Why Congress Fails

...So the problem of whether Congress can keep up with the nation's requirements comes down to finding some method of satisfying the needs of grassroots democracy without strangling the Congressman at the national level...

...also on his own hook, could not get through in 1946...

...Sheppard, Federal coordinator in the Studebaker-South Bend closing, suggested procedures for circumventing the Federal-state bureaucracy in an unemployment crisis, such as sending equipment and machinery directly to the afflicted area instead of to a central distribution point...

...The closing of 80 domestic military sites in 33 states, for example, offered the rare opportunity for Congress to solve a grass roots problem at the national level and begin articulating a national manpower policy...

...15-month-old proposal for a commission to study ways of converting wasteful defense industries to civilian uses-certainly an appropriate measure -shows how the intimidation works...

...He has neither the time nor the knowledge-and often not even the interest-to cope with the perilously complex problems of a modern society...

...so the bill got nowhere...

...The trouble, however, is that as each year passes the Congressman becomes more unsure of himself at the national level...

...The McGovern bill, incidentally, had 14 Senate and 29 House co-sponsors...

...As a result, its members must work at maintaining their stature in the sanctuary of their Congressional districts: They become specialists in case work and constituent service...

...But Congress was, and still is, so dependent upon the President, the Council of Economic Advisors, and the Defense, Labor, and Commerce Departments that it would have made no difference whatsoever if the closing had come this month when an organized reaction would have been more in order...

...The best plan for achieving this is Congressman Henry Reuss' (D.-Wis...

...This may be the smoothest way to run a country in a year when a huge party majority assures a vote favorable to the Administration on Paul Danaceau a previous contributor, is a free-lance journalist who covers the Washington scene...

...Although these creative conflicts theoretically would strengthen the entire fabric of government, the more practical question is whether, in today's explosive and highly mobile society, the current role of Congress as the Capitol Hill Hebrews to the White House Moses can be improved upon...

...In the absence of direct pressure or statement of need, only Congressional foresight exists to recommend a bill...

...Clearly,the first necessity is to provide time for the Congressman to learn what his constituents need in the way of jobs, schools and houses, and how their wants fit in with the national perspective...

...Still a third possibility for initiative in this area alone, one that has found no legislative sponsor, is a Federal blueprint for local economic crises-a what-to-do-if-someone-else - besides - McNamara - shuts -down-your-plant guide-by Dr...

...The history of Senator George McGovern's (D.-S...

...And in times of strong and expanding Executive leadership, is it at all possible for Congress to be a truly representative and independent body...

...Force of habit probably prevented them from drafting a bill based on a report to the Executive branch...

...Nor did things stop there...

...Lyndon Johnson may not want Congress to look back toward 1929 in determining the issues, yet as far as legislative behavior is concerned it cannot do otherwise...

...By functioning as a Congressional watchdog on matters to be processed by Executive agencies, the Administrative Counsel, appointed jointly by the Speaker of the House and the President pro tern of the Senate for two-year terms, would free members and staffs from follow-up work and let them concentrate on national matters...

...And the best way to get elected again is to concentrate on your district, which, if properly attended to, allows just enough time to ask the Majority Leader how to vote on a complex legislative matter...

...In short, having retreated to case work out of a need for security, he is unable to cross the legislative threshold without a Presidential request upon which to lean...

...Senator Vandenberg recalled his 1928 stand during that 1946 debate as proof that the Murray bill had "very honorable Republican roots...

...The adjustments that would be required on the part of the Congress are, of course, monumental...

...So was the Civil Rights Bill...

...The 1962 drug bill was getting nowhere until the thalidomide scare...

...a battle that Senator Murray continued in 1946 when, after vainly seeking an earlier form of a full employment budget, he settled instead for the proposals of the Council of Economic Advisers...

...This Congress is so Democratically topheavy that Johnson can lose all the Republican votes, plus 77 of his own, and still win on the floor of the House...

...And he is buttressed in this fantasy by the false assumption that he is accomplishing for the legislative process what the Gideon case, which granted indigent defendants the right of counsel in criminal proceedings, accomplished for the judicial process...

...In the past, this has been a poor reference, even though one essential role of a legislator should be as a national prophet, a civic risk-taker as well as a preserver...

...Nor is it unusual that when Congress challenges the Administration, as it did by trying to force President Kennedy to spend an additional $491 million on the RS-70 bomber in 1962, it conducts these assaults in the name of the national interest but in behalf of institutional jealousy...

...But is it necessarily the best...

...This is Labor Department territory, and besides, Clark is a reformer and a relatively outspoken critic of the Administration...

...The upshot is that Congress invariably loses...

...And the huge majority also suggests that some reform, such as making sure all major bills get to the floor, is forthcoming...

...His report went to the Area Redevelopment Administration, which has not been heard from since...

...For one thing, a responsive Congress could have passed Medicare in 1961 instead of flagellating itself on its merits for four years...

...Under these conditions, it is hardly surprising that the Congressional machinery operates best in reverse-blocking a bill or working to achieve one that limits the scope of the Supreme Court...

...The proposal was shot down last year when the Council of Economic Advisers, without revealing any details, advised the Senate Commerce Committee to wait for its own forthcoming parallel...

...Surely the Senate and House of Representatives are as deserving as the junk littering the highways that prompted the call for a task force on conserving our natural resources...

...Unhappily, the argument Senator Joseph C. O'Mahoney (D.-Wyo...

