A Committee Revolts

A microphone, hurled by California's Congressman Chet Holifield, s lithered down the long committee table. "I demand it be cut off!" Holifield shouted.

"If it isn't cut off, I'll walk out!" barked another Representative.

Michigan's crusty old (77) Clare E. Hoffman, chairman of the House Government Operations Committee, touched off the outbursts at a committee meeting last week by having a recording machine and microphones placed on the table. His purpose, he explained afterwards, was "to show them how they sounded all cackling at once." Committee members, who are as fond of gruff, gritty Chairman Hoffman as he is of cackling, got very sore. After a flurry of angry protest Holifield made a motion that the machine be turned off, and the vote went 20-3 in favor. "Pull the plug," said Hoffman sourly.

It was the committee's second revolt against Hoffman within a fortnight. Republican Hoffman, a veteran of 19 years in the House, had annoyed both Republican and Democratic committee members by appointing twelve special three-man subcommittees (usually with himself as chairman) to investigate matters ranging from public housing in Los Angeles to union racketeering in Detroit and Kansas City. The regular subcommittees were "running wild," he said.

But to fed-up committee members, it seemed that it was Chairman Hoffman who was running wild. By a vote of 23-1 (Hoffman), the committee passed a resolution 1) requiring "approval of the full committee" for creation of special subcommittees, 2) winding up existing special subcommittees within ten days, 3) granting regular subcommittees authority to conduct investigations on their own. Deeply aggrieved, Hoffman protested on the floor of the House that the rebellion was "a drive for power" and "a curb on exposure of racketeering."

Last week, after the recording-machine outbreak, the committee relented a bit and ceded Hoffman authority to continue his racketeering investigations for 60 days. Hoffman was unmollified. "You can't do much in 60 days," he complained.

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