Senate Upholds Bush Veto : 62-37 Vote Four Short of Override

WASHINGTON —  The Senate today upheld President Bush’s veto of a bill protecting Chinese students from deportation, handing him a narrow foreign policy victory in his first showdown this year with the Democratic Congress.

The vote was 62 to 37, four short of the two-thirds margin needed to override a presidential veto.

Just before the vote, Bush had renewed his promise that the students will be fully protected even without the legislation. “No student, as long as I’m President, will be sent back,” he said.

The issue, which could affect an estimated 40,000 Chinese students studying in the United States, took on added importance as the year’s first test of strength between Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress and as a referendum on the President’s China policy.

Sen. William S. Cohen (R-Me.) said in floor debate that he would vote against the President to uphold “America’s symbol to a world that is struggling to throw off the chains of dictators.”

But Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska) said the issue was “really a political challenge to the President’s constitutional authority. I believe the challenge is ill-advised, works against our national interest, and is likely to cause a further deterioration of our relationship with China.”

In the days before the vote, the White House had mounted a fierce lobbying blitz which included telephone calls from Bush and other top Administration officials to wavering senators and personal visits from Vice President Dan Quayle. The vice president presided over the chamber during the vote and his spokesman, Dave Beckwith, said that was his way of “thanking Republican senators when they were personally inclined to vote the other way.”

Former President Richard M. Nixon, who laid the groundwork for modern U.S.-China relations with a diplomatic opening in the early 1970s, telephoned some senators to say Bush’s position was in the long-term interests of the United States.

During a lively debate today, Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) said some Democrats were guilty of political opportunism and were using the veto override fight to take “a gratuitous chop at George Bush in a partisan way.”

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) called that “hogwash.”

“I’d like to believe that there are people here who are speaking for the freedom lobby,” Kennedy said, his voice rising. “We’re talking about an issue of fundamental importance that has swept the world.”

Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) noted that many Republicans had supported the bill originally, including 26 who urged Bush in a letter not to veto it. “Now they’re being asked to reverse themselves out of personal loyalty,” he told reporters before the vote.

The House voted 390 to 25 on Wednesday to crush Bush’s veto of the legislation designed to shield Chinese students in the United States from deportation and political harassment. Democrats complained Bush’s policies are too warm toward the regime that killed pro-democracy protesters in Beijing last June 4.

The legislation would have applied to as many as 32,000 Chinese students now in the United States on two-year “exchange visitor” visas, and thousands of others.