A Whiff of Rebellion in the 94th

As the 94th Congress convened, its arcane opening ritual smacked quaintly of quill pens and snuff. Indeed, the Senate's two snuff boxes were freshly filled as the ten new and 23 re-elected Senators filed down the aisle in groups of four to take their oaths of office and bask in the standing applause of their colleagues. In the House, Democrat Carl Albert and Republican John Rhodes withdrew from the chamber as that body staged its selection of the Speaker. When the foregone vote was over, Rhodes graciously introduced Winner Albert as "my good friend, the leader for all members of the House," and Albert then swore in the 431 representatives, some of whom had brought their children onto the floor for the occasion. Yet this traditional dance of state only made the rest of the initial week's events all the more startling. In fact, a veritable spirit of revolution convulsed the House, and some of the most venerable legislative procedures were even under assault in the Senate.

The rebellion in the House was directed at one of the most encrusted of all congressional institutions: the seniority system, under which committee chairmen have long been selected and automatically reaffirmed at each session, solely on the basis of their length of service in office. In a confused series of events, no fewer than four of the arbitrary elderly chairmen of House committees were at least temporarily deposed. Although two were fighting to regain their posts, and no successor was certain of approval in any of the four positions, the action jolted the leaders of all 21 House committees into a new awareness: they will have to heed their colleagues and perform effectively if they wish to retain their power.

The uprising was within Democratic ranks, since that party has an overwhelming 291-144 majority, which permits it to organize the House. The momentum for change was largely generated by the Democratic victory in last November's elections, which impressed the House leaders, especially Speaker Albert and Majority Leader Thomas ("Tip") O'Neill, with the strength of the apparent national desire for more decisive congressional action. The election also brought in 75 Democratic freshmen, unawed by power cliques and eager to make their own marks. Abetting both groups were long-restive re-elected liberal Democrats.

Upstart Inquisitors. Even before the session opened, the freshmen moved brashly to make their presence known.

Under the chairmanship of New York's Richard Ottinger, a former Congressman who had been out of office for four years and thus was technically a freshly man again, they invited all the chair men to meet individually with them to answer questions about committee procedures and policy. "No one turned us down," reported Ottinger, who noted that he had never even met some of the formerly aloof chairmen in his previous six years in Congress. But now, figuratively hat in hand, the aging power brokers faced their upstart inquisitors.

The freshmen were least moved by the pitches of the Banking and Currency Committee's Wright Patman, 81, Agriculture's W.R. (Bob) Poage, 75, House Administration's Wayne Hays, 63, and Armed Services' F. Edward Hebert, 73, who emerged to report sourly that he had been treated the way he treated witnesses before his committee. The freshmen were impressed by Al Ullman, who will replace the self-deposed Wilbur Mills as chairman of Ways and Means. They gave Judiciary's Peter Rodino a standing ovation. "I guess I'm all right," he grinned as he emerged from his meeting.

Secret Vote. The first actual move against the chairmen was made by the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, a select group of 24 members that includes all the top leaders. The action was spontaneous, since any effort to replace a chairman had been planned for a later meeting of the Democratic Caucus, which includes the full Democratic House membership.

As the steering committee met, Tip O'Neill offered a routine motion to rename the previous chairmen. But New York's Jonathan Bingham objected, arguing that each chairman should be considered separately. Missouri's Richard Boiling supported Bingham, urging also that the votes be cast secretly. Neither man had been part of an uprising plot. Bingham's motion carried on a shouted vote.

Suddenly, the situation was not at all routine. Voting their consciences without fear of reprisal, the steering members first renominated Poage--but only by a 14-to-10 margin. Hebert survived by the same slim count. Now the members were aware that the anti-chairmen attitude was more prevalent than anyone had expected.

When the vote on Patman came, he was rejected, 13 to 11. So was the second-ranking member of the Banking Committee, William Barrett of Pennsylvania, and then the third, Leonor Sullivan of Missouri. Instead, the group nominated as banking chairman Wisconsin's Henry Reuss, who had openly challenged Patman for the job but planned to make his fight in the caucus. "What's happening?" the astonished Reuss asked a colleague as the voting progressed. Chairman Hays was rejected next, and New Jersey's Frank Thompson was nominated to replace him. "I was startled," Thompson said later.

