February 22, 1999
Web posted at: 6:27 p.m. EST (2327 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, February 22) -- With three Democratic senators deciding they will not seek re-election in 2000, both major political parties are weighing potential candidates.

Sen. Robert Torricelli chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

For Republicans, who hold a 55 to 45 majority in the upper chamber, it is a chance to widen their majority if they are not stung too badly by any potential backlash from the impeachment proceedings.

For Democrats, it is a chance -- although slim -- to regain control of the Senate for the first time in three congresses.

Nineteen seats held by Republicans and 14 by Democrats will come up for election in 2000.

Last week, Democratic Sens. Frank Lautenberg (New Jersey) and Richard Bryan (Nevada) joined New York Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan in announcing they would not seek re-election.

The Moynihan announcement has set off speculation that the New York race will pit first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton against New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Democrats are suggesting Nevada Gov. Bob Miller may seek the Senate vacancy in that state.

One possible candidate in New Jersey is Republican Gov. Christie Whitman. If elected to the Senate, Whitman would have to leave the governorship a year early. She is barred by law from seeking a third term as governor in 2001.

Whitman said Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press" that her decision to run will depend on whether she can complete work on her three top priorities -- property tax relief, school reform and land preservation -- in the time she has remaining in her second term as governor.

"If I think I can do that in a year and a half, rather than the two and a half years I have left, I'll seriously consider it," she said.

Both parties see the elections as a chance to make major gains.

National Republican Senatorial Committee chair Sen. Mitch McConnell

New Jersey Sen. Robert Torricelli, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chairman, said Democrats will remind voters where most Republicans stood on President Bill Clinton's Senate impeachment trial.

"Ten of those Republican incumbents, all of whom voted for the impeachment of President Clinton, are from states that Bill Clinton carried," Torricelli said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Torricelli's Republican counterpart, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, said Republicans are poised to make large gains, especially with the Democratic announcements of the last week.

"Their chances of regaining the Senate have faded dramatically," McConnell said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "And our goal of continuing to control the Senate for four congresses in a row for the first time since the '20s has been dramatically enhanced in the last week."

Monday, February 22, 1999

• Clinton presses national education plans to governors
• Federal judge holds Babbitt and Rubin in contempt
• ABC executive calls Lewinsky interview 'educational'
• Former California Gov. Wilson won't run in 2000
• Party strategists eye potential Senate gains
• Transcript: Pataki wants a New Yorker to run for Sen. Moynihan's seat
• Congress returns to post-impeachment Washington
• Video: Jesse Ventura enjoys the spotlight in Washington
• Domenici says he'll propose $40 billion education boost
• Government records $70.3 billion surplus in January
• Jones case judge won't step aside
• After questioning Clinton's veracity, DeLay finds his own challenged
• U.S. to add cities to juvenile-firearm tracing program

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