With a Mind of Its Own

The 89th Congress had been in session only three weeks, yet both houses had already buckled down to work on bills of major substance. It was a surprising show of legislative haste. But President Johnson has handed this year's hugely Democratic Congress a bursting-from-the-seams legislative program, and he is goading his Capitol Hill leaders to get things going early.

Thus, last week, the Senate took up consideration of Johnson's $1.1 billion bill for aid to Appalachia. The Senate passed much the same bill last year, by a 45-to-13 vote, but time ran out before the House got around to it. This year both branches are expected to whoop it through without much dissent.

Signs. This might indicate that the President will have his own absolute way with the 89th Congress. But Congress traditionally has a way of displaying a mind of its own, no matter what its party breakdown. And last week there were a couple of signs that the 89th may not be too different.

In an obvious rebuff to Administration recommendations, the House, by a 204-to-177 vote, tacked onto a supplementary appropriations request for the Commodity Credit Corp. a prohibition against further sales of U.S. foodstuffs to Nasser's United Arab Republic. If approved by the Senate, the ban would hold up $37 million worth of food remaining to be shipped under a three-year contract that expires in June. In going against Administration proposals, 128 Republicans were joined by 76 Democrats, 16 of them from the New York City area, where the Arab vote is minuscule but the Jewish vote is a matter of political life and death.

Protest. Next day Arkansas' Democratic Senator J. William Fulbright, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee (TIME cover, Jan. 22), announced his decision not to act as floor manager for this year's $3.38 billion foreign aid bill. Fulbright, although favoring foreign aid in principle, was protesting against the Administration's insistence on packaging military and economic aid in the same bill, thereby denying to Congress adequate opportunity to examine each in its own right.

Since the floor manager for foreign aid is routinely a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Fulbright's move left the Administration in some thing of a quandary. Democratic Whip Russell Long, an 8 1/2-year member of the committee, is an outspoken critic of the entire foreign aid program. So is Montana's Mike Mansfield, the Democratic floor leader. So is Oregon Democrat Wayne Morse. Alabama's John Sparkman, next in seniority to Fulbright, was reluctant as any to take on the task. Only after much cajoling did he finally agree to accept, even while warning that he is sympathetic with Fulbright's views and that "I think a majority of the committee is."

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