Everybody's

New York's Republican Senator Alfonse D'Amato may be considered a lightweight on serious affairs of state, but when it comes to taking care of constituents, he is in a class by himself. After narrowly capturing the seat of the highly respected but terminally ill Senator Jacob Javits in 1980, the "Pothole Senator" easily won re-election in 1986 as a first-rate fixer who answers phone calls and delivers goodies to the home front. Said an admiring colleague: "He works harder than any Congressman."

Perhaps too hard. In the varied scandals involving improper political influence that have beset the capital, one name keeps popping up: Alfonse D'Amato. Last week D'Amato even became entangled in New York City's increasingly nasty mayoralty contest between Republican Rudolph Giuliani, the Mob-busting former U.S. Attorney, and Democrat David Dinkins. D'Amato conceded that he had telephoned Giuliani in 1984 and 1985 to pass along pleas for a review of charges or reduced prison sentences for Mobsters Paul Castellano and Mario Gigante. Giuliani refused to intercede.

In July, Joseph Monticciolo, the former New York regional administrator for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, contended that D'Amato had repeatedly pressured him to approve housing projects. Many of them, HUD documents show, were in Puerto Rico, which the regional office administered. Last week HUD Secretary Jack Kemp decided to move Puerto Rico operations out of the New York region, which would put them beyond D'Amato's reach. D'Amato also helped gain HUD financing for work in his hometown on Long Island, where his brother Armand, a lawyer, profited from the closings on house sales. Armand D'Amato also represented a company that won a HUD contract for a luxury resort rather than housing for the poor.

Executives of Unisys Corp., some of whom have pleaded guilty to various conspiracy and bribery charges in the Pentagon procurement scandal, pressured others to make illegal contributions to D'Amato's 1986 campaign and then seek reimbursement from the Defense Department.

D'Amato complains that he is the victim of "tremendous distortions" by the press involving a few incidents among the hundreds of thousands of inquiries he has made on behalf of his constituents. "A Congressman and Senator is supposed to do exactly what I do," he insists. "Abuse is getting people preferential treatment when they're not entitled to it. Getting them something they're entitled to, fighting for it, that's me, all the way."