The Changing Congress; 1; A House Divided

The following program is from NET, the National Educational Television Network. The National Educational Television presents a study in nine parts on the issues and conflicts confronting the nation's lawmakers. The Changing Congress. Tonight, part one, a house divided. This is the rotunda of the building that we're now standing in and of course it is the very center.

We're standing right under the four largest dome in the world and the dome is weighing over nine million pounds. When you look up inside the dome it's like looking right up at the top of an 18-story building. It's 181 feet up into the center. The work up inside the dome is called a fresco and it's called the glorification of the spirit of Washington. Now as you look up you can appreciate the fact that the gentleman who did this work had to lay flat in his back in a piece of scaffolding for 11 months. It might almost be a museum. Each day the visitors line up. They take in the statues, the paintings, the ceiling. The glories of the past and the wonders of our heritage. For a quarter, all the congressional history they can survive. Actually, it's neither a shrine nor a museum they're touring but the capital of the United States. A place of perpetual activity. Here political ideas are conceived and hatched and even buried. It is here that political ideology is sharpened only to be eventually blunted by the realities of practical politics. At first glance these realities seem masked by the traditions. The House of Representatives still clings to its petunes, the Senate to the snuff box.

Both houses honor age and seniority. Both have come to be shaped by their own rules and procedures. Venerableness matters on Capitol Hill. But a deeper look reveals that the Congress is constantly changing. Members and congressmen may look to the past. May even favor the status quo. Yet they move with the times, though sometimes awkwardly and usually at their own pace. The motion, the change, is the result of pressure from the people and from the political parties as well as from the members of Congress itself. But there is no simple breakdown. It's not just Republicans versus Democrats, liberals versus conservatives. The beast is more complex than that. The two houses like the country are more divided than that. Indeed, the one rule the 25-centure omits about the Congress is that there are no easy definitions that hold true. But then who wants complexity for only a quarter? The work was begun in 1877. And here's where it was begun. Now we're going to step back this way. Come right this way.

In our tour and in the 8 succeeding programs in any tease that's changing Congress, we intend to look more at the present and less at the past. And this evening more at the House of Representatives and less at the Senate. Going around the Capitol building and actually both houses have evolved their own special ways of carrying on the legislative business of government. As the men and the times have changed, so have the views and the rules, though seldom without bitter conflict. The truth is that despite its tendency to preserve past traditions to retain its sense of history, the United States Congress is far from being a static body of men. The difficulty is that times are so out of joint. The United States has undergone such rapid growth in the last 20 years that the Congress has barely been able to keep abreast of new developments. Let alone to match stride. The House of Representatives has been particularly criticized by journalists, by political scientists, by large blocks of voters. It has even come under attack from the institution itself. The protest of these critics is that Congress is not keeping up with the times.

It is not able to meet the demands of 20th century America. And this is largely because the House can be controlled by a skillful minority. Specifically, the charges have been leveled at the abuses of seniority and the committee chairmanship in the House. For Congress carries on its business through the committee system rather than from the floor of the House. The committee chairmen usually are powers onto themselves. They can determine which bills to bring before Congress, which ones to kill in committee. Who are these men? The chairman, as a group, tend to follow a pattern. About two-thirds of them are from the south, often from rural or small town communities. Most are senior men in their 60s or older. And most are very much in favor of retaining the power of committee chairman, regardless of criticism. One such chairman is El Mendel Rivers of South Carolina, a member of Congress for 25 years, and head of the important arm services committee. When it comes to legislation, we have the authorities up here. This mandate in the Constitution gives me the authority and charges me and the committee which I have the great honor to head with the initiating legislation that we so desire.

Because I've been in Congress, this is my 25th year. Mr. Abe had been here at 25. That's 50. Mr. Bates had been here at about 20. That's 70. Mr. Aaron had been here at 30. That's 100 right there. Mr. Phil had been the rankant member of the committee. He had been here at about 23. And that's 123. So we have a lot of longevity on our own. And so we have enough age to initiate legislation. And when we feel so disposed, this is what we will positively do. Now, I'm a progressive. I think that's pretty well known. And the CDR D rule is, seems to me, is the most satisfactory having in mind human conduct. To begin with, the House, 73-year-old John McCormick is the most powerful man in the Congress. He has served with the senior men ever since 1928. And they command his friendship as well as his loyalty.

