In Re Morse

When Majority Leader Bob Taft and Minority Leader Lyndon Johnson proposed their nominees for committee membership in the Senate last week, one name was conspicuously absent. Oregon's Senator Wayne Morse, who walked out of the Republican Party during the presidential campaign, was not on either list. What's more, all committee places were filled, except for two gaping G.O.P. vacancies on the Public Works and District of Columbia committees, the Limbo of the Senate.

With the stage thus set, Morse nominated himself for a seat on the Armed Services Committee. Never before had a Senator made such a proposal. No one knew just what to do.

After four hours of bouncing from parliamentary inquiry to point of order, the votes were finally counted. Only seven Senators had voted to seat Morse and 81 had voted against him. This comeuppance was promptly interpreted as Republican "discipline," but the Democrats, whose presidential candidate Morse had supported, were more responsible for his plight than the G.O.P. Morse had insisted that he didn't want the Republicans to assign him to committees. Nevertheless, G.O.P. leaders at one point proposed that the Armed Services and Labor committees be enlarged to reseat Morse and to add another Republican, thus assuring G.O.P. control of all committees. The Democratic leadership flatly refused.

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