A Bold and Balky Congress

The silver and ebony mace, an emblem of congressional authority, has been placed on its green marble pedestal behind the rostrum in the House of Representatives. Quill pens, symbolic links with a more genteel past, have been sharpened in the Senate, where they are available to any member. At high noon this Thursday, Jan. 19, Speaker Tip O'Neill in the House and Vice President Walter Mondale in the Senate will smartly rap their gavels on the polished desks before them. Thus will begin the second session of the 95th Congress, one of the boldest and balkiest in memory.

The traditions and rituals of opening day have not changed much in 189 years, but in far more substantive ways this is a vastly different Congress from those of the past. More than half of its members--61 Senators and 231 Representatives--were first elected within the past nine years; more than one-third of them have been in office for three years or less. Young, well-educated and aggressively independent--of both their own leaders and the White House--they are continuing the congressional revolution that started as a reaction to the tragic mistakes of Viet Nam and Richard Nixon's imperial presidency. The balance has been restored, and perhaps even swung in the opposite direction: Congress, the branch of Government that most closely reflects the will of the people, is again filling its constitutional role as a check on the presidency, even though both are controlled by the same party. Indeed, this may be the brashest and most self-willed Congress since 1919, when the House and Senate broke Woodrow Wilson and defiantly kept the U.S. from joining the League of Nations.

The transformation has been remarkable. Only five years ago, Congress was the sick man of the Federal Government. For 40 years, power had shifted down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House; the movement accelerated rapidly under Nixon, who essentially operated on his own in making budgets and war. At regional conferences sponsored by TIME in 1972, scholars, civic leaders and members of Congress concluded that, because of the upset in the balance, the U.S. was facing a grave constitutional crisis that threatened the future of democracy.

But within a year Congress was fighting back. It passed the symbolically important War Powers Act, which placed tight restrictions on a President's powers to dispatch U.S. troops abroad. It set up the Congressional Budget Office, which, together with the newly expert House and Senate budget committees, acts as a sort of economic shadow cabinet. At the same time, members of Congress developed a new self-confidence and a sense that sound policy can--and should--originate on Capitol Hill as well as in the White House.

This resurgence has continued under Carter, partly because of his inept handling of the first session. To an extent, says Charles Jones, a University of Pittsburgh political scientist who is an expert on Congress, "a shift of power that started because of Nixon's arrogance has continued because of Carter's artlessness." Yet probably no President, however skilled in working with Congress, could have turned back the tide. Observes Arizona Representative Morris Udall, who was one of Carter's rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination: "Any President inaugurated in 1977 was going to face this giant, which had awakened after slumbering for many years."

The giant this year will take on several major issues. The frayed and jangled members of a House-Senate conference committee next week will plunge back into their three-month-old brawl over energy policy, and they are still widely divided over oil taxes and Government regulation of natural gas prices. They hope to reach a compromise by March. That same month the Senate will begin debating the embattled Panama Canal treaty. Another major fight will begin, possibly this summer, after U.S. negotiators initial a SALT II treaty with the Soviet Union to set new limits on both countries' nuclear arsenals. By early spring, the Senate will have received legislation from the House for a tax cut in the neighborhood of $25 billion, as proposed by President Carter.

Because so much of this action will be dominated by the Senate, its dour and aloof majority leader, Robert Carlyle Byrd of West Virginia, 60, will become the most important power broker in Congress. The last session belonged to bluff Speaker Tip O'Neill, who worked closely with the inexperienced President and his aides, patiently teaching them how to get along with the people on Capitol Hill. O'Neill took charge of Administration measures and pushed many of them through the House, including the energy bill, which whipped through with few changes--only to run out of gas in the Senate. According to a survey by Congressional Quarterly, the House and Senate sided with Carter on 75% of the key votes, a better record than Gerald Ford's 54% in 1976 but a 25-year low for a President whose party also controls Congress.

This year much of what Carter gets from Congress will be largely due to Byrd, a night-school lawyer who is a first-rate legislative technician. His job is to act as the Senate's traffic cop, controlling the flow of legislation and debate. A master of the Senate's rules and precedents, Byrd hustles through an endless round of meetings with committee chairmen, powerful Senate barons and rebellious mavericks, trying to head off trouble. He pleads with recalcitrant Senators for support, does favors to pacify them, like scheduling their pet bills, or tries to put off action on controversial legislation until antagonists compromise on their own. During last year's session, Byrd's first as majority leader, he ran the chamber with a firm and sure hand that had not been seen since the days when Lyndon Johnson was majority leader.

