in 1970 a congressman then in his third term said the Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico could vote in House committees, which are not created by the Constitution, but “it is very clear … that a constitutional amendment would be required to give [him] a vote in the Committee of the Whole of the full House.] By 1993 that congressman, now 15-term Tom Foley, had changed his convictions about the Constitution. In the bitter partisanship of the 103rd Congress, he and his party have reaped what they have sown.
The 103rd has been criticized for inaction. However, congressional reluctance to add to the glut of law is rather nice because, as Hobbes said, liberties often “depend on the silence of the law. In cases where the sovereing has prescribed no rule, there the subject hath the liberty to do, or forbear, according to his own discretion.” But the 103rd acted with disgraceful dispatch when Democrats wanted it to. It acted swiftly to help Democrats run for office. The “motor voter” bill made it easier to register the least motivated voters, who are disproportionately Democrats. Registration can now occur where people get driver’s licenses and welfare. The 103rd also quickly liberalized the Hatch Act restrictions on political activities by federal employees, who favor the party that favors fatter government. Few Americans noticed these actions at the time; fewer remember them. Congress’s reputation has crashed but not nearly so badly as it would if people knew more about what Congress does.
Rep. Don Manzullo, a freshman Republican from Illinois, says “the system is designed to discourage close scrutiny” of legislation, even by legislators. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, he recalls last February’s earthquake relief bill for Southern California. Rules requiring that bills be filed with the clerk of the House and that members have a minimum of two hours to read them had been waived, as they often are, so no copies of the bill were available until 20 minutes before the vote. That was just enough time for the few members so inclined to discover that the bill involved a lot more than earthquake relief. It funded the restoration of Penn Station, development of two sugar cane mills in Hawaii, a space program and, of course, a slab of pork (this time an FBI facility) for West Virginia, home of Sen. Robert Byrd, chairman of the Appropriations Committee.
Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell was impresario of the filibuster that obstructed the capital gains tax cut that George Bush campaigned for in 1988 and that the House passed in 1989. Mitchell says the 103rd Congress has been blighted by obstrucionism. Actually, this Congress dealt with only two matters that historians will consider significant, NAFTA na GATT. NAFTA passed in spite of the opposition of a majority of Democrats in both houses. GATT has been obstructed by one Democrat, Friz Hollings, the senator from the textile industry and South Carolina. Of he Clinton health care plan, historians will note only that not a single Democrat cast a recorded vote for it.
Late in its second session, the 103rd Congress came back to the business closest to its heart, securing power by rigging the political process. Fortunately, campaign finance “reform” failed. It came up late because House and Senate Democrats have different campaign fund-raising patterns and could not agree on rules that would help them equally and also would injure Republicans in both bodies evenhandedly. Still, Democrats blame Republicans for the failure of reform and say the American people are distraught. But how many people really believe that rules written by incumbents, supposedly to improve the process, will do more than improve the advantages of incumbency? Most existing and contemplated campaign regulations are anti-constitutional attempts to ration political expression by regulating the amounts that can be spent disseminating political advocacy.
In another attempt to look virtuous while extending government supervision of society, Congress fretted about the problem of lobbyists buying lunches for legislators, a facet of the supposed problem of “too much money in politics.” But it reformers really deplore, for example, agriculture interests spending $12 million on political contributions in just the first 18 months of this Congress, reformers should get government to stop spending $17 billion a year on agricultural interests. The more things government influences, the more interest groups there will be and the more money they will spend trying to influence government. People who want both big government and seemly politics understand neither.
Late in the 103rd Congress the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, having spent $695,000 on 36 hearings involving 144 hours of testimony from 243 witnesses, offered its recommendations for a leaner, more efficient Congress. All but one were stillborn. The House did agree that it should be covered by the workplace fairness and safety laws that Congress generates in such profusion for the private sector. The Senate has yet to agree to live under the laws it writes. Maybe next year.
Come January, Representative Reynolds will be back, trailing 21 felony indictments. He has no opponent on the ballot, his district being a product of racial gerrymandering. When Reynolds resumes his service on the Ways and Means Committee, another Chicagoan, Dan Rostenkowski, will be there too, unless his 17-count corruption indictment perurbes voters. The 104th Congress will be different, but not entirely.
