Mr. Simon goes to Washington

The differences between Congress and the Statehouse are more than a matter of style. The Congress passes fewer measures, legislators' votes are under more intense scrutiny, and there is a larger sense of awe in the Congress due to the greater weight of issues. But there is also 'some special reverence and pride' for a freshman legislator there

THE DATE: March 26, 1975 (the 83rd birthday of former Sen. Paul Douglas).
THE PLACE: The floor of the House of Representatives in Washington.
THE TIME: 10:30 p.m.

Amid points of order, speechmaking good and bad, and an abnormal amount of floor disorder, the House approached a final vote on the conference committee report on the largest tax cut in the nation's history. The Senate awaited House action and senators milled around the floor of the House, joining in the speculation on what the vote might be and what the President would do with the bill after it passed.

Seated in the balcony, my wife leaned over the edge and shouted down to me, "It's just like Springfield!" And so it must have seemed. Jeanne came to the Hill to meet me because that night we were to join a few old friends of Paul Douglas to celebrate the senator's birthday. Early in the day the leadership predicted a vote "around five o'clock." At 6:00 p.m. I called the host of the party and told him that it looked like it might take another two hours. At 10:45 I called again; we would not be able to be there.

All of that does sound like Springfield. There is a certain amount of unpredictability in every legislative body, and the U. S. Congress is no exception. There are other similarities to Springfield, and also many differences.

There are some obvious physical dissimilarities on the floor itself. Members are not assigned seats. You wander in and out and sit where you wish. If you want to discuss a subcommittee report with a member, you look around the floor for someone from the subcommittee and sit next to that person. During the course of a two-hour session you may sit with six different members. And while the aisle generally separates Republicans and Democrats, if you feel like visiting with a Republican member during some point in debate, no one objects to your sitting on the other side of the aisle.

Unlike Springfield, there is no such thing as the explanation of a vote. You enter into debate or you don't speak. Once the speaker (or chairman of the Committee of the Whole—explained later) calls for the vote, there is no more debate.

The vote can be a voice vote. A recorded vote is not required for passage of a measure. If a voice vote is not satisfactory, a member may request a vote by division (the proponents and opponents standing to indicate their positions). If the issue is one of substantial controversy, the vote will usually be recorded. During a recorded vote each member inserts a plastic voting card into one of several devices placed around the chamber. As in Springfield, legislators may vote in the affirmative, in the negative, or present. This is a 15- minute process with a clock similar to one at any sporting event indicating how many minutes and seconds remain until the voting period is complete. When the voting starts, a large electronic board, concealed by engineering ingenuity until that moment, suddenly comes on: green, red, and orange lights for yes, no, and present, respectively.

Before a vote begins, bells ring (actually buzzers in most instances, but in the special language of political Washington, buzzers are never called buzzers). The buzzers tell you in your office or in a committee meeting room that a roll call is about to take place, or that someone has questioned a quorum, or otherwise signals House activities. And then the race begins to avoid phone calls, friends and constituents in order to get to the floor in time to vote.

Every vote is subject to greater scrutiny than in Springfield. Within two weeks the Congressional Quarterly will publish each of your votes and the

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Congress has a different voting system, more and better staff work, and places greater emphasis on the action of committees than the Illinois General Assembly

significance of each vote. On many issues there will be several organizations doing the same. At the end of the session the percentage of votes missed will be published. I don't recall this ever happening in Springfield. It is a project of some significance that perhaps Illinois Issues could undertake. Liberal organizations will test your liberality and conservative organizations will do the opposite; environmental, labor, business and a host of other organizations and interest groups—not to mention individuals—pay great attention to votes cast.

During the course of a week there will be fewer recorded votes on the floor than is the case in Springfield. This can be explained in large measure by what is perhaps the major difference between Washington and Springfield. During the course of a legislative session in Springfield roughly 40 per cent of the measures introduced will pass both houses. In Washington it will be less than five per cent.

The cause of this difference is the single major procedural distinction between Washington and Springfield—in Washington committees generally provide more thorough attention to matters than in Springfield. In Congress the major decisions are usually made by the committees; in Springfield the major derisions are usually made on the floor. In Washington if a committee fails to act on a measure or keeps it in the committee following a negative vote, there may be some speeches on the floor, but it is unlikely that the entire body will ever vote on the matter, much less reverse the committee action. In Springfield there is more likely to be a vote explanation in committee by a member, "I'm going to vote to bring it onto the floor for discussion, but my vote does not mean I favor the bill." I have yet to hear that in Washington. If a committee defeats or bottles up a major bill in the Illinois General Assembly, there will at least be a motion by someone from the floor to discharge the bill from the committee, and occasionally such votes carry. There is much less likelihood of this on the congressional scene.

