THE BEST AND THE WORST OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Noah, Timothy
THE BEST AND THE OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES BY TIMOTHY NOAH Even in the age of C- SPAN, the House of Representatives is a pretty obscure place in comparison to the chamber next...
...the result was the Clayton Antitrust Act, enacted in 1914...
...Louis Post-Dispatch that he'd never heard of James Fallows's book, National Defense...
...But the two have also developed an intriguing symbiosis...
...Congressmen who have a temper and a brisk staff turnover aren't necessarily bad at their job—both Dingell and Waxman, for example, can be rough on the people who work for them...
...Then he forgets to do anything about it ." Even when Scheuer does show some initiative, he tends to alienate his colleagues with his tendency to shout witnesses down and humiliate his staff members in public...
...In committee he frequently just sits while others take charge...
...Who's the campaign treasurer...
...In 1982, Rostenkowski punted completely, leaving the writing of that year's bill to Bob Dole, the Senate Finance Committee chairman, who engineered loophole-closing tax reforms in an election year while the Democrats looked on...
...Though an unabashed facilitator, Waxman never loses sight of the moral ends that he seeks...
...But after he looked at the evidence, he altered his position a bit to the left: "I have learned from the hearings that there are still enormous difficulties with people getting the right to vote in the South ." Hyde has also worked quietly to moderate the anti-gay fervor of some of his New Right colleagues...
...Finally come the skills of negotiation and facilitation...
...Dingell is at his best in jurisdictional street fights with the administration...
...he had missed one filing deadline and failed to file properly before or after a second...
...And not, at least until now, the constituents in his heavily Democratic district in East St...
...In return, Nader lobbied for the entire bill...
...When the Department of Housing and Urban Development submitted a document listing 60-odd "surplus or underutilized" housing projects across the country, Frank checked up on the information and found that they were in fact largely filled up with lower-income tenants...
...He has the attention span of a flea," says one veteran of the liberal legislative wars...
...Possibly Waxman's greatest moment in Congress was the 1982 fight over the Clean Air Act...
...What follows is a sampling of people who excel at or fall down on one skill or another, based on conversations with reporters, lobbyists, congressional staffers, and past and present representatives, from all points on the political spectrum...
...For example, in a debate on the 1981 tax bill's special breaks for independent oil producers, when a Texas congressman intoned that "the eyes of Texas are upon us;' Frank said he didn't mind the eyes of Texas being upon him...
...He's the most knowledgeable member of the subcommitte," says a staff member on the Energy and Commerce Committee on which Gore also sits...
...You are concerned about nuclear energy or telecommunications...
...When he was recently convicted—and censured by his House colleagues—for failing to report a loan from Bunker Hunt to Hansen's wife on his financial disclosure forms, it was not the first time he'd been on the wrong side of the law...
...Hyde initially grumbled about the "handful of Southern states" that had "been in the penalty box" since 1965...
...They are careful not to ruffle the feathers of colleagues upon whom they lean for support...
...He pushed hard to expel Gerry Studds and Daniel Crane after both were found to have seduced congressional pages...
...He's been an ardent defender of the equal time and fairness doctrines for broadcasting...
...In general, I found that my sources had an easier time identifying the latter than they did identifying the former, which may be a heartening sign...
...Others in Congress may chair committees that are as inherently powerful as Dingell's Ways and Means comes to mind—but there's no chairman who wields that power as effectively as Dingell does...
...The Best JOHN DINGELL Democrat, Michigan John Dingell is the hulking chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and his legislative domain is probably the largest in Congress...
...The nation probably would have been better off if Reagan's original proposal had passed intact...
...Price is conventionally pro-defense...
...Zschau, from California's Silicon Valley, is the genuine article, the founder of a computer hardware company called Systems Industries...
...Sure enough, the business coalition that had seemed such a juggernaut came unglued...
...MEL PRICE Democrat, Illinois One of the saddest types on Capitol Hill is the aging congressman who lacks the self-awareness and grace to know when to step down...
...Louis, Illinois: they regularly reelect him by large margins...
...Though a practical legislator, Obey can be stubborn when questions of principle are at stake...
...Richard Bolling of Missouri, he ruffles feathers anyway...
...Legislators marshal a wide array of skills, but they can be broken down into four rough categories...
...He demonstrated his practical business sense by seeking—and winning—a spot on the Republican Committee on Committees, which plays a key role in allocating committee slots...
...This breaks down into two components...
