In the era of jet-plane shuttles, it sounds improbable: Dan Rostenkowski and Robert Michel as regulars in a carpool to drive the 800 miles between Washington and Illinois. "Oh but at that time, we were junior members," Michel recalls. "I guess all of us felt we were going to be here as long as we wanted to be here .... We just all became good friends even though we would vote differently on the floor of the House. "We slept most of the time. One guy was driving and the other two were sleeping. The trouble is, [Republican Harold] Collier had such an unsteady foot on the accelerator that nobody could sleep. That used to be the problem."

Since those carpool days in the late 1950s, Michel (R-18, Peoria) adroitly moved up the political ladder and this year started his fourth term as House Republican leader. Rostenkowski also prospered: an engineer of the biggest tax code revision in U.S. history and recognized as one of the most forceful committee chairmen in Congress.

Long ago his aides propounded the notion that Rostenkowski, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee since 1980, was the only congressman who could be a serious candidate both for House speaker and for mayor of a major city. It may be true, but Texan Jim Wright, majority leader for 10 years, is the successor to Thomas O'Neill (D-Mass.) as speaker, and everybody but Rostenkowski is running for mayor of Chicago this year. During an interview a few days after Wright's election, Rostenkowski said that despite rumors he might retire or suggestions that he should run for Chicago mayor, "Right now, I'm going to stay in Congress. I have no intention of leaving, and I think if I did, I wouldn't admit it anyway because I'd become a lame duck."

For the past few years, with the maneuvering over the speakership, there have been rumors of friction or disagreements between the loquacious, sometimes fiery Wright and the tough-minded Rostenkowski. An intriguing question for this session of Congress will be how the two will work out their roles. Wright wants to be more assertive in writing policy than O'Neill, who was a consensus builder. That might put Wright into territory that committee chairmen regard as their own. "I get along with Jim Wright," Rostenkowski said in a mid-December interview. "Jim Wright wants to set policy and will direct more of his attention on policy. I don't know whether that means policy and controversy or a willingness to negotiate and pass legislation. But I think that's just going to develop. . . . Jim Wright's got possibilities of being a pretty good speaker."

What about Wright's proposal to tinker with the tax reform as a way to reduce the federal deficit? Rostenkowski was quick to answer that Wright's idea of not lowering the top income-tax rate "is certainly an option" for reducing the federal deficit, but Rostenkowski added, "I've been saying I don't really want to do something unless the president wants to participate." The day after Rostenkowski said that, President Reagan used his weekly radio chat to oppose any change in tax reform.

Rostenkowski agrees with Wright and other Democratic leaders in listing trade legislation as a top priority this year: "I think as far as what I'm going to be doing, hell, we'll be up to our earlobes in trade."

Will Rosty and Wright get along? Rostenkowski points out that he played a major role 10 years ago when Wright was the one-vote winner in a three-way race for majority leader. "I was the one that encouraged . . . him to run, and I was the one that ran his campaign for him. And I was the one that changed a vote down in the well."

There is a fascination in Washington, somewhat at odds with the value that democracy places on each person, with strong willed people who hold or accumulate power. Anecdotes are exchanged of how some key congressman outfoxed or over-powered a rival. Legislative infighting is refined to points such as stacking the witness list at a hearing.

In an age of few committee barons, Rostenkowski is placed at the top level of committee chairmen. He holds a pivotal committee — Ways and Means. Presidents have to deal with him, and two years of labor on tax reform have enforced the idea that he can put together an unstoppable bloc of votes. In 1981 a Democratic colleague called Rostenkowski "an old wolf among the French poodles" and a Washington Post feature writer said the burly, raspy-voiced Rostenkowski had "the thick-lidded squint of a pol who knows not only where the bodies are buried but where the shovel is."

