Stumbling to a Showdown

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With the proliferation of these new power centers has come an explosion in overlapping jurisdictions. In 1977 Jimmy Carter described his proposed energy legislation as the "moral equivalent of war." But bills produced by his Administration went almost nowhere for three years. One reason: 83 House committees and subcommittees claimed the right to pass judgment on parts of any proposed energy package. "It's damned hard to get legislation passed," complains Maurice Rosenblatt, a veteran lobbyist for railroads and the liquor industry. "You used to be able to deal with Wilbur Mills [longtime head of the House Ways and Means Committee]. Now you've got to go to every damned fund raiser, drink one more highball, eat one more turkey gizzard."

No one in Congress is crying over the plight of lobbyists, nor should the public. The special interests, in fact, have been doing quite well, mainly because of the rapidly growing influence of political action committees (P.A.C.s), which can donate up to $5,000 to candidates for the House and Senate. Their number has grown from about 600 in 1974, when P.A.C.s spent $12 million, to 3,115 in 1980, when they contributed $55 million in campaign funds. P.A.C.s representing everything from giant corporations to labor unions to bird watchers are expected to spend more than $80 million on this year's congressional elections.

As the cost of campaigning grows, so does the dependence of candidates on P.A.C. money. While P.A.C.s contend that their contributions are aimed only at gaining "access" to winning candidates, the militancy of some of these groups often comes disturbingly close to bribery. "Congressmen need the money, and the P.A.C.s have it," says Fred Wertheimer, president of Common Cause, a public-interest lobbying group. "There should be lobbying, but the bigger bucks often win, regardless of the merits." The twelve members of the House Health and the Environment Subcommittee who voted last month for a measure that would weaken the Clean Air Act had received seven times more campaign money (an average of $25,000 each) from industry-backed P.A.C.s than the eight members who opposed the bill.

Such carefully targeted money, as well as the outpouring of mail on special-interest bills by well-financed lobbying groups, especially unnerves the newer members of Congress. Older hands, in fact, scoff at many of the new legislators as "bed welters with blow-dry hairdos." Contends one House Democratic leader: "The new breed are scared of their shadows. They want to do what's immediately popular rather than what will work."

One result of pressure-group politics is that bills with wide but diffuse popular support repeatedly die in the nervous Congress. At least 75% of Americans favor the registration of handguns, but members of Congress, terrified by the 1.8 million-member National Rifle Association, will not pass such legislation. The rising cost of health care is severely straining federal and state budgets, but lobbying by the American Medical Association shut down a bill proposed by Carter that would merely have put a cap on the exorbitant increases in rates charged by hospitals.