OVERRIDE MUSTER

With the election 13 months ago of a Republican Congress asserting an agenda opposed to that of President Clinton, sharp confrontations became inevitable. Those confrontations recently have begun taking the form of presidential vetoes of bills passed by Congress, followed by congressional attempts to override those vetoes.

Until 10 days ago, none of the override attempts had succeeded in gaining the two-thirds vote necessary to succeed. Just before Christmas, the first congressional override vote succeeded. How this supermajority came into being, and over precisely what issue, is a telling commentary on today's politics.

The issue was a bill to restrict one of the hoariest abuses of lawsuits in our overly litigious culture. A tiny sliver of the plaintiff's bar latched onto the notion that it ought to be able to file lawsuits, allegedly on behalf of stockholders, when a publicly traded company's stock falls in value. Especially within their sights were the innovative, cutting-edge computer-software and other high-tech companies of Silicon Valley in California. These are the very companies that have given America so much of our competitive advantage in the emerging world economy, based as it is on high-tech information. But they are also characterized by volatile markets, with ups and downs that aren't for investors with delicate stomachs. Such volatility is an unavoidable -- even necessary -- condition of healthy markets in emerging industries.

The bill to curb these abuses enjoyed wide bipartisan support. Even liberal Democrats such as Sen. Christopher Dodd, the Democratic national chairman, backed the bill and voted to override their president. In the House, 89 Democrats -- nearly half their caucus -- voted to override. Earlier, President Clinton repeatedly had stated his support for the concept of restricting these lawsuits. That he would side with a narrow special-interest group when finally force to choose tells us more about this president's politics. That dozens of members of his party would join a nearly united congressional Republican Party in repudiating him says much about the ability, at least in this instance, of the broader public interest to trump narrow self-interest.