Washington may appear to be consumed by scandal, but politics of a more prosaic sort muddle on, including the long fight over how many skilled foreign workers to allow into the country.
Legislation sought by the high-tech industry to vastly increase the number of temporary professional work visas began wending its way through Congress in February. The bill is now scheduled for a House vote on Thursday.
Meanwhile, backers of the bill are continuing to negotiate a possible compromise with the White House, which says it wants to help industry but has threatened to veto any bill that doesn't protect US workers.
That appears to leave the players engaged in a game of political chicken.
On one side, the tech sector is at risk of failing to alleviate what it claims is a desperate labor shortage. On the other side, the Clinton administration risks alienating an industry it has vigorously courted, along with prominent California Democrats who back the hike in the number of the H1-B temporary work visas.
"I think the White House recognizes the urgency of this bill and we are seeing more interest in compromise than we have before," said Joe McMonigle, an aide to Michigan Republican Spencer Abraham, sponsor of the visa legislation that breezed through the Senate in May.
"My guess is that they're going to do what they have to do to avoid vetoing this bill."
The White House prefers to see the pressure as being on industry and those who are carrying the legislation.
"We've said all along that we're willing to raise the cap, to help high-tech continue to be the engine for economic growth that it has been," said Jake Siewert, a staffer for the National Economic Council.
"We've been in discussions with Senator Abraham's office because we want to back a bill, and we're hopeful that we get a bill that answers industry's needs."
The bill set to go before the House is the same Republican-leadership compromise that was pulled from the calendar before Congress adjourned for its August recess.
The legislation would increase the ceiling on skilled foreign workers admitted into the country under the H-1B program from the current 65,000 per year -- a limit that the industry reached in about seven months in fiscal 1998 -- to 115,000 by 2001.
The ceiling would return to 65,000 by the year 2003. Companies with more than 50 workers of whom 15 percent hold H-1B visas would be required to attest that they have attempted to fill open positions with US workers, and that they haven't laid off qualified US workers.
Many House opponents, who range from labor-friendly Democrats to a small pocket of anti-immigration Republicans, say those protections aren't sufficient.
Among other things, opponents want to give the Labor Department greater power to enforce the limits on the program and investigate potential abuses. They've been able to keep the White House in their camp -- so far.
"The hope in the industry was that they could use August to lobby heavily and shore up their support and come back and pass it and basically force the White House to go along," said Paul Kostek, president-elect of IEEE-USA, the US branch of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
"But I'm not sure that's happened. When the industry began this push a year ago, they might have been in a better position to make their case," said Kostek. "The economy seemed invulnerable."
But now maybe that's not the case, and over the past several weeks those who are concerned about the issue have been able to counter some of the really intense industry lobbying."
McMonigle, however, says that if anything the case for the visa hike is stronger now than ever before.
"If the economy is more fragile, than certainly that makes tech even more important," he said. "It's been a key part of economic growth, and we shouldn't jeopardize it" by limiting the industry's ability to fill jobs that are going unfilled.
