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Show Congress Putting Its Reorganization to Test By BAUKHAGE Sews Analyst na" Commentator. WNTD Ser1ce. 1616 Eye Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. WASHINGTON. The 80th congress con-gress has been operating long enough under the new reorganization reorganiza-tion plan to note some of the lat- ter's virtues and shortcomings. The first hotly debated issue in the senate had a fortunate effect on the plan. I refer to the fight over retention of two of the standing stand-ing committees the committees commit-tees on war investigation in-vestigation and small business. Despite the fact Baukhage 11131 tile BUta csa gress had expressed ex-pressed the intention to abide by the reorganization plan accepted by the 79th congress, and that one of the purposes, of this plan was to eliminate elim-inate the special committee, the senate sen-ate Republicans fought hard to extend ex-tend the life of these two "specials" and they won. But so much attention was directed direct-ed toward the issue that Senator Taft hastened to make it clear later that creation of further special spe-cial committees would be a very difficult job. Net result of the whole discussion was to strengthen rather than weaken the reorganization. One of the most important steps toward increasing efficiency of congress con-gress was elimination of overlapping overlap-ping committees but, like attempting attempt-ing to abolish the seniority rule, it just couldn't be accomplished. As a matter of fact, when the bill finally was passed, the house rejected reject-ed the senate-approved provision which did away entirely with special spe-cial committees. It was admitted at the time the reorganization act was passed that it fell considerably short of the original recommendations recommenda-tions by the various bodies which had made unofficial studies of the situation. Indeed, the act did not carry out all the recommendations of the report of the joint congressional congres-sional committee created to examine ex-amine various recommendations and then to make its own. Experts to Advise Soions on Problems Probably the most important change yet to be made is to provide additional help for members. That is, providing additional experts to advice committee chairmen and committeemen. I recently heard it remarked that: "Senator Taft usually usual-ly knows what he is talking about when he takes the floor. You may not agree with his policies but when it comes to facts he seldom makes erroneous or misleading statements. This is largely because Taft has the best staff of advisers in congress he hues and pays for them out of his own pocket" It is impossible to expect that more than a few members of either house can devote enough time to any single subject to become expert on it It is true that we have had some outstanding examples of men and women who have been able to specialize and still carry on their other duties. For example: Senator George on finance and Mrs. Rogers on veterans' affairs, to name two widely different fields. It is natural that most congressmen congress-men got into politics by way of the legal profession, which is a good basic training, but today, when many of the most important issues are economic rather than political, no professional training is in itself broad enough. The staffing, however, that has been done is invaluable. Now for the first time there will be experts instead of a new inexperienced set brought in with each chairman. More are needed. Some phases of the reorganization reorganiza-tion plan probably will prove Impractical. Im-practical. One of Its objectives was to reduce the number of measures passed by unanimous consent. This was recommended because frequently frequent-ly important legislation was adopted In this manner with only a small number of senators on the floor. The roll is not called merely "no objections " Various steps were taken to check this custom but there is a human element involved that ha, to be taken Into consideration considera-tion One thing which help, attendance considerably It the reduction of the number of committees upon which a senator serves. This gives him time to participate in debate. It is not improbable that the filibuster fili-buster will be curtailed, perhaps this session, if not entirely ruled out But there never will be "a limit to debate" and "debate" easily can become be-come largely a monologue when addressed to few hearers except a patient visitor or two in the gallery. gal-lery. Additional Reforms Are Recommended George B. Galloway, staff director direc-tor of the Monroney - LaFollette congressional committee which drew up the reorganization legislation, recently re-cently proposed seven new fields o congressional reform: L Avoid legislation deadlocks and promote better teamwork between congress and the President. Pres-ident. 2. Create unified, clearly located, lo-cated, responsible leadership in congress for the legislative program. pro-gram. 3. Reduce the non-legislative work load on congress so as to free congressmen from errand running and permit them to concentrate con-centrate opon their legislative duties. 4. Choose committee chairmen chair-men other than on the basis of seniority. 5. Eliminate the filibuster in the senate. 6. Solve the problem of the powers and procedure of the house committee on rules. T. Establish adequate safeguards safe-guards against extension of the patronage system to the new professional committee staffs. It will be a long time before all these suggestions are adopted. Meanwhile some of those already in the law will be modified slightly in use. just as an automobile or ship "shakes down" after a certain amount of mileage has been achieved. One thing that simply won't work now and probably never will in the senate, at least is the printing of the schedule of the next day's work in advance. There is too much tree-dam tree-dam of action, too much deeply in-rooted in-rooted senatorial courtesy to prevent pre-vent a senator from obtaining "unanimous consent" to lay aside what was planned and introduce an entirely different matter. But this is a small point It is agreed that the advantages outweigh out-weigh the minor disadvantages. The staffing alone even though not carried out to the full is a tremendous tre-mendous gain. Expert guidance of specialists who know their jobs and are not subject to political in-erference in-erference is invaluable. |