THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 12, 1995 TAG: 9510110014
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
Who needs term limits? The turnover in Congress has been tremendous in the past several elections. Half of all current House members have arrived since 1988. Veteran legislators are falling by the wayside. The latest to go is Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga.
Attrition is normal, but the shifting fortunes of the parties has hastened departures - Nunn's among them. For Democrats who climbed the seniority ladder and acquired real clout, 1994 was a bitter pill.
Nunn went from being the powerful head of the Senate Armed Services Committee to being its all but powerless ranking minority member. After 23 years in the Senate, he was playing second banana to Strom Thurmond instead of running the show.
Nunn has been a careful steward of the nation's defenses, but the end of the Cold War and the Republican ascendancy left him far from the action. His only non-defense initiative is a tax-reform plan that's going nowhere because it conflicts with the Republican program.
Nunn was a centrist Democrat of the old school who put together a winning coalition of black and rural voters, but he's one of the last of the breed. The South is increasingly dominated by a new coalition of suburban economic conservatives and the cultural conservatives of the Christian right. With the departure of Nunn, Virginia's Sen. Charles Robb is going to be a lonely man.
Nunn tried to steer his party into the middle and was often frustrated. In his retirement remarks he described the Democratic Party as pursuing a ``brain-dead defense of the status quo.'' He praised the Republican revolution for seeking lower taxes and entitlement reform but also said the revolution was in danger of going to extremes.
Nunn said neither party is serving the people and that they need to break their dependence on money and special interests or a third party will surely rise. He called for two-year budgeting so the Congress can spend less time on passing money bills and more time overseeing how the money is spent.
Nunn is the ninth senator to announce he won't seek re-election in 1996, the eighth Democrat. He joins veterans like Bill Bradley, Paul Simon, Bennett Johnston, and James Exon. Republicans are likely to take many of the seats, giving them a cast-iron Senate majority. And the exodus isn't over. Moderate Republicans Nancy Kassebaum and Mark Hatfield are two more likely retirees. Robert Packwood is already gone.
Ironically, Nunn's retirement and those of other centrists probably means the next Senate will not be the more moderate and cooperative body he thinks voters are looking for. Instead, it's likely to be more polarized, more split between zealous conservatives and demoralized Democrats. And that may only increase voter disenchantment and feed a public hunger for a politics less dedicated to bickering and more committed to nonpartisan problem-solving. by CNB