Are The Democrats Serious About Reform?
Glass, Andrew J.
ARE THE DEMOCRATICS SERIOUS ABOUT REFORM? by ANDREW J. GLASS The Devil was sick—the Devil a monk would be. . . . A prosaic American counterpart to this old English rhyme might be: When...
...Since January, Bode has been run- ning a small Nader-like organization called the Center for Political Reform, advising Fraser and Senator Harold Hughes of Iowa, another commission member, while pressing on a state-by- . . the Democratic reform drive was from the start- arid remains today—a lim- ited venture...
...It is an open question whether this latter group will finally be seated at the convention...
...Still, it is curious that the Democrats have failed to press their natural ad- vantage as the party of reform and to raise it as a political issue...
...In each instance, the Fraser-McGovern Commission said these groups must be represented in "reasonable" ratios in 1972—although it did not say what it thought was "reasonable...
...O'Brien is not at all upset that Fraser and his commission colleagues appear both unwilling and unable to carry the major burden of the enforce- ment battle—a battle that the national chairman equates with the amount of energy that should be expended in a Presidential campaign...
...It was the DO committee's recommenda- tions that were shelved in Denver...
...So the White House staff continues to grind out messages to Congress on every con- ceivable sort of governmental reform while it axes other people's proposals on party reform...
...The Democrats prepared early to head off fresh trouble in 1972 by plac- ing Senator George McGovern of South Dakota at the head of a twenty- eight-member reform commission, set up under the orders of the 1968 con- vention...
...This time, we have a feel- ing we're going to win...
...The party's Presidential hopefuls now tour the country in borrowed private jets, confident that the White House can be retaken next year...
...In eight state delega- tions, the average age of delegates was fifty or higher...
...Over a nine-month peri od, wide-ranging party reforms wen enacted...
...While the reform picture remains fuzzy for the Democrats the Republi- cans stare at blank screens...
...It was not so long ago that the Democrats were $9 million in debt, with no prospect of repayment...
...Nixon respects efficient management and orderly procedures...
...The unpleasantness of the past and the feai of future division were factors that en- abled us to get together and make some rather bold changes...
...Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana, who served on the commission, would not go that far...
...On another plane, several hard- working members of the commission are unhappy because some reporters have stressed the remaining gaps in the compliance picture while failing to stress that what has already been accomplished goes far beyond what many observers thought could be done when the commission began its work in early 1969...
...But it's a lot harder...
...Either way, they reason, there can be an explosion at Miami Beach from which only Richard Nix- on can profit...
...There is evidence that they may be right...
...Any delegation that showed up without having made "all feasible efforts" to comply stood a grave risk of being bumped out of the hall at Miami Beach...
...The word around Capitol Hill is that he is running for the chairmanship of the convention credentials committee—a job that you do not get by taking way- out positions...
...Presumably, the credentials committee, meeting on the eve of the convention, will have to perform that function...
...Fraser called the commis- sion together on July 16 for its first meeting since late 1969...
...Precisely so...
...Meany's political mon- ey...
...In some states, a defiant mood con- tinues to prevail...
...By February, 1971, O'Brien was so firmly behind the commission that he privately threatened to resign unless the 100-member Democratic National Committee, which was meeting in Washington at the time, approved the commission's final report...
...J. Marshall Brown, the national committeeman in Louisi- ana, described McGovern as a "jerk" and a "knucklehead" and added, "I always took the position that the Mc- Govern commission was not binding...
...A task- force proposal that ethnic minorities and young people be granted propor- tional representation on state delega- tions to the 1972 national convention in San Diego was shelved by the top brass without debate during the Re- publican National Committee's July meeting in Denver...
...In some states, however, the offi- cial party has failed to show a com- mitment to meaningful reform, and we have had to work primarily with independent Democratic groups...
...The shattering impact oi the Chicago convention had everybody in a more or less humble mood," Mc- Govern reflected, not long ago...
...Robert Strauss, the party's national treasurer, greets wealthy angels in ruffled shirt and tuxedo, extracting campaign funds for 1972...
...One of them is to have the Illinois legislature pass campaign reform legislation that would allow, say, several pro-McGovern slates to file in each Congressional district...
...A more representational party struc- ture may introduce discordant notes at a convention that is programmed to be a lyric hymn of praise to the Nixon Presidency...
...state basis for implementation of the "guidelines...
...When he assumed com- mand in March 1970, O'Brien's feel- ing was that the commission's recom- mendations, taken together, would make Democrats mad at a time when they should be getting together to take on Nixon and raise a little money...
