HYDE DENIES HAVING FOE INVESTIGATED

WASHINGTON -- Conservative critics of President Clinton's were pretty
upset in February when it was reported that a private detective hired
by the president's lawyer was checking up on Kenneth Starr's
investigative team.

Now, it appears that a private detective was out researching a
particularly tenacious critic of the leader of the House impeachment
inquiry, U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde of Wood Dale.

Republican Hyde denies he or anyone working under his direction hired
the detective, but the House Judiciary Committee chairman acknowledges
he was informed of the results of the investigation.

About two years ago, Chicago-area private investigator Ernie Rizzo
posed as an independent TV producer working on a freelance
investigative story and contacted Libertyville bank consultant Tim
Anderson. For years, Anderson has been making the case to anyone who
would listen that Hyde and others bear responsibility for the 1990
failure of Clyde Federal Savings & Loan of North Riverside.

Anderson says Rizzo used an alias, but he says he remembers two
meetings with Rizzo over the span of about a month and "many phone
calls in between." During the meetings, Anderson turned over 388 pages
of documentation that he had collected about the collapse of the S&L
industry in Illinois.

"I know he interviewed Anderson. I was apprised of the results of that
interview," Hyde said. "I didn't hire him. I didn't pay him. I didn't
direct him."

Hyde says Rizzo became involved without his prior knowledge through "a
mutual friend" who "thought he was helping me." But Hyde says he now
doesn't remember who that friend was.

Rizzo says he was hired by Hyde for an investigation but says state
confidentiality laws do not permit him to discuss the matter further.

Clyde Federal collapsed at a cost to taxpayers of $67 million. Hyde is
a former director of the S&L.

The government filed a negligence lawsuit against Hyde and other
former directors in 1993 but settled the case out of court last year
for $850,000. Hyde, who left the board in 1984, refused to contribute
to the settlement, and he maintains he bears no responsibility for the
failure.

Balance of the budget One of the few major successes Republicans had
in the budget negotiations last week was in pressing a politically
appealing anti-drugs initiative spearheaded by U.S. Rep. Dennis
Hastert of Yorkville.

Hastert, an experienced legislative negotiator in both Springfield and
Washington, led a GOP task force that sought stepped-up resources for
drug interdiction and treatment of substance abusers. The initiative
also requires the drug czar to set and track hard measures for
reductions in drug use.

Methamphetamine use, a growing problem that has hit Midwestern rural
and suburban communities particularly hard, is targeted by raising
penalties for trafficking in what is commonly known as "speed" to
equal those for crack cocaine.

Faced with determined opposition from House Democrats, Republicans had
less luck on another GOP priority in which Hastert has carried the
ball: bottling up efforts by the Clinton administration to use
statistical sampling to conduct the next census.

Statistical sampling is designed to correct for undercounts of
minorities and the poor, a correction that would favor Democrats in
redistricting because such people tend to support the party.
Republicans are demanding the U.S. Census Bureau follow the past
practice of an actual head count of the population.

But under last week's deal, statistical sampling is only funded until
June 15, when the entire budgets of the Justice, State and Commerce
Departments will have to be renegotiated. Republicans expressed
confidence that, after two victories in lower courts, they will win a
U.S. Supreme Court case on the matter by then.

Freshman U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) also played a key role in the
waning days of the Congress by blocking a bankruptcy-reform measure
that he criticized for failing to include sufficient consumer
protections.

The bankruptcy overhaul would have made it more difficult for
consumers to shed their debts by requiring more filers to use Chapter
13 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code rather than the more lenient Chapter 7.
Under Chapter 7, consumers liquidate their assets to pay off their
debts and start anew with no further payments. Under Chapter 13, they
must meet all or part of their debts through a repayment plan.

And a substantial increase in funding for processing of citizenship
applications was a longtime priority for Chicago Democratic U.S. Rep.
Luis Gutierrez and his constituents, significant numbers of whom have
friends or relatives waiting for citizenship.

The extra money should allow the Immigration and Naturalization
Service to cut long waiting lists for approving applications.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry