The Congress: An Adequate Number of Democrats

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Autocratic Outrages. The liberal Democrats' next target was the once mighty Rules Committee, which must pass on every bill before it goes to a floor vote. Until 1961 Virginia's conservative Democrat Howard ("Judge") Smith had almost dictatorial powers, because of a coalition with Republicans. Smith's strength was dissipated in 1961 when John Kennedy and Speaker Rayburn rammed through a change in committee membership. But Lyndon's lieutenants in Congress wanted to take no chances of any kind, and the caucus approved new rules that would give Speaker McCormack broad powers to release any bill bogged down in the Rules Committee for more than 21 days. Opponents of the move complained that it meant a return to the bad old days when the Speaker was a near autocrat, but the speakership is still a long way from Uncle Joe Cannon and Tom Reed, who liked to announce his arbitrary decisions by declaring: "Gentlemen, we have decided to perpetrate the following outrage . . ."

While the rules changes breezed through the Democratic caucus easily enough, they had to be approved by the full House—and, incredibly, the seemingly solid wall of Democrats was full of breaches on the session's first key vote. No fewer than 78 Democrats voted, along with 123 Republicans, to make amendments to the resolution. If 16 Republicans had not bolted to side with 208 liberal Democrats, carrying the rules changes 224 to 201, the majority party would have been beaten. Carl Albert, careful nose counter that he is, was startled, because it indicated defections by some Southern Democrats who had last year helped squeeze several Administration bills through the House. Said he: "I don't think we have a runaway majority."

For the Image. Whether Albert will have to count consistently on a few Republicans to augment his majority remains to be seen. At any rate, the G.O.P. minority in the House was undergoing upheaval too. Last month Michigan's Gerald Ford (see following story) had challenged the floor leadership of Charlie Halleck—on the grounds that old Charlie just did not fit the forward-looking image the party needed. Backing Ford was a group of rebels, including Wisconsin's Mel Laird, chairman of the G.O.P. Convention's Platform Committee at San Francisco, who went after the chairmanship of the Republican House caucus. It was a bitter fight, complicated by the fact that Conservatives Ford and Laird are anathema to some liberal Republicans. In a fit of pique, New York's John Lindsay actually backed Halleck. But Ford and Laird won. What did Ford think about Johnson's chances of getting his program through? Said he: "They certainly have adequate numbers of Democrats to put through everything they want—if they can hold the line."

The line will probably hold, if only because Lyndon Johnson is not likely to push too hard, will tend to ask only what he can reasonably expect to get. His legislative program and its probable fate in Congress shape up something like this: