Washington

By ROBERT MACKAY

Election fallout and other oddments

NOTES from a reporter's notebook:

Democratic congressional leaders were pleased with the election results in Illinois, including the narrow reelection of House Republican leader Bob Michel of Peoria. Michel is popular among his colleagues, Democrats as well as Republicans. House Democratic leaders feared the loss of Michel, an affable, moderate Republican, might leave them with a hard-line conservative GOP chief who would refuse to compromise and instead engage in confrontation politics at every turn.

Making the Michel reelection even sweeter for the Democrats was his slim margin of victory. Michel spearheaded the drive to push the economic policies of President Reagan through the House, at times reluctantly. Democratic leadership sources said Michel — stung by the rejection of Reaganomics by the voters in his high-unemployment district — will think twice about pushing for certain administration initiatives and probably will voice his concerns at the White House to a greater degree than he has in the past, perhaps prompting Reagan to compromise with Congress rather than trying to fight with it.

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Republican Congressman Robert McClory of Lake Bluff, who lost his seat in reapportionment after 20 years in Congress, is going to work for a Washington law firm that deals in international affairs. The 74-year-old McClory, who chose to resign rather than face fellow GOP Congressman John Porter in a primary fight in a new district, has a home on Capitol Hill as well as in northern Illinois and intends to continue commuting between them.

McClory aides said it has been difficult for the veteran congressman to accept and adjust to his retirement, especially during the dreary days of November when he was rummaging through his papers in his congressional storage room to box up his belongings and his memories.

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State Sen. Philip Rock has been appointed to the 25-member committee that will select a site for the 1984 Democratic National Convention, giving impetus to the rumors here that Chicago is going to make a strong bid for the convention. The feeling is that enough years have passed to make the 1968 debacle a distant memory.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) reportedly sent word to Mayor Jane Byrne in October that if she wanted a chance to obtain the convention for the Windy City, she should give more vocal support and aid to former Sen. Adlai E. Stevenson III in his bid to unseat Gov. James R. Thompson. How her "help" was eventually judged by the DNC may be a moot point if Byrne loses the mayoral primary in February. Ironically, the next Democratic convention in Chicago could be hosted by a Mayor Daley and one of the delegates could be Tom Hayden, convicted of disrupting the '68 convention.

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Democratic Congressman Harold Washington, who is running for mayor of Chicago, is telling the voters to judge him by his record — not his conviction years ago for failing to pay income taxes or his past troubles with the bar association. But other than his 16 years in Springfield as a state senator and representative, his two-year congressional record is mediocre at best.

Washington was elected to the House in 1980 by the voters in the 1st Congressional District, the heart of Chicago's black South Side. In his two years in Washington, the 60-year-old congressman has neither distinguished himself nor embarrassed himself as a legislator. He tends to vote most of the time with the Democratic majority, except for a penchant to vote against the routine adoption of the House journal each morning.

Of the three budget resolution brought up on the House floor this year — a Democratic version, a Republican plan and a bipartisan proposal — Washington voted against all of them.

A check of 353 recorded votes in 1981 by the Congressional Quarterly showed Washington participated in 78 percent of those votes — the second lowest of the Illinois delegation. Democratic Congressman Gus Savage of Chicago had the worst record, taking part in only 50 percent of those votes. After Savage and Washington, the next lowest was Republican Edward Madigan of Lincoln at 82 percent.

Since Washington votes along the party line, he has received high marks from such Democratic-oriented groups as Americans for Democratic Action, the AFL-CIO, the League of Conservation Voters and the Public Citizen Congress Watch, while getting low grades from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business, the National Taxpayers Union and Americans for Constitutional Action.

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Fierce lobbying by the Illinois Congressional delegation, especially Republican Sen. Charles Percy, Michel and Democratic Congressman Dan Rostenkowski of Chicago, is credited for obtaining Reagan's approval for a 1992 world's fair in Chicago. Reagan had to choose between Chicago and Miami for the site. Percy, Michel and Rostenkowski made the difference.□

January 1983 | Illinois Issues | 40