New Lawmakers Hope Foe Isn’t in Mirror : Congress: After running as reformists, they find themselves working in the snake pit they had attacked and running risk of getting bitten.

LAWRENCE, Mass. —  Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.) got to Congress by running against Congress. And like many of his fellow freshmen, he walks a careful line to avoid becoming part of the problem he vowed to solve.

It is a path laced with peril. Sometimes perks are in the eye of the beholder, and on Main Street America these days, a great many beholders are giving the Congress the evil eye. Does a logo on your shirt suggest a form of graft? Is a lift to a meeting a kind of corporate largess?

Meehan, a former county prosecutor who defeated a Democratic incumbent, demonstrated the carefulness required of an internal critic who now serves in an unpopular Congress during a recent trip to his district.

When a reporter arrived at his home in nearby Lowell, Meehan wondered if accepting a car ride to a town hall meeting amounted to a corporate contribution. He said he was studying the actual ethics laws that apply to Congress, rather than relying on the official guidelines distributed to freshmen last December.

Once at the meeting, a call-in affair broadcast live on cable television, Meehan took off his suit jacket after taking one question from a city hall audience of 80. But he brooked no misunderstanding about the insignia on his shirt pocket. “I have a Polo shirt on. I want you to know I bought it in downtown Lawrence,” he said.

Angry voters who sent 122 freshman representatives and senators to Congress, including Meehan, remain upset about different standards that seem to favor lawmakers, judging from comments made during Meehan’s town meeting in this decaying mill town north of Boston.

It took just one phoned complaint about congressional perks to temporarily shift the meeting’s focus from a union-orchestrated attack on the North American Free Trade Agreement--which Meehan assured the workers he opposes in its present form because of the potential impact on U.S. workers and environmental problems along the Mexican border.

The complaint about perks brought another about free mail privileges, which prompted yet another about pay raises. There was a blast about Congress exempting itself from the enforcement mechanism of various laws in order to preserve separation of powers.

The Congress-bashing began with a female caller who cited a Boston Herald article published that morning under the headline, “Congress Doggedly Protects Its Perks.” She asked Meehan’s opinion “regarding kind of a sore subject, namely, congressional perks in Washington,” such as generous pensions and free parking at National Airport.

“It’s really not a sore subject to me. I wasn’t used to the perks before I got there anyway, so now’s a good time to cut them out,” he replied.

Meehan related his opposition to the free parking and support for banning acceptance of lobbyists’ gifts, which cannot exceed $250 under current rules.

He also reported that perks aren’t what they used to be on Capitol Hill. “Some of the perks, I thought, were going to be better,” Meehan said. “They say there are limousines around for members of Congress, but I haven’t seen one yet. I walk to work.”

He said the health care coverage available is no better than what he received as an assistant district attorney. And forget about a Capitol haircut. “I saw a member who had gotten his hair cut there,” Meehan said, “and I wouldn’t get my hair cut there.”

Meehan disagreed with congressional leaders, including House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.), who have suggested that concern with gift restrictions and parking spaces trivializes the largest class of House freshmen since 1948.