...Waxman's strategy lay in creating divisions between the industries that were lobbying for looser pollution control requirements by picking away at particular provisions...
...But Luken's outbursts can be extraordinarily petty...
...He has been known to put interns to work calling up trade associations to inquire whether they had PACs...
...each sees in the other an opponent who can help sharpen his own debating skills and ideas...
...Gingrich is a thorn in the side of the Democratic leadership, and that's precisely what he intends to be...
...Gore turned it into a sort of committee on the future, exploring such threshold questions as genetic engineering, organ transplants, medical research fraud, and the international uranium cartel, and thereby shepherding these issues from the obscurity of the science magazines to the congressional agenda...
...The first part is responding to a problem, as Representative Henry D. Clayton of Alabama, for example, responded to the dangers of concentrated economic power...
...I can't think of a down side to Barney Frank even if he does have a predilection to talk like a tobacco auctioneer...
...Although Savage managed to get his son released within a couple of hours, he fumed to the Post about the "racist" Washington, D.C...
...During the Iranian crisis, for example, Hansen proposed turning David Rockefeller over to the Iranians if they would give us the hostages in return...
...I take my hat off to him:' says the HUD official responsible...
...By staking out new issues, he has avoided stealing other members' turf...
...He's stymied the efforts of banks to break into the securities business (thereby depriving institutions like Continental Illinois another arena in which to demonstrate their financial acumen...
...Luken worked himself into a frenzy, slamming his glasses on his desk and shrieking at the top of his lungs...
...Previously this had been a sleepy outpost that assured its chairman a light briefing book to take home...
...This, a veteran colleague said, is "the only freshman job with any power...
...Raised in Washington— his father, Albert Sr., was a feisty Tennessee senator—Gore has shown a good sense of how Congress works...
...But they have made the Congress a more honorable place...
...One skill is investigation, the process of identifying a problem through staff research and public hearings: think of Sam Ervin presiding over the Watergate committee...
...An example is James Scheuer...
...Washington is full of politicians, from Ronald Reagan to Gary Hart, who claim to know what's best for the entrepreneur—even though they themselves have never been one...
...You cannot have a city where the most prominent public comes into such irresponsible hands...
...A larger membership means fewer committee assignments for each one: the result is that representatives often wind up with a deeper understanding of the issues...
...DAVID OBEY Democrat, Wisconsin David Obey is described in The Almanac of American Politics as "perhaps the most politically competent young liberal in the House...
...My purpose here is to explore the various ways to succeed or fail in a government body about which too little is known...
...Not his staff, who get to run things more than they would for a more active boss...
...The Worst TOM LUKEN Democrat, Ohio When The Wall Street Journal went looking for a congressman to profile who would illustrate the unwholesome potential of political action committees, it chose Tom Luken, the former liberal mayor of Cincinnati, now a somewhat conservative congressman from that city...
...He's able to pick up on things more quickly than anybody I've ever met in any field:' says one congressional staffer who's worked with Frank...
...To Savage, the evening had policy implications: "I have always supported home rule for D.C., but I want it known that because of this kind of irresponsibility there is one black member [of Congress] who is against home rule...
...Then comes the actual drafting of a bill in a way that will make it stand up in court and—not incidentally—make it fall within the jurisdiction of the committee on which the representative sits...
...Appropriately, he now sits on the "oversight" subcommittees of three committees...
...Although the idea may not have been completely without merit, it was taking it a little far to fly to Teheran in the midst of the hostage crisis to make the offer in person...
...Back in 1975, Hansen pleaded guilty to filing false disclosure reports during the 1974 primary...
...The son of a Congressman and a former page, he has mastered every step of the process—he's a tenacious investigator, an effective legislator, and an especially canny facilitator who knows the right buttons to push and elbows to tug when the troops need to be mobilized for action...
...By the time security let him out, he had missed six or seven major votes...
...The environment...
...During the current session, for example, Gingrich used parliamentary tactics to help force a vote on two issues that the Democrats didn't want to consider—immigration reform and use of public school property by religious groups...
...Dingell has wielded this clout for an array of good causes...
...Better talk to Dingell...
...One politician who excelled at both was Lyndon Johnson, who would perform the horsetrading that gets a majority behind a bill and then would play "rainmaker',' pulling the strings and making the calls that would either push through a proposal or stop it dead in its tracks, for good or ill...