Byrd has an intense devotion and dedication to the Senate, and for nearly 20 years he has worked tirelessly and uncomplainingly in its service. In many ways, he personifies its transformation and that of the entire Congress: its insistence on staying free from the Executive Branch's control, its new sense of self-importance and its anxiety about how it is regarded by the American public. Because Byrd shows little interest in ideology or the formulation of policy, his leadership allows the Senators, who traditionally have been more individualistic than the Representatives, to follow their own convictions and accentuates the independence of the 95th Congress.

To some degree, what many members of Byrd's Senate and the House describe as independence is not high-minded statesmanship but an old-fashioned desire to take positions that will play well in their districts. With elections coming up in November, a lot of members will be more cautious this session, particularly since there is no national consensus on many key issues. Experts forecast only a moderately productive session, with a number of important matters--among them, national health insurance and reform of the tax and welfare systems--postponed in a rush to adjourn by Oct. 1 so that legislators can concentrate on campaigning. Says House Republican Leader John Rhodes of Arizona: "Nobody wants to get into those morasses this year. If we don't adjourn, we'll just stay around in Washington and do a lot of dumb things."

Today's members may be as anxious about getting re-elected as their predecessors, but there is no denying that Congress has changed drastically. Many political scientists fear that Congress may eventually become unmanageable by its leaders. The old constraints of party allegiance and obedience to elders have largely been shaken off. Says Byrd: "When I entered politics 31 years ago, all we talked about was voting the straight party ticket. Now there is a growing spirit of 'doing one's own thing and of resisting the established way of doing things."

In the old days, many members of Congress leaned heavily on their leaders for guidance and usually voted as they were told. Often, when the House took up a bill, a committee chairman would spell out its provisions in debate to an almost empty chamber. Then, as the bells rang for a vote and members rushed into the chamber, the doorkeeper shouted the leaders' instructions to them, "The vote is aye, the vote is aye." Or, conversely,

"The vote is no, the vote is no." Now most members conscientiously find out for themselves what is in a bill and make up their own minds about how to vote.

Congress in many respects has become more democratic. Because of rules changes, crucial committee decisions last year, like the horse-trading on the final version of the bill raising Social Security taxes, were made before press and public, not in secret as they previously would have been. The seniority system has been weakened, eliminating many of the old, autocratic committee chairmen who could block important legislation on a whim. Chairmen, who are now elected by members of the majority in each chamber, have become more responsive to the rank and file.

The old cohesion within Congress has been lost to some extent because of a sea change in American politics. Many state and local party organizations have become decrepit. Voters increasingly look on themselves as independent, voting split tickets and welcoming candidates who are not strongly aligned with any party.

More and more Congressmen maintain that their freedom from party directives makes them better legislators. Says Maine Republican William Cohen: "Today's Congressman keeps in closer touch with his constituents, and that helps generate a more responsive system." Even so, Americans still hold the Congress in low esteem. According to a Harris poll in November, only 15% of the voters expressed much confidence in Congress, a slight increase from the 9% of a year earlier but far below the high of 66% in 1966.

The changes have enormously increased members' workloads. During one ho-hum week last year. Congress' 54 committees and 269 subcommittees held 249 hearings. Tennessee Senator James Sasser, a freshman Democrat, notes that eleven hour days are common. Texas Democrat George Mahon had three employees when he entered the House in 1935 and now has eleven, but, he says, "we still can't keep up with the work. All eyes turn to Washington for solutions to all problems. It's an entirely different world." Mo Udall figures that he cast three times as many votes (645) in the House last year as he did five years ago. Says he: "A common complaint is that it isn't fun here any more. There used to be time for conviviality and companionship. Not any more. The job just grinds you down."

Other members gripe about the time that they must spend traveling to home districts and their lack of family life. Adds Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, a first-term Democrat: "There is no time to think ahead on important issues. It's even impossible to think out just the political effects of a decision." Democratic Senator Lawton Chiles of Florida bemoans life in a fishbowl: "Half of the reporters in town are looking on you as a Pulitzer Prize waiting to be won."