...Younger persons were similarly shut out three years ago: sixteen del- egations had no voting members under thirty years of age and another thir- teen had only one delegate each from that age group...
...Bode's warning that the reform movement is turning sour and his de- termination to sue each state party that does not measure up drives O'Brien into a rage...
...There can be a lot of motion...
...Nixon has said...
...Where possible, we have attempted to work with estab- lished party leaders and with official state reform commissions and commit- tees...
...Indeed, why should they be...
...By contrast, the Democratic Pres- idential candidates are enthusiastic, to a greater or less degree, even though some of them would love to get their hands on Mr...
...There has neve been a political party which, whei confronted with the choice of reforn or death, has chosen reform," the Sen ator noted as the commission em barked on its quest for reform...
...Perhaps the main reason for the Democrats' ret- icence (other than a widespread feel- ing that reform does not sell) is the fact that some players see the game as one of giving the appearance of re- form while taking subtle steps to avoid the spirit of the new rules...
...I will get it done...
...That did the trick...
...Let us not have any dis- cord, Mr...
...No one has been asked to submit written testimony or proposals...
...But the Fraser-McGovern Commis sion, as it is now known, surprisec everyone, including itself, by it initial work...
...A so-called DO commit- tee (for Delegates and Organization) was named by former GOP National Chairman Rogers C. B. Morton in June, 1969, under the chairmanship of Mrs...
...Nixon is not losing much sleep over Republican Party reform...
...It was repeatedly stressed in Denver that these proposals were merely recommendations...
...The procedural safeguards adopted by the commission forbid proxy voting at state conventions and eliminate the unit rule, which bound state delega- tions to vote as a bloc...
...Nearly two years later, with nine months remaining before the national convention, eleven states are, to use the national committee's phrase, "in apparent compliance" with the designated reforms...
...There are a number of old pros who can meet the 'guidelines' and still thwart the basic purposes," said Stephen Reinhardt, California's na- tional committeeman...
...But in this busi- ness, you don't make large jumps overnight...
...It is well known that George Meany, president of the parent AFL- CIO, is hostile to reform...
...Small won- der...
...Its proceedings have not been reported in any Republican publication...
...Despite these accomplishments, the Democratic reform drive was from the start—and remains today—a limited venture...
...in disarray as a result of their loss of the White House...
...But O'Brien has al- ready dulled his credibility in some pro-reform circles by engaging in an unseemly feud with Kenneth A. Bode, thirty-two, the commission's former research director...
...By contrast, Raskin says, the Re- publicans, as a class-based party rather than a coalition movement, do not even try to co-opt minorities and are content to retain their narrow subur- ban, white Protestant, middle-class base, at least when it comes to nom- inating Presidential candidates...
...The McGovern vote would then be divided and the "organization" vote would come out on top...
...This isn't war, you know, this is inside . . . intramural politics...
...But, after much talk, O'Brien was dis- suaded from torpedoing the commis- sion...
...In seeking to reform the GOP, this panel has held no pub- lic hearings or extended any public in- vitations to testify before its closed hearings...
...But the would-be GOP reformers do not seem overly troubled by this turn of events...
...A scant 5.5 per cent of the 1968 delegates were black, although blacks make up eleven per cent of the total population and an even higher fraction of Democratic voters...
...Still, the Democrats may end up holding a more open convention than Ronan anticipates...
...We've always done it before," he said...
...On a long-term basis, there is no mandate to fashion and maintain a reform structure beyond the 1972 convention...
...We're going to have to rely on self-enforcement," Fraser in- formed the commission members who returned for the meeting...
...He was succeeded b Representative Don Fraser of Min nesota...
...numb from the effects of a disastrous nation- al convention...
...The regulars have been at it so long that they know all the tricks," said Anne Martindell, vice-chairman of the New Jersey Democratic Party...
...I question the right of the previous convention to set the rules of the 1972 convention," James Ronan, Democratic state chairman in Illinois, told me...
...po- litical parties for the non-partisan Twentieth Century Fund, view the DO committee as "a kind of Republi- can star chamber...
...If you have a fellow who is a state chairman, that doesn't necessarily mean he won't have any power [at the convention]," he said...
...Apparently, the motion is in two directions: As the Presidential front advances, the reform front recedes...
...The commission held that the selec- tion of delegates, by whatever means, should occur in 1972, the year of the convention—a big plus for late-bloom- ing candidates...
...The guy who has this clearly in mind is the winner...
...The Democratic reformers also sought to deal with the problem of minority representation, without im- posing specific quotas...
