30-Man Rule

Entering the House of Representatives two years ago with dewy eyes, Arizona's Democrat Stewart L. Udall, 34, a Tucson lawyer, quickly had the mist wiped away. Udall found himself on the Education and Labor Committee, discovered that the important 30-man committee functioned only when and however its aging conservative chairman, Graham Arthur Barden of North Carolina, willed. Working under an archaic two-sentence set of rules, i.e., meetings at the chairman's, call, formation of subcommittees only at the chairman's pleasure, the committee in Udall's first two years churned only ten important proposals into law. It let half a dozen more die, including a $1.6. billion school-construction act. Deeply shocked, Stewart Udall vowed that the next two years would be better, began to forge an unfreshmanlike revolt against Barden.

Before this session Udall got in touch with other committee Democrats who felt as he did. Together the rebels drew up 16 rules specifying set times for meetings and establishment of regular subcommittees. They got Sam Rayburn's pledge of neutrality, buttonholed other members of both parties to point out defects in Barden's chairmanship: e.g., seven of nine Administration-supported labor requests were pigeonholed last year without even committee hearings. When this session's first Education and Labor meeting was called last week, the rebels had a majority (17 of 30) committed to their rules changes.

But if Committee Chairman Barden, 60, had moss on his back, there was none over his eyes. Last week he opened the two-hour organizational meeting by sagely announcing that "we need some new rules," proceeded to introduce eleven of his own, patently copied from the widely circulated Udall proposals. Though the chairman kept the privilege of appointing subcommittee chairmen and hiring and firing Democratic staff employees, he retained no other power, even agreed to demands that the committee have equal voice in deciding when additional subcommittees be appointed. Strolling out of the committee room at meeting's end. black-haired, crew-cut Stewart Udall seemed satisfied with the reformation. Said the rebel with a cause: "A new day is here."

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