Worn down, many veterans of Congress have given up the struggle to stay in office. Remarks Michigan Democrat John Conyers, who has served in the House since 1965: "Congress used to be a lifetime career. You died in Congress, or you tried to become Governor or Senator. On a clear day, some guys even saw the White House. Now members are cashing in early. Congressmen are being watched more closely, criticized more and prosecuted more. And the pay is not that munificent. Lobbyists make twice as much."

Griping aside, Senators and Representatives make a good buck. Last February they received a $12,900 raise, to $57,500 (Byrd and the other floor leaders get more: $65,000). As a quid pro quo, the Senate and House approved stringent codes of ethics that limit, to $8,625 annually, extra earnings from speeches, law practice or other outside employment. In addition, the fringes are fancy. Each year members get an expense allowance of $7,000, a telephone and telegraph allowance of at least $6,000 and 33 paid round-trips home. The Senators and Representatives get free medical care and drugs, cut-rate life insurance, $2 haircuts and, to keep them going when the sessions grow long, rib-sticking navy-bean soup for only 400 a bowl in the congressional cafeteria. Pensions can be as high as $42,560 after 30 years' service.

So far this year, 17 Representatives have decided to retire, including Mahon, Texas Democrat Barbara Jordan and California Republican Charles Wiggins. In the Senate, at least seven veterans will be quitting. They include Democrat James Abourezk, 46, of South Dakota and Republican Carl Curtis, 72, of Nebraska and former Republican Whip Robert Griffin, 54, of Michigan. The modern record for retirements was set in 1976: 26 Representatives and eight Senators.

The accelerating turnover has opened the House and Senate to a new breed of members with far more varied backgrounds than those of their predecessors. Members of Congress increasingly have little or no politics in their pasts. Some examples in the Senate: California Republican S.I. Hayakawa, who was president of San Francisco State College, and Ohio Democrat John Glenn and New Mexico Republican Harrison Schmitt, both astronauts. Democratic Representative Lawrence McDonald of Georgia was a urologist. Republican Congressman Jack Kemp of New York was a quarterback for the Buffalo Bills in the 1960's.

Many junior members have moved quickly into positions of influence. Second term Democratic Representative Thomas Downey, 28, of New York is a congressional adviser to the SALT negotiators. Sasser belongs to three key Senate committees: Appropriations, Budget and Governmental Affairs. Says he of his fast advance: "It gives you the feeling that you are of some worth to the country and not simply a second-class legislator." Vermont's Leahy, who entered the Senate in 1974, ranks 79th in seniority; if re-elected in 1980, he will rank about 55th. Says he: "Twenty years ago, I would have had to wait 20 years to move up that far."

Quite a few of the newcomers, however, do not want to stay around even half that long. Says Gary Hart of Colorado, a first-term Senator: "Many members come in here having already done something interesting; they think about doing this only for a while, then doing something different." Hart, 40, who was George McGovern's campaign manager in 1972, is thinking about challenging Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1980. Senator John Danforth, a freshman Republican from Missouri, calls himself "a citizen on leave to the Government." Some oldtimers regard the career switchers as unprofessional. Louisiana Democrat Lindy Boggs, who was elected in 1973 to a congressional seat that her late husband Hale Boggs had held for 26 years, looks down on them as "steppingstone Congressmen." She misses the "camaraderie, trust and lifetime dedication" of the House in years past.

Nonetheless, reports TIME Washington Bureau Chief Hugh Sidey, who has covered the capital for 20 years: "Veterans of Washington have increasing admiration for this doubting, debating Congress. The men and women* in it are better informed, better traveled, better aware of their rights and prerogatives than any who have served before them."

Contrary to expectations, the newcomers--particularly the 47 freshmen and 78 sophomores who make up 43% of the Democrats in the House--turned out not to be very liberal in their voting. One reason: many of them come from marginally Democratic districts, and in some cases from normally Republican ones.

The 95th Congress has sometimes given the impression that it is markedly open to influence by special interest groups. Legions of lobbyists for consumer groups and the oil and gas industry swarmed over the Senate while it was working on the energy bill. Nonetheless, Sidey concludes, this Congress actually is less receptive to old-style lobbying than its predecessors: "Back in the days when the big leaders used to roam the halls, lobbyists could find a man or two and work their deals. But today one cannot push buttons and get things done. The issues are so complex and interlocking that about the only way to win major battles is to generate pressure in members' districts. The oil industry probably has worked harder back home than it has in Washington to bring the Congress to its current doubts about Carter's energy proposals."