...We shouldn't expect the Ways and Means chairman to wear a little bow tie and keep a copy of the IRS code at his bedside, but we should expect him to steer clear of embarrassments like the 1981 tax bill...
...Whether or not you agreed with him, you had to admire his grit...
...Republican, Alaska Robert Walker, Republican, Pennsylvania Harold Volkmer, Democrat, Missouri Walter Jones, Democrat, North Carolina John Duncan Republican, Tennessee GEORGE HANSEN Republican, Idaho As any regular reader of the Liberty Lobby's ultra-right-wing weekly, the Spotlight, knows, George Hansen fights for what he believes in...
...Frank and Hyde both serve on the Judiciary Committee, where they frequently engage in debate...
...Next comes legislation, the actual framing of a bill...
...One former staff member recalls the administrative assistant warning him never to put his chair "any closer to Luken's desk than the seal Biggest gadfly NEWT GINGRICH (R-Ga...
...AL GORE Democrat, Tennessee One of the most significant contributions a member of Congress can make is to investigate a problem and transform it into a legislative issue...
...He's also dealt with matters closer to home, such as deficient infant formulas and illegal overcharges by major oil companies...
...In exchange, Hansen received $135,000, which he claimed was for a nonprofit organization he headed...
...of the Great State of Ohio" on the office carpet...
...As both a staunch conservative and the author of the "Hyde amendment," which bans federal funding for abortion, Henry Hyde is not the sort of fellow who becomes the darling of The Washington Post...
...It was not fun," Gingrich recalls...
...On paper, Scheuer looks like a committed crusader on behalf of the causes favored by his liberal constituents...
...It was Obey, for example, who pressed for limits to the honoraria members receive for giving speeches to special interest groups...
...This means he also knows how not to facilitate, a skill that can be useful in derailing any unwanted action: a few years back, when there was an effort to centralize all energy jurisdiction in another committee, Dingell emerged from the scuffle with more power, not less...
...A somewhat more crass application of this technique helped Waxman acquire the chairmanship of the subcommittee on health and the environment, as Kevin Chaffee details elsewhere in this issue (page 32...
...Soon afterward he was called in by Luken, who was angry with him for some now-forgotten transgression...
...He is also hampered by his inability to keep his attention focused on the legislative business at hand...
...God never meant liberals to be stupid," he says...
...He didn't get there by serendipity...
...Frank responded in kind: "I think he's got a sense of humor and he's reasonable...
...He stopped Reagan from a toohasty deregulation of natural gas...
...Conable is universally respected for being thoughtful, plain-spoken, and a pillar of integrity as the leading Republican on Ways and Means...
...He lacked respect and couldn't get support on the votes:' recalls one...
...1 object to the hands of Texas being in my pockets...
...He took on James Watt in similar fashion...
...When it came time for the sentence, the judge asked Hansen's lawyer whether Hansen was evil or stupid...
...Illness has slowed Udall down a bit (he has Parkinson's disease...
...After you, Alphonse...
...None other than Little Gus...
...I plead guilty to the fact that I'm not a technician," Rostenkowski has said...
...Dingell remembers, but he also counts...
...It was he, more than anyone else, who carried the liberal flame during the bitter battles over Reagan's tax and budget cuts in 1981...
...Hyde's approach to the extension of the Voting Rights Act is an example of his generally unrecognized flexibility...
...THE BEST AND THE OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES BY TIMOTHY NOAH Even in the age of C- SPAN, the House of Representatives is a pretty obscure place in comparison to the chamber next door...
...The reporter added that he is also a "wonderful source...
...If liberals don't "deal with waste and fraud in a sensible way," he has argued, "conservatives will use it as an excuse to destroy the whole program...
...I've never gotten a call like that before," said an assistant to one of the congressmen phoned...
...In his time, Price was an effective proponent of nuclear energy...
...My selections are not by any means a precise Kremlin-photo indication as to who's star is rising or falling at this particular moment, nor do they exhaust the list of those who perform their job poorly or well...
...Dingell always remembers" was how one colleague explained his vote...
...One of the better-kept secrets of Washington is that the House, in many ways, is the more serious chamber...
...Most House members are content to play the process for what it's worth, getting all they can for their constituents and favored causes...
...He is a case study of the dangers of getting in over your head...
...But what makes him truly exceptional is his concern for the integrity of the House itself...
...police department (which was headed by a black serving under a black mayor...
...Timothy Noah is an editor of The Washington Monthly...
...At one hearing he browbeat officials of the American Home Products Company into recalling a batch of infant formula that was lacking a critical nutrient...
