ITALY: Battle on the Floor

After the dinner hour one quiet evening last week, Demo-Christian Deputy Oscar Scalfaro stood up in the Italian Chamber of Deputies and made a motion: let the House sit seven days a week to speed debate on the government's electoral reform bill. Up popped Socialist Fellow Traveler Pietro Nenni to cry: "The majority is attempting a coup." Communist Boss Palmiro Togliatti, discarding his usual pose of blue-serge respectability, shouted: "This isn't a Parliament. It is a bivouac of priests." From the right came the reply: "Go back to your Soviet Parliament, Togliatti. Your game will be up there." The...