Capitol Currents
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
As first liberal bills hit snags in House and Senate, hopes for dynamic action fade in face of caution, inter-party maneuvers and the shadow of 1960 CAPITOL CURRENTS By William E....
...But the vote on this proposal was 28 for and 67 against...
...This small group is appointed by the Speaker and can hide in its dark closets any piece of legislation which meets with the disapproval of the Speaker or a majority of its members...
...We would know where we stand, we would have a President who takes government seriously...
...Like the small commonwealths among the original 13, they are, it is said, afraid of numbers...
...I asked a Congressman the other day, "How would you like to have Lyndon Johnson transferred to Dwight Eisenhowers' post this very minute...
...As first liberal bills hit snags in House and Senate, hopes for dynamic action fade in face of caution, inter-party maneuvers and the shadow of 1960 CAPITOL CURRENTS By William E. Bohn WASHINGTON RIGHT NOW the Capitol is a first-class laboratory for political theorists...
...No matter what their doctrine with regard to political motivation, they oan find exemplifications of it on Washington's fantastic Hill...
...He was genial as all get-out...
...Very few feel sure about anything...
...Why should they want to pass a law like that...
...But would he be too much on the other side, too much of a dictator...
...A peculiar feeling of doubt and wonderment has followed the enthusiasm engendered by the election results...
...The difference between the total membership and the number present and voting is sure to be just about zero...
...One of the liberals involved in these events told me that they have faith in their Speaker, They know that he is shrewd and rugged, but they believe that he keeps his promises...
...In the Senate, where this matter attracted the most attention, there was a long and hot debate about the filibuster and Rule 22, with Johnson on one side and Senator Paul Douglas (D.-Ill...
...They say that the votes on the procedural rules may prove not to be typical...
...Why they did this," he remarks, "is one of the interesting questions of our time...
...The second theory is more profound and, I suspect, better justified...
...If it is their idea that economic interests dictate political lineups, they can see places where this certainly has proved to be the basis of action in one of the world's most powerful bodies...
...Everyone agrees that we need leadership in a democracy...
...and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson (D.-Tex...
...The others, the 14 who trailed along with the Majority Leader, he does not blame or denounce or suspect because of their action...
...One of them is symbolized by Lyndon Johnson and the other by President Dwight D. Eisenhower...
...This leads to a consideration of our entire governmental setup...
...When he makes up his mind that such a bill should go through, it goes through...
...I should record the fact that most of the progressives and liberals in the House and Senate are by no means discouraged...
...Then came the Johnson bill, the proposal of the super-manager, the topmost compromiser...
...He, like Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, is not only from Texas but also is gifted in the direction of leadership...
...If they think that parties and Congressional votes embody social ideals, they can find spots in the first few sessions of the present Congress where idealistic liberals have been tragically thrashed...
...The upper chamber is supposed to be a continuing body...
...Or, it has even been bruited about, it can simply forget any project with regard to which the Speaker has unpleasant thoughts...
...But they were marked for destruction...
...He can appoint them to glory or simply ignore them...
...It followed the lines of the Douglas proposal but provided that debate could be halted after a suitable interval by a vote of three-fifths to two-fifths...
...He will, now and then, champion a good bill, as he did the civil rights measure in the last Congress...
...When a hot piece of legislation is coming to a boil, every member of the chamber who can wield so much as a crutch will be on hand...
...It is said, too, that all of these states stand in need of appropriations for similar projects —chiefly for the development of power resources...
...Alaska is, of course, the prime and dramatic example...
...The next vote was on a bill introduced by Senator Thurston B. Morton (R.-Ky...
...Douglas and a devoted group of the like-minded argued earnestly and eloquently for this proposal...
...What sort of man is the fellow behind the dictator...
...These men did well, the Senator said, and were literally heroes...
...They knew that they bad a friend in him and that he has influence over that tight and tough Rules Committee...
...I asked the regulation questions: "What is going to happen...
...For two years we shall go on within the framework of this configuration...
...The filibuster appears to them, as it does to the states of the South, as a possible protection in a time of future danger...
...That was the bargain which was struck...
...Just on the basis of the general situation, a simple-minded optimist would seem to be justified in his optimism...
...and Clinton P. Anderson (D.-N.M...
...It will take time...
...In the Senate, they are equal to New York and Pennsylvania—and the filibuster may at some distant date add still further to their power...
...Everyone who has seen him in action knows that he has to the top degree the talents of a political manager...
...The House, on the other hand, is free to make its procedural laws as it goes along...
...Even the men from the Mountain States, they foretell, will think for themselves as time goes by...
...Many responsible and experienced hands feel that this influence will wear off, that the new men will develop independence as they go along and Seam the ways of the club...
...Of the four hopefuls in the Senate, he is the best...
...The answers were given timidly and with a good deal of covering of the bets...
...The Mortonites were the most reasonable of liberals...
...What has brought about this terrific alteration in mood...
...Yet, as I walked about and sniffed the air today things seemed somewhat different...
...The Southerners and conservative Republicans, he says, have been joined by the men from the Western mountains and Alaska...
...its rules are "permanent" and sacred...
...While the anti-filibuster discussion was engaging the Senate, five members of the House drew up a measure which, if passed, would have made it possible for a majority of the members themselves to recall from the Rules Committee any piece of legislation which had been adequately examined and discussed, Now Speaker Sam Rayburn enters upon the scene...
...We shall not get all that we want, but there will be progress...