Both Hays and Patman lobbied frantically overnight to rally support before the full caucus would meet the next day. So, too, did Poage and Hebert, who knew that they were in trouble. When the caucus met, the fears of the latter two were justified: both were rejected as nominees to retain their chairmanships. But the caucus also threw the situation into chaos by refusing to go along with the steering committee's choices to replace Patman and Hays. It turned down Reuss, apparently chilled by his solemn demeanor and his public drive for the job, and Thompson, who fell victim to Hays' shrewd counterattack. That meant that the steering committee would have to present two other names, and both Patman and Hays still retained a fighting chance to regain their positions.

Meeting again a day later, the steering committee reversed itself and placed the names of Patman and Hays again in nomination, but whether the caucus would approve them was in some doubt. Hays seemed most likely to survive, since his committee controls travel expenses for the members, and he dangled promises of more travel at an increased $45 per day. To replace Hebert, the steering group named Melvin Price of Illinois; to succeed Poage, it selected Thomas Foley of Washington. But when it meets again this week the caucus will have the right, for the first time in the procedures, to propose other choices of its own devising.

State of Shock. Poage graciously accepted his removal. "The caucus has worked its will," he said. "I accept its decision." Hebert, vowing to continue to battle "in the defense of this country" as leader of the Armed Services Committee, said he will carry his case to the House floor. "I'm using every means at my command to fight back," he declared. Any such move would be resented by the controlling Democrats, and Albert would probably rule it out of order. Patman assailed the secrecy of the voting, and Hays said that his initial rejection left him "in a state of shock."

Why did these four chairmen become the targets of the rebellion? Although all but Patman are conservatives, the four were shot down more because of the autocratic manner in which they have dominated their committees than because of ideology. Hebert, who has represented a New Orleans-area district for 34 years, is a witty but stubborn cold warrior who has rarely challenged Pentagon policy. Poage, a raspy-voiced Texan who was elected to Congress in 1936, has been an advocate of farm subsidies and opponent of liberalizing food-stamp programs. Ohio's Hays, serving his 14th term, highhandedly controlled many congressional fringe benefits, allocating office space and supervising House employees. Patman is the dean of House Democrats, an old-style populist who rails against "big bankers" and champions low interest rates.

There was no similar upheaval in the more liberal Senate, which paradoxically is more open to new legislative programs than the House but more protective of its clubby internal procedures.

The Senate Republicans, for example, elected Nebraska's four-term Carl Curtis, a conservative and last-ditch defender of Richard Nixon, as chairman of the Republican Conference, over New York's liberal Jacob Javits. Although the Senate Democratic Caucus continued its practice of naming committee chairmen on the basis of seniority for the current two-year Congress, it decided to follow the lead of the House for the session beginning in 1977; at that time the caucus will select chairmen by secret ballot. The Democrats also voted to open all committee meetings and joint House-Senate conference deliberations to the public, except when committee members decide that they must be closed for any of four specific reasons: to protect national security secrets, foreign trade information, the reputations of individuals and the identity of federal agents or law-enforcement officers.

The Senate Democrats also gave preliminary approval to a plan to provide for electronic voting in the Senate chamber--a proposal that has perennially been opposed as a crass modern intrusion on the traditions of that august body (the House instituted an electronic tabulating setup two years ago). Minnesota's Democratic Senator Walter Mondale is trying once again to modify the Senate's well-known Rule 22, which requires a two-thirds margin to cut off a filibuster on any issue. Mondale introduced a motion that would substitute a three-fifths requirement, but the fate of his move was uncertain.

We Must. The Senate was procedurally bogged down in a politically sensitive debate over how to resolve the closest election in Senate history: the contest between New Hampshire's Republican Louis Wyman and Democrat John Durkin for the seat vacated by the retired Norris Cotton. Both men appeared in the Senate, but neither was seated after an indecisive argument over whether to accept Wyman, who had been declared a two-vote winner by a Republican-controlled elections board in New Hampshire. The Senate's Committee on Rules and Administration had failed to resolve the issue, when Alabama Democrat James Allen joined the Republicans on the committee to produce a 4-to-4 deadlock on a Republican motion to seat Wyman. Since Democrats hold a 61-to-38 edge in the Senate, they seem likely to prevail in ordering a review of some 400 ballots that were contested in the final stages of election appeal in New Hampshire.

Overall, however, the Congress was clearly regearing its machinery to respond more quickly to the nation's economic and energy crises. Politically, that is most urgent for the Democrats, who now claim an election mandate to provide leadership. "Our people demand of us that we legislate well, that we legislate with dispatch," Speaker Albert told the House last week. "Legislate we shall, for legislate we must."

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