WASHINGTON, D.C. -- On Capitol Hill, the letters keep coming for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone.

Jeffrey Levensaler, Wellstone's former office manager and deputy chief of staff, opens them at his condo after he leaves work. Unpaid bills. Correspondence from the Department of Defense. Cards for the senator's sons, David and Mark. Letters trying to influence votes, including a recent inquiry asking why Wellstone still wants to tax estates.

"Some of it stuns me, that people in Minneapolis, Minnesota, are still sending Paul letters," Levensaler said.

Nearly one year after the Minnesota Democrat died in a plane crash, Wellstone is hardly a forgotten man, but the U.S. Senate is a different place, for different reasons.

For Levensaler, it's a sadder place, where the wounds heal slowly. When he goes to work each day in the offices of Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D.N-J., he walks by the office of Wellstone's successor, Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, a persistent reminder that his old boss is gone.

For Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, it's a less vibrant place, absent Wellstone's energy.

And for Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., it's a place where Republicans now face less difficulty in moving legislation.

"It has been easier because he would throw his body in front of the train and do everything that he could, even though the bill was moving forward," Brownback said.

Democrats missed the vote of their liberal champion in May. Coleman voted for a $350 billion tax cut sought by the White House. His vote helped create a 50-50 tie, which Vice President Dick Cheney was called in to break.

With Wellstone gone, there no longer is anyone who's willing to fight to the end on tax and budget issues, said Phil Joyce, a budget expert at George Washington University.

"There are particular times when we really need people of principle who are willing to say what they think, without being concerned about whether it's terribly popular among a broad cross-section of senators or the American people," Joyce said. "I think this happens to be one of those times."

National profile

Even in death, Wellstone's influence continues to be felt.

When 18-year-old Anders Mattson of Minneapolis enrolled at the University of Minnesota this year, he chose to study political science, inspired by hearing Wellstone speak at a rally a couple of months before his death.

On the presidential campaign trail, the Rev. Al Sharpton says that Wellstone would have made a great running mate in 2004. And former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean has invoked Wellstone regularly, reminding voters that he was the first recipient of the AFL-CIO's Paul Wellstone Award for his efforts to organize nurses. He also borrowed a line from Wellstone that poked fun at timid Democrats, boasting that he represents "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party."

"I've continually been struck by how large Paul's national profile was," said Jeff Blodgett, who managed Wellstone's Senate campaign.

Blodgett said he believes that Wellstone's national standing was enhanced when he voted to oppose the war in Iraq. In a move that many said would risk his reelection, Wellstone was among the first to oppose President Bush's request to use any means necessary, including military force, to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"He could be one of those who say, 'I told you so,' " Harkin said. "He had this thing pegged right."

Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., said Wellstone "would have been all over" the president's request to spend another $87 billion on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"He was one of our most eloquent and passionate and out-front spokesman for our causes. . . . It's immeasurable what the loss has been," Dayton said.

Dayton has no doubt that Wellstone would have been reelected. With a 50-50 Senate, Democrats and Republicans would have been equally represented on Senate committees.

While it's impossible to say how legislation might have fared, Dayton and Harkin are among the Democrats who believe Bush's tax cut would have failed.

Wellstone, who consistently referred to Bush's tax cut proposals as "Robin Hood in reverse" plans, voted against Bush's positions more often than any other senator in 2001.

"Nobody had to question where he stood because he was right out front when it came to workers' issues," said John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO.

'Warrior of ideas'

Labor leaders missed Wellstone when Senate Democrats fought the Bush administration over a plan that they said would allow employers to deny overtime pay to 8 million Americans, particularly those who earn more than $65,000 a year. The issue has yet to be resolved.

"He would have been in the leadership of protecting overtime if he were here today, protecting the 40-hour workweek," Sweeney said.

Wellstone, who often referred to himself as "the labor senator from Minnesota," was the chairman of a key Senate panel -- the Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Safety and Training -- that had jurisdiction over much of labor's agenda. He wanted to increase the minimum wage and make it illegal for companies to hire replacements for strikers, among other things.

Harkin said he missed Wellstone when the Senate passed a prescription-drug plan that relies on private insurers to deliver coverage.

"Time and time again, I wished Paul had been here for that," he said.

With Wellstone gone, there has been far less talk of Congress passing a mental-health parity bill, which would require employers to treat mental illnesses and physical ailments equally in insurance plans. Wellstone had been a chief advocate of the legislation.

Allison Dobson, Wellstone's former spokeswoman, said she believes that Congress would have passed the law by now if Wellstone had been there.

"There is no one to ignite it," she said.

In Congress, where there's little agreement on much of anything, there is bipartisan consensus on one point: Republicans and Democrats alike miss Wellstone on a personal level.

"Even those who were opposed to his positions couldn't help but like him," Harkin said.

Brownback, one of the Senate's most conservative members, said he prays for Wellstone regularly. He said he disagreed with Wellstone on most issues but enjoyed him as a person, calling Wellstone and his wife, Sheila, "really wonderful souls."

"He was quite ideological and yet a very loving man," Brownback said. "That's kind of the beauty of him. A lot of people get very bitter, but he never got bitter. . . . He was a warrior of ideas. And he loved the battle, and he loved the nation."

At first, Wellstone's mail came in boxes. Now the quantity has slowed and it fits in a big manila folder.

"At first, it was really jarring to come home to that," Levensaler said. "In a strange way, it's grown into being kind of comforting."

He misses Wellstone and his former workplace, an office where individual differences were celebrated, where staff members stood around the TV sets and cheered as they watched Wellstone give speeches.

"The quality of the debate's changed," he said. "There was nobody like Paul. . . . All of us know that we're never going to have exactly that magic again."

For Levensaler, it has been a hard year, and October has brought a month of hard anniversaries: the last time he attended an event with Wellstone, the last time he took him to the airport.

"I used to drive him around here in D.C.," Levensaler said. "And we'd have these amazing talks in the car. One day, he was talking about one of the real right-wingers. And I said, 'Well, Paul, as a gay person, it's really hard for me just not to see them as anything but my enemy.' And he said, 'Well no, of course, they are your enemy, but Jeffrey, what I'm telling you is there's enemies that you should respect.' "

The enemies you should respect, Wellstone told him, are the ones who are honest and speak their version of the truth.

Levensaler sent most of the senator's office furniture to storage, but a few pieces remain out of sentiment. Sen. Barbara Boxer cried when she got two of Wellstone's wingback chairs, Levensaler said.

He kept a green couch for his office that he and Sheila Wellstone found one night when they were "hall-shopping" in the Senate office buildings. They spotted four sofas with Dayton's name on them and Sheila Wellstone liked the green one -- it was Wellstone's campaign color. She said that Dayton didn't need four couches anyway.

Levensaler said it's no ordinary couch.

"To me, that's the couch Sheila and I had so much fun stealing from Mark Dayton that night. . . . It's the little things that give you comfort."

© Copyright 2003 Star Tribune

###