O Washington

...Many of the fifty-seven Democrats and twenty-four Republicans spirited themselves off somewhere for a few days' break, after which it was all work...

...And they need a sense of humor to get through it...

...The choice of key aides could have much more to do with where the new member ends up ideologically than anything picked up at Harvard...

...On theological principles and moral conclusions in the letter regarding nuclear war and war-preparedness, 141 agreed, 114 had reservations, two basically disagreed...

...There are workshops on how to use the computers, how to tap into the Library of Congress and its mother lode of information (without asking the library staff to write speeches or position papers...

...Eighteen per cent of Americans (and 5 per cent of the Europeans) said they were prepared to die for their country—which suggests that most expect to fight and survive...

...Catholic bishops don't have to worry about re-election...

...s all this war worry unnecessary...

...Eighty years ago, in his book Around the Capitol (Nutshell Publishing, New York, 1902), Thomas Fleming wrote from the press gallery: "A new member had secured the floor to divest himself of his maiden speech, and he had fondly imagined that he was the cynosure of all eyes...

...From December 9 to 15, on a first come, first served basis, some forty-plus of the new members were scheduled to go up to Harvard to be subjected to middle-of-the-road indoctrination by scholars from such unimaginative places as the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute...

...For the fifty-seven Democrats who tripped into Washington on December 1, it is mainly a question of watching their fate decided for them by a leadership and a party that at present have neither candidate nor platform to unseat a president whose policies most Americans probably resent...

...The Republican victors can look two years down the road and know that if Reagan continues on his course of the last twenty-four months, they are doomed come election night...

...The eighty-one new members (plus two latecomers due from special Georgia runoffs) have worries...

...No one can predict how it will go, but everyone knows the setting...

...During freshman orientation, the party organizing caucuses are held...

...There's even a cadre of apolitical "professionals" who will work for any member with equal devotion regardless of affiliation—something like State Department bureaucrats...

...From the news coverage, the general public in the United States and Europe learned that the bishops intend to push ahead with their letter, that they intend to redraft it for a special May meeting, and that they have no fear of debating such a momentous matter among themselves or with the President of the United States...

...The pitch was devoid of political or ideological content...

...No clear standards exist to gauge the actual proficiency of someone who claims to be a cracker jack Congressional aide...

...The immediate collapse took place as soon as the returns were in...

...Two weeks later the job-seeker was back and made exactly the same pitch...

...Those with the ego to survive will settle into the nerve-wracking, time-consuming routine...

...Because party leaders fix up their new members with temporary desk and telephone until the lame-duck Congress disbands, there is an opportunity, particularly for office staff, to volunteer to help new members...

...If the bishops appeared to be divided, that was more illusion than reality...

...But, he goes on to warn, if they want to be treated well by the party leadership, they will have to come through on the critical votes...

...Will Catholics have to follow it to remain in good standing...

...Anything less than a resounding Democratic sweep was nothing more than normal mid-term repositioning...

...Had he not been so fully engrossed in his subject, he would have noticed that after a few minutes attention from his fellow members (due in great measure to curiosity and a desire to 'size up' a new aspirant for Congressional honors) he was speaking to empty chairs as far as the House was concerned...

...The majority of the bishops seemed to favor a binding letter even if it creates tension in the church...

...Or are they, counter to Roach's dictum, "liberal in doctrine and conservative in politics...

...it intends to be seen and heard...

...Any green Democrats who didn't vote for O'Neill for Speaker might as well sublet that newly acquired D.C...

...But the committee has to get other messages across first: how to keep accounts, what the allowances are, and what may and may not go out as franked mail at the taxpayers' expense...

...O WASHINGTON Arthur Jones The New Class For the eighty-one new members of the House of Representatives elected on November 2, the period from election night to opening day of the Ninety-eighth Congress can be divided into immediate collapse, the need to laugh, room-with-bath, finding staff, and initial gaffe...

...it was lost by the Republicans...

...Right now, the new member is preparing for the first public gaffe, the maiden speech...

...But people draw a distinction between fighting and dying...

...While the bishops were debating in one hall at the Capital Hilton, a polling group which conducted surveys in twelve countries was releasing some findings in another...

...An early poll they took among themselves on the current version of their nuclear-arms-condemning letter told it all: Regarding the document's sociopolitical analysis, 234 agreed, forty-four had major reservations, six were in basic disagreement...

...The freshmen in the Ninety-eighth Congress could be politically short-lived indeed...

...The Democrats should be able to see that if Reagan shifts policies, times any sort of recovery so that there is an "uptick" in the economy and a drop in unemployment, they'll be one-term members...

...The last election was not won by the Democrats...

...The finding to which the bishops cocked their ears, however, was the fact that three out of every ten American Catholics think their church is not giving adequate answers to moral problems and the needs of the individual...

