Gop Senators Seek Punishment Session

Some conservative Republican senators prepared Monday to force a meeting of GOP lawmakers to discuss punishing Sen. Mark Hatfield for casting the decisive vote last week against the balanced-budget amendment.

Sen. Connie Mack, R-Fla., was drafting a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., calling for the session. Since the amendment’s narrow defeat last Thursday, some conservative Republicans have suggested taking the chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee away from the moderate Oregonian.

Mack spokesman Jeff Cohen would say only that the letter was about “Chairman Hatfield.” But a GOP Senate source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the generally worded letter would seek a meeting about punishing Hatfield, including replacing him as Appropriations chairman.