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Rostenkowski's career sometimes seems to move in spurts. Take the victory on tax reform, for instance. Run over by the Reagan tax cuts in 1981 when the White House cut a deal behind his back, he had to polish up his image with tax reform. Looking good as the leader on tax reform, he managed to lose the initiative to the Senate on the tax bill. In the end he was right in the middle, doing what he does best: getting concessions from the Senate. Rostenkowski was born January 2, 1928, into a politically active family on Chicago's northwest side. His father Joe was, among other things, an alderman for 24 years. Rostenkowski went to a Wisconsin military academy for high school where he excelled in sports and even got a tryout for professional baseball. But he came home at his father's urging. He was married and in 1952 joined the Chicago Democratic organization. Politcs, said Rostenkowski in a 1981 Washington Post interview, "just started to become part of my life." "I served in the state legislature in the same district that my uncle as a Republican and my father as a Democrat served: two years in the House and four years in the Senate," he said. Published accounts of Rostenkowski's recollections suggest he enjoyed those years: the camaraderie on the train between Chicago and Springfield, the finagling over legislation and the schmoozing at the end of the day.

When his congressman decided to retire, Rostenkowski persuaded Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley that it would be worthwhile to send a young Democrat to Congress to accumulate the kind of seniority — and the power that automatically came with it in those days — held by southern Democrats. Whoever recounts that story is sure to mention the chauvinism of every big city organization and its wonder at someone not wanting to stay or return to the city. Daley was persuaded. Rostenkowski was elected to the U.S. House in 1958 at the age of 30, and for a number of years, he was regarded as a Daley operative. He also looked like a comer: He got on the Ways and Means Committee and in 1966 was elected chairman of the Democratic Caucus, a significant post.

Events turned against him in 1968, starting with the disastrous Democratic National Convention. In his book, Clout, Len O'Connor said Rostenkowski's reaction to President Johnson's decision to put the convention in Chicago was, "For Christ's sake, those civil rights people will crucify us." During the convention when President Johnson complained heatedly about disorder in the convention hall, Rostenkowski took control from House Majority Leader Carl Albert (D-Okla.). In 1970 when Albert was elected speaker, O'Neill, not Rostenkowski, was appointed whip.

The slump ended in 1976 when Rostenkowski decided to take on Senate heavyweights in a conference committee. "I stayed up until 4 a.m. studying and working my head off," Rostenkowski said in a Washington Post interview two years later. He won the argument, over a provision affecting insurance companies, and in the process triumphed over a senator who had complained of "Gestapo" tactics at the Chicago convention. It was also in 1976 that Wright became majority leader and Rostenkowski became deputy whip. In 1980 after the Reagan landslide swept out some fixtures in the House Democratic leadership, Rostenkowski faced the exquisite dilemma of whether to become whip, with what looked like a good chance to advance quickly to majority leader or even speaker, or to become chairman of Ways and Means. O'Neill asked him to be Ways and Means chairman. He took it. Thomas Foley (D-Wash.) got to be whip and is now the majority leader.

Thoughout his career Rostenkowski has won praise as an expert vote-counter and a consummate judge of the mood of the House. He also is a tough bargainer. The stories of how he got Daley's approval to run for Congress are one example: Rostenkowski laid out to Daley both his loyalty and the question of what might happen to the Polish vote if Rostenkowski were thwarted. Another example: During the conference on tax reform, Senate Finance chairman Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) was committed to low tax rates, and Rostenkowski kept pushing to have business carry more of the tax burden as the price for letting Packwood have the rates. They both got their way, but even Packwood's allies thought he gave up too much.

"He's a consummate trader," Ways and Means member Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) said with a chuckle. "I'll never get something for nothing. He's the Illinois politician. He knows the game of politics very well." Dorgan describes Rostenkowski as "a tough, no-nonsense chairman who wants to get things done" but who also talks over matters with committee members and wants to know where a member stands or how an objection can be resolved. "Frankly, he tolerates a lot more debate and dissent than he has a reputation for. I don't think any of us are afraid to take him on on issues. But he's a tough guy. You aren't going to beat him very often," Dorgan said.

