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New Congress convenes with parties nearly equal in strength

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January 4, 2001 

WASHINGTON, JAN 3 (UNB/AP) - The U.S. Congress, more evenly divided between the two political parties than it has been in decades, promises to make history.

When the 107th Congress convenes Wednesday with lawmakers taking their oaths of office, there will be two firsts. The Senate has never been divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, and Sen.-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York will become the first presidential spouse to enter Congress.

Her husband, President Bill Clinton, will watch from the visitors' gallery above the Senate floor as Vice President Al Gore, the vanquished Democratic presidential candidate, reads the oath to her and other senators. Just 17 days later, Clinton will cede the White House to Republican George W. Bush, and Congress will begin focusing on Bush's agenda of cutting taxes, loosening federal strings on education and other issues.

But first, Senate Republican leaders must decide how to handle Democratic demands that Senate committee memberships be split evenly and that members of both parties be given equal opportunities to speak in the chamber.

"We don't have everything worked out," but the two sides are close, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said Tuesday after meeting again with Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle.

In a gesture of cooperation, aides from both parties said Republicans will let Democrats chair Senate committees for the first 17 days of the new Congress, when Democrats will be the majority because Gore will still be vice president. The move will be mostly symbolic because the committees are likely to do little work beyond considering some of Bush's nominees for top administration posts.

Eleven new senators and 41 new House members will be among the 434 House members and 34 senators sworn into office. The House has a vacancy from last month's death of Rep. Julian Dixon, a California Democrat, and only new senators and returning ones who were re-elected will be sworn in.

The new Congress will continue Republican control of both chambers that began in 1995. It will be the first time Republicans will have had control of both Congress and the White House since January 1955, when Dwight Eisenhower was president.

Even so, Bush's excruciatingly close presidential election victory over Gore, who won the popular vote by 500,000 but lost in the electoral college, only added to the sense that neither party had a popular mandate with which to govern.

The Senate's 50-50 division almost was matched by the House's slender Republican majority of 221-211, plus two independents evenly divided between the parties and the vacancy.

Not since the 83rd Congress, elected in 1952, have the two chambers been so closely divided. Then, the Republicans held the House 221-213, with one independent, and the Senate by 48-47, plus an independent who sided with Republicans.

Both chambers will meet in joint session on Saturday for Congress' ceremonial task of reading the electoral votes that made Bush the next president.

After that, the House will not be at work until early February. Some Senate committees will work through the month on nominations, but little other work in that chamber is expected.