In 1992, Rod Grams stepped from behind his news anchor's desk to defeat a DFL incumbent for a seat in the U.S. House. Now he wants to stride across Capitol Hill to one of the world's most prestigious and powerful institutions, the U.S. Senate.
In deciding whether he should take that ambitious walk, Minnesota voters will have something they didn't have two years ago: a profile of his performance in office. The votes he has cast in Congress and the bills he has pushed outline, for the first time, the picture of Rod Grams, the politician. They make it clear that he is, by far, the most conservative representative Minnesota has sent to Washington in recent years.
One measure of his political tilt is the scorecard kept by Congressional Quarterly. Over the years, the publication has tracked votes on an array of issues to identify what it calls a "conservative coalition" in Congress.
During 1993, Grams voted with the coalition 95 percent of the time, placing him on a par with Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia, House Minority Whip. It places Grams far to the right of the other current and recently departed Independent-Republican members of Congress from Minnesota, none of whom topped 90 percent.
Another measure is the plaques displayed in the waiting room of Grams' Washington office. One shelf displays the "Friend of the Family" award from the Christian Coalition for his support of family values, the ideological centerpiece of Christian conservatives. Next to it is the "Spirit of Enterprise" award from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for Grams' votes, including those cast for the North American Free Trade Agreement and against President Clinton's economic stimulus and five-year budget packages. He also has won a perfect rating from the American Conservative Union.
Among the actions that earned him the conservative rating are votes against bills or amendments that would allow workers to take unpaid leaves for family and medical reasons, lift the ban on gays in the military, increase mining fees on federal lands to pay for environmental cleanup and reform campaign financing.
For Grams, "conservative" is a label to wear proudly. Indeed, he has gone out of his way to proclaim himself a spokesman for conservatism in Minnesota. He did that last winter when he was criticized for sending his taxpayer-paid newsletters outside the Sixth District that he represents.
Grams' defense was that someone needs to express the conservative viewpoint to Minnesotans.
But Minnesota Independent-Republicans are careful to note that while Grams is conservative, he is not out on the fringe.
"Rod is a mainstream conservative," said state IR Party Chairman Chris Georgacas. "He is a good fit with the values most Minnesotans share."
Now, Grams, 46, is on a high-stakes mission for the national Republican Party. This is the year when the party expects to gain seats, and losing Sen. Dave Durenberger's - the seat Grams is running for - is not in any Republican script.
The Rod Grams who will be carrying the party's torch this year is a far more seasoned politician than the Grams who beat U.S. Rep. Gerry Sikorski two years ago. His premiere performances in 1992 were, to put it bluntly, dreadful.
His political core was as solid as bedrock, but his grasp of the issues was soft. Without a TelePrompTer he was inarticulate, and under questioning, he often looked frightened and trapped.
"I learned that it was easier to ask the questions than answer them," he admitted in a recent interview.
Grams had spent 23 years asking questions or reading the nightly news for radio and TV stations in the Midwest. After growing up on a dairy farm about 20 miles north of Anoka and graduating from high school, Grams spent 10 years juggling multiple jobs while attending either vocational school or college, often putting in 19-hour days. He studied electronics, business and journalism.
Before he entered the news business, he worked as an engineering consultant for seven years. His last stop in broadcasting, and the one that brought him the most attention in Minnesota, was at KMSP-TV, a Twin Cities based independent station.
As a journalist, Grams had to be outwardly apolitical. But in private, he fumed over a federal government that he felt had run amok, overspending the budget and overextending its reach into the free market and interfering with family life. Grams got his chance to do something about it in 1992, when he was pushed out of his anchor's chair after KMSP decided to take on a new high-tech look.
He challenged Sikorski, a career legislator from Stillwater who had been mortally wounded by his involvement in the House banking episode. Grams won a three-way race to represent the north suburban district, partly because a third candidate, independent Dean Barkley, siphoned votes from Sikorski.