...Take Illinois, where the Dem- ocratic Party is ruled largely by Chi- cago Mayor Richard J. Daley's polit- ical machine...
...Being a champion of reform is an ac- quired taste for the party's national chairman...
...for him, the old politics still retains some clout...
...McGovern held the commis sion chairmanship until early this yeai when he announced he was runnin] for President...
...Its membership has been limited to GOP national committeemen and commit- tee women, chiefly from the West and Midwest...
...In 1968, the lack of written rules and the absence of open systems in at least a third of the states effectively blocked any possible effort to field a challenge slate of delegates there...
...But everyone knows that the answer to this question may well seal the future course of the Democratic Party and, for that matter, of the nation as well...
...Lawrence O'Brien, the genial Irish- man who serves as Democratic nation- al chairman (and the official to whom Muskie addressed his collective boycott plea) is personally committed to the cause of party reform...
...The main ploy is to portray Bode (through the eyes of sympathetic columnists) as a fourth-party guerrilla leader that would have the Democrats declare political bankruptcy through a series of bitterly fought credentials challenges...
...In the short-term, the commission bypassed some sensitive issues, such as California's winner-take-all primary, a jackpot that contains a fifth of the 1,500-odd delegates needed to nom- inate...
...It is apparent that Mr...
...There are others who regard even the appearance of compliance as an excessive invasion of their liberties...
...Can- didates can still make their deals," Larry O'Brien confided...
...The re- maining holdouts, which account for nearly half of all the convention dele- gates, are making varying degrees of progress...
...They all thought we were going to lose...
...The DO committee operates in a sealed political world, light years away in atmosphere from the Democrats' comparable group, the Fraser-McGov- ern Commission...
...Senator Hubert Humphrey of Min- nesota, the party's 1968 nominee, ap- pears to be taking the reform move- ment in stride...
...It barred state Dem- ocratic committees from choosing more than ten per cent of a delegation—a big minus for Presidential candidates who prefer to make their arrangements directly with state party bosses...
...Women fared no better at Chicago, where they comprised only thirteen per cent of the delegates, even though they represent more than half of those casting ballots nationally...
...M. Stanley Ginn, the Republican committeewoman from Missouri...
...A reform movement aimed at truly broadening the base of the Republican Party would necessar- ily aim at attracting the very elements in U.S...
...For inquiring visitors, officials of the Democratic National Committee produce a fancy dog-and-pony show on the great strides that have suppos- edly been made on the path to reform...
...There is a rather smug feeling in GOP circles that only the Democrats need worry about reform...
...The Daley team has several ways of getting ahead...
...I don't think I would have had the nerve to run for the Presidency if not for these reforms," McGovern told me...
...And what of reform—the exorcism through which the party was to regain its soul and lead disenchanted millions back to the political mainstream—as defined by the Democrats...
...In particular, the vital ques- tion of how the eighteen designated reforms would be enforced was delib- erately left up in the air...
...Fourth-party observers understand- More Seasoning than Stew ably discount the differences between the Republican and Democratic re- form efforts...
...People who have been frozen out will have to raise the issue...
...Right now, no one knows whether the key states at the convention will take the Democratic Fraser-McGovern reform commission's work to heart, or whether they will try to evade or dodge the issues raised by the reformers, or whether they will make some sort of compromise with them...
...The current front-runner, Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine, has pro- posed that all the candidates join in a "common commitment to reject the support of delegates from states which have made inadequate efforts to com- ply with the commission's guidelines...
...So far, most of them have not...
...What accounted for the break- through...
...But, in truth, these officials do not know whether most of the fifty-five state and territorial parties will com- ply with proposed changes in party rules...
...in all the other states and territories, the delegations that go to Miami Beach will be roughly proportional to the support that various candidates man- age to muster in the state, either at conventions or in primaries...
...But he also agrees with Bayh's assessment...
...Of the ten leading states in population, only Illinois is represented...
...What really worries the commission and its small staff is that Bode's inde- pendent movement will make the anti- reformers dig in deeper while negative stories in newspapers and magazines will make fence-sitters think that the reform campaign should not be taken too seriously...
...When they can smell that victory, they say, 'Let's not go that far...
...Most of the eighteen changes boiled down to the fact that the commission insisted upon explicit written rules and open- to-all systems for selecting delegates...
...had they been adopted by the national commit- tee, the convention delegates still could have felt free to cast them aside...
...Reformers tend to reach out and pull back as an election approaches," Humphrey told me...
...In any event, everyone in Denver was looking forward to a serene stay in San Diego, where the President is scheduled to alight from his Marine helicopter—it is a fifty-five-mile hop from San Clemente to San Diego Sta- dium—to accept the 1972 Republican nomination...
