Washington

HOW the U.S. Senate organizes itself into committees won't drill any new oil wells, put more people to work, or end the nuclear arms race. Though the division of original legislative responsibility is of interest chiefly to the senators themselves, the number of committees and their jurisdictional arrangements do have a lot to do with the institutional efficiency of the body.

At considerable risk to his own Senate career. Sen. Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois undertook the thankless assignment last year of serving as chairman of a special committee that studied the committee system. The panels had not been realigned in 30 years, and there were so many of them —including 174 subcommittees—that individual members were assigned to an average of 18. Sen. Javits (R., N.Y.) served on 31.

Fifty-seven separate groups had pieces of energy policy, for example, making it impossible to arrive at coordinated decisions. This meant that senators scurried from one hearing to another without fully mastering any of the subjects upon which they were legislating.

The more committees there are, though, the more chairmanships there are to parcel out among the Democratic majority; and once a chairman savors the real or imagined power that goes with the title, he will fight like a tiger to keep it. Anyone who tinkered with the committees and tried to consolidate them ran the risk of being read out of the club. So the bipartisan study group came up with a moderate reform plan that would reduce the 31 full committees to 15, but would not threaten the jerrybuilt fiefdom of a major power center, the Finance Committee.

The most important of these changes would have eliminated some of the lesser committees; limited senators to service on two major full committees; and consolidated energy, environmental and transportation affairs in newly realigned panels.

In the negotiations that followed with the senior Democratic chairmen, Adlai III demonstrated a willingness to compromise and back off under fire that had been notably lacking in his father, Adlai II, the former governor and presidential candidate. Sen. Stevenson was especially vulnerable on one point, however. The plan called for transfer of jurisdiction over international economics from the Foreign Relations Committee to the Banking Subcommittee on International Finance, of which Stevenson happened to be chairman. When the issue reached the floor for disposition by all the members. Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, attacked Stevenson bitterly. So did Sen. George McGovern, chairman of a special committee on nutrition that was ticketed for retirement.

In the end, the 31 committees were cut to 25, the 174 subcommittees to 120. Stevenson had to settle for half a loaf, but on matters of internal congressional reform half a loaf represents a significant achievement indeed. Moreover, Stevenson seemed to survive the experience without inflicting lasting damage on either himself or the self-esteem of the gentlemen's club on Capitol Hill.

Energy matters were gathered into a single Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Except for oceanic pollution, environmental protection concerns were combined in a single place. I n some fields the lobbies were too formidable, however, and Stevenson's committee had to give ground. Veterans, small businessmen, and the elderly all kept their special committees. The most important loss was the failure to bring transportation issues under a single committee. The highway lobby succeeded in keeping road building in the Public Works Committee, and urban mass transit remains, inexplicably, in the Banking Committee. Now senators will work on an average of 11 instead of 18 groups — still too many by Stevenson's reckoning.

Practically every senator had to give up something in the reorganization. By restricting the number of chairmanships that a senator can hold, the plan should open up more leadership positions for the newer members. In the last Congress, Sen. Howard W. Cannon (D., Nev.) presided over 10 panels all by himself.

A most sensitive position
Stevenson emerged from the reorganization hassle in relatively good standing among his peers just in time to pick up another potential source of trouble in the family. Democratic Leader Robert C. Byrd offered him the chairmanship of the Ethics Committee. This is the committee that has the responsibility — a responsibility not always eagerly accepted in the past — to investigate allegations of improper behavior made against a member. Another Senate panel is drawing up a new ethics code. With only one dissenting vote, the caucus of Democratic senators ratified Byrd's choice by entrusting the Illinois Democrat with the most sensitive of all powers: leadership of the machinery to enforce the new rules. The reorganization that was recommended by the earlier Stevenson panel would have eliminated the separate Ethics Committee by demoting it to a subcommittee of the Rules Committee. But the full Senate decided, first, that the public expects a display of attention to ethical standards, and, second, that Stevenson is just the fellow to watch over it.