Now, after 19 months of on-the-job-training, Grams has completed the transformation from news reader to newsmaker. He is more confident and polished in public appearances, and he displays greater control over issues. At a recent breakfast meeting in Rochester, Grams stood up well to inspection from Mayo Clinic doctors who probed him about details of competing health care bills in Congress.
He also is more skilled at avoiding potential minefields. At a fund-raiser at the Kahler Hotel in Rochester last week, Grams froze for a few seconds when a supporter raised the abortion issue and invoked the name of the IR-endorsed candidate for governor, Allen Quist. Chub Stewart, an IR activist, told Grams to steer clear of the abortion debate and keep his distance from Quist.
"I think it [abortion] is a [politically] deadly issue for some. And if you're identified as a Quist kind of person, that's a deadly thing to be identified as," Stewart advised. "As for abortion, I don't think you have to say another word about it, and you shouldn't."
Stewart's comments put Grams on the spot in a room that had both supporters of Quist and Gov. Arne Carlson in attendance. But Grams defused the situation with humor.
"I'll take your advice, starting right now," he said, smiling.
A few minutes later he went on to say that he opposes abortion, but paring the federal budget is his first priority.
The incident turned the spotlight on the balancing act that Grams must perform as he tries to avoid the war underway in the IR gubernatorial primary.
"I've got to walk the fence," he said.
So far, he seems to have done it successfully, by saying he supports the endorsed candidate, but avoiding joint efforts with Quist.
Grams won the party's endorsement by patching together a coalition of Quist and Carlson supporters, conservatives and moderates. He can't afford to alienate either of the party's two dominant factions.
That endorsing battle exposed a potential Achilles' heel on Grams relating to his personal finances. In March, the Star Tribune reported that the congressman was not paying taxes on his new $151,000 house in Ramsey. It also disclosed that a lumber company had initiated foreclosure proceedings because of an unpaid $38,000 bill.
Grams promptly paid both overdue bills, but the issue was used against him in a heated endorsement fight. Grams was the front-runner, but the attacks caused some of his support to bleed off. He recovered and won endorsement, but not until the sixth ballot.
Grams said the fact that he fulfilled all his financial obligations without seeking bankruptcy protection says more about his trustworthiness than the fact that he encountered a financial squeeze.
As a congressman, Grams' proudest accomplishment is his Families First bill, which was incorporated into the Republican alternative to Clinton's budget proposal. The bill, written with the help of the Heritage Foundation, would give families an annual tax credit of $500 per child. It also would cut capital gains taxes, expand individual retirement accounts and create other tax breaks. In all, the package offered about $200 billion in tax cuts by 1998. Although the bill didn't pass, it was a significant achievement for a first termer.
But the legislation drew criticism from some House members who said it would repeat the mistakes of the Reagan administration, when Congress enacted Reagan's tax cuts without showing the same zeal in cutting spending.
Grams' bill would have made up for lost taxes with a 2 percent limit on increases in federal spending, but no specific cuts were listed.
When Grams presented the proposal at a House Budget Committee hearing in February, Committee Chairman Martin Sabo, D-Minn., badgered him to list the cuts. Since discretionary spending already is limited, the savings would have to come from elsewhere, such as Medicare and Medicaid, Sabo said.
"Do you plan on asking the seniors to pay more?" Sabo asked. "Do you want us to reimburse less to the hospitals, to the doctors?"
Grams replied: "I'm talking entitlements across the board. There are no sacred cows." (He did say later that Social Security should be exempt from the cuts.)
Sabo: "Which ones do you have in mind?" Grams: "Any of them."
Grams said he intends to continue pushing the proposal, which has Republican sponsorship in the Senate as well as in the House.
Ask Grams why he would give breaks to all households with children rather than targeting it for those with low incomes, unemployment or illness, and he launches a litany of complaints about federal social policy since the Great Society days of Lyndon Johnson's presidency in the 1960s.