...The Congressman grants West Point appointments, retrieves flags flown over the Capitol, obtains special immigration bills and post office patronage, and occasionally throws a roadblock in the path of a bill to soothe a local lobby...

...Thus, when a local crisis of national proportions arises, such as the manpower problems raised by the base closings, the Congress is stretched so taut between its own limited vision and fear of the President that it cannot take any substantial initiative...

...Congress would have to completely reorient itself both to its constituencies and to the President, to see and explain representative government in terms of gauging the future as well as guarding the past...

...Harold L. Sheppard, director of the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research...

...The irony of the Clark bill is that the Pennsylvania Senator is still waging the same battle that Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg started as a freshman in 1928 when he called for the"orderly planning of useful public works" as a "prosperity reserve" against times of depression...

...It looks entirely toward the future in giving the Congressman the opportunity he needs to regain his stature as a national leader...

...But in the long run, this will not help solve the problem of whether Congress can ever again become a participant instead of a spectator in formulating national policy...

...How much more could an exceptionally responsive Congress accomplish...

...The country may therefore expect to receive medicare, an excise tax cut, area redevelopment extension, additional anti-poverty legislation, and hopefully, even a comprehensive education bill...

...Copies also went to Indiana Senators Birch Bayh and Vance Hartke and South Bend Congressman John Brademas, all Democrats, but no legislation was introduced to help other cities out of similar jams...

...Far from being resolved or even kept alive, the debate over Congressional initiative has simply been abandoned...

...A successful transition would require years of effort and public education, as well as some concentrated but responsible opposition to the White House...

...For although it is essential to guide freshmen along the path of voting on all matters placed before them, and urge them to vote on a bill's merits instead of a committee chairman's prejudices, it is equally urgent to instruct them on the virtues of legislative initiative...

...bill of last October that requires the President to submit a full employment budget to Congress with his annual Economic Report-essentially a resurrection of a bill Senator James E. Murray (D.-Mont...

...All the 89th Congress has to do to earn sainthood is support the President...

...With each succeeding burden, be it the Depression, World War II, or free-world leadership in the nuclear age, Congress has yielded more and more to Presidential omnipotence...

...practically all major issues...

...Accordingly, the freshmen are being told that the highest act of patriotism they can perform is to vote with the leadership, and to get reelected so they can continue to vote as instructed...

...Ironically, the Congress, the body that will recite the "amens" to the Great Society, is the only element of the nation not blessed with a task force to guide it toward the year 2000...

...OUR DEPENDENT LEGISLATORS Why Congress Fails By Paul Danaceau WASHINGTON In his White House welcome to the 67 freshmen Democratic Congressmen, Lyndon Johnson urged them to look ahead to the year 2000 instead of back at the year 1929...

...For another, it could catch up with the economic thoughts of the day...

...And if reflexes continue to take priority over ability, the freshmen who survive eventually will accept the view that the most irrelevant argument of all is to insist that a piece of legislation is necessary...

...But Gideon's petition resulted in a binding, legal ruling that carried the fruits of his victory to countless others, whereas the legislative Gideons-those persons who benefit by private bills and other intercessions by members of Congress-are all special cases who reap the fruits of their triumphs in solitude...

...advanced in behalf of the Murray bill is as appropriate today as it was when he said: "This is a bill to vest in Congress the power and the responsibility of meeting the issue, instead of continually delegating the power to the Executive branch of the government...

...For Congress has never recovered from that year in which, as its part in the political maturation of the nation, it substituted Freudianism for Federalism and began its protracted dependence upon the President...

...of whether it can move to meet and shape a consensus rather than wait for someone else to deliver it to its doorstep...

...An advantage of this system, modeled after the Swedish Ombudsman, is that it does not seek to identify the guilty parties in the Congressional collapse...

...In the short run, which means the life of the 89th Congress, this limitation may not mean much at all...

...Party reflexes, though momentarily of the highest priority, do more for Pavlov's dogs than for representative government...

...This may be lesser work than determining the national interest, but it can be more rewarding, to the extent of a four to six per cent difference in support at election time...

...Fortunately for him, they cannot follow his advice...

...The possibilities for responsible action, of course, do exist on Capitol Hill...

...If they could, they would act on their own initiative, question rather than accept the legislative proposals of the Great Society, and restore Congress to full and equal partnership in the national government...

...But the Congress is far more intimidated by the White House than it is by its own bogeymen of seniority, "cronyism," the emphasis on silence and the internal ranking of the men who propose independent action...

...Education legislation was needed for years...

...Otherwise, they are going to be lulled by the Congressional rhythm that sidesteps legislation until either the President or the lobbyists and pressure groups indicate the time is ripe for the legislative dance...

...That, he said, is where they would find the nation's needs...

...He is psychologically attuned to do more for individuals than for groups, to neglect the national needs of his district for the safer, more narrow ones, and to shudder at the unwieldy legislation the sum total of local grievances would produce rather than to seek out the similarities...

...Both finally were achieved, but because of the Russian sputnik and the Negro street protests...

...It is now 18 years later...

...This . . . is a bill to restore the functions of Congress...

...Then there is Senator Joseph C. Clark's (D.-Pa...

...unique proposal to give Congress an Administrative Counsel with a staff of 100 to handle the mountains of case work that currently bury a Congressman or Senator...

...They are right at the Congressional fingertips...

...The first problem is how, in the absence of case work, a member can touch the soul of the voter...