POLITICS Mr. Pragmatic

“THIS IS HORRIBLE, ” MUTTERS U. S. Rep. Steve Bartlett. “You’ll probably make fun of it. ” So saying, Bartlett unfolds a thin sheaf of papers from his breast pocket. These sheets, he says, hold the secret of his decision to quit Congress and seek the mayor’s job in Dallas.

“This is my score card, ” he explains. “This was my basic tool in making up my mind. “

Typed on the meager handful of papers are lists of names, some 500 in all. Many of the names are familiar-elected officials, civic leaders, heads of major corporations. Others are ordinary citizens. Together, they are all the people Bartlett talked to as he weighed his political future.

“This list is the people who told me I should stay in Congress, ” says Bartlett, pointing to the first sheet. “Over here are the ones who said I should run for mayor. I wrote them all down and put them in categories and that was how I made my decision. “

Of course, Bartlett says he also sized up more complex pluses and minuses as he considered the mayor’s race. A contest for the position as titular head of the city meant abandoning Texas’s solidly Republican 3rd District, widely considered one of the safest congressional seats in the country. It meant leaving a House of Representatives’ salary newly raised to $125, 100 a year and spending $1 million plus in pursuit of a job that pays $50 a meeting. Most of all, it meant sitting on the political sidelines for at least two years if he failed.

Bartlett agonized over all these factors. He also figured in the advantages of living in the same city with his family instead of commuting weekly between Washington, D. C., and Dallas. He evaluated the benefits to his prospects for statewide office of being a big fish in a little pond-mayor of Dallas-versus serving as just another minnow in the huge congressional swamp.

Ultimately, it was Bart-lett’s score card, his much-thumbed list of names, that cemented his resolve. On February 19, he offered himself as a candidate for mayor.

“The people who wanted me to run for mayor were those who believed the city could be saved, and I was uniquely qualified to do it, ” says Bartlett. “Those who said ’stay in Congress’ believed Dallas is either insignificant or unsalvageable. When I added everything up, I agreed more with those who think the city can be saved. I decided I need to save it. “

That he would rely so heavily on a tally of outside opinions-that he would, in effect, count votes-says a great deal about Bartlett’s political and legislative style. He is, by his own assessment, a prag-matist. He sees no point in a noble stand for a losing cause. This quality is, perhaps, his greatest strength and greatest weakness.

“I’m a little troubled by people who wet their fingers to see which way the wind is blowing, ” one Dallas Republican stalwart says about Bartlett. “Steve has never been a leader in Congress because he worries too much about what other people think. “

Oddly, the man who offers this mildly derogatory-and off the record-assessment is among those who urged the congressman to seek the mayor’s job. Others with similiar reservations dot Bartlett’s list of those who back him for mayor.

“Let’s say that I support him in the mayor’s race because it is one way to get him out of Congress, ” says a local Republican officeholder, speaking privately. “Bartlett has been up in Washington for more than four terms, and he has never assumed a position of leadership within the party. We need to get him out and elect someone stronger. “

Bartlett concedes that his failure to scale the rungs of party leadership has disappointed and frustrated him. Despite several attempts, he has never penetrated the inner sanctum of the minority party in Congress, he admits. His support of President Bush’s initial package of tax increases (eventually voted down by Congress) last year, a position he sees as simple pragmatism, eroded his standing among Republicans.

“I have not been as successful as I might have hoped. I think if I stayed in Congress long enough, I could break into the leadership. But life moves on. “

If his pragmatism has stifled his congressional aspirations, Bartlett believes the same philosophy may serve him well as mayor. Dallas today, he insists, does not need a hard-nosed ideologue. Instead, the changing city, with a new council structure designed to ensure a minority voice stronger than ever before, demands a mayor capable of building coalitions and finding middle ground.

“Barllett might philosophically better reflect the views of Dallas than of his district” says Republican Bob Palmer. “The city as a whole is more liberal than you find in his district. His pragmatic politics might be better suited to the city. “

Says another Republican backer, “I can always move out of Dallas if he raises taxes. I can’t move out of the country. “

Despite this backhanded quality in his support, Bartlett has been the front-runner in the mayor’s race since the moment he announced for it. “There is no question he is the one we have to beat, ” says County Democratic Party Chairman Ken Molberg. “The job is his unless an opponent with a lot of money can come on awfully strong in the next few weeks. “

With his election so apparently likely, the question becomes how Bartlett might carry out his duties as mayor of Dallas. For part of the answer, turn back to his early service on the Dallas City Council.

In a 1977 contest to fill an unexpired council term, Bartlett emerged from a field of six candidates to defeat the Dallas Citizens Council candidate, Peter Baldwin, in a runoff, He campaigned as an independent and voted as one from the beginning. On his first day in office, Bartlett bucked the council majority by voting against a proposal for retroactive loan guarantees. In the days that followed, he supported Oak Cliff in a struggle to increase the area’s share of road and bridge improvement funds. He opposed extending public contracts without seeking new bids. And he squashed a downtown redevelopment plan that sacrificed a full block of business property. During his first term, Bartlett forged a reputation as a maverick who could not be counted on to vote with then-Mayor Robert Folsom and the old-line council majority.

Bartlett sought reelection in 1980 unopposed. The cornerstone of his second term was a fight for land-use and zoning reforms. City policies must encourage home ownership and channel mortgage money into South Dallas, he insisted.

In 1981, Bartlett resolved to run for Congress. He intended to challenge Jim Mattox in the 5th Congressional District. However, when congressional redistricting stiffened Democratic strength there, Bartlett’s pragmatism kicked in, He switched his target to the solidly Republican 3rd Congressional District and won easily.

As a congressman, Bartlett voted down the line with Ronald Reagan, supporting military build-ups and opposing abortion, gun control, and the ERA. He strayed from the conservative gospel only in supporting public housing and civil rights for the handicapped and the elderly.

When George Bush was elected, he served the new Republican leader just as loyally. Much of the criticism leveled at Bartlett today is based on a feeling among conservatives that Bush abandoned the Reagan vision, and Bartlett went along with him.

As he approaches the mayor’s race, Bart-Iett shrugs off his history on the city council and in Congress. “My friends tell me I am a better executive than I am a legislator. I think that may be true. “

An executive is exactly what Dallas needs, he insists. The city currently drifts toward the shoals of crime, poverty, and racial conflict that sank Detroit and Philadelphia, Bartlett believes. With almost messianic fervor, he asserts that he is the one person who can “lead the city out of the wilderness. “

Such determination could set Bartlett on a collision course with other council members. Already minorities distrust him because of his 1983 vote against the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial holiday and because of his vote last year against the proposed Civil Rights Restoration Act.

Under the new plan of 14 single-member districts and a mayor at large, minority council members likely will approach parity with Anglos for the first time. Chances are, newly empowered African-Americans and Mexican-Americans will not gladly abide a white conservative bent on control.

To serve as he proposes, Bartlett will need the very quality that leads Republicans to distrust him: Pragmatism is the tool for the times. If he does become mayor, Steve Bartlett can put that at the top of his breast-pocket list of things to remember.