PROMISES TO KEEP

By KAREN TUMULTY WASHINGTON

Appearances can be deceiving. Week after week, the Republican revolution proceeded apace. Bill after bill barreled through the House of Representatives. The Republicans won easily. The most important votes weren't even close. Outside the House chamber, however, the picture was very different. Last week House Republicans were showing their first real signs of strain since their euphoric takeover in January. The media were filled with images of the President sharing tacos and corn nibblets with the clientele of an elementary-school cafeteria in Alexandria, Virginiad-a direct hit in the public relations war over Republican plans to curb the growth of the school-lunch program. Wounded Republicans cried foul, with Congressman John Boehner of Ohio declaring, "There is no tactic too shameless, too low or too outrageous for this White House." The G.O.P. was losing the food fight.

If Republicans failed to see that one coming, it is probably because they are so bleary-eyed these days. Having made it two-thirds of the way through their first-100-day agenda, the House is working longer hours than anyone can remember in the early part of a session. But now "they are hitting the wall that we knew they would hit," says congressional scholar Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution. "The pace of this first 100 days is taking its toll on the Republicans. There's so much going on. They're struggling; they've exhausted themselves."

And for all that activity, there is yet precious little to show--at least in terms of laws on the books. The only provision of the Contract with America that has cleared both houses and been signed by Clinton is the one applying federal labor laws to Congress.

The major frustration is coming from the Senate, where even some Republicans view much of the contract with disdain. Henry Waxman, a liberal Democratic Congressman from California, smiles at the mention of that reviled institution (House members generally refer to it with scorn as the Other Body). "The Senate?" Waxman said. "A wonderful place. Very deliberative body. Thoughtful people." Fresh from defeating the balanced-budget amendment, Senate Democrats, backed by some Republicans, are preparing to dismantle the next item from the House G.O.P.'s contract: the line-item veto. Senate leaders hope to take it up this week, but the bill probably will have to be watered down before it even reaches the floor. Even when the Senate has passed a bill that the House has sent it, relations between the two chambers have not been easy. Late Friday, after wrangling for a full five weeks, a House-Senate conference committee finally reached an agreement on legislation that prevents Washington from imposing unfunded mandates on the states-but only after weakening the bill. Its proponents admit the measure would slow the pace of mandates, not end the practice altogether.

As hard as he fought to get into the Senate, Pennsylvania freshman Rick Santorum is exasperated at its ways and now finds himself looking wistfully at his former colleagues in the House. "The Senate as a body was designed to slow things down. I hear that all the time," the young conservative grumbles. "Fine. Deliberate-but act!" Santorum and Florida Republican Connie Mack forced a party caucus last week to consider stripping Appropriations chairman Mark Hatfield of his rank for having refused to cast the vote that could have passed the balanced-budget amendment. All they got for their effort was a promise to study ways of improving party discipline in the future.

Even in the House, things are likely to get markedly rougher for the Republicans in the next few weeks. In fact, G.O.P. leaders are probably facing their first defeat at the end of the month, when the House votes on congressional term limits-a concept wildly popular everywhere but on Capitol Hill. They had originally planned to take up the issue this week but postponed it after discovering that no fewer than nine different factions were battling over what form the constitutional amendment should take. And those were the people who support the idea.

Even House Speaker Newt Gingrich is showing the wear. Having been caught playing a little too loose with the facts in blaming the Democrats for all the ills of public schools and housing, he was reduced last week to carrying a stack of books--with selected passages duly page-marked with stick-on notes--into his daily press briefing to back up his contentions.

For the Republicans in the House, the past two months have been a frustrating lesson in the meaning of checks and balances. But even if they end up losing some of the big early battles, they insist that the war is only beginning. "Our term is two years, not 100 days," says G.O.P. freshman Roger Wicker of Mississippi. "The balanced-budget amendment and the line-item veto are means to an end, and that's federal-budget discipline. The real test of our victory will be where the deficit is at the end of that two-year period."

--With reporting by Dick Thompson/Washington

With reporting by Dick Thompson/Washington