A Bill Gets Passed
Sturges, Gerald D.
A Bill Gets Passed THE DANCE OF LEGISLATION, by Eric Redman. Simon & Schuster. 319 pp. $7.95. reviewed by Gerald D. Sturges It can be disconcerting to tell someone that you are a...
...Redman tells a straightforward story...
...Mr...
...Sturges is legislative assistant to Representative David R. Obey, Wisconsin Democrat, and a former reporter for the Oakland, California, Tribune...
...Certainly, his outlook reflects the Senate's view of itself, and Magnuson, as chairman of the Commerce Committee and of the Labor-HEW appropriations subcommittee (a parlay not possible in the House), does wield considerable power...
...What might appear to be my criticisms of the book are in fact criticisms of the legislative strategy employed...
...You will not be disappointed...
...Redman's fascination with prestige and power shows itself in other ways...
...Abraham Bergman, proposed creation of a National Health Service Corps (NHSC) as an experimental solution to the physician maldistribution problem...
...Later, however, when it becomes politically expedient to appear to share credit with Senator Henry Jackson, Washington Democrat, Redman makes a great to-do about listing him as "co-author"—whatever that is...
...For instance, someone decides at the outset (Redman does not say where the idea originates) that the simplest course lies through the appropriations process: that instead of authorizing a new program, all its proponents need do is have Magnuson include extra funds in the HEW appropriations bill and designate in the accompanying written report that they be used for NHSC purposes...
...And his anecdotal example of powerlessness in the Senate would not generate much solicitude among powerless junior Congressmen...
...Such earmarking should have been the last course considered, not the first...
...Redman not only acknowledges that the idea and impetus for the legislation came from outside Mag-nuson's office, but gives full credit to the important role played later by another ardent outsider, Dr...
...However, it is not true, as Redman implies, that Magnuson and his able subcommittee staff man, Harley Dirks, write the Labor-HEW appropriations bill all by themselves...
...Anyone who reads The Dance of Legislation (a Wood-row Wilson phrase), as choreographed by Eric Redman, will not have to ask...
...Redman was a rookie LA in the office of Senator Warren Magnuson, Washington Democrat, in March 1970, when a politically active Seattle pediatrician, Dr...
...If Public Health Service doctors could be assigned to medically underserved urban and rural areas, Bergman believed, they would satisfy the short-term medical needs of those communities and then, when their commissioned tours were up, just might decide to settle into private practice there, rather than flee to the traditional "Cadillacs and country clubs" of the medical profession...
...Robert L. Nolan, chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of West Virginia Medical School, and to the essential participation of many other persons, both inside and outside the Congress...
...The book is Redman's account of how—in a remarkably short time, and despite ambush and error—it evolved into the Emergency Health Personnel Act of 1970 (Public Law 91-623...
...Magnuson gave the idea his blessing and Redman the task of making it a reality...
...Learning that a young medical student working as a summer intern in the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson has written Bergman on his own to ask for help in drafting a NHSC bill, Redman gulls him into abandoning the field to Magnuson, and offers him the consolation of letting Nelson be a prime sponsor ("whatever that is," Redman sniffs) of the Magnuson bill...
...The Dance of Legislation tells a story of changing partners, and of a legislative tempo that ranges from minuet to tarantella...
...From my view as an LA on the House side, Redman fancies more prestige and power in the Senate than actually reside there...
...It rarely works, not only because the House frowns upon attempts to legislate new programs in money bills, but because the money simply will not be spent unless the Executive branch shares Congressional enthusiasm for the new program...
...He might offer his sympathies, scorn, or congratulations, but he will not have to ask...
...reviewed by Gerald D. Sturges It can be disconcerting to tell someone that you are a legislative assistant (LA) to a member of the House or the Senate and have him ask, "Yes, but what do you do...
...To find out how the idea of a NHSC was embodied in Public Law 91-623, read the book...
Vol. 38 • January 1974 • No. 1