Under the seniority rule, every member knows their rights. And in 83rd Congress, I was a member of the committee on government operations. And I was a ranking man on the committee. The next man to me was one of the outstanding Americans. Congressman Bill Dawson of Chicago, Illinois, an American of the Negro race. And when I stepped aside as I did, he automatically based on seniority became chairman. Well, suppose it was an election. Suppose he was elected chairman. Every decent American without regard to their race or color would have said he was not elected because of the color of his skin. And we could divide our people on that issue. So the seniority guarantees, and it eliminates the possibility of the sharp division among our people. And to me, having in mind that we are a people and not a race, that is a matter of paramount importance. Now, all the people of district that it do is keep their men here and they'll become chairman. Our problem is with human beings who are chairman. Not so much the system.

I have a dream that one day on the Red Hills of George, sons of Famous slaves and the sons of former slaves. And in Congress, a render pressure from the voters. On the right, it is for less government encroachment. On the left, or more federal assistance, more federal action, more federal responsibility. The resources and the power of the government must be made available to the people. Two years ago, it resulted in an epic march on Washington itself to impress upon Congress the strength and the commitment of those who favored equal rights for Negroes. It has been the moral fervor behind this cause, which has sparked other concerns, has fanned half a dozen demands for further legislation. Voting rights and a poverty program, a housing program, and area redevelopment. Often, these have started on a community level, only to find that overnight, they had become national issues. The elderly have petitioned for a Medicare bill, for medical protection and assistance for the agent, while pressured groups across the country have pushed for federal aid to education and for integration in city schools.

In all but in New York, as in other state capitals, the voters turned out to appeal for a redistricting plan, one that would give fair representation, and one that would help shape the future Congress. In all cases, there is one major weapon, the vote. For while the public cannot change the rules and parliamentary procedures of the House, or even understand them very clearly, they can send new men to Congress. By and large, the new men that the Republicans and the Democrats have sent to Congress in the last few years have been younger men, often better educated than their immediate predecessors. A large number of the new Democrats have tended to align themselves with the Liberals in Congress, known as the Democratic Study Group, or more familiarly, the DSG.

Seven years ago, the DSG consisted of a handful of junior men. They had little seniority, less power, and no recognition from their elders. It has been their votes, among others, that have helped push through in rapid order most of President Johnson's social legislation. They are still apart from the Democratic leadership in Congress, and their members still lack enough seniority to control committee chairmanship. But the DSG in 1965 has a seat at the party's council table. It's next drive, it may well be a move for reform of the seniority system within the Democratic Party in the House. If so, they will have to contend with the Democratic leadership in Congress, with men like pale bogs of Louisiana, a liberal Southern Democrat, but also the party whip, the number three men in the Congressional hierarchy. I'm always interested in reform, but this Congress has been in session now for three months. We have passed more significant legislation in that period of time, and almost any Congress in history.

What reform has needed, I mean, I hear all this about reform, but is reform just for reform sake, or is it to achieve something? You see, there's a myth around here, not only do we have this myth of seniority, seniority, by the way, is new in the House of Representatives historically. But what they, there's also the myth around here, you have seniority, and then you have the myth that the chairman runs the committee as he pleases that he is not the servant of the majority of the committee. And this is just ludicrous and ridiculous, and the Democrats are the ones that are at fault on this. What I'm suggesting is a reform that I think would loosen the situation up, would make it possible. The speaker, Congressman Richard Bowling of Missouri, a member of the DSG, and a leading spokesman for reform. These matters to the floor for debate, you would be sharpening the differences between the two parties. You'd be giving the people of the country a better opportunity to choose between two programs.

The reforms that took place at the beginning of this session of Congress were reforms that took place in the House as a whole. Now, with this enormous majority that we have, that Democrats have, in this particular Congress, there were the votes to put the reforms over. But you may remember that the major rules change, only carried by relatively few votes. Small number, right? I think, as I remember it, there'd only have to be a switch of 13 at the next election to theoretically undo all those rules changes. Lincoln, the Negro cause, and states' rights. These became the rock on which the Republican Party was founded more than 100 years ago. In 1964, these same factors almost cracked the party in half. Until Goldwater's candidacy, the Republicans in Congress seemed a model of discipline, particularly when compared with the Democratic side of the aisle. Less errands as the Republican went, and one of the party's stauncher members of the old guard.

Our party's been the majority only four years or two Congresses since 1930. That's a long time, that's 34 years. And so we've almost been a minority party, all these many, many, over three decades now, and we're not quite used to being a majority party. And I like to see that time coming in, so we could do a little better. It's hard when you are down to, like we are at the present time, 140 members, and to get 140 members bucking a two-to-one majority, it's awful hard to get them to see the light of Dave from the stand-point of party loyally. Takes 218 to win a vote, and that means there would be a substantial number that would take 60, 78 people on the other side of the aisle to be thinking like the vast majority of Republicans, and of course we cannot always deliver all of our Republicans. And so it's hard to form a coalition sufficiently large in number to win or to stop some of the legislation that's presently proposed. The dilemma of the Republicans in the House today has moved beyond the 1964 campaign.

