Legislative Hearings

Democratic senators Thursday won a tactical victory in their efforts to rein in the long-running Senate Whitewater investigation, blocking an immediate extension as the inquiry expired and forcing a Republican to concede that a time limit might have to be set if future operations are authorized. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.

With hundreds of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam followers lined up outside a congressional hearing room, Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) said he thought Farrakhan violated federal laws when he visited Libya and Iraq in January. As the House International Relations subcommittee hearing opened, Leonard Farrakhan Muhammad, the chief of staff of the Nation of Islam, stood up and asked, "Can I ask a question?" He was ruled out of order. In another incident, a woman who shouted was removed by Capitol police.

The Senate's Democratic leader spurned a GOP offer to end the chamber's Whitewater probe before the political conventions begin in August. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said the offer by New York Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato, who heads the now-suspended Senate Whitewater Committee, "can't be viewed as a serious proposal." Democrats and Republicans have been in a bitter stalemate over extending the Senate inquiry, which began with hearings last July.

In testimony to a congressional subcommittee this week, Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) asked the government to fund $7.7-million worth of improvements to Lake Balboa Park and the Sepulveda Basin's wildlife area, Beilenson's office announced. Testifying before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, Beilenson said $4.2 million would pay for amenities such as restrooms, picnic tables, trees, trails and vegetation at Lake Balboa Park in Encino.

Screenwriters who cry "age discrimination" in the motion picture industry, take note. Octogenarian Ring Lardner Jr. has just completed an adaptation of "The Boys of Summer," Roger Kahn's saga about the Dodgers and the integration of professional baseball, which is due to begin filming in the spring.

Still plenty hard-nosed, like one of his hellbent heroes, Edward Dmytryk isn't ready to concede that he entered into the Hollywood version of a Faustian bargain to save his skin. "Oh, God, that's the way the left-wing journalists have always described it," moans the 87-year-old filmmaker between classes at USC, where he teaches directing and editing. "That's all bolshi talk."

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton did not dismiss the idea of holding a press conference or appearing before a Senate committee to answer questions about the Whitewater real estate deal, contrary to a report in The Times, a White House spokesman said Saturday.

Newt Gingrich, the Republican field commander whose election as House speaker two years ago was akin to a coronation, is scrambling to retain his leadership post like an old-fashioned street pol. In an effort to secure a second term in the speaker's chair, Gingrich is buttonholing colleagues, making promises and squelching a mini-rebellion in his ranks with Prussian efficiency. House Republicans are expected to nominate Gingrich as speaker on Wednesday without opposition.

A former leader of the Nicaraguan rebel movement in the 1980s told senators Tuesday that he received a small amount of money from a major Nicaraguan cocaine dealer in Southern California, as well as larger sums from other drug traffickers in Miami. But the former Contra leader, Eden Pastora, insisted in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee that he did not know at the time that his donors were involved in illegal activities.

If moderation is now the best ticket to political survival in the era of divided government, there may be no greater personification of it than Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato. The pugnacious New York Republican--best known for his vigorous hammering of the Clinton White House over Whitewater in the months before the election--is now going full throttle in the opposite direction. He is making nice. Like D'Amato's other positionings, this one has attracted attention.