The Mood

CRAMPED AND SCATTERED, CONGRESS RESUMES WORK

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 -- With their office buildings still closed for anthrax
testing and their staffs scattered, members of Congress reconvened today
and tried to complete sweeping antiterrorism and money laundering
legislation. But after debating the bill for 40 minutes, the House
adjourned so members could go home to dinner. A vote was set for Wednesday.

The thousands of staff members without whom the modern Congress can hardly
function were scattered in the Capitol, in temporary offices three-quarters
of a mile away or at home.

Senators and representatives worked awkwardly and had trouble finding each
other or even making a new telephone system work. Hearings were canceled or
held in unfamiliar, cramped quarters, and some measures were delayed
because files were unavailable, locked away in the quarantined buildings.

The Senate did manage to end a Republican filibuster against a foreign aid
bill that would provide money for relief in Afghanistan. The House passed
several noncontroversial bills, including one to issue a new class of war
bonds and another to make it a crime to handle biological toxins carelessly.

But the unfinished terrorism bill was the main focus. President Bush told
the four top Congressional leaders at breakfast that he wanted to sign it
on Friday, aides to several leaders said.

The House, in an effort to forestall efforts by some senators to add pet
projects to the antiterrorism bill that they thought had been settled last
Thursday, brought the measure up for debate this evening.

Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the Wisconsin Republican who
heads the House Judiciary Committee, said, "This legislation is desperately
needed and the president has asked us to pass it now."

Mr. Sensenbrenner emphasized the importance of a provision to allow
evidence obtained by grand juries to be shared with intelligence agencies.

Representative David Dreier, Republican of California, said the bill would
help police because it "will empower them to deal with the very, very
tragic situation we face," especially by enabling them to monitor
electronic communications.

Representative Michael G. Oxley, the Ohio Republican who heads the
Financial Services Committee, said the money laundering provisions would
hurt terrorists by denying them the "offshore financial bunkers that have
for too long offered them safe haven." Representative John J. LaFalce of
New York, the committee's senior Democrat, said the provisions would also
be used against drug traffickers.

The Senate began its workday with a failed Democratic effort to end a
Republican filibuster to pressure Democrats to bring more judicial nominees
up for confirmation votes.

Democrats complained about holding up spending bills, with Senator Robert
C. Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who heads the Appropriations Committee,
saying: "We appear to be dallying. We're just marking time here. We're not
doing any good."

Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, the senior Republican on the committee, also
said he opposed the delaying tactics. Republicans dropped their filibuster
this afternoon, after the Senate confirmed four judges without a single
dissenting vote.

The spectacle of lawmakers without their accustomed office space was not
confined to the hungry representatives, most of whom arrived from their
homes, their home districts or temporary quarters in a General Accounting
Office building about 6 p.m. for a series of votes that preceded the
terrorism debate.

Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, the majority leader, said he had spent
much of the morning looking for colleagues whose private phone numbers he
lacked, "scrambling around the Capitol building trying to find their
offices here."

In the G.A.O. building, where each House member was allotted two 10-
by-15-foot offices and allowed to bring three aides, staff members said
things were awkward.

Cesar Cardenas, press secretary for Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen,
Republican of Florida, said it was difficult to work with aides divided
between the G.A.O. building and another staff member's apartment.

"For me," Mr. Cardenas said, "this is symbolic. It is important that people
know we are working."

Amy Spanbauer, press secretary for a Representative Jim Gibbons, Republican
of Nevada, said, "The whole question is how long we will be here."

"We can conduct business," Ms. Spanbauer said. "But it is obviously not
ideal. And we are not getting any information. We're just going day to day,
I guess."

Most senators were a bit more cheerful. Some of them, too junior to have
regular offices in the Capitol, were pleased to get one temporarily.
Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, said, "Naturally, I hope it
becomes permanent."

"At this point," Mr. Nelson said, "we've got everything but a stapler."

But Senator John B. Breaux, Democrat of Louisiana, said he feared that by
the time he returned to his offices in the Hart building, his goldfish
would have died. "No one is feeding them," Mr. Breaux said. "They will all
be floating upside down by the time I get back."

Senators with offices in the oldest of their office buildings, the Russell
building, will be allowed back in them on Wednesday, and the Dirksen
building may reopen later this week. But the Hart building, where aides to
Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota were exposed to anthrax, will remain
closed.

House offices will remain closed on Wednesday, with no indication of when
they may reopen.