The old guard still controls the party, but the younger urban Republicans, like Congressman Robert Ellsworth of Kansas, often find themselves at odds with the policy makers of the party. That is to say, for the most part we're young, we're not too senior, and in the second place we come mostly from urban areas, and we find that we have a common approach to legislation that is to say we try to take a thoughtful approach rather than just an instinctive or a visceral approach to legislation. And frankly that the outlook and attitude and viewpoint of the members of Wednesday group is a lot closer to the vast majority of Republicans in the country. Then is the outlook and attitude of a good many of the Republicans in the House. And so I've always felt that we had a very special responsibility to press our viewpoint on the leadership, because they're always under pressure from the right, from the ultra conservatives within the party in the House. And as it is now with our side of the fence, so to speak, not leaning on the leadership, not that the leadership is in my opinion unduly responsive to pressures from the right, but I feel we ought to be more helpful to the leadership in pressing our point of view.

We don't. We haven't yet. It's been discussed. It's been discussed at the beginning of the year. It's been discussed more recently. The other evening and perhaps we're moving in that direction, but as a group, we have not seen fit to take any position along that line. The political attitude of these young Republicans has attracted younger voters, especially from the cities. In fact, in the midst of a Johnson landslide last year, the Liberal Republicans lost only one seat. Nevertheless, the 21 members of the club have little influence with their colleagues. Most of the 21 back Gerald Ford, when he made his successful bid for the Republican Party leadership last year, but it has resulted in little gain for them. If and when the Wednesday club does make itself heard, does organize as a political faction within the Republican Party, then minority leader Ford may well discover that he has a split in his own ranks to rival even the Democrats.

I can assure you that our problems on the Republican side are no different than those on the Democratic side. We have those on the Liberal side of the Republican Party who want us to take this position and we'll have those who are more conservative on the Republican Party who will want us to be taking a very conservative stand, and that I think our reduced numbers help to bring us together. And certainly the new leadership in the House has tried very desperately to get a greater agreement, a greater consensus among the Republicans on all of the issues, and we have achieved in many, many instances a higher degree of unanimity this year than we have in the past. I think it's important for the future of America that we have a two-party system in each of the 50 states. We haven't had a two-party system in many of the southern states, the Republican Party has been virtually non-existent.

10, 12 years ago the Democrats didn't have much of a political party in the state of Maine or the state of Vermont. Gradually they have made those states two-party states. We hope to make all of the southern states two-party states. The South again. It seems always that it is to the South that all factions in the Congress eventually turn. Its leaders dominate the House, just as its history has dominated the country. Today the South is where the changes in America are most deeply accentuated. Manchains are giving away to suburban homes, and fields are being turned into sites for industry. The new technology has moved South, and along with it is springing up an entirely new middle-class existence. The new South is beginning to resemble the rest of the nation. In the process the voters are changing.

The Supreme Court redistricting decision last year is cutting down the influence of rural voters by giving more adequate representation to the southern cities. Meanwhile the Civil Rights Movement has suddenly converted the South into a two-party region. And in some of the cities, like Atlanta and Richmond and Memphis, the Negro vote has begun to count. One result, a new breed of congressmen is beginning to emerge in the South in each party. George Grider of Memphis, Tennessee is one of the new men. He is a freshman congressman who probably would not have made it to Washington last November, except for the support of Negroes and of younger white voters in Memphis. Grider is no daring radical, but he was one of the first congressmen to speak out in favor of the president's voting rights bill. And while he champions Memphis local interests his outlook and his votes reflect a great preoccupation with national leads and national goals. As you see, by the fact that I'm here, a good proportion of it represents those people who represent the new South, who look to the future, who recognize that the old days of Magnolia blossoms and moon lights,

while a happy memory is not sufficient for the future that we've got to think of improvements in many things, improvements in education, we've got to solve the problems of poverty, and that in some of these ways, in some of these problems, we need the assistance to the federal government. But there are new Republicans, other nurses, well, men like Congressman James Martin of Alabama. They have emerged in the last few years, largely in opposition to the Democratic moderates and liberals in the South. They are strong advocates of state's rights and of decentralism on nearly all issues. They tend to be radically conservative. Of course, the consensus in my part of the country is that they don't like the great society. In fact, we call it the great stampede. We have not been legislating in Congress. We've been rubber stamping. I haven't been one of those with a rubber stamp. I've been in the constructive opposition. But the Congress itself has not been a legislative body since I've been here three and a half months.

