Y2K Behind The Scenes
     While some Republicans were willing to send President Clinton a bill he would veto—and thereby force the administration to choose between the traditional support of trial lawyers and its newfound high-tech constituency—the more pragmatic high tech industry wasn't willing to settle for failure.
     The House and Senate introduced Y2K liability bills in February. Both bills, H.R. 775 and S. 96, sprinted through the committee process, and after fits and starts in the Senate, both bodies were ready to craft a compromise in conference by late June.
     A trial balloon floated by House Majority Leader Richard Armey calling for the House to vote on the Senate-passed Y2K bill without a conference popped when the Year 2000 Coalition—headed by the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other strong forces in the business community—sent a letter to Republican leaders calling for a conference.
     The leadership responded on June 24 and scheduled a late-afternoon meeting for one hour. The temperature and frustration rose in the small room outside the Capitol gift shop when Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, chastised White House negotiators for joining the process so late in the game.
     "Concessions have been made to meet the president's concerns," said McCain, who led the Senate's effort on the bill. "Up until 15 minutes ago, I had not heard from the White House when I got a call from [White House Chief of Staff John] Podesta, who wanted to sit down tomorrow."
     The short, but tense, meeting broke up with an agreement to negotiate in earnest with a deadline set for the following Tuesday. House lawmakers agreed to abandon their bill, H.R. 775, and work from the more moderate, Senate-passed S. 96.
     After being harangued for not offering specific fixes for the Senate bill, the White House drafted a 12-point list of its concerns that received tentative approval from some in the business coalition, according to a source close to the negotiations. All of the parties met June 25, with some leaving with "the sense we could work with these things," a House Democratic staffer said.
     Since the meetings were characterized as "cordial" and progress was seemingly being made, Republican staffers recessed the negotiations for the weekend. They returned Monday and walked into the middle of a stalemate.
     "We had a lot of talk, but in the end there was no agreement," the staffer said.
     While all sides agreed on the gist of the bill, several sticking points remained over how far to loosen liability standards and whether and when class action suits should be kicked up to the federal court level.
     Even McCain, who had a lot of political and personal clout invested in the issue, wasn't sure if peace could be made.
     "It was my view we probably wouldn't get an agreement," he said after a deal was announced with the White House.
     One high-tech lobbyist said that White House negotiators and the congressional staffers came together with "unrealistic expectations," resulting in meetings in which both sides "were talking at each other and around each other."

Deadlock Before Deal
     Monday night, when the process seemed to be falling apart, Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-CT, taking advantage of President Clinton's appearance at a Democratic fundraiser in Connecticut, had a brief conversation in which Clinton told Dodd "I'd like to sign a bill."
     Dodd returned to Washington, called back the White House, and negotiated until nearly 2:00 a.m. ET.
     "We went to work that night on changes," Dodd said on the Senate floor before casting his final vote on the bill. "He could have said to me Monday afternoon he didn't want anything to do with the bill and be flat out against it."
     "This relatively young senator was getting a little pooped," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR, referring to himself. He worked with Dodd during the late-night negotiations. "The distinguished senator from Connecticut said 'We're going to stay at it until we're done.'"
     Davis criticized the White House for prolonging negotiations by "moving the goal posts."
     "We had a time limit. We were not afraid to walk," he said. "We called their bluff."
     The second conference meeting on June 29 was postponed indefinitely as congressional and White House negotiators remained deadlocked. Lobbyists and staffers met in the Senate Commerce Committee hearing room in an intense, last-minute effort to find some common ground. The two sides were dealing with a philosophical legal divide, in which Democrats worried about protecting an individual's right to sue, while Republicans wanted to shield businesses from runaway lawsuits.

The Fine Points Of A Fight
     The high-tech lobbyist said the fight came down to politics versus substance.
     "The White House thought it was discussing terms and conditions," he said. "The congressional staffers though they were discussing politics."
     But one of the negotiators said that by that point, there was no distinction.
     "The politics was about the specific language," he said. "The politics was the resistance to make a deal and the devil was in the details."
     The Democratic staffer had the impression that Republicans "were writing their soundbites for a press conference," rather than negotiating in good faith.
     While some called the meetings clumsy, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-CA, characterized the process as "so bush league."
     With a limited timeframe in which to act, and the possibility of offending a heavily courted constituency, the high-tech industry, McCain, Dodd, Wyden, Davis and Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-VA, and Sen. Robert Bennett, R-UT, produced a signed letter from Podesta proclaiming a deal. The letter was addressed only to Dodd. The Republicans noticed.
     "They were trying to play politics on this to the end," Davis said.

The Aftermath
     In the end, both sides had to move on a number of controversial issues, such as liability reform and class action suits. Clinton had said he did not want class action suits to move to federal court, but agreed to let them go forward in limited situations. The deal nearly collapsed one day before the final House and Senate votes, after the White House disagreed with how some of the legislative language was written.
     Marc Pearl, general counsel for the Information Technology Association of America, said everyone won because "everyone had to give up something."
     After all the wrangling, the bill received overwhelming support from both the House and Senate, even attracting votes from top Democrats, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle.
     Lofgren summed up the sentiment of a number of players: "This isn't perfect, but it's practical."
     The negotiations marked the high-tech industry's first serious foray into the details of politics and policymaking on a high profile issue.
     "This was the first truly identifiable IT issue caught up in politics and the presidential campaign," ITAA's Pearl said.
     And it won't be its last.
     "In order to continue the good will, it will have to participate more on the political side of the equation," Pearl said. "The best campaign contribution to a member of Congress is a happy constituency" buoyed by a technology fueled economy.

—by Rebecca S. Weiner