...From that opening shot until Roach's final press conference, the almost 300 bishops present contended with a press corps that outnumbered them—more than 300, including camera crews...

...The Democrats had little to offer by way of alternatives to two years of Reaganomics...

...On its citations from Scripture and its presentation of Catholic traditions, 202 agreed, sixty-four had reservations, four disagreed...

...From day one of their election, the frosh are inundated in resumes...

...From December 1 to 9 it was learning where things are and what services are available, listening to pep talks from team leaders, and making the endless round of social events...

...The rascal's chair was taken by one of the most progressive new members of the House...

...Four-fifths of Americans say they are "very proud" to be Americans, "although the percentages drop among the young and in the black and Hispanic subgroups...

...That means three or four times a year...

...Americans are much more willing to fight for their country than Europeans (71 per cent in this country versus 43 per cent in Europe...

...In the works is a statement on an even more explosive topic—a pastoral letter on capitalism...

...But no one told them that during their orientation sessions...

...And, all the time, the next election is rapidly closing in...

...The process the draft has gone through will drastically alter the public stance of the U.S...

...Unbeknownst to the newcomer, whose key staff members are probably heroes (or at least veterans) of the recently concluded campaign, there's a floating pool of "professional" Congressional aides who are fresh out of work because their bosses lost that election...

...they hold office for life, or at least until age seventy-five...

...bishops were tackling that problem head-on...

...How soon can I hire staff...

...it was that of the knowledgeable bureaucrat whose services could be bought...

...The bishops will produce a document on war and peace, and it will be a strong one...

...The House Administration Committee, which runs the bipartisan "learning" seminars, knows that the first three questions will be: "How quickly can I start work...

...Where's my work space...

...But if the bishops are now capable of making such important decisions calmly and publicly, the critical question still remains—will Catholics follow...

...Nonetheless, they do have to worry about their constituents...

...Americans are much more likely than Europeans to anticipate involvement in war...

...The Democrats, for example, trot past Tip O'Neill and Majority Leader Jim Wright, who tells them they are relatively free to pursue their interests—Democrats rule with a light whip...

...A new House member can hire up to eighteen staff members, a fair amount of patronage...

...And it takes no great sophistication to figure out that team players are the ones most favorably regarded for plum committee assignments...

...When it comes to patriotism, says CARA, Americans manifest stronger feelings than Europeans...

...Though they are not thinking of it yet, that two-year lifespan is the albatross that perches on every member's shoulder, fresh or seasoned, young or old...

...When the bishops met in Washington in mid-November to discuss their celebrated (or notorious) war-and-peace letter, their president, St.Paul-Minneapolis Archbishop John R. Roach, said he "did not feel compelled to reject the tag" that bishops are "conservative in doctrine and liberal in politics...

...property...

...They belonged to the apt, if sexist, "freshman" class, for they arrived in Washington December 1 for two weeks that resemble nothing so much as college orientation...

...But none of these exertions will have the impact most bishops themselves seem to want unless they resolve the main question they took with them from the conference: Is the pastoral letter on war and peace going to be binding on U.S...

...The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), a Catholic think tank that has Gallup do its polling for it, found that "a large portion of Americans expect the United States to be involved in a major war within five years...

...The story is told of a young applicant who dropped off his resume and made a pitch to a rascally old right-winger without knowing the legislator had lost his bid for re-election...

...For what might be termed the professional staff, however, the process is more hazardous...

...Catholic hierarchy on the major social issues...

...What does that mean for this particular freshman class...

...It was only on his way out of the office that he asked, "What happened to the other fellow who used to work here...

...That tally, judging from the debate that followed, did not mean the 114 bishops opposed the moral principles, but rather that they had reservations about the manner in which they were stated...

...And that was borne out in the most telling tally: If the bishops had had to vote on the document as was, 195 supported it, seventy-one had reservations, but only six basically disagreed...

...Often, it works...

...It's a mainstream immersion— newly acquired Congressional staff members are excluded...

...A secretary who has no job prospects for the opening day of the Ninety-eighth can try to persuade a new member that she knows the secretarial ropes around the House office buildings...

...Between the bipartisan sessions, the new members hear from their political leaders...

...When the new member asked the Speaker for order, Fleming continued, the rest of the members, "perfectly indifferent as to what an unknown might have to say, stepped out to the cloakrooms to resume their storytelling...

...But the staff must be shared between Washington and the district offices back home, and for new members, in particular, the job security is shaky: The next election is in 1984...

...Just down the corridor, nuclear-war fearing U.S...

...Mentioning staff is important at this juncture because once the room-and-bath is assured, hiring looms large in the new Representative's nightmares...

...Catholics as a matter of church teaching...

...After all, the new member can usually just pick up the phone and check with the old member...