...Railroads...
...But being chairman of the Ways and Means Committee requires more than the facilitating skills of an able pol...
...But it did show that he is willing to challenge the clubbiness of the institution and stand up for his convictions, at least when no pain to his constituents is involved...
...In an institution that can produce more than its share of hot air, Frank has a renowned gift for getting to the point...
...held the kind of prestige that the intelligence committees hold today...
...A, bulldog," a former colleague called him...
...But, unrecognized though his talents may be, Hyde has displayed the same gift that Frank has for injecting good will and common sense into ideological debate...
...For several years Waxman has made a practice of building political support by funneling money from the very safe district he has represented since 1974 (Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley) to other congressional candidates, including old political allies from the California state legislature, where Waxman served for six years...
...Luken's reputation as an employer is so poor that even a Cincinnati newspaper has made note if it...
...Not long after, the former reformer and civil rights crusader was opposing causes like hospital cost containment and promoting causes like weakening the Clean Air Act—while taking money from such groups as the American Medical Association and U.S...
...I want to win ." But he did neither...
...Such battles have not made Obey popular in all quarters...
...After you, Gaston...
...Gore is now running for Howard Baker's Senate seat...
...Ride the members' elevator while Congress is in session and you are likely to see harried aides trying to administer last-minute transfusions of information to members scurrying off to hearings...
...Another time, Luken got so mad that he sent his entire staff home and then proceeded to accidentally lock himself into his inner office...
...Veteran house members often resent their younger peers leaping into the headlines, but Gore is regarded with respect...
...He was chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, which, because of its secrecy and novelty (remember the slogan, "Atoms for Peace...
...HUD apologized for its mistake...
...Steel...
...But like his mentor, former Rep...
...Senior members in particular often know as much about such complicated matters as depletion allowances, bank reserve requirements, and crop loans as the witnesses who appear before them...
...Quick: who's the delegate from Guam...
...I have also made some consciously subjective judgments...
...Barney Frank, a liberal, and Henry Hyde, a conservative, play this essential role, thereby earning a degree of admiration or even affection from their adversaries and gratitude from their allies...
...Reagan and John Dingell, the formidable chairman of the Commerce Committee, wanted to weaken it...
...since his recent ascent to the chairmanship of the Manpower and Housing subcommittee, Frank has shown himself to have the makings of a tough investigator...
...Obey "makes the right enemies," said Bolling, who did the same himself during his 34 years in the house...
...He is also one of the most skillful politicians promoting liberal causes...
...It is on Science and Technology, of which he is subcommittee chairman, that Gore has made his mark...
...The result was billions of dollars in new loopholes for independent oil drillers, commodity speculators, and rich people generally...
...his lack of interest in military reform was illustrated when he told the St...
...Once one industry lost its special provision, Waxman knew the whole industry coaltion would begin to unravel (businessmen are no less prone to sectarian squabbling than their liberal opponents are...
...Such obscurity is not necessarily a bad environment for passing legislation...
...But while Price's tendency to give the generals everything they want is troublesome, the real problem is that Price is simply not in shape to head one of the most important committees in Congress...
...As a serious legislator, Obey does his share of leaning...
...It's clear to just about everyone that it's time for Price to move on...
...Marty Russo, Democrat...
...Frank's old-time liberalism is leavened by a healthy dose of common sense...
...When the bill came to a committee vote, Waxman managed to beat Dingell on an amendment that put legislative heat back on the utility companies...
...But Dingell was smart enough to get behind a consumer protection proposal which Nader was pushing for in the 1984 telecommunications bill...
...Consumer activists really weren't sorry to see him go...
...Stupid," the lawyer responded...
...For example, he once chewed out a staff member for not being able to sing a proposed official song for the Merchant Marine that he was about to vote on...
...Then there are Hansen's legal problems...
...This has not helped him serve the needs of his constituents on Chicago's South Side...
...His support of airbags, for example, won him the enmity of his committee chairman, John Dingell...
...Best-loved MO UDALL (D-Ariz...
...The best congressmen excel in one or more of these skills, and are smart enough to hire staffers and make allies to fill in the gaps...
...Illinois Mickey Leland, Democrat, Texas Beryl Anthony, Democrat Arkansas Don Young...
...In my search for congressional "bests," no name came up more often...
...Dingell's loyalty to Detroit's home town industry has brought him into nasty confrontations with Ralph Nader...