...At the same time, the proliferation of state primaries and the multiplicity of Democratic contenders point to new arrangements of power within the party...
...As the GOP awaits this climactic event, no important GOP figure expects the kind of credentials challenges that marked Democratic national conventions in 1964 and 1968...
...How quickly ill fortune is forgotten...
...O'Brien fears that in some form or another, Bode's "in- dependent Democratic groups" are go- ing to show up at Miami Beach, de- manding delegates' seats, and, in so doing, make a shambles of the convention...
...Of the eleven most populous states, with the largest delegations, only two, New Jersey and Ohio, had complied with all eighteen of the procedural changes by early September...
...ANDREW J. GLASS, a seasoned Wash- ington correspondent, is a contributing editor to National Journal...
...Within the group that did attend, an activist minority was outvoted in its maneuvers to expand the commission's mandate...
...For some time after McGovern wa anointed as a prophet of politica resurrection, he continued to hol< doubts that anything meaningful coul< be accomplished...
...We're not going to be the judge...
...Surely, former Re- publican Mayor of New York John Lindsay's conversion to the Democrat- ic faith indicates that he feels he stands a better chance of getting ahead at Miami Beach than he could at a dozen San Diegos...
...A prosaic American counterpart to this old English rhyme might be: When Democrats fall on hard times, they talk of party reform as a means of salvation...
...In the Saloma-Sontag study, Marcus Raskin, a founder of the radical left New Party, sees Dem- ocratic party reform as a process of bringing new groups into the estab- lished coalition structure, but only in a token way...
...Republi- cans, it is argued widely—by them— solved all their problems years ago, for example, by abolishing the unit rule...
...As an afterthought, the nation- al committeemen and committeewom- en voted themselves seats at the con- vention, although the commission had specifically forbidden any automatic seating of delegates...
...Although open hearings were held, only twenty or so of the commission members participated on a regular basis...
...Fortunately for the cause of reform, Larry O'Brien takes a different view...
...It just won't be as easy as it used to be...
...This is 'fun or fight.' 'Fun or fight,' you know, not really serious...
...The idea was to forestall the possibility of a convention dominated not by a reigning President—the Republicans had taken care of that—but by an alii- ance of party bosses bent on serving as brokers in the choice of a new national ticket...
...In 1968, it was different...
...Don't worry about it," O'Brien told me, rapping his chest with his fist...
...Then too, Mr...
...Aside from California, only South Dakota (seventeen delegates) runs a winner-take-all system...
...But primary turnouts sometimes have been known to be poorly repre- sentative of the larger popular will and autumn contenders have a way of wilting in the political heat of summer...
...Ronan, the party chair- man there and a loyal Daley lieuten- ant, said he fully expected that Daley's "organization candidates" will go to Miami Beach in 1972, even if the rules are changed...
...I. W. Abel, president of the United Steelworkers of America, who was assigned a commission seat, did not show up at all, and sent the union's political director, James C. O'Brien, to only two of the sessions...
...They also limit mandatory filing fees for would-be delegates to no more than $10...
...where delegates are nominated by petition the number of signatures required may be no more than one per cent of the total Democratic vote in the state...
...In that case, they reasoned, 'Why not have a hell of a fight...
...society with whom the Nixon Administration feels least comfortable: young people, blacks, militant women...
...The Fraser-McGovern Commission forwarded the eighteen designated changes—dubbing them "guidelines" to the state party organizations in No- vember 1969...
...All the press has done during these months is to indicate that it can't happen, and it has happened," Senator Hughes said...
...By last February, the Dem ocratic National Committee hac adopted all of the Commission's rec- ommendations and had made then binding upon the state and territoria Democratic parties...
...O'Brien has done everything he can think of to try to put Bode out of busi- ness...
...Fraser is pro-reform, but he is not looking to make any enemies...
...We're going to lose anyway.' This time, if they do something [about party reform] well, that's an improve- ment over the past...
...Actual reform has been slow in coming," Bode says...
...Maybe he will...
...It was all rather basic stuff...
...Considerably less than half its members showed up...
...O'Brien and Fraser have a tentative relationship...
...John H. Saloma III and Frederick H. Son tag, who have examined U.S...
...Yet a closer examination of the facts (such as skin colors at GOP na- tional conventions) indicates otherwise...
...The Commission produced eighteen specific changes in past rules and prac- tices, which, all agreed, had to be met before a state or territorial delega- tion could be seated at the 1972 con- vention...
Vol. 35 • August 1971 • No. 10
