Reagan Bills? Not Yet

By DOUGLAS WALLER

Swept up by their emotions over Ronald Reagan's death, congressional Republicans last week couldn't think of enough ways to honor their conservative hero. The ideas ranged from putting his picture on the $10 bill to renaming the Pentagon the Ronald Reagan National Defense Building to carving Reagan's face on Mount Rushmore. (The late President already has an airport, a giant trade building in Washington and an aircraft carrier bearing his name.)

But the ardor to move quickly to shower Reagan with more memorials has since "cooled a little bit" among Republican congressional leaders, a G.O.P. Senator tells TIME. "There's been a step back to take a little more measured approach." Neither the House nor the Senate plans to rush bills to the floor to put Reagan's face on a piece of currency or to name the Pentagon after him, say senior aides in both chambers. George Bush also has hedged on whether he would support such moves, saying only that he "will reflect on further ways to honor a great President."

Democratic leaders are playing it carefully. "I think we have to allow historians and others with some thought to consider how we might best remember President Reagan officially," says Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle. But even Republicans like Senator John Warner are chary of renaming the Pentagon, which has been considered a symbol of bipartisanship, after a political figure. Some Republicans also believe that their party and Bush need to focus for now on what will be a difficult campaign and not continue to feed off Reagan nostalgia. President Bush clearly benefits by tying himself closely to Reagan's memory, which fires up the conservative Republican base. "But every day we spend talking about how great Ronald Reagan is does not necessarily help the current occupant of the White House," says a G.O.P. official. "Anytime there has been a king and the prince is trying to take over his legacy, it's not good that everybody keeps talking about the king."

--By Douglas Waller