand get everybody involved. And I think that was the real turning point.

GWEN IFILL: But you made enemies along the way, the property owners.

BRUCE BABBITT: A fair amount of conflict, yeah, sure, sure. There's a basic kind of tension here. It's between those who say, I'd like to clear cut this forest and reduce it to saw timber because that's an economically productive thing for me to do. My job is to look at the national patrimony, 280 million American people and their descendants and generations to come and say, this is a part of our natural heritage. We have to preserve it and use it sustainably. And the short-term use of resources at the destruction of the long-term heritage of this country is not a policy that we can pursue. It sets up some tension. There's no question about it.

GWEN IFILL: As a result, has the Center of Environmental Policy in the United States changed in a way that is sustainable over the next administration?

BRUCE BABBITT: Oh, I think it really has. Let me give you just one or two examples. I think that the early fights over the clear-cutting of those great old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest was really an important fight because they were saying out there, "we've got to cut these forests down, otherwise the economy will collapse." Here we are eight years later. We've set aside tens of millions of acres of those northwestern forests for perpetuity. The unemployment rate has gone not up, but down. The economy has gone up. The Northwest is in better shape than it was eight years ago. What we've proven is that you can protect the environment, use it wisely and grow the economy and that there is no conflict between the two.

GWEN IFILL: You, like many members of this administration, became the target of an independent counsel investigation. You were exonerated about casino applications in Wisconsin. What did you come out of that experience feeling? Why didn't you quit? Why didn't you say, this isn't worth it?

BRUCE BABBITT: Well, it's not a pleasant experience. And it's a terribly political process, because that thing was initiated by the Congress and by, you know, our adversaries in the Congress. They haul you up there for, you know, week after week in this kind of star chamber proceeding. Then at the end of it they say, well, we found nothing, but now it's time for special counsel. Then you have, you know, a team of a couple dozen lawyers working things for another year or to. Well, the special counsel law has been repealed. Look, I think by the time my case was over and other ones, everybody on both sides of the aisle in Congress said we can't run a government by this kind of process and they repealed the law and that's good.

GWEN IFILL: I've read where you said to some students that the first thing you need if you're going to get a high profile job is lawyers' insurance.

BRUCE BABBITT: No kidding. That's really true. You're paying your own bills through this. It's not a pleasant experience.

GWEN IFILL: Was it worth it after all that?

BRUCE BABBITT: Of course, of course. I look back on it, yeah, i'm in a much worse financial position than I was eight years. I'm going to have to go out at age 62 and kind of readdress some of that. But it's a nasty political environment, a highly partisan, contentious kind of thing. What would I say to my kids or to students or to young people? I wouldn't miss this opportunity for anything. For the chance to work on these conservation issues, to serve my country, to work for this President, I'd do it all over again, every single minute. Obviously I wouldn't have said that three or four years ago in the midst of it. But I really believe that. It's been a marvelous and important experience.

GWEN IFILL: One of the most controversial nominees for the next administration is for your job: Gale Norton from Colorado who is being nominated to take over Interior. What advice would you give her or do you have any advice for her since your world views about some of these issues are so different?

BRUCE BABBITT: Well, I actually wrote her a letter a couple of days ago congratulating her. The tone I tried to convey in the letter is, look, you are a part of a great American historical process. The Department of Interior has been the center since John Wesley Powell and Theodore Roosevelt and many others of the conservation and use of our natural resources. It's a fabulous organization. Good luck.

GWEN IFILL: Do you think she's going to need it?

BRUCE BABBITT: Look, this job has always been a crucible of conflict. If you think back over preceding administrations, and the reason is because there is some genuine tension between a western tradition particularly, sort of a boomer tradition of there's going to be a gold strike there and we'll mine it out and then we'll leave and leave all the refuse and toxics and destruction for future generations and what I would call the John Muir tradition, which says this is part of our heritage. We have an obligation to live in harmony with creation, with our capital... with God's creation. And we need to administer and work that very carefully. There's tension there in each generation, in each administration. It will be no different in the next one.

GWEN IFILL: In just the way that you encouraged Bill Clinton to basically by executive fiat accomplish a lot of his goals on those fronts, do you worry that by executive fiat the incoming Bush administration can reverse a lot of those gains?

BRUCE BABBITT: Well, not a lot for two reasons. One I'm an optimist. Secondly as a result of the time I've spent traveling around this country-- I said earlier I learn quickly-- that you have to get out of Washington and out of this abstract debate, get out on the landscape and generate support. I think we have public support for everything we've done. The set aside of the old growth forests in the Northwest, the President's creation of this huge marine reserve out in the middle of the Pacific to protect coral reefs, the protection of endangered species, the reintroduction of wolves -- all of these monuments -- they're all hugely popular, hugely popular. I was astonished. I mean even in Arizona which is a fairly conservative place, when we started working on these monuments, the public opinion polls said that 75% of the people in Arizona support them -- urban, rural, Republican and Democrat. Now, i'm an optimist. I don't think people are going to start trying to listen to just a few special interests who want to go out there and start cutting and strip mining everything, who are going to say, tear it all down -- it was done by Bruce Babbitt and Bill Clinton and therefore it's bad, tear it down. I think the people will-- who advocate having a step back and read those public opinion polls on the front page of the newspapers all over this country saying public supports restoration in restoration of the Everglades, protection of the parks and the creation of monuments.

GWEN IFILL: Well, you can take your optimism with you into the next step of your life. Good luck.

BRUCE BABBITT: Thank you very much.

GWEN IFILL: Thank you.

RECAP

RAY SUAREZ: Again, the major stories of this Friday: The evenly-divided Senate approved a power-sharing plan, and President Clinton banned road building in nearly a third of all federal forest lands, and imposed strict new limits on logging. We'll see you online, and again here Monday evening, have a good weekend. I'm Ray Suarez. Thanks and good night.