Half a dozen years ago, A.F.L.-C.I.O. Lobbyist Andrew Biemiller could guess correctly how some 300 Congressmen would vote on labor legislation; thus he and his assistants had to sound out and try to persuade only the remainder--about 135 Representatives. Today he has to touch base with at least 300 unpredictable Congressmen and never can be sure which way many of them will jump. Last year he was confident that the House would pass the common situs picketing bill, which would have allowed a single union to shut down an entire construction site, but it lost by twelve votes.

Bureaucrats also have difficulties in dealing with this Congress. State Department officials complain that legislators are interfering in the day-to-day conduct of foreign policy. For example, at the instigation of California Democrat Yvonne Burke, the House Appropriations Committee last year cut aid to the Philippines because of human rights violations. Some old hands in the Pentagon miss the days when they had to deal only with a few committee chairmen to get money for new planes or ships. Now the Pentagon has to work with many more Congressmen, as well as with countless powerful aides.

Further, the Defense officials protest, a lot of independent Congressmen are attempting what amounts to "micromanagement" of Pentagon programs. The House Appropriations Committee last year wrote nearly 400 pages of instructions to the Defense Department on how it was to spend its $116 billion budget; a decade ago, the instructions rarely exceeded 40 pages. Senior Defense officials are also spending more time testifying on Capitol Hill and, under increasingly expert questioning by members of Congress and their aides, liking it less. In 1976, 1,721 Pentagon witnesses appeared before congressional committees, up from 630 in 1964.

Few Democrats feel an obligation to support their President's positions, in part because most of them ran ahead of him at the ballot boxes in 1976. The President hurt himself further by at first showing little patience with the legislators and by making no real effort to consult with them. But Republican Senator Robert Dole of Kansas believes that no President could guide the votes of many members in the current Congress. Says he: "Most of them are no longer going to jump up when they get a call from the President, whether he is Carter, Ford or anybody else. They want to help him, but they also put their fingers up to see which way the wind is blowing."

Democratic leaders of Congress have had trouble imposing even the minimum amount of discipline needed to keep the House and Senate running smoothly. Norman Ornstein, an expert on Congress from Washington's Catholic University, observes of the junior members of Congress: "Their politics is based not on compromise but on symbolism and opposition to authority. It's the politics of individualism." Michigan Democrat Don Riegle, a ten-year House veteran who was elected to the Senate in 1976, thinks the job of congressional leadership is virtually impossible, "like trying to ride a Brahma bull." Adds John Anderson of Illinois, the third-ranking Republican leader in the House: "A huge majority has to be under some type of discipline to be effective. If everybody says he is king of the hill, then it's going to be a disorderly hill."

In the Senate, Robert Byrd knows all the parliamentary tricks for staying on top of the hill and uses them when necessary. Lyndon Johnson twisted arms and forcibly pulled Senators into line ("Sometimes," said L.B.J. of his iron-fisted methods, "the skin comes with the hair"). Mike Mansfield, the Senate leader from 1961 to early '77, was scholarly and unaggressive. Byrd, a new kind of leader for a new time, was chosen by his colleagues chiefly because they wanted a technician who would make the Senate run smoothly and efficiently and not try to lead them on too many issues and policies.

Byrd belongs to three powerful committees: Appropriations, Judiciary and Rules. He presides over the Democratic Conference, which elects committee chairmen; the Democratic Steering Committee, which makes committee assignments; and the Democratic Policy Committee, which advises him on the scheduling of bills. But his chief lever in managing the Senate's business is a 41-year-old tradition that the majority leader be recognized by the chair ahead of any other Senator. This enables Byrd to control the day's events by calling up bills and resolutions for action, moving for recess, and setting the Senate's next time of meeting.

His skill as ringmaster hung in the balance last fall when two liberal Democrats, South Dakota's Abourezk and Ohio's Howard Metzenbaum, filibustered for eight days against ending Government regulation of prices for new natural gas. Using Fritz Mondale as his unwitting dupe, Byrd demanded recognition and, through complicated, nimble maneuvering, crushed the filibuster in spite of the Senate's tradition of unlimited free speech. Without this whipcracking, he says, "I would have been thought of as a weak leader."

