The Ragin' Cajun Versus The Ox

By VIVECA NOVAK AND MICHAEL WEISSKOPF

The serious business of the Republican Convention was Big Business. Nowhere was that more apparent than in the face-off between two powerful House members vying for chairmanship of the committee that corporate America cares most about--the House Commerce Committee.

The Ox and the Swamp Fox--Ohio Representative Mike Oxley and Louisiana Representative Billy Tauzin--held dueling parties during the week, bankrolled by many of the companies regulated by the committees. Both lawmakers drew on their personal traditions. Tauzin threw a mini Mardi Gras featuring Cajun cuisine, flashy beads and the New Orleans sound of the Neville Family Celebration. Oxley reached back to his love of early rock 'n' roll with a lineup that included Chubby Checker and Frankie Avalon at the site of the old American Bandstand show, where his wife used to dance as a Philadelphia bobby-soxer. The immemorial Dick Clark emceed.

Each Congressman was trying to outmaneuver the other in what is something of a popularity contest. But the sponsors of the festivities had their eye on the bottom line. Which of the two pro-business legislators wins scarcely matters to them so long as they maintain access to the winner.

Which explains why such corporate underwriters as Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, SBC Communications and Philip Morris wrote big checks for both fetes. Total cost of the two parties: about $1 million.

The rivalry between the two lawmakers dates back to 1995, when Tauzin, then a Democrat, switched parties and was rewarded with the chairmanship of a key subcommittee--though not before an angry Oxley, whose seniority was being usurped, weighed in and forced House Speaker Newt Gingrich to split the subcommittee in two. Now Oxley oversees the financial industry and hazardous-waste issues, and Tauzin looks after telecommunications and trade.

The opponents are doing more than throw parties to line up support. They are handing out real cash.

Each has a safe seat in his home district, and both have raised funds aplenty to dole out as favors to the campaigns of other House members. So far in this election season, the Cajun has raised more than $8 million for G.O.P. candidates and the party, much of it through bayou-flavored luncheons for colleagues that net up to $50,000 each. Oxley has done better than $5 million.

A staff member close to Tauzin says, "Billy thinks it's in the bag." Maybe. The November contest for control of the House is tight, and odds are about even that the chairmanship will fall to neither Tauzin nor Oxley but to that old lion of the Democratic Party John Dingell.

But if the Republicans hold their majority, any effort that Oxley and Tauzin have made will be worth it. "You can't say, 'I'm not going to play this game,'" says Representative Steve Largent of Oklahoma, a colleague on the committee. "The competition would eat you for lunch."

--By Viveca Novak and Michael Weisskopf, with reporting by Mitch Frank

With reporting by Mitch Frank