...Gore's colorful hearings have not gone unnoticed by the press...
...During a recent Christmas recess, a reporter came across Obey in his office poring over a map, working out a plan for Wisconsin redistricting—long after his fellow legislators had gone home...
...It requires at least a basic sense of what's wrong with the nation's tax laws, and this Rostenkowski has not demonstrated...
...While other committee heads were nipping ineffectually at former EPA chief Anne Burford over lax handling of toxic waste dumps, it was Dingell who moved in and slowly turned the screws until he got the contested documents, and Burford's resignation as well...
...HENRY WAXMAN Democrat, California Henry Waxman is short, bald, and, at first glance, something of a schlemiel...
...He's always had a tendency to put his mouth in gear before his brain goes into gear," says an old friend from Chicago...
...For example, in responding to Democrats who complained that he was raising a sound argument aginst openended entitlements at a bad time, Hyde quipped, "I understand...
...He is, after all, an able political operator—his political skills, honed in Mayor Daley's Chicago, could have served him well in the Democratic leadership...
...Scheuer's standing among his colleagues is so low that when Dingell moved to abolish Scheuer's consumer protection subcommittee—an almost unheard-of humiliation—his fellow committee members failed to rally to his side, even though Dingell was seeking retribution for Scheuer's support of air bags...
...Even so, inevitably the moment must arrive when vigor is gone and votes cannot replace aggressive leadership on issues ." GUS SAVAGE Democrat, Illinois Early in his freshman term as the representative from Chicago's South Side, Gus Savage landed on the front page of The Washington Post...
...So Luken moved into the city's more conservative eastern congressional district and tried again, this time winning, but by a narrow margin...
...Rookie of the Year ED ZSCHAU (R-Calif...
...Instead of offering a principled alternative to Reagan's proposal, Rostenkowski started a bidding war that pandered shamelessly to business PACs...
...Finally Luken picked up his telephone and threw it at the startled aide—who found, to his relief, that it came just a few inches short of the Ohio state seal...
...The Kefauver hearings, at which Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver exposed organized crime in the early fifties, were a model, as were the Watergate hearings a decade ago . One of the best current practitioners of the art is another congressman from Tennessee, Representative Al Gore...
...He's really very reasonable for a liberal," Hyde said...
...It was also Obey who pushed the prohibition of office slush funds...
...Gore has a dedicated staff, but more than most members, he seems to be able to navigate on his own...
...Most respected departing member BARBER CONABLE (R-NY...
...But his political allies paint a different picture: "He holds these grand soirees at his house to consider great schemes to save the nation...
...The vote was 14 to 7 in Dingell's favor...
...An example is Melvin Price, the little-known 79-yearold chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who has been in Congress longer than 60 percent of all Americans have been alive, and who is seeking a twenty-first term...
...But on occasion Gingrich breaks out of the liberal-conservative mold...
...Savage has remained a figure of ridicule ever since...
...He always asks the right questions ." Another reason Gore is respected is that he doesn't play hit-and-run with issues the way so many congressmen do...
...But that was long ago, and Price has grown quite feeble...
...Waxman wanted to keep the law intact, not only because he is a liberal but also because he represents a district that suffers more than most from automobile-induced smog...
...OTHERS NEAR THE TOP Richard Gephardt, Democrat, Missouri Byron Dorgan, Democrat, North Dakota Charles Schumer, Democrat, New York Leon Panetta, Democrat, California Willis Gradison, Republican, Ohio Berkley Bedell, Democrat, Iowa Claudine Schneider, Republican, Rhode Island Charles Rangel, Democrat, New York James Shannon, Democrat, Massachusetts Lee Hamilton, Democrat, Indiana Jim Leach, Republican, Iowa Dick Cheney, Republican, Wyoming Les Aspin, Democrat, Wisconsin James Florio, Democrat, New Jersey Silvio Conte, Republican, Massachusetts OTHERS NEAR THE BOTTOM Daniel Crane, Republican, Illinois...
...Hyde recently offered a generous assessment for a profile of Frank in The Boston Globe, the most influential paper in Frank's district...
...A fellow Democrat on the committee takes that a little further: "There is almost no leadership from a tax policy standpoint coming from the chairman...
...Even Republicans like George Will assume a hushed tone when they talk about Udall, whose quiet dignity and scrupulous fairness command respect across the political spectrum of Congress...
