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Remember Congress? It's what everyone in politics was talking about obsessively up until a week or so before the Iowa primary: the firebrand Republican freshmen, Newt's vision for reforming the welfare state, The Contract With America ... is it coming back to you now? Republican leaders in Congress are said to be concerned that they may go into the 1996 elections with many of their prized initiatives -- like term limits, a balanced budget amendment and welfare reform -- stalled or dead entirely. Congressional Republicans are reportedly gearing up to try to pass regulatory reform and product liability bills. But in the past few weeks, Congress has managed to churn out two new pieces of major legislation, and there have been new twists in the evolving path of a third. Here's a look at what's been happening while the press corps has chased the presidential candidates across Iowa and New Hampshire:

FARM BILL: It's taken them over a year to hammer it out, but Congress appears close to wrapping up another farm bill, the reconsideration of federal farm programs that it makes every five years. With Republicans enjoying control of both Houses of Congress for the first time since the 1950s and determined to save money wherever possible, farm programs saw some dramatic changes. An earlier bill was included as part of the major budget reconciliation package vetoed by the President.

Nuts and Bolts: The Senate's farm bill would pare down the government's traditional generosity to the nation's farmers. Principally, it would replace long-standing government subsidy programs with a system of fixed payments over the next seven years designed to return farmers to a more traditional, market-based system. The Senate plan would save the government $13 billion. Payments will no longer be linked to fluctuations in the commodities markets, and farmers will no longer be paid for not planting their land. Republicans boast that their bill reverses policies born of the New Deal, which allowed the government too much say in how Americans should farm.

Status: The Senate passed its version of the bill on Feb. 7, 64-32. The House will take up its version of the bill when it returns from a recess, and the two chambers will then have to reconcile their differences into a final bill. House Agriculture Committee chairman Pat Roberts has said he thinks a final bill can reach the President's desk by March 1. But he will have to contend with some attempts to modify the Senate bill, including an attack on the food stamp program, which Senate Democrats were able to protect. President Clinton has said he will probably give the bill likely to emerge his grudging approval because "we need a farm bill."

Inside Scoop: While the political calendar can always be manipulated, in this case the pols are beholden to a power out of their control: the coming spring planting season. If a bill isn't passed before planting starts next month, an outdated set of laws will automatically kick in whose obsolete calculations could cause turmoil in commodities markets. As for the political calendar, the fact that Senate Agriculture Committee chairman and Republican presidential candidate Richard Lugar was able to shepherd the bill to passage didn't seem to do much for his stock in the Iowa Caucus.

TELECOM REFORM: After years of incremental legislative sausage-making, frenzied multi-million dollar lobbying and several last-minute reversals, Congress has finally revised federal telecommunications law. How outdated were the existing laws? Consider that they were passed not only before the advent of the Internet and portable phones; not only before the first episode of "The Honeymooners"; they were written before the construction of America's first FM radio station! This massive bill was Congress' attempt -- some say futile, some say destructive -- to catch up with a historical explosion in communications and information technology.

Nuts and Bolts: The bill uses deregulation to erase divisions within the telecommunications marketplace, opening up competition for local and long-distance phone and cable television service. Regional phone carriers, or "Baby Bells," will be able to enter the long-distance marketplace. Likewise, long-distance companies will be free to offer local phone service. Cable television rates would be deregulated (and are thus likely to rise). Current limitations on the number of media outlets (like radio stations) that a single company could own would be relaxed. Most television sets would be required to include "v-chips" that could be programmed by parents to screen out sexually explicit or violent material. And in perhaps its most controversial provision, the bill would ban the transmission of "indecent" material via the Internet.

Status: The House and Senate both overwhelming passed a conference version of the bill, which President Clinton signed into law on Feb. 8.

Inside Scoop: If you're reading this, you're probably aware of the uproar over the telecom bill's attempt to ban transmission of indecent material to minors across the Internet and online services. So incensed was the online community that homepages across the Web were blackened in a day of protest against the bill's passage into law. The ACLU has filed one of two lawsuits challenging the section of the bill, and Sens. Russell Feingold, D-WI and Patrick Leahy, D-VT are seeking to repeal the provision. A less-noticed element of the bill bans the online transmission of some abortion-related material. That provision, which exhumes something called the Comstock Act of 1873, was inserted by Rep. Henry Hyde, R-IL, a leading pro-life crusader.

WELFARE REFORM: President Clinton campaigned in part on a pledge to "end welfare as we know it," but he rejected the welfare reform bill passed by the Republican Congress last fall. The bill has been stranded in political limbo, as part of the package of bills the president has been rejecting in his budget standoff with the Republican Congress. Two new twists have influenced the bill's chances for passage: a proposal by the nation's governors to find a middle ground between Clinton and Congress, and a Republican plan to back the president into a corner (see below).

Nuts and Bolts: The bill would aim to slash federal welfare spending and replace what some call a culture of dependency by putting welfare recipients to work. It would place new limits on eligibility for welfare benefits, impose work requirements, and, most significantly, would replace current welfare programs with "block grants," money given to state governments with few restrictions on its use.

Status: Clinton vetoed Congress' bill on Jan. 9. Congress lacks the votes to override the President's veto.

Inside Scoop: Earlier this month, the nation's governors advanced modifications to Congress' welfare reform bill (as well as to its Medicaid reforms) that could break a middle ground between Clinton and Congress. The plan would emphasize flexibility for states to determine how best to run their own programs and respond to concerns for the poor by boosting spending, including $4 billion more for child care and a $1 billion "contingency fund" -- an additional $10 billion in all. Their proposal would save about $50 billion dollars, about halfway between plans from Clinton ($40 billion) and Congress ($60 billion). As Congressional Republicans ponder this new offering, they are also considering a tactic designed to back Clinton into a corner: Although he vetoed Congress' final welfare reform bill, Clinton did support a version passed by the Senate which was later toughened by the House. The Republicans may now send the original Senate bill to Clinton. That would either force him into an unhappy capitulation, or into a backtrack from his earlier endorsement. Clinton's escape hatch: he can cite new studies that have shown the bill to be harsher on the poor than previously understood.