"When you began to replace a father with a check, when you began to have the government step in as an authority in the family, you led to the breakdown in the family. When the government stepped in and said: `You don't have to worry about taking care of your elderly parents, the government can do it ... You don't have to worry about sending a lunch with your kid to school, the government will do it for you.' ... Look at the results. You are afraid to send your kids to school because of knives and guns and beatings. Teachers are afraid to teach," Grams said.
This statement, and another statement he made when he won the Christian Coalition award, frame Grams' view of the issue:
"Families are under attack from all angles - the media, in schools and from all levels of government. I'm doing my best to reverse this trend and once again put families first."
Perceived threats, attacks and enemies permeate his political world. One of the "pro-family" stands he took was a vote that would shield home schooling from federal rules.
But he also voted against legislation that would allow workers to take unpaid leaves for family and medical reasons. That vote frequently is cited by DFL Senate candidate Ann Wynia when she argues that Grams is no friend of Minnesota families.
On fiscal issues, Grams has kept his 1992 campaign promise to attack the federal deficit. He has voted for further cuts in federal spending and for a balanced budget amendment.
He also has consistently opposed gun control, including the Brady Bill, which required a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases, and another measure that banned 19 types of assault weapons.
And he has taken a firm stance against abortion, voting against a bill that established federal penalties for people who use force to obstruct access to abortion clinics and voting for bills that limit federal abortion funding and require parental notification of minors' abortions.
One of his most controversial votes came when he was the only Minnesotan in the House to vote against tightening rules for lobbyists. Wynia was quick to point out that he had pledged in 1992 to "eliminate special privileges congressmen have enjoyed."
Grams said the bill was a sham that would curb no abuses and would just create "a new government bureaucracy" to keep track of lobbyists. Recently he did vote for a different congressional reform, one that would subject Congress to employment laws such as worker safety regulations. And he said he may vote for a revised lobbying reform bill that "has more teeth."
Grams added two highly controversial votes against the crime bill in just the past two weeks. Grams said the bill, which would fund the hiring of 100,000 new police officers and spend billions of dollars building more prisons, was too weak. He especially objected to provisions that would fund programs intended to prevent crime by creating jobs and recreational activities for young people in crime-prone areas.
With the Sept. 13 primary bearing down fast, Grams is trapped in one of the most chaotic sessions Washington can remember. Classic gridlock over the crime bill and health care reform kept Congress working long past its scheduled date for an August recess, which House members generally use for full-time campaigning. As things stand now, he probably will be called back into session to work on health care during the crucial week before the primary.
In one sense, that puts him at a disadvantage to opponents who can spend all of their time in Minnesota making a last pitch to voters.
But there also are considerable advantages. Going into the home stretch of the primary campaign, Grams will be working on highly visible issues that will enhance his name recognition and the congressional image he has established since 1992.
Health care: Would you support a Clinton-style managed competition reform, a Canadian style single-payer plan or some other version of health care reform?
"I strongly oppose the Clinton/Gephardt/Mitchell plans as well as Canadian-single-payer system. Each of these proposals places too much control of the $1 trillion health care industry in the hands of the federal government ... true reform must include portability, medical malpractice reform, elimination of pre-existing condition exclusions, medical savings accounts and choice in health providers ... these principles are contained in the Consumer Choice Health Security Act which I've coauthored. Modeled after the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program, my plan provides affordable private insurance at no net cost while simultaneously rejecting global budgets or rationing of services."
U.S. military: What role should the military play in Bosnia, Rwanda and other countries torn by civil strife? In general, what role should the U.S. play in the post-Cold War era?
"We must not repeat the disaster that occurred in Somalia, where President Clinton decided to extend the humanitarian mission to a more broad based open-ended involvement. We can no longer continue this practice of deferring foreign policy decisions to the U.N. Instead, we must seize the leadership role when U.S. interests are at stake."
Welfare: What changes in the welfare system, if any, would you support?
"I have cosponsored the Real Welfare Reform Act of 1994, which gives states and localities the ability to administer block grants for the education, training, job search, and work experience needed to prepare welfare recipients after two years of payments ... the bill discourages out-of-wedlock births by reducing subsidies to unmarried mothers under 21 and encourages a cap of the number of children."
Economy: What should the federal government do to spur the U.S. economy, both in the short term and long term?
"The Families First legislation I introduced in Congress accomplishes both of these goals. It contains a $38 billion economic growth package, including a reduction in the capital gains tax rate from 28 percent to 15 percent, indexation of capital gains and a neutral cost recovery system for business investments. These incentives are estimated to create 2.5 million jobs over the next five years ... [it] would also balance the federal budget by placing a 2 percent cap on the annual growth of federal spending."
Agriculture: The 5-year Farm Bill will be on Congress' worklist next year. What changes, if any, would you make in the amount of money spent on farm support? Are there any farm programs that should be eliminated?
"The 1995 Farm Bill will also be shaped by th e provisions under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) ... we must utilize all available trade opportunities for the benefit of our farmers and our economy ... we must also look at the environmental policies to be included in the Farm Bill debate. We can start by focusing on the results of previous Farm Bill policies which have aimed to be friendly to the environment, farmer and consumers. In addition, land-use regulations must be based on sound scientific techniques, like risk assessment and cost/benefit analyses, to determine their consequences to farmers."
Urban issues: What role should the federal government play in the revitalization of cities? Specifically, what should Congress do about the increasing need for housing for the poor.
"The most important contribution Congress can make to revitalize our urban areas is to address the rising rate of crime in our society. We must show criminals that the federal government will have a zero tolerance for unlawful activity - and carry that policy out with tougher penalties, stricter sentencing and an end to our current system of `catch and releases."
Federal deficit: How would you cut the deficit? Would you be willing to cut entitlements like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare?
Advocates 2 percent cap on the annual growth in federal spending. "This cap would result in deficit saving large enough to eliminate the budget deficit in eight years, while paying for family tax relief and jobs-creating growth incentives." Believes Social Security should be exempt from cuts.
Crime: Should repeat, violent offenders be locked up for life? What policies would you pursue regarding the increasing availability of guns?
"I've cosponsored the Crime Control Act of 1993, which requires some violent prisoners to serve their sentences, impose stricter penalties for crimes committed with firearms, restricts frivolous death row appeals, and promotes victims rights."
Family: How do you define family values and how far should the federal government go in its attempts to strengthen those values?
"I don't believe it's my place to define values for any family other than my own. But there are certain values and standards that most families in Minnesota and throughout America try to live by and teach their children, including hard work, honesty, patriotism and faith in God." Advocates reduction in family tax burden through Families First legislation, giving families a $500 per child tax credit."
Nuclear: Minnesota just emerged from a struggle over the storage of nuclear waste, a struggle engendered by the federal government's foot-dragging on its promise to develop a national waste storage site. What would you do to speed this process?
Is pushing Department of Energy to begin removing spent nuclear fuel from Minnesota by January 1998 and wants federal government to speed up efforts to build permanent storage site.
Leadership: What special qualities of leadership do you bring to the office you are seeking?
"The most important quality of leadership for an elected official is their ability to withstand political pressure to do what's right for the American people. This has been the centerpiece of my philosophy of governing - to fulfill my promises to the people of Minnesota without bending to the pressures of Washington and its special interests - and I believe I have been successful in carrying that mission out. When the Penny-Kasich amendment to cut $90 billion from the federal budget came on the floor, I voted for it, even though powerful members of Congress threatened me with political retribution. I did so because I believe the long-term benefits of deficit reduction far outweigh the a short-term gain of local projects, and I have encouraged my colleagues to adopt this way of thinking."