Mikva: leaving the House behind

U.S. REP. ABNER J. Mikva (D., Evanston) is about to leave behind 20 years of life as a legislator. Soon he will ascend to the more quiet -- but no less influential -- atmosphere of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the nation's second most prestigious and influential court. Though Mikva looks forward to the prospect, it may be with a hint of regret.

While Mikva happily calls the post "a new opportunity," he admits he enjoys the give-and-take and personal interaction of the legislative process. But it's the House he has loved. Following Sen. Adlai Stevenson's retirement announcement, Mikva was asked whether he had ever considered running for the Senate. His answer was no and his reason was the Senate itself. Mikva implied that he found his work and productivity in the House vastly more interesting than what went on in the Senate.

But if Mikva found his work more interesting in the House, it was not necessarily satisfying, especially in the last two years. In the present mood of the House, Mikva has found himself at times frustrated while pushing favorite legislation. That frustration may be a latent reason for his delight at the appellate court nomination.

In his legislative career in both the Illinois General Assembly and the U.S. House, Mikva has stood for a kind of thoughtful liberalism which was neither dogmatic nor strident. But such thoughtfulness has fallen victim in recent Congresses to what his old General Assembly colleague, retiring Sen. Stevenson, referred to as "the tambourine problem" the necessity to take an extremist position in order to make yourself heard, and to beat the tambourine constantly and consistently. That's not Stevenson's style, nor is it Mikva's.

Since he is not a tambourine man, the result has been that Mikva's initiatives have often lost on the floor and in committee to more emotionally based appeals which cater to popular passions of the moment, even if they are not always sound public policy.

One example came in the furor late in 1978 over tuition tax credits for parents of college and parochial school students. It was a popular issue, and many House members jumped on the bandwagon without considering the consequences: tax credits would benefit a middle-class group which, for the most part, could afford the tuition; the credits, if injudiciously applied, could foster increased segregation of the nation's schools, leaving only the less prestigious public schools for minority children, with possibly devastating consequences for future American race relations; and, finally, tax credits would cause an enormous drain on the U.S. treasury at a time of mounting inflation.

Mikva offered an alternative program in the Ways and Means Committee and on the floor. His program would have provided guaranteed loans, deductible on federal income tax returns, for college tuition. The program was aimed at both those in financial need and at those not in need. The loans would have been repaid at low rates of interest through future additional income tax assessments.

But Mikva's loan program was rudely brushed aside in the House as members rushed to placate constituent passion for tuition tax credits.

A similar fate has befallen other Mikva initiatives in the past two years, either because of constituent passions or heavy lobbying by opposing special interests. That pressure, in concert with apathy on the part of the general public, has discouraged Mikva, especially when he considers that the issues are of such long-range importance.

A prime example of Mikva's discouragement came this year when the House Administration Committee decided by one vote to shelve HR1, a bill providing for public financing of House election campaigns. It was sponsored by Mikva, Rep. John B. Anderson (R., Rockford) and 133 other House members.

With all the public opinion polls showing confidence in politicians in general and in Congress in particular at all-time lows, and voting turnout on a steady decline (see June 1979 Illinois Issues), Mikva and others believe something must be done to rekindle trust and participation in the political process. One key reason often advanced as the cause of low opinion of the public for Congress is that congressmen are beholden to various special interests for financial support at election time.

The way to supposedly remove the influence of special interests in Congress is by taking the special interests out of election financing, as has been done with presidential campaigns. That's what Mikva thought; that's what Anderson thought. But, under tremendous pressure from the 3,000-odd business-linked political action committees -- which last year gave over $10 million to congressional candidates --the House didn't agree to public financing of congressional elections. The bill is dead for the 96th Congress. Minus its two key sponsors in 1981, it is probably dead for good, despite past campaign contribution abuses and shenanigans on Capitol Hill.

It is experiences like this which give Mikva a tinge of regret as he leaves for the appellate court bench. He looks forward to his new post, but he hates leaving what he considers to be unfinished business -- business he may never consider in the same way or with the same potential to change things as he has had in the House. As he says, "you can't legislate from the bench."