They've simply got a bill that was written by the President and his administration and passed it through without a common being change. I felt, for instance, that the aid education bill was not a good one because it got the government too deeply into the field of education. They could build a school, financed entirely by federal funds and run by the federal government. I thought this was dangerous. I voted against the Medicare bill because I did not want to see the old-age Medicare tied to the Social Security. Now, the great problem today in the racial matter, I think, could be solved. But I think it could be solved outside the government. I said that civil rights, the civil rights law was the law of the land and that it had to be obeyed. If changes were indicated, they would have to come about by lawful means. I said that I thought that all persons were entitled to equal constitutional rights under the law. I said, said that then, and I still say it.

Well, I would say that the younger generation probably voted for me more than the older generation. The Negro voters almost unanimously voted for me because of the civil rights issue. I think the Democrat Party in the South will go down and the Republican Party will go up in the years to come. Especially after this matter of race is behind us once and for all, if it ever is. I jokingly say I was a Democrat for 41 years and that's as long as I could stomach it. And I think that's the feeling of a lot of sudden as they're watching the Democrat Party today as a great demalgamation of groups. They'll take this pressure group. In other words, they'll take the poverty group and the labor union group and the Negro group and try to combine it into one political force. And consequently, they react to the dictates of these groups. The irony is that the system works at all. What permits it to function with all of its imperfections are not laws or rules but a combination of other elements. Namely, the shared friendships and the necessary trust that develops among most members of the House.

Friendship in my opinion transcends a lot of other considerations. And furthermore, sometime during the years before, I might have helped them get a build through. Some matter I might have done of importance to them. To me, it was just a part of the day's work. And yet, I had one member called me up and say, 15 years ago, you did a favor for me. And this is the first opportunity I've had to show you how much I appreciate it. The speaker is D.B. Harteman and his voice is an authoritative one. He served as a staffman for the late speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn. Well, every effort is made by the leaders on both sides to accommodate each other and get the work of the House done. Just one little example happened yesterday. The leadership planned to work way up into the night, 9 o'clock. True last night?

They wanted to work till 9 o'clock last night and finish the debate on the 8th education bill. But at the time they made that plan, they did not know that the Republicans had an important meeting last night. Mr. Ford came to speak of McCormick and told him that they had this meeting which had been scheduled some time. And that he would appreciate it if it could be worked out to end the debate at 6 o'clock yesterday afternoon. And the speaker, although he had planned to keep the House in session until 9 o'clock, gladly agreed in order to accommodate Mr. Ford. Well, Mr. Ford will do the same thing for the speaker whenever he can. You read a lot about arm twisting and cracking of knuckles and things like that. But the way you pass bills is to persuade a majority of the members of the House to vote for a bill. You do that basically through education. A lot of times members of your own party will be opposing a bill because they misunderstand some provision of the bill. You have to have cooperation between the leaders of the two parties, that's what makes the system work. You have to realize that out of the hundreds of bills that come before the House of Representatives,

the vast majority of them are not partisan in nature. You have to remember that all 435 members of this House in the final analysis are accountable to no one except the people of their own district, the districts that send them here as their representative. No matter what the President wants, no matter what the speaker wants, no matter what the majority leader wants, in the final analysis, the real accountability is to the voters of your own district. That's why you have 435 equals in the House of Representatives, although some of the members who are leaders wear another hat with additional responsibilities. But when a man doesn't want to be persuaded, he usually is not persuaded. If, in the final analysis, they are subject to the wishes of their constituents, what does this mean for the next Congress and the ones after that? We know that younger voters, men and women under 35, are beginning to dominate elections. That small town America has given way to a suburban vote, and that even this is in the process of change.

What is clear within the Congress is that the two parties have begun to change, that the potential Negro vote has become a significant political factor, that groups, which have here to form and aligned with Democrats or Republicans, are breaking up, and reemerging in society and new groupings, and under quite different political labels. By 1975, many of these changes will have taken some concrete shape. To casual observers, no doubt, the House will appear at the same immovable object on Capitol Hill, fighting the same jury procedural wars. Only its members will truly perceive how much that House will have altered, how well it represents new parochial alliances, how much a reflection of the people the congressional system really is. Next week, the Senate Life.

This is NET, the National Educational Television Network.