Ready for Prime Time? Tv Cameras Intrude into The

By Alessandra Stanley

U.S. Senators are among the most cosseted people on earth. They are fussed over by constituents, lobbyists and journalists, fawned over by handlers and flunkies. The Senate is a closed and comfortable world, a place even Senators proudly call the most exclusive club in Washington. Small wonder that the very idea of allowing television cameras into their august chamber sparked the kind of weighty deliberation and heated debate normally associated with issues like the Panama Canal treaties.

Would decorum be trampled and tradition flouted? Would speeches become superficially short, chopped into glib "sound-bites" for the nightly news? Or worse, would they be too long, as Senators postured on parochial issues for cable-TV addicts back home? And what if viewers discovered that "the world's greatest deliberative body" was often a crashing bore? Senator J. Bennett Johnston of Louisiana complained quite accurately that the Senate's archaic rules and long, meandering speeches would not air well. "Unlimited debate," Johnston reminded his colleagues, "is not pretty." But TV is everywhere in America, and because of it, the White House and the House of Representatives, which has been televised live on the C-SPAN cable network since 1979, seemed to be getting disproportionate attention. Minority Leader Robert Byrd warned mournfully that the Senate was fast becoming the "invisible half of Congress." Somewhat grudgingly, and only after nine days of floor debate, the Senators voted early this year to let the cameras in. Starting next week, the Senate will be televised live on C-SPAN--at least for a couple of months. In late July, after all reviews are in, the Senate will decide whether to allow the electronic intrusion to remain permanently.

A one-month experiment during May with closed-circuit broadcasts to Capitol offices seemed to go smoothly enough, even if some Senators complained that the sharp camera angles exposed their baldness (staffers are working to improve the angle before the show goes live). Inevitably, of course, some Senators will play for the nightly news. Three weeks ago, William Proxmire of Wisconsin illustrated that U.S. consumption of dairy products is rising by brandishing large chunks of cheese. Protested Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa: "The public perception is that unless they see you on TV, you're not doing your job. When my colleagues ask me why I'm giving so many speeches, I can say it's your own damn fault for voting TV in." On the other hand, the wavy- haired and matinee-idol-handsome John Warner (Actress Elizabeth Taylor's ex-hubby) proclaimed with virtuous self-denial, "I will not start combing my hair or wear red ties. I shall remain the shaggy renegade character I've always been."

To be sure, the Senate is not planning to treat viewers to cinema verite. There will be no panning shots of the near empty rows of desks, no cutaways to Senators yawning or fidgeting. To try to add some suspense to roll-call votes, a clock showing the countdown to the 15-minute limit on voting time flashes occasionally on the screen. In reality, the Senate is not the least bit bound by the 15-minute limit, so the TV clock will disappear after 14 minutes have passed.

Even without prime-time TV touches, the Senate channel promises to open one of the last closed doors of American Government to the cable-viewing masses. Its greatest test will come soon after its debut, when the Senate returns from recess to debate tax reform. Lobbyists and constituents alike will be able to follow closely the grand statements of principle and the petty feints for special interests. One Senator even suggested that whenever one of his peers stands up to defend a lobbyist's loophole, the TV screen should flash beneath him the amount of PAC money he has received from the special interest in question. Who knows, TV occasionally may even produce a better bill. Senators, who are fonder of H.L. Mencken than he ever was of them, have taken to quoting the sage of Baltimore: "Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking."