Down to 434th

Concluding that Adam Clayton. Powell's offenses constituted "gross misconduct," the special House committee investigating his affairs last week proposed that he be publicly condemned and assessed $40,000. It also asked the Justice Department for "prompt and appropriate action" on the evidence of legal infractions it has gathered.

If, as seems likely, the full House accepts the committee's report this week, Powell will be allowed to take his seat in the 90th Congress. After taking his oath, the committee said, he should be "brought to the bar of the House in the custody of the sergeant-at-arms and be there publicly censured by the Speaker in the name of the House."* In addition, Powell would lose his 22 years of seniority, dropping from 31st in standing to 434th among 435 members (one other seat is presently vacant). He would thus have to exchange his large, plush office for one of freshman dimensions and even forfeit his choice parking space in the congressional garage. He would also be required to sever from the office payroll his $19,300-a-year secretary-companion, Corinne Huff.

The recommendation that Powell be forced to part with $40,000 was, if anything, lenient. The committee calculated that Powell and some of his staff had "wrongfully" appropriated at least $46,226. It also suggested that his salary be docked $1,000 a month (out of $2,500), so that the easy-payment restitution would run into the next Congress. Actually, the committee, chaired by Brooklyn Democrat Emanuel Celler, 78, "dean" of the House, settled for a compromise. All nine members signed it, but Florida Democrat Claude Pepper went on record in favor of excluding Powell, while Michigan Democrat John Conyers, a Negro, maintained that severe censure would be sufficient penalty. What Powell will do remains uncertain. At week's end he was at his Bimini hideaway, unwontedly subdued.

* Last member of Congress to be censured was Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954. The last Representative was Thomas Blanton of Texas, who was reprimanded in 1921 for inserting salacious material in the Congressional Record. Blanton also pressured the House Stationery Room to obtain a whisky flask for him--during Prohibition--and then used the flask as an example of the wares available at the Stationery Room.

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