Nation: THE 91ST: A HOUSE THAT WILL BE LESS THAN HOMEY

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Despite Richard Nixon's continuing lead in the presidential race, it is highly unlikely that his coattails will be sufficiently strong to give the Republicans control of the House. The current breakdown is 245 Democrats, 187 Republicans and three vacancies. The G.O.P. thus needs a net gain of 31 seats to win control, but ticket splitting is expected to be so widespread that even a top-of-the-ticket Republican runaway would not guarantee such a gain. Despite the volatility of this year's politics, the House appears headed for a relatively minor alteration in its membership and a relatively moderate alteration in its ideological temper.

Conservative Coloration. As of this week, the outlook is for a Republican pickup of 22 seats. That would give the 91st Congress a Democratic edge of 226 Democrats to 209 Republicans. It would also give the House a more conservative tilt, making it more hostile to foreign aid than even the pinch-penny 90th, more sympathetic to defense appropriations, less anxious to enact fresh domestic programs, more eager to transfer federal projects to state and local control.

It generally takes about 275 Democrats to give the House a liberal coloration; Lyndon Johnson had 295 in the hyperproductive 89th that put most his Great Society programs on the books. Once the Democratic membership dips to around 240, the tenor of the House becomes decidedly conservative, because so many of the Democrats are either Southern conservatives or machine men from the Northern cities. To reduce Democratic totals to a figure considerably below 240, the Republicans are counting on big victories i the Middle Atlantic region, where the party may gain six House seats and in the 14 Rocky Mountain, Southwest and Far West states, where a net pickup of seven is probable.

Whatever the eventual figures, the new House is not likely to be a homey place—for anybody. In all likelihood Democrats will bear the responsibility for running a House over which they will have little real control. The Republicans will probably elect more Representatives than at any time since the 33rd Congress (1953-54), when they had a majority in the House. But they are unlikely to elect enough to win formal control. Thus, aging Massachusetts Democrat John McCormack, 76 is likely to be elected to a fifth term as Speaker, and Michigan Republican Gerald Ford, 55, will probably be thwarted once again in his ambition to swap the job of minority leader for the Speaker's gavel. Whoever is President, moreover, will be in for serious trouble. A Democratic Congress, even a conservatively oriented one, would probably be hostile to Nixon; a conservative Congress, even one controlled by Democrats, would probably thwart Hubert Humphrey regularly.

Democratic control would also leave the key House committees in familiar hands. Arkansas' Wilbur Mills would chair Ways and Means; Texas' George Mahon, Appropriations; South Carolina's Mendel Rivers, Armed Services; and Mississippi's William Colmer, Rules.

Some particularly close and significant House contests:

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