The Congress: A Fight to the Finish

RENT by bitter differences--some personal, others partisan--the 92nd Congress struggled vainly last week to wind up its business and adjourn for the year. Weary Congressmen, anxious to join friends and family for the holidays, testily fought for favored legislation, while the Administration and the Democratic majority tried to bloody one another as best they could. There was angry talk of filibusters, end runs, threats and bluffs. President Nixon weighed in with a harshly worded veto of a bill, originating in the Congress, to establish a national system of comprehensive child development and day care (see box).

In all the confusion, there was movement. The scorecard for the week:

SUPREME COURT. After minimal debate, the Senate voted 89 to 1 to confirm Nixon's nomination of Lewis Powell, the Richmond lawyer who is a past president of the American Bar Association. The lone dissenting ballot was cast by Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris. Said Senator Henry Jackson: "One wonders why it has taken so long to propose a man of Mr. Powell's stature."

William Rehnquist of Arizona, a Goldwaterite who is an Assistant Attorney General under John Mitchell, was not so well received. His opponents, led by Indiana Democrat Birch Bayh, seized upon a memo written by Rehnquist in 1952, when he was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, as evidence that Rehnquist was against civil rights. In the memo, he had argued that the separate but equal doctrine laid down by the Supreme Court in 1896 was "right and should be reaffirmed." When Rehnquist countered that the view expressed was that of Justice Jackson, a civil libertarian, Bayh charged that the explanation raised "most serious questions as to Mr. Rehnquist's candor." But the Senate was too fatigued to fight. Moreover, it was generally impressed with Rehnquist's intellect and legal grounding. The final tally: 68 for, 26 against confirmation.

TAX CUTS. Passage of the tax-reduction bill--a keystone of Phase II--was anticlimactic, since the major obstacle had been removed two weeks ago. In its original form, the bill contained a Democratic-sponsored rider to allow each taxpayer to check off $1 of his taxes for a presidential campaign fund, thus creating a $20 million reservoir for each party's candidate next year. But when the President threatened to veto the bill, the Democrats backed down. As signed by the President last week, the law will reinstate the 7% tax credit for industrial investment on equipment, raise the personal income tax exemption from $650 to $750 over the next two years, and increase the minimum standard deduction for low-income families. The projected total tax reduction: $15.8 billion, over three years.

FOREIGN AID. After rejecting the House foreign aid authorization last October, the Senate passed two separate authorization bills of its own: one for economic and humanitarian aid and one for military aid. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield tacked on an amendment calling for a withdrawal of all U.S. troops in Viet Nam within six months, pending the release of all prisoners of war. The package was sent to the joint House-Senate conference, where it has since languished.

Finally, Democratic Representative Wayne Hays of Ohio tried a little down-home arm twisting. Hays let it be known that he would block any action on an unrelated election-reform bill--a measure the Senate Democrats badly want--as long as Mansfield refused to surrender his end-the-war amendment. "I'm just fed up with him and his arbitrary action," Hays said of Mansfield. "Arbitrariness breeds arbitrariness." At week's end both chambers agreed to sidestep the issue during this session in favor of a simple resolution that would continue foreign aid at existing levels into next year.

Adjournment pressures last week only heightened the ill feeling between Hill and White House that has hampered the legislative machinery all year. Between them, the Administration and the 92nd Congress have made no significant progress in increasing public confidence in Government, limiting runaway budget deficits, or cutting down the unemployment rate. National health care, major welfare reform, reorganization of the Executive Branch--all Nixon goals announced in his State of the Union address--remain in varying stages of partisan limbo.

In a fit of pique, the President berated last year's Congress as a "legislative body that had seemingly lost the capacity and the will to act." Replied House Speaker Carl Albert: "The Administration will surely be remembered for what it failed to do." Neither side has answered the other's criticism.

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