The odd couple - Senate majority leader, Trent Lott, and Vermont senator, Jim Jeffords, vastly disagree on gay issues

The fate of gay civil rights legislation could hang on the surprising alliance of two powerful and distinctly different Republican leaders

Back in June, as Bob Dole was packing up his Senate office to hit the campaign trail, Republicans Trent Lott and Thad Cochran were lining up votes for their bids to replace Dole as Senate majority leader. Their profiles were similar: Both are from Mississippi and have strong conservative credentials. The conventional wisdom on Capitol Hill was that hard-line conservatives would pick Lott, while more moderate Republicans would opt for Cochran. Yet when the votes were cast, the Senate's most liberal Republican--Vermont's Jim Jeffords--was firmly on Lott's side, and Lott won.

Fast-forward six months. The 1996 elections are over. Republicans have not only kept control of the Senate but also increased their margin by two seats. They meet to decide who will rise to become committee leaders. The retirement of Nancy Kassebaum leaves an opening at the top slot of the Labor and Human Resources Committee--the panel that has jurisdiction over most of the social legislation that moves through the Senate. Jeffords is next in line for the job; the right wing is nervous. Indiana's Dan Coats, a staunch conservative, thinks seriously about challenging Jeffords, but one man tells him no. That man is Trent Lott.

Lott and Jeffords: If ever there were a congressional odd couple, this is it. Lott lent his name and image to the antigay videotape Gay Rights/Special Rights to denounce what he believed to be an immoral gay agenda. Jeffords is counted by gay political groups as a close friend; he's a key sponsor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the bill that would protect gays and lesbians from job, discrimination and one that likely will resurface at some point during the new congressional session.

A logical place for hearings on ENDA would be the Labor and Human Resources Committee. What's uncertain is how far either Jeffords or Lott is likely to go in pressing a social agenda and how much cooperation either can win from the other.

"No one doubts that Trent Lott is a soul mate of the conservatives in the Senate," says Thomas E. Mann, director of governmental studies at the Brookings Institution, a left-of-center think tank in Washington, D.C. "Jeffords is now an outsider. There are very few Republicans left who even come dose to approaching I his moderation on social issues."

But Lott and Jeffords have a long history. Lott, 55, became a member of the House of Representatives in 1973, and Jeffords, 62, followed him two years later. Both were players in the House who then moved on to the Senate after the 1988 elections.

Of the two, Lott is clearly the stronger power and the one more likely to have the majority on his side. "In no sense does Jeffords have carte blanche [with his committee]," Mann says, adding, however, that Jeffords "is a rather independent fellow, and he's not afraid to be alone in his party on matters he believes in."

How the alliance will play out is anyone's guess. But expect the relationship to be tested over the next two years as Jeffords's committee tackles a number of issues that impact lesbians, gay men, and people affected by AIDS. Among the issues it could or must address are the reauthorization of the National Institutes of Health (including what to do with the Office of AIDS Research), changes to the Food and Drug Administration and confirmation of a new commissioner to the agency, the survival or elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts, and the continuing struggle to improve the nation's health care system.

And of course, there's the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which lost by only one vote in the Senate last year when it came up as part of the debate over gay marriage. All the Democrats now sitting on the Labor and Human Resources Committee either voted for ENDA in the last congressional session or pledged during their election campaigns to support it Jeffords is the only Republican on the panel who backed the bill; however, of the two newly elected GOP senators on the committee--Maine's Susan Collins and Wyoming's Mike Enzi--Collins is viewed as a potential supporter of gay rights. If Collins does back ENDA, there will be a one-vote majority on the committee to approve the bill.

As the congressional session begins, Jeffords has yet to decide whether he will hold a hearing on ENDA in his committee. Officials with the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights lobby, are taking a cautious approach, "I'm not seeking any commitments from him," says Winnie Stachelberg, the HRC's legislative director. "We'll meet with his staff several times and plan our strategy."

The group does, however, regard Jeffords as a powerful ally. "It's clearly Senator Jeffords who's in charge here," Stachelberg says. "It's his committee. The relationships we've built leave me confident that whatever the agenda of the committee is, we'll be able to support it."

As for Lott, a man who often was denounced by the HRC, Stachelberg holds out some hope here too: "There's some room to work with him. He's the consummate deal-maker. He wants to move the legislative agenda forward."

Most congressional analysts see Lott pursuing fiscal and budget issues without aggressively promoting a socially conservative agenda. "He won't go looking for divisive social issues," Mann predicts despite the GOP's stronger majority. "Every politician is trying to figure out what the message of the election was," Mann explains, "and they've concluded that it was to avoid gratuitously offending some segment of the electorate."

Jeffords, meanwhile, must perform a balancing act. "I don't think anyone expects him to change his personal voting record," says David Mason, vice president for government relations at the Heritage Foundation, the ideological counter to Brookings. "I mostly expect that he's not going to use his power as chairman to stop what 50 or 51 Republican senators want. Jeffords's obligation, as far as the leadership is concerned, is to work with them and not push something that's contrary to the leadership's goals."

Mark Powden, who has worked for Jeffords for 13 years and is likely to be staff director on Jeffords's committee, acknowledges his boss's independent nature but adds that "on the vast majority of issues--labor management, education, and health care, to some extent--he's going to be in sync" with the GOP majority. Even where he differs, Powden suggests, Jeffords isn't likely to be quixotic. "If the vast majority of Republicans wanted to do something and it were killed in [Jeffords's] committee, there's nothing preventing the leadership or a senator from bringing it up on the floor, so it's not a useful strategy," Powden says.

Some observers have suggested that where Newt Gingrich and the House have been tamed, Lott and the Senate are ready to step in. Practically every senator who retired or was defeated on Election Day has been replaced by someone more conservative. Congressional Quarterly, the respected weekly magazine that covers Congress, described the situation as "giving Lott and the Senate an ideological advantage not seen since the overwhelming Democratic membership" in place in 1964.

Wherever Lott tries to take the Senate, many observers will be watching Jeffords to see if he agrees or disagrees with his leader. And one issue they'll be checking is ENDA. "You're not going to see Jeffords changing his stripes on ENDA," says Kevin Ivers, a spokesman for the gay lobbying group Log Cabin Republicans. "Not one whit. He may have to take a step in Lott's direction to move the ball. But then again, Lott is going to have to take a step toward Jeffords's position--because on ENDA, Jeffords has strength behind him."

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