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Rostenkowski (middle) during committee hearings on tax reform.

How does the engineer of the biggest federal tax reform celebrate?

Rostenkowski has some cards on his side. Ways and Means is an avidly sought committee, and the chairman exercises an amount of power in deciding who gets a seat although the choice is not his alone; the steering committee makes the assignments. Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.), who joined the committee this year, said he spoke several times to Rostenkowski, as well as talking to other Democratic leaders while creating his own network of backers. "You work like hell," Levin said, and added that Rostenkowski "knows the people going on [the committee]; he knows their record." The system obviously gives a chairman the opportunity to bring in members who are supportive or to block potential disrupters. Stories have circulated that Rostenkowski has secured some form of personal allegiance from newer members. Levin said he was not asked for any sort of pledge, but he noted that the committee puts a premium on working together and settling disputes before going to the floor.

"When you establish an avenue of pursuit in the Ways and Means Committee, you better be darn well sure you can pass it on the floor of the House of Representatives," Rostenkowski said. "I sit and work with each member of my committee in breakfasts. I have lunches .... But you know, decisions in Ways and Means affect every life in the country, if not the world, and so that means you have to put a lot of pressure on your members. But you also have to get their support and their allegiance. But as far as loyalties are concerned, hell, yes, I'd like them to be loyal to me. But I try in every way possible to be loyal to them, too."

When it is time for House-Senate negotiations, Rostenkowski names conferees on whom he can rely, meaning maximum leverage against the Senate team. On tax reform, for example, he passed over some senior Democrats, including second-ranking Sam Gibbons (D-Fla.) and two other subcommittee chairman in order to take No. 16, Marty Russo (D-3, South Holland).

Ratings issued by interest groups depict Rostenkowski as a moderate Democrat. Last year, for instance, he unsuccessfully voted against Contra aid and was part of the majority in voting to scale down military spending. But, he voted against textile import quotas — despite the popularity of the idea among Democrats.

Despite his image as a finely tuned politician, there seems to be idealism in Rostenkowski, too. With a simply worded TV speech May 29, 1985, he turned tax reform from a Reagan initiative into a bipartisan issue of fairness for everyone: "If we work together with good faith and determination, this time the people may win. This time, I really think we can get tax reform." The speech was also an astute political move.In that speech he made his now-famous "write Rosty" request for people to express their support. He got more than 25,000 replies in less than one month. In a Congressional Quarterly interview that summer he made the issue seem very real by using his daughter's tax situation as an example of the need for reform of the system.

Unlike some politicians who shed local offices and duties after election to Congress, Rostenkowski has maintained his post as 32nd Ward committeeman, a position his father held, and he regularly returns to his home on the northwest side. "Well, in Chicago, ward committeeman is not a lower level position," he said when asked why he kept the job. "The amount of work it used to take no longer exists. Party leaders in the city of Chicago, I think, have diminished in strength." Among the reasons, he says, is lack of patronage and the political infighting of recent years. "Well, it used to work. Chicago was run a lot better when Dick Daley was around," he said, but he doesn't believe the old system will be restored. "Nope. We're going the way of New York," he said, and Chicago is headed for a period when "everybody's an independent contractor, mak their judgments through the television set. . . . I don't know that that's all bad either."

Tax reform brought Rostenkowski a lot of national attention and awards, like being named most effective congressman. In the interview in December Rostenkowski acknowledged pleasure at the praise but noted also how it prompts questions like "'Why don't you come home? Why won't you run for mayor? . . . Why shouldn't you be in a more powerful House position?' My opinion is that the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee is a pretty powerful position, and only in Chicago do they think their mayor is more powerful than the chairman of Ways and Means. But, you know, what is power? If you pass legislation that's worthwhile, you're recognized as being an effective legislator. . . . That in itself is rewarding."

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