Rules of the Club

Since Jefferson's day, the U.S. Senate has had a rule that no member can be absent from its sessions without permission. That quaint regulation is in a class with the custom that a gentleman always dresses for dinner or walks on the lady's curb side.

Taxpayers give Senators $42,500 a year, along with generous travel and stationery allowances, to attend to the nation's legislative business. But in the men's-club atmosphere of the Senate, absenteeism is something of a way of life. Constituents' demands, to be sure, must be met--along with campaign obligations. Many Senators are also called away by the lucrative lecture circuit. Several weeks ago, Majority Leader Mike Mansfield said angrily: "The record is abominable. None of us was drafted for this job."

When the Senate was in the midst of a historic debate on school busing last week, 17 Senators missed a crucial vote on the antibusing Griffin amendment (see story, page 25). If four Democratic presidential hopefuls --George McGovern, Edmund Muskie, Henry Jackson and Vance Hartke --had been present, the amendment, passed by 43-40, might have been defeated. (Hubert Humphrey was also absent, but he had "paired" with another missing member, Louisiana's Russell Long, so that their offsetting votes would not have mattered.)

The episode gave some emphasis to a proposal by Maine's Senator Margaret Chase Smith. She has suggested a constitutional amendment that would expel any Senator who misses more than 40% of the Senate's votes.

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