The staff work of the state legislative committees has improved markedly since my first years there, thanks to many people but in particular former Sen. Russell Arrington (R., Evanston) and Rep. Harold Katz (D., Glencoe). But in both legislative attitude toward committee work and adequacy of staff, Washington is a different ball game. General Assembly committees rarely meet when the body is in session. In Washington, committees frequently hold sessions while the parent body is in session.

Committee importance
I cannot recall the chairman of a committee being referred to as "Mr. Chairman" or "Madam Chairman" outside of the committee sessions themselves in state government. But at the federal level, the chairman of a committee or subcommittee is regularly referred to as "Mr. Chairman." To head a committee on the Washington scene is recognized as a position both of prestige and power, a position used more effectively by some than others. The frequent use of the title outside the committee room is another of the small indications of the importance of committee work in Washington.

Another mark of the importance of congressional committees is the amount of money spent for their support. The House Committee on Education and Labor on which I serve, for example, has a budget of $1,600,000. I don't recall a dollar breakdown on the state legislative committee expenditures, but if such a breakdown were readily available, the contrast would be immense—perhaps something like 100-to-1.

The committees and the House here in Washington are no longer dominated by strict adherence to seniority, but it continues to mean a great deal more in Washington than it does in Springfield. The freshman class of which I am a member helped to knock out seniority as an automatic thing, and I believe this change is healthy. No one should assume a position of major influence in this nation simply because that person happens to have a safe district and breathes. But just as the reforms of this session modified a previous system, I am sure our change will eventually have to be modified also. The reform on seniority did not spring out of ideology—as some of the media have indicated—but more out of a feeling for competence. I made a speech seconding the nomination of Henry Reuss (D., Wisconsin) to be chairman of the Banking and Currency Committee, to replace the respected but aging Wright Patman (D., Texas). But I voted for George Mahon, also of Texas, to be chairman of the Appropriations Committee because I respect his competence—through philosophically I have a greater kinship with Patman than Mahon.

In any event, seniority is not necessarily the crucial factor in the committee chairmanships. But it is a media myth that we "have slain the dragon of seniority.'" It is alive and kicking and well in a variety of forms. Selection of office space goes by seniority, the member serving the greatest continuous service getting first choice, and on down the line to the freshmen. Among the freshmen, the "retreads" (those who served before but not continuously) get first choice, then the other freshmen draw numbers out of a hat. The person who drew number I got the first choice among the remaining rooms. Out of 84 freshmen, I drew number 81—so my office is neither particularly spacious nor accessible. (Perhaps a few of your readers will recall that having office space problems is not a new experience for me in public office.) But you need not look for my office as evidence. Check the office of any freshman and you will quickly see that the seniority system is still alive.

Seniority in subcommittees
So far as I know, the important subcommittee chairmanships, without exception, went to members on the basis of seniority. The highest ranking member on each subcommittee got his or her choice of chairmanships, the second highest got second choice, and so on. Membership on subcommittees went the same way, freshmen getting last choice.

Another significant difference between the Illinois General Assembly and the Congress is the committee questioning process which also follows the

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Conflicts in committee schedules, I regret to say, are as much a problem in Washington as they are in Springfield. But the redeeming feature on the Washington scene is that more thorough committee work means that it is a rarity for a bill to be brought up suddenly and passed with only 30 minutes of consideration. This frequently occurs on the state scene. Days, weeks and months of hearings may be spent on one bill in the U.S. House. The end product may not be a good one, but it is rarely a hasty one.

There are exceptions to these procedures, of course, both at the state legislative level and at the congressional level. One bill in the U. S. House recently came out of committee after months of hearings, but during the last two days a series of amendments were tacked on which had not been carefully considered.

Staff support differences
Staff support in Washington and Illinois are different. In both legislative bodies, committees have staff, but in the General Assembly, personal staff is limited to the leadership and to what an individual legislator can afford for staff salary out of his $10,000 for office expenses. U. S. Congressmen are permitted a staff of up to 18 people. Obviously, much of the staff time is spent on what we in Congress call "case work." In Illinois, I remember hearing this phrase used to describe the work of social agencies, but I don't recall it as a common legislative term. Mail takes another large share of the staffs time. So far this week, for example (today is Thursday), we have sent out answers to 793 letters. Although our staff members are paid no overtime, it is not uncommon for them to work evenings, Saturdays and holidays. The old myth of congressional staffs loafing in Washington has no basis in fact in the offices I have observed, certainly not in ours. Were it not for this staff it would be impossible for me to work effectively. I am much more dependent on my staff in Washington than legislators are in Springfield.