...BARNEY FRANK Democrat, Massachusetts HENRY HYDE Republican, Illinois The political arena is filled with men of strong ideas, but there are few who can promote those ideas with an open-mindedness and humor that can take the raw edges off otherwise acrimonious debates...
...Conable is the sort of congressman who will present his constituents with hundreds of flowering crab trees—as the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reports he did five years ago—paying for them out of his own pocket rather than pulling political strings to make it a government purchase...
...Savage improved his attendance record in his second term—previously he had had the worst in the House, missing votes on crucial constituent issues like home heating fuel assistance—but now he's involved in a legal squabble with the Federal Election Commission because he didn't file a list of campaign contributors in 1982...
...Gore came to it naturally, elected in 1976 at age 28 after a number of years as an investigative reporter for the Nashville Tennesseean...
...The securities laws...
...And then there's Frank's famous comment about the tendency of anti-abortion advocates to oppose poverty programs: "They believe that life begins at conception and ends at birth ." But Frank is more than just a good debator...
...Dingell's was that he represented Detroit...
...Luken got a bad scare very early in his congressional career—eight months after he gained office in a special election, he was beaten by Bill Gradison, a liberal Republican...
...His explanation is not reassuring: the complaint "doesn't have a thing to do with me," but rather is directed at the campaign treasurer...
...And while a determined reformer, Obey also appreciates the importance of the political minutiae that make reform possible...
...Medicare...
...What's perhaps most impressive about Gore is the way he personally digs into the questions with which he gets involved...
...Congressman Gets No Respect," read the headline, which appeared over a story about the arrest of Thomas ("Little Gus") Savage for driving an unregistered car without a license...
...As the Post-Dispatch put it last fall, "Easing out someone who has served his party long and faithfully can be a difficult process...
...Obey does his serious legislative work on the House Appropriations Committee, fashioning the day-to-day coalitions on key liberal causes like social welfare programs and human rights concerns in foreign countries...
...Reseach assistance for this article was provided by Jeffrey Hackett, Kevin Kirkland, and Andrew Shinder...
...The trouble is that Hansen's pursuits are a little, well, odd, and occasionally illegal...
...One of Hansen's lesser-known exploits, discussed in the latest trial, involved a car that ran "on water" through hydrogen fusion...
...DAN ROSTENKOWSKI Democrat, Illinois Dan Rostenkowski wouldn't find himself on the list of congressional worsts if he hadn't ascended to the most coveted (and, arguably, most important) committee chairmanship in the House...
...JAMES SCHEUER Democrat, New York There's a kind of congressman who takes the right stands on the issues but whose impact on the Congress is just about zero...
...He has managed to be both a key legislative player and an angry critic of the institution...
...Some folks say it was a hoax, but they're probably Trilateralist...
...He was one of three Democrats on the banking committee to support restrictions on aid to victims of mortgage foreclosures so that only those who really need it would get it...
...And in 1984, after a year of good behavior, Rosty's been back to his old tricks, handing out tax favors to Chicago commodity brokers, apparently not realizing he was doing anything wrong (see "Tilting at Windmills," page 8...
...For one thing, he works hard...
...One Chicago reporter described Hyde with words commonly applied to Frank: "smart," "funny," "honorable...
...the Republicans wooed the PACs over to their side and won...
...Reagan's reason was ideological...
...One reason is Dingell's legendarily gruff, state-trooper demeanor, which led the Detroit Free Press to compare him to a "junkyard doe But Dingell's greatest asset is that he makes a point of knowing the rules...
...We'll sober up tomorrow, but meanwhile pass the bottle...
...Not his committee colleagues, who do not get defense contracts for their district by insulting the chairman...
...Other members may raise larger amounts," one ex-staff member says, "but I've never heard of an office where they put that kind of time and energy into it ." Luken also has a reputation as the worst boss on the Hill...
...The problem is, who is going to tell him...
...He has been alert to the perquisites of office, however, dispatching staff members to call other offices on Capitol Hill about junket possibilities...
...But as chairman of the House Interior Committee, he played a significant role in the battle to oust James Watt, and he remains the kind of representative you'd like to believe was the rule rather than the exception...
...By 1982, Luken ranked among the top ten House beneficiaries of PAC money for the previous decade, with more than half a million dollars in PAC receipts...
...Hansen arranged a meeting between the secretary of the Army and three Virginia businessmen to discuss the project...
...It all depends on whether you want to lose courageously or win," Rostenkowski said...
Vol. 16 • August 1984 • No. 8
