Added Nov. 5

Congress will be missing some colorful, notable members in January

By JON FRANDSEN
Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON — The next Congress is going to be a little less fun.
Some of the quirkiest, most colorful, charming and maddening House members and senators will be gone.

There will be no more, "Beam me up, Scotty," from Rep. James Traficant, D-Ohio, who is in jail for taking bribes. The lawmaker with a bad hairpiece was known for using the phrase from "Star Trek" in his speeches.

No longer will Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., tool around in the motorized cart he used to maneuver around tourists, staff members and reporters as he came and went to cast votes in the Senate.

There will be a little less class with the absence of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., and a little less glamour without Sen. Fred Thompson. But the Tennessee Republican can still be found a few notches down the television dial from C-SPAN2 on NBC's "Law and Order" on Wednesday nights.

People come and go from Congress all the time, but this year there have been an unusual number of retirements - voluntary and forced - of the well known, the venerable and the vilified.

The departures don't mean just the loss of some of the Capitol's most colorful characters, but the end of an era.

Helms, first elected in 1972, and Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., were the last vestiges of Old South conservatism. Their retirements mark the end of a long transformation of the southern GOP. A particularly defiant, polarizing brand of politics has given way to a warmer and more cerebral kind of ideology embodied by rising stars such as Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

While they long ago renounced their racist views, Helms and Thurmond were the last of the old-line segregationists in the Senate.

Thurmond leaves behind two notable records. One will be tough to beat, the other probably impossible.

First elected in 1954, Thurmond is the longest-serving senator in U.S. history and will probably be the first one to reach 100 in office when his birthday arrives Dec. 5. Thurmond also staged the longest filibuster in the Senate, holding the floor for more than two days over a civil rights bill. It's something not likely to be done again because rules no longer require a senator to speak to stall proceedings.

The highest-ranking House lawmaker leaving in January is Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, known for acerbic and especially blunt attacks on Democrats. He once told Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., - first lady at the time - that "reports of your charm are overstated."

Also leaving is No. 4 House leader J.C. Watts of Oklahoma, the only black Republican in Congress. A former star quarterback at the University of Oklahoma, Watts is not the only Oklahoma gridiron star to leave Congress. Rep. Steve Largent, formerly with the Seattle Seahawks, resigned his seat in February to run for Oklahoma governor.

In the Senate, Wellstone's death was a particular blow. Colleagues of both parties were unfailingly buoyed by his good nature, present even in the most heated of debates. It's an especially painful loss to Democrats, whom Wellstone often tried to prod to difficult positions when political pragmatism threatened to overwhelm principle.

Other notable lawmakers not returning include:

• Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, a pure conservative whose frequent obstinacy was a constant thorn to Democrats, and even an occasional annoyance to GOP leaders. He's best known for saying he never makes a decision without making sure it passes the "Dickey Flatt test" - a constituent he spoke with often.
  
  
• Sen. Bob Torricelli, D-N.J., quit his re-election campaign in early October when it was clear he would not survive because of an ethics scandal.
  
  
• Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., one of the most antagonistic prosecutors of President Bill Clinton during his impeachment hearings, lost in a primary when he was put into the same district as another GOP incumbent.
  
  
• Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., was a hard-working but little known moderate until his name was romantically linked to intern Chandra Levy.
  
  
• Rep. Tony Hall, D-Ohio, perhaps Congress' most ardent enemy of hunger. He went on a 22-day fast to protest a decision to eliminate a congressional committee on hunger. He gave up his seat in the middle of the year when his district was redrawn and President Bush made him the ambassador to a United Nations food program based in Rome.
  
  
• Rep. Patsy Mink, D-Hawaii, died in office, costing Democrats one of their most consistent liberals, especially on women's issues.