One area where the state legislative operation is clearly superior to the Washington procedure is the floor action on amendments and the participation in debate. When a major bill comes before the U. S. House, the House resolves itself into a Committee of the Whole—almost a daily occurrence. Then someone is designated by the speaker to preside over the Committee of the Whole. This appointee is never the chairman of the committee involved—which is usually the case in the General Assembly. During the Committee of the Whole proceedings, debate takes place and amendments are offered. As in the General Assembly, amendments can be adopted by the narrowest of margins, with no requisite number required for voting. But congressional procedures differ from those in Illinois in that final action on amendments is ordinarily taken when the huge majority of members are not on the floor; in a body of 435 members, it is not uncommon to note a 26-16 vote approval for an amendment. And the numbers present for important debate may vary from 50 to 200, but rarely is it more. What takes place following debate is much like Springfield: The bells ring and members rush to the floor with the old familiar refrain, '"What does this bill do?" This makes it sound worse than it is, because members are reasonably well posted on a bill and its contents. But the bells never tell which bill is being called for a vote.

We have the best research work in the world available to us through the Congressional Library Research Service. Bill drafting services are available, though I have to report the service is much slower than in Springfield (but the situation may change with seniority). Once the bill is drafted, it is placed into a small box at the side of the front desk for introduction at any time in the session. There is no roll call for introduction of bills. We are also much more casual in the appearance of a bill or amendment. It may be handwritten with scrawls all over it. A Republican colleague from Illinois showed me a bill he planned to introduce and asked my opinion of it. 1 gave him my reaction to the bill, which had been typed, but penciled words and phrases had been added frequently and were nearly illegible in several instances. I then saw him take the bill and put it in the "hopper," the smalt box where we introduce bills. I asked if he could introduce it in that rough form. He assured me that he could, and I have seen it done many times since.

A major difference between Washington and Springfield, of course, is the scope and impact of the decisions made. Tonight—as I sit typing this story—President Ford will address the joint session of Congress and the nation on the subject of Southeast Asia. No matter which side any one of us takes on military action in that troubled area, there is an underlying awareness that this is not just another political issue. Immediately at stake are the lives and futures of many innocent people in that region and whether we are taking a step toward world peace or world chaos. Two weeks ago the foreign aid bill passed the House by the thin margin of eight votes. A four-vote switch would have meant foreign aid of the traditional variety had ended. Whether it is a vote on a social security matter which will change the lives of tens of millions of Americans, or the Vietnam issue, or school lunches, or what it is, there is still for this freshman member some awe in casting a vote that means so much to the nation. Perhaps some of that awe wears off after a while, but 1 hope it never does completely.

The personal differences
There are personal differences too, things that affect your life in one way or another, sometimes superficially, sometimes more than that. For instance, the trip from Washington to your district is much longer than for a member of the General Assembly from Springfield to home. The longer distance means fewer trips, but probably causes better utilization of your time when you are in your district.

Real estate prices are high in Springfield compared to my home district—but they are low in Springfield compared to the Washington area. All newcomers to Washington go through this real estate shock. Last night I talked with a couple from Evanston who thought that real estate prices in Washington could not be worse than Evanston. They learned to their sorrow the facts of life when they made the move.

But the legislative salary is better in Washington than Springfield. A U.S. representative receives $42,500 a year in salary and a $6,500 "stationery allowance" for a two-year period, com-

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The seniority system is not yet dead, especially in committees. Decisions made in Washington have greater scope and impact than those made in Springfield

pared to an annual $20,000 salary and $10,000 for office expense benefits in Springfield. In your first briefings you are advised that the $6,500 is your money that you can do with as you wish. "You can go out and buy yourself a Cadillac if you wish and it will be perfectly legal as long as you declare it," we were advised at an early counseling session. But the practical reality is that for the active member of Congress, office expenses will run far above that figure of $6,500.

