The Congress: Where Are We At Here?

Civil rights legislation last week was in a terrible tangle in the House Judiciary Committee. It would have been laughable if it were not so lamentable.

Still at issue was a civil rights bill produced by an eleven-member Judiciary subcommittee chaired by Brooklyn's civil righteous Democratic Representative Emanuel Celler, who also heads the full Judiciary Committee. That bill went far beyond what the Kennedy Administration had asked—and far beyond what either the House or the Senate would accept.

The Administration, fearful that the barbed-wire subcommittee bill would snag all chances for civil rights legislation this year, put Celler under heavy pressure to back down and support a more moderate measure. He agreed, and with the help of Ohio Republican William McCulloch, ranking minority member of the Judiciary Committee, put together a shaky coalition in favor of modifying the subcommittee bill.

The Face on the Screen. Early last week that coalition was busted wide open—and the unlikely Congressman who started the smashing was Roland V. Libonati, 62, a pudgy little machine Democrat from Chicago. Elected to the House in 1957, "Lib" Libonati has been known only for his devotion to the bidding of Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley and as a master of the malapropism—he once welcomed autumn as the time when "the moss is on the pumpkin." Gingerly handling the prickly political pear that the civil rights bill had become, Manny Celler needed someone to make the necessary Judiciary Committee motions to delete the toughest sections of the subcommittee package. He picked Libonati, partly because of Lib's record of strict party obedience, partly because Lib did not need to worry about political repercussions in his machine-run district.

Libonati was happy to oblige, and all might have gone well—if Celler had kept his mouth shut and if Lib were not a televiewer. But Celler submitted to a television interview, Libonati caught the show, and did not like what he heard. Explained Libonati later:

"So then I'm sitting down, just like you and me are sitting here now, and I'm watching television and who do I see on the television but my chairman. And he's telling 'em up there in his district that he's for a strong bill, and that he doesn't have anything to do with any motion to cut the bill down. So when I hear that, I says to myself, 'Lib, where are we at here, anyway?' And I think that if they're gonna get some Republican votes anyway, and if the chairman says he doesn't have anything to do with my motion, then certain representations that were made to me is out the window. So I withdraw my motion."