...Other members of Congress —and liberals, too—said just the opposite: "Underneath he is a genuine liberal and, for the main point, he has what it takes...
...In a chamber of 98 members, this would have made it possible for 50 to stop the waste of words and force the procedure to deeds...
...There are here in the capital two sharply divided opinions as to whether this man Johnson is the right character for his responsible task in the Democratic setup...
...What it provided was that debate could be halted by a two-thirds vote of the Senators present and voting...
...The question is how much leadership and with how tight a control...
...on the other...
...In part, the Senator explains his defeat as the result of a new anti-liberal coalition...
...Most of the people of this country, and most of its power centers, are lined up behind two dynamic points...
...Is he a real liberal or is his liberalism a pretense designed to keep the Northern Democrats in line...
...Or if they maintain that politics is the art of compromise and the science of the possible, their proofs stand out clear as a pikestaff or an ICBM rocket...
...There were three votes...
...There is no fooling about it...
...On the Sunday evening after all of these things happened...
...The first one was on the Douglas motion to make it possible after 15 days of debate on any measure to close the discussion and force a vote by a mere majority ballot...
...I wrote months ago that the last election was the most significant national poll since the New Deal days...
...Congress' will he forced by the urgencies of the situation to enact a program which will at least partially satisfy last November's voters...
...To this observer, how-ever, it appears that in both chambers things have remained pretty much as they ever have been...
...But his device was no compromise...
...And if their basic notion is that after all results depend upon leaders, this has also been clearly demonstrated...
...Senator Douglas said sadly over a national television hook-up: "This augurs no good for the American people,'' The House is quite a different institution from the Senate...
...My memory runs back a long way, but I have never seen his superior...
...He is merely curious...
...He thought long enough to make me a bit uncomfortable, and then answered cautiously and ambivalently: "It would be a godsend to have a real man sitting in the great chair...
...He is careful to note that the Pacific Coast statesmen have no part in this, and he especially excludes Frank E. Moss (D.-Utah), John A. Carroll (D.-Colo...
...putting three-fifths in place of two-thirds would have created no earth-shaking revolution...
...And this hill was adopted by a clanging vote of 72 to 22...
...A proper sort of modesty may well lead to the desired sort of appropriations...
...We shall have, I have been told, legislation on education, housing, civil rights, defense, foreign affairs, violence in race relations—and a long list of other areas...
...I might have added that this Congress showed from the beginning more promise of passing a liberal and significant program than any other in a long time...
...Whenever the President or any of his underlings makes a move, writes an article, makes a speech, he will be thinking about its effect on the Republican chances in the election of 1960...
...We might wish for Eisenhower back again...
...All that has happened is that in both chambers the fight about the rules has been waged and won or lost...
...And it is rumored that be never for gets or overlooks anything, so they took the first opportunity to line up cozily along with him...
...So they think that their effort achieved a considerable degree of success...
...Paul Douglas, the veteran legislator and economist who led the fight for the two defeated Senate bills, is the most discouraged man in Washington...
...There is no such thing as a filibuster...
...In the Senate, whenever a legislator introduces a bill, makes a motion, adds a word to the record to be franked to the ends of the land, he, too, will have difficulty in holding his imagination down to the affairs of the moment...
...What will these multitudinous Democrats do to these miniscule, shivering Republicans and their wide-eyed President...
...In a recent letter, he explained to me what he meant when he said that these events boded no good for the American people...
...He can drive a committee or the entire Senate with the utmost finesse...
...And the whole program presented to Congress, including the budget, will be considered in relation to future votes...
...Most of the liberals with whom I have talked agree that the senior Senator from Illinois has drawn attention to a very interesting state of affairs...
...When I arrived here and began lounging about from office to office in the Senate and House buildings, one member after another told me that this is the youngest, brightest and most hopeful Congress he has seen in his day...
...What hurt Senator Douglas especially was that the bright new Senators from Alaska voted against him...
...But just to show how devilishly clever the spirit of conservatism, can be, it has devised to look after its interests in the House an all-powerful Rules Committee...
...This was in itself a considerable concession to the conservatives...
...He may pare it down, but he passes it...
...Go in punching and show what you can do...
...It was plainly a framework for majority rule, an honest attempt at democratic operation...
...The House and the Senate have been in session hut a few days...
...Nobody right now wants to be caught out on a limb...
...Their bill went down 58 to 36...
...Obviously, it is smart for a man to establish himself solidly with the big boss...
...If they would just file that bill away and mark it top-secret, he would promise to see to it that any good bill that seemed to be stuck in the Committee would be pulled out and sent to the floor of the House...
...The first and most obvious idea they propose is that the new Senators from the large-area and small-population states feel they must depend on Johnson for their place in this bright new world...
...So the concession made to the liberals and to the principle of majority rule amounts to just about nothing...
...The pictures painted for the citizens will be produced here in Washington, on the one hand by the Administration and, on the other, by the Congress under the tight leadership of Lyndon Johnson...
...All of these mountain men are from the large-area, small-population states...
...The theories which they devise with regard to it are interesting...
...The way appeared to be wide open for the liberal Democrats to do big things...
...The five liberal House members took their fine bill up to the Speaker...
...The millions upon millions who voted Democratic last fall seemed to be tired of the wistful waiting in Administration circles and seemed to be saying to House Speaker Sam Rayburn (D.-Tex...
Vol. 42 • February 1959 • No. 5