One final similarity: I never walked down Capitol Avenue in Springfield with the Capitol before me without having some special reverence and pride in that building and what it stands for. It has housed scandals and fraud and bribery—but it has also housed men and women who have caught the spirit of a free country and fought to preserve it. I get a similar feeling in seeing the big, white-domed Capitol in Washington. Yesterday at noon about 10 of us in the House met in a small room in the Capitol for lunch to discuss the energy problem and possible solutions. We met in the room in which Sam Rayburn and Harry Truman were seated when Harry Truman received a phone message: He was about to assume the presidency. And here we were. in that same room discussing issues that Sam Rayburn and Harry Truman would have enjoyed discussing, too.

Right now I sense that we as a nation must determine some new directions and gain a new sense of purpose. Part of that must emerge from this Capitol building where I now work. And at least for the next 21 months, I shall play a small part in shaping that purpose and those directions.

I would be fooling you if I did not say that I am somewhat awed at the prospect, but not so awed that I don't welcome the chance.�

The other 49

Utility adjustments
Utilities were allowed increases totaling an estimated S6.1 billion in 1974 according to a U.S. Senate subcommittee survey released recently. Rate hikes ranged from 1400 per cent in the District of Columbia, to 300 per cent in California, Connecticut, Indiana, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The $6.1 billion boost is more than the total of all rate increases allowed during the last 25 years.

'Autoholics'
Nebraska has purchased 14,000 gallons of 200 proof ethyl alcohol for use in an experiment testing it as an auto fuel supplement. The state will conduct a two million mile test using one part alcohol to nine parts gasoline. Thirty-six passenger cars and pickup trucks will be used for the test. The alcohol is made from pulp mill wastes.

Unemployment funds
States may need to borrow as much as $2 billion from the federal government before the end of 1975 to meet the skyrocketing cost of unemployment compensation, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of State Program Management. By early 1975, $491 million had been borrowed by seven states and Puerto Rico from a federal loan fund for unemployment compensation. Nine other states were on the verge of requesting federal loans.

Postcard registration
A 1973 Minnesota law allowing registration of voters in the state by mail and registration on election day has worked well, according to Minnesota Secretary of State Joan A. Growe. Three-fourths of all eligible voters registered in 1974 election contests and two-thirds of those registered actually voted. Growe said there have been no detected instances of intentional fraud.

Sex laws changed
Prosecution of rape cases under the criminal codes of Washington and Hawaii will be less difficult for the victim under new laws there.

California has passed a "sexual bill of rights," which repeals several laws against some kinds of sexual conduct between consenting adults, including adultery, homosexual acts, and "unnatural acts."

Co-ed athletics approved
A Pennsylvania athletic association rule disallowing coeducational competition was ruled in violation of that state's equal rights amendment last March. A Pennsylvania Commonwealth court said girls must be allowed to participate in interscholastic athletics with boys, even in contact sports such as football and hockey.

Unfair trade laws
New York, Oregon, Florida, and Washington have passed bills this year repealing fair trade laws. Many other states are considering scrapping the laws which permit establishment of minimum selling prices on many items. Forty states passed fair trade measures in the 1930's to make small businesses more competitive with big companies.

Game cancelled?
Delaware suspended from April until June the sale of state lottery tickets. The lottery was up for review since no top prize had been awarded in the first five weeks of play. �

And in Florida

By TOM LITTLEWOOD
LAW-AND-ORDER politics wash ashore in waves. Back in 1961 the Illinois Senate investigated the dismissal of the superintendent and other officials of the Sheridan youth correctional institution, accused by state Youth Commission Chairman, Oliver J. Keller. Jr., of treating delinquents brutally- Forced out himself, Keller left Springfield and wound up in Florida where he introduced an era of progressive juvenile policies as director of that state's Division of Youth Services. Keller's service coincided with a period of legislative reform in Florida. Younger members were revitalizing the legislature and the state. Eventually, Gov. Reubin Askew nominated Keller to be secretary of Health and Rehabilitative Services, Florida's huge "people problems" agency that runs not only the penal institutions but welfare services, too.

By now many alarmed Floridians favored harsh treatment of criminals, and the legislative reformers (Askew and U.S. Sen. Lawton Chiles among them) were no longer in control. In May, the president of the Florida Senate, Dempsey Barren, a throw-back to the pre-apportionment days when the "Porkchop Gang" ruled Florida, used his power over committee assignments and chairmanships to deny confirmation to Keller. The vote against him was 23 to 13.

Once again, Oilie Keller is looking for a job. "The people want simple solutions to complex problems," he reflected. "And, no matter which state, some legislators need to bully the people in government." Ironically, he believes the advanced committee staffing of the Florida legislature contributed to his downfall because of the adversary relationship that developed there between agency heads and professional legislative staffers. �

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