When the Senate is conducting business, the majority leader spends much of his time on the floor. Even while in his spacious office, 30 feet from the Senate chamber, he listens to the debate by loudspeaker. Twice a month during the session, he and the other Democratic congressional leaders exchange views on legislation with Carter over breakfast at the White House. On the off-weeks, Byrd and his lieutenants breakfast with O'Neill to decide which measures to push and which to bury. On the common situs picketing bill, they agreed that, because the toughest opposition was in the House, O'Neill should have first crack. The measure died in the House, and Byrd did not have to waste the Senate's time on the bill.

To break major deadlocks, he calls the antagonists to his office and pleads for compromise. On occasion, he names a mediator. If Byrd cannot work out Senators' differences on controversial legislation, he generally does not call it up for action. He tries to make a virtue out of his neutral style of leadership. Says he, in the slightly stilted language that is his trademark: "Leadership in the Senate requires an understanding of divers viewpoints and an accommodation to a multitude of views." For Senators who are spoiling for a show down, he preaches a favorite homily: "It might not be a bad idea to back away to avoid a skirmish today in order to win the war tomorrow. Patience and tenacity have always worked. And one has to keep trying."

The majority leader resents his reputation as a mere technician. Says he: "One can never enact legislation unless he makes it possible procedurally, so the technician is really a substantive actor." Besides, Byrd points out, he has helped to write some important legislation, including measures that require Senate confirmation of the President's director of the Office of Management and Budget and that limit the FBI director to a ten-year term.

Byrd will take the lead in trying to forge a compromise on the Panama Canal treaty. Last week, in a move that significantly improved the treaty's chances, he vigorously supported it for the first time. He said that because of widespread opposition to the pact, Senators who vote for it would get "no political credit, no political mileage." But he described the treaty as "the best means of assuring continued access to the use of the canal." Byrd and Senate Republican Leader Howard Baker will insist that reservations be attached to the treaty, clarifying and firming up U.S. rights to defend the canal and have its ships go to the head of the line in times of emergency.

For the most part, Byrd's colleagues welcome his nearly unerring sense of where the Senators collectively want to go. Even Republicans give him high marks, at least for technical skill. Says New York's Jacob Javits: "He moves heaven and earth to keep the Senate going. But Mike Mansfield and Bob Taft [Republican leader in 1953] did not have to be majority leaders to be great Senators. Byrd is an efficient person in charge of the Senate."

Increasingly, Byrd is taking on another role: friendly adviser to Jimmy Carter. At the beginning of the last session, Byrd was wary of the new President. The majority leader was unsure whether Carter would give him proper deference. He also resented Carter's campaign attacks on Congress. So when the President's nomination of former Kennedy Aide Theodore Sorensen as CIA director ran into trouble, Byrd sounded no warning. Says a junior Democratic Senator: "He just wanted to teach Carter a lesson." Sorensen withdrew under pressure. That lesson was followed by others, as Byrd repeatedly criticized Carter's legislative liaison staff as bumbling, finally declaring of the President last June: "He's in over his head."

The relationship thawed slowly. Carter began seeking out Byrd's advice, and Byrd, his ego satisfied, began giving it more freely. Real trust developed in September when Byrd advised Carter to let go of Bert Lance. Says Byrd: "Carter listened carefully, seemed impressed with what I said, and even asked me to come back later." Now Byrd is telling the President that his approach to Congress last year was too soft-sell. With party discipline weak, advises Byrd, Carter must create his own congressional majorities by force of argument, which he has so far not done. Quips Democratic Representative John Brademas of Indiana: "If Carter does that, he will truly have been born again politically."

With Byrd's coaching. Carter and Congress seem headed toward mutual respect this session, though probably not affection. The man from Plains is not the kind of bourbon-sipping, backslapping politician who gets along easily with the good ole boys in Congress. But he intends to work harder at consulting and compromising with them, and in the face of the November elections, the Democrats seem more willing to make peace with their President. In his State of the Union message this week, Carter will outline his urgent goals for 1978: an energy bill, a tax cut, the passage of Panama Canal and SALT II treaties, and Middle East peace. If most of those goals are achieved, the President's standing in the polls will doubtless move up. Then, when the time for hard campaigning begins, his support would become a valuable asset to even the most independent members of the balky new Congress who are running for reelection.

* There are 17 women in the House, none in the Senate.

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