CONGRESS: THE LONG, SLACK SEASON

THERE are few union members in Congress, but the legislators this year have realized labor's old dream of far more pay for much less work. Since raising their annual salaries from $30,000 to $42,500 early in the session, they have produced virtually no significant legislation. The Senate met only twice last week. House leaders privately admit that they are scrounging for enough official business to keep the lower chamber functioning three days a week. Representative Otis Pike of New York told constituents in a recent newsletter: "Congress as a legislative operation has almost ceased to exist."

The feeling is widely shared on Capitol Hill. Everett Dirksen, the Senate Republican leader, acknowledges: "There's no use higgling about it. Nothing has been going on." With the session well into its sixth month and the government's new fiscal year beginning July 1, the Senate's principal accomplishment has been to approve the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty--a piece of business left over from last year. The House has done little except to process a few routine appropriations measures, none of which has yet come to the Senate floor.

Mr. Sam and LB.J. Many on Capitol Hill, including some Republicans, attribute the dearth of activity to the Administration. It has been slow to formulate a legislative program and reluctant to push hard for the specific requests that it has made. The charge is at least partly accurate. Even before Inauguration Day, it was clear that Richard Nixon intended to hold down expenditures--and hence any new domestic programs--where possible, and to avoid unnecessary clashes with the Democratic-controlled Congress.

To assign much of the blame to the White House, however, is to pass the buck. Congress has traditionally acted on the principle that slack is beautiful. And the fact is that during nearly 40 years dominated for the most part by activist, innovative Presidents, Congress grew accustomed to reacting to executive initiatives rather than originating major legislation. During the relatively quiescent Eisenhower years, Sam Rayburn in the House and Lyndon Johnson in the Senate provided strong party leadership, giving the opposition Democrats a measure of cohesion and guidance. Speaker John McCormack and Senate Leader Mike Mansfield offer no comparable direction today. Illinois Democrat Roman Pucinski complains: "The Speaker never intended to be the party leader, and he doesn't seek it. The D S G. [Democratic Study Group, a liberal COalition] has fallen apart. The Southern bloc is without a leader. A legislative vacuum is developing."

Historic Obligation. More aggressive members of Congress, many of them youngish liberals, want Capitol Hill to act more vigorously on urban ills, poverty, pollution of the environment, education and health services, and many other problems. For activist Democrats, particularly, a cautious Republican Administration seemed to offer an opportunity to make both an independent record and political points. When he ousted Louisiana's Russell Long as Senate Majority Whip in January, Ted Kennedy talked of the Democrats' "obligation to the country to present the best possible programs in keeping with our historic role as the party of progress and change." No such programs have materialized. Kennedy's viewpoint has considerable support, but not among the majority of committee chairmen, who retain much of the legislative power. One Democratic chairman, Carl Perkins of the House Education and Labor Committee, attempted to take an independent stand on an important education bill, extending the authorization for federal assistance from two years to five. A coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats easily defeated the move.

Dirksen observes that Congress lacks not only White House guidance but a sense of popular direction. "A lot of people," says he, "don't seem to know whether they want anything from Congress right now or not." Until they find out, Republicans are generally content to wait on the President, while many Democrats are satisfied to defend existing domestic programs.

On Tranquilizers. Even when Nixon has made specific recommendations, Congress has been slow to move. He has proposed a social security benefit increase and a fiscal package that includes retention of the income tax surcharge. He has sent up measures on law enforcement, pornography control, Selective Service reform, foreign aid, Post Office reorganization and Electoral College revision. Some of these and other proposals came relatively late, after Congress' Easter recess in April, and are just getting into the committee machinery. But on the social security issue, House Ways and Means Chairman Wilbur Mills has already let it be known that Nixon's bill is too small and that the whole question should be deferred until next year.

Although Republican Representative Silvio Conte of Massachusetts may be correct when he says that "the boys act now as if they've been on tranquilizers," there is some ferment beneath the surface. In the House, liberal Democrats are attempting to make their party caucus a policymaking body. If they are successful, the liberals would substitute the caucus for the nominal leadership as the party's principal instrument of navigation. On the senior Democratic level, there is quiet talk of organizing a Senate-House leadership group that would attempt to set the party's course for both bodies. For the time being, informal fortnightly meetings are contemplated.

In the Senate, Democratic and Republican liberals have been filling the void by raising fundamental questions on military tactics in Viet Nam, overseas commitments generally, arms procurement and domestic priorities. This activity does not directly produce much legislation, but George McGovern's hunger investigation did help pressure the White House into formulating a much broader food-distribution program for the poor than had previously been envisioned. Vigorous Senate opposition to the anti-ballistic missile system forced the Administration to overhaul the plan and is now delaying approval of the new proposal. Torpid and disorganized as it seems, Congress nonetheless retains considerable power--far more, in fact, than some of its own senior members are willing to exercise.

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