Al Ullman: How Like A Mills

...The point is not that Ullman has necessarily returned the favor to Bluhdorn and Gulf & Western, or that he will’ do so in the future...

...Without demonstrating any explicit quid pro quo, one can say that Ullman demonstrated insensitivity to appearances...

...In the old days, not many members were willing to work hard because they weren’t part of the action...

...Fed Pac, the political action arm of the American Hospital Association, contributed $1,000...

...Although in this election, too, he faced no serious opposition, Ullman’s volunteer committee went ahead and raised an additional $28,884...

...It is impossible to prove the case one way or another, but such an assertion defies every intuition about the way legislators work...

...To cite only one provocative example, when the Tax Reform Act of 1969 was under conderation, Ullman sponsored an amendment to retain the 15-percent depletion allowance for producers of copper, iron, gold, silver, and oil shale...

...It has been estimated that this one clause alune earns large timber operators about $200 million a year...

...Asked afterwards about the evening, Ullman said that he was satisfied that the invitation had nothing to do with Ways and Means business...

...I mean, in the last couple of years Ullman’s fun draisers have been wall- to-wall lobbyists...

...quite often his cases involve legislation passed by the Ways and Means Committee, for whom he was tax counsel between 1955 and 1958...

...A1 Ullman, the “responsible, fair centrist,” may soon become as familiar a Capitol Hill cliche as the pre-1975 Wilbur Mills, the living legend who knew the tax code by heart...

...Their conservative plan would, for example, fold Medicare into the private sector...

...Meanwhile, the Real Estate Political Action Committee gave $1,000 to Ullman, who is himself a former real estate dealer, on September 30 and followed up with an additional $500 a month later...

...Which may be true...

...During the years when his colleagues and the press were singing Wilbur Mills’ praises, few bothered to mention his congenial relationship with a variety of special interests...

...As “TRB” put it in his New Republic column on March 8, Ullman, is “selfconfident, middle of the road, levelvoiced...

...The superficial logic of the provision falls apart when one recalls that wheat farmers, for example, are not allowed to count the difference in value between their seed and their harvest as “capital gains...

...Medical groups also have a direct economic interest in the health insurance issue, and during the 1974 campaign they, too, supported Ullman...

...A1 Ullman, the chairman who institutionalizes his belief in openness and procedural fair play...

...Much of this money came from a phalanx of interest groups, all with an economic stake in the deliberations of the Ways and Means Committee...

...Perot has Ways and Means to thank for spawning those programs, but his real fortune may yet lie ahead, when Congress finally passes a national health insurance program...

...On three occasions after the November 5 election, the morning mail turned up $1,000 checks-the maximum Ullman would accept-and by the year’s end the committee had collected $5,285 in post-election contributions...

...Two of the late $1,000 gifts were from political action committees representing bankers and life insurance underwriters...

...It should be mentioned, however, that Ullman has recommended reducing the depletion allowance for oil, and has occasionally voted against the timber interests...

...Back in 1969 or so,” Fox continued, “Ullman would have one of these standard $100-a-ticket fundraisers, and substantially less than 50 people, counting his staff, would show up...

...The tone of the evening was suggested by this letter sent by Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, to certain key members of Congress, including several on the Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees: “Charles Bluhdorn and I are eager for you and your wife to join us and a few others for what I think will be a spectacular evening...

...Part of Ullman’s appeal to committee lobbyists is ideological...

...That incident took place late in 1970, when Ullman was in the middle of divorce proceedings...

...Periodically reformers attempt to close the loophole, and untiringly Ullman resists them...

...To most of these, Ullman proved accessible, and in at least one case he allowed a lobbyist to perform a significant personal favor for him...

...After his “campaign” in 1972 (he was unopposed in both the primary and the general election), Ullman had $49,000 in campaign funds left over...

...If he did charge Ullman less than the standard fee, an obvious sort of favor would have been performed...

...Already the image is starting to develop: A1 Ullman, the centrist who will listen to all sides of an issue...

...These he set aside for 1974...

...It would have been useful to know ten years ago where Mills got his money, who had access to his office, for which causes he was willing to give his all...

...Take, for example, Ullman’s trip to New York City in early December to attend a private screening of The Godfather: Part 11 at the home of Charles Bluhdorn, chairman of Gulf & Western Industries (which owns Paramount Pictures, producers of the film...

...Al Ullman, the honest and upright mediator, affably agreeing to disagree with the Democratic firebrands on the committee...

...YOU could see it coming several years ago, shortly after Wilbur took it into his head to run for President,” said lobbyist J. Lawrence Fox, whose law firm, Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz, represents various business clients before the committee, including Sun Oil and the Pew Foundation...

...Al Ullman of Oregon, Mills’ successor as chairman of the committee, says it’s so...

...Similarly, on national health insurance Ullman takes the same position as the American Hospital Association...

...I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt because I’ve got to be able to work with him on a lot of things and his energy package isn’t all that bad...

...Ullman denies that he has ever made a deal to safeguard the loophole...

...Rather than turning to one of Washngton’s numerous divorce lawyers, he chose as his attorney one James W. Riddell, a Washington lawyer-lobbyist, who was to become one of the major backers of Wilbur Mills’ 1972 presidential campaign...

...When Ullman was asked about his campaign finances, he said that he couldn’t see the “point” behind the inquiry...

...Look, I’m not inclined to be hard on the guy right now,” said a lobbyist for a public interest group...

...Rather, its significance lies in the climate of ex parte contacts it illustrates, a climate which Ullman has brought with him to the chairmanship...

...On this wave of good feeling, Ullman now enjoys a honeymoon of uncertain duration...

...U11man also received $1,000 checks from the Laborers’ Political League and the Securities Industry Campaign Committee...

...The lobbyists say it’s so...

...And that would even be with Carl Albert or Hale Boggs or some other prominent congressman putting his name on the invitation as a co-host to lure you there...

...We’ve never operated on this kind of a basis before-with the action spread up and down through the ranks of the committee...

...Ullman treats all the people he deals with as reasonable human beings, whether they deserve it or not .” That is an engaging image...

...Just because Ullman is a Northern Democrat many outsiders fail to recognize the conservative, pro-business strain in his thinking...

...The third big giver was H. Ross Perot, the Texas whiz kid whose computer firm has thrived on the data-processing needs created by Medicare and Medicaid...

...But by 1973 the handwriting was on the wall and Ullman by himself could draw several hundred of us to those functions where they give you cold hot dogs and watered-down drinks and take your money...

...The film’s director, Francis Ford Coppola, and the producer, Robert Evans, were on display for the dignitaries from Washington...

...It has been so long since a serious challenger has presented himself that Ullman has all but forgotten what one would look like...

...Valenti said that the corporate jet just happened to be available be cause for mer Senator George Smathers (one of the more notorious lobbyists in Washington and now a Gulf & Western board member) decided to go to New York on business...

...The same is true of Ullman’s campaign finances...

...There is one loophole in the tax code, however, that Ullman protects for reasons other than mere ideology...

...He did not occupy a prominent place in the public limelight during this apprenticeship, but he was still an object of attention for many lobbyists...

...Health insurance bills must pass through the Ways and Means Committee, and A1 Ullman will likely play a major role in determining what sort of bill is enacted...

...Ralph Nader’s people say it’s so...

...Al Ullman: How Like A Mills by Finlay Lewis Free at last of Wilbur Mills’ manip ulative hand, the Ways and Means Committee is generally assumed to be moving into an era of open, even “democratic” decision-making...

...In any case, Ullman and several other legislators saw nothing improper or even surprising in the convenient availability of the corporate plane...

...If you are in Washington that day, a Gulfstream I1 will pick you up and return you...

...After the 1974 campaign, Ullman’s committee had a surplus of about $19,000-but even then nobody bothered to turn off the spigot...

...This is the new Ways and Means Committee,” Ullman announced at a recent breakfast meeting with reporters...

...It was an evening with a kind of allure that is difficult to find on Capitol Hill...

...On another occasion, Ullman told Paul Duke of the National Public Affairs Center for Television that Wilbur Mills “came out of a school of philosophy that I don’t belong to...

...The American Dental Political Action Committee gave $850, the International Chiropractors, Political Education Committee, $500, and the Opticians’ Committee for Political Education, $500...

...These interests are not major factors in Ullman’s district, but their supporters may some day return the favor by voting for the timber loophole...

...For 14 of his 18 years in the House, Ullman toiled in Mills’ substantial shadow...

...There is, of course, one main beneficiary of this upsurge of good feelings, and that is A1 Ullman himself...

...A new Republican member of the committee, Bill Frenzel of Minnesota, said that joining Ways and Means, was like “walking into the sunlight...

...But the most significant point is that, in turning to Riddell on a matter in which the most intimate private details must be exchanged, Ullman created a relationship of some delicacy with a man whom he knew would later appear before his committee as a lobbyist...

...But the highlight of the evening was when, with a flick of a switch, Bluhdorn’s living room was transformed into a screening room and we were watching the hottest film of the year before the ink was even dry on the print...

...Since Ullman’s district contains 73 per cent of the land area of Oregon (and only 25 per cent of its people) and since logging is one of its major industries, his efforts are obvious illustrations of what a congressman feels he must do to protect his cons tit uen t s’ interests . What is less obvious are the trade-offs Ullman has made-and will continue to make-to defend the timber interests...

...They had spotted Ullman as the committee’s crown prince long before Wilbur Mills hit the skids...

...He has reintroduced the hospitals’ plan this year, having won for it the symbolically important designation of H. R. 1. Joining Fed Pac as $1,000 Ullman contributors were the Oregon Medical Political Action Committee and similar groups representing the optometrists and oral surgeons...

...When the Nixon Administration even converted Wilbur Mills into a supporter of the Family Assistance Plan, Ullman and just two other Democrats held out against it...

...And, by keeping the proceedings out of the headlines, Riddell may have done Ullman a political favor...

...In an interview, Valenti said that he couldn’t recall whether he sent Ullman the letter or gave him a similar message by phone...

...Nonetheless, his allegiance to the lumber industry is worth remembering when evaluating the current publicity portraying Ullman as an economic statesman...

...Republican committee members like Barber Conable say it‘s so...

...Instead, Ullman offered an alternative bill with very punitive work requirements for almost all welfare mothers...

...That is a provision which confers an enormous benefit on timber producers: When a stand of trees is cut down and sold, the proceeds are taxed not as regular income but as “capital gains” on the increase in value of the trees between planting and logging...

...Riddell represents clients ranging from the First National Bank of New York to the Volume Footwear Retailers of America...

...Charlie will ‘premiere’ the remarkable new film, Godfather 11, at his home in New York City on Saturday evening, December 7. The evening will begin at 6:30 with cocktails, then the movie and dinner to follow...

...All the evidence that is available to date suggests that Ullman is following, all too closely, in Mills’ footsteps...

...There was cognac and expensive cigars...

...In the case of Ullman’s predecessor, the years of close contact with lobbyists like James Riddell had a profound cumulative effect on the work of the Ways and Means committee...

...And, not surprisingly, Rep...

...Ullman has plain, strong features, a shock of hair, looks like a young Borah (if anybody here remembers Borah) and is representative of the new congressional leadership emerging in the post-Watergate, midrecession drama...

...Normally he restricts his practice to administrative law...

...the health insurance bill Ullman sponsored in the last Congress embodies Fed Pac’s proposals...

...And there are growing indications that it is hardening like concrete...

...That is the purpose of looking closely at Ullman, today, before his image also hardens into the Capitol mythology...

...Finlay Lewis is a correspondent for the Washington bureau of the Minneapolis Tribune...

...It is unclear how much Riddell charged Ullman for his serviceswhether he performed it at standard rates, offered a discount, or even did the work pro bono...

...Although Ullman didn’t see the “point” of the campaign contributions, it is clear that lobbyists with a professional concern about the legislation coming out of the Ways and Means Committee did...

...One legislator who was present described it this way: “There we were in Bluhdorn’s apartment, eating off a place setting that must have cost $15,000...

...And that is saying a lot...

...The gratitude and relief many feel for Ullman’s non-authoritarian ways should not distract our attention from his interests and allegiances...

...This apparently exceeded Ullman’s $1,000 ceiling, and, according to an aide, Ullman ordered the $500 returned after the two transactions were reported in the Minneapolis Tribune...

...All the contributions were legal, Ullman said, adding that the campaign surplus would be used to finance newsletters to his constituents, as permitted under the law...

...When it comes to taxes, Ullman is sympathetic to providing new tax loopholes (investment incentives, if you prefer) to stimulate business spending during the current recession...

...It may be that Ullman was invited simply because Bluhdorn respected his opinions as a film critic or, perhaps more plausibly, because he enjoyed his company...

...Premiere At traction The emphasis on Ullman’s style of operation obscures one essential element of continuity between the two chairmen-their willingness to accept the hospitality of those who potentially have business before the Ways and Means Committee...