NY Senate Race: Beauty, Bucks

There is agreement among the prospective candidates for next year's Senate race on at least one issue: no face lifts.

While she may be changing her address and thinking about getting a new job, an aide said Monday that Hillary Rodham Clinton is sticking with the face she's got.

Tabloid reports that Clinton was eyeing plastic surgery are not true, spokeswoman Marsha Berry said.

"It's not true," Berry said Monday. "None of it is true."

And when the New York Daily News shouted a question at her in New York City Monday, the paper reports she "guffawed."

The House Tuesday evening approved an amendment to the Campaign Finance Reform bill, requiring a candidate who is not a federal office holder to reimburse the federal government for the full costs of using government transportation for campaign purposes.

Its purpose was to make potential candidates more accountable to taxpayers, and Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., who offered the bill, denied it was a partisan swipe at first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has flown on government planes and been protected by the Secret Service on trips to New York, where she is considering a run for the Senate.

Clinton is expected to run for the Senate from New York next year and she and President Clinton are buying a house in suburban Westchester County just north of New York City.

On the Republican side, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is expected to run for the Senate seat being vacated next year by Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Neither has announced candidacy officially.

Giuliani joked that he also had no plans for any cosmetic surgery.

"It wouldn't do any good," he explained. "It would cost too much money."

Speculation about cosmetic surgery began Sunday when the New York Post's front page featured the headline "Hill's Nip & Tuck." The tabloid, citing unidentified sources, said Clinton had spent nearly an hour recently consulting with a Manhattan plastic surgeon.

"I thought yesterday, when we said we didn't know anything about it, that that would kill it," Berry said. "But clearly it didn't."

Asked if Clinton has had any consultations about plastic surgery or planned to have any such discussions, Berry said, "No."

The Daily News also reports that the Clintons' new house in suburban Chappaqua, N.Y., will require a security system that probably will cost taxpayers more than $1 million.

The paper cites a "highly informed source" as saying that the price is so high because Mr. Clinton is still in office. "There are two different standards," the source said, one for former presidents and another for current ones. For former presidents, outfitting the Chappaqua house would cost about $300,000.

"Once you're out of office, the threat level is still very serious, but it goes way down," another source told the paper.

Among the changes expected at the house: Bulle-proof and blast-resistant windows, floodlights, and electronic devices to sniff out chemical or biological contaminants in the air.