Decolonizing Columbia

In defiance of good sense and simple justice, Congress for 91 years has served as self-appointed city council for the District of Columbia. Washington's 800,000 residents thus have no more control over their affairs than the people of a colonial territory. Every President since Harry Truman has sought home rule for the capital; so have both parties' platforms since 1948. Though the Senate has now passed the necessary legislation five times, almost every home-rule bill has died in the House District Committee, traditionally controlled by Southerners. Since Washington is the only major U.S. city with a majority of Negro citizens, the committee has always balked at the possibility that home rule would lead to Negro domination of the city government.

The capital's independence movement was playing itself out pretty much as usual this year, until Lyndon Johnson got behind the bill. The Administration lined up support for a discharge petition, an occasionally attempted but rarely successful parliamentary device (it has not worked in the House since 1960), by which the signatures of a majority of House members automatically remove a bill from committee jurisdiction and put it before the whole House. Last week home-rule advocates got the necessary 218th signature from Illinois Democrat George Shipley, who came back to Washington just to sign the petition. No action on the bill can take place until Sept. 27. Meanwhile, opponents of the measure threaten some artful dodges of their own. But the District of Columbia is closer to running its own affairs than at any time since it lost its independence by an Act of Congress during the Reconstruction era.

In other actions, Congress: > Passed, by a 79-to-3 vote in the Senate, a bill authorizing the first federal scholarships for undergraduates and other substantial aid to higher education. The program involves $667 million the first year, expands after that to a five-year total of $4.7 billion. The Senate bill would cost $42.5 million more than the House version, $407 million more than the sum originally requested by the Administration.

> Passed, in both chambers, the final version of a bill to create a Department of Housing and Urban Development, an agency sought by the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations. The eleventh Cabinet-level post will assume all the functions of the present Housing and Home Finance Agency, in addition to other city-oriented responsibilities.

> Advanced, by a Senate Labor Committee vote of 12 to 3, the controversial bill to repeal Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act, the celebrated "right-to-work" clause, under which the states have the power to ban union-shop contracts (19 have done so). The Administration-backed repeal passed narrowly in the House, 221 to 203, and faces at least as close a contest on the Senate floor.

> Shelved until next year bills that would have increased unemployment compensation and the national minimum wage and imposed uniform criteria for drawing congressional district lines.

> Passed, by a 317-to-24 vote in the House, a $90 million program to develop high-speed intercity rail service. The program, already approved in a similar form by the Senate, aims to lessen highway congestion by improving commuter service with trains that will go up to 150 miles an hour, initially on the Washington-New York-Boston run.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.