"Not Our Finest Hour"

Congress jets home after a slapdash and slapstick session

On one side was Majority Leader Howard Baker of Tennessee, a believer in conciliation and consensus. On the other was a cadre of fervent right-wingers led by North Carolina's Jesse Helms, a maverick ideologue and veteran obstructionist. Ostensibly the issue was the 5¢ gasoline tax. But after six postmidnight sessions and four filibusters, the bitter battle became one over party power and personal pride.

In the end, six days after the special lameduck session of the 97th Congress was supposed to adjourn, Baker finally regained a moment of control over the cantankerous Senate and the measure passed. With that the Senators fled for home, as well they might, leaving behind the near debacle that the special session of Congress had become.

Supporters of the bill that tied up the Senate for 13 days said that the legislation, which will raise the federal gasoline tax from 4¢ to 9¢ starting April 1, would create 320,000 new jobs, extend unemployment benefits, help repair the nation's decaying highway and transit systems and cost the average motorist only $30 annually. It would also increase the maximum user fee for heavy trucks from $210 to $1,900 a year and permit the use of long double-trailer trucks on many state roads.

To Helms, the gas levy was a tax-and-spend heresy. Aided by his North Carolina colleague John East and two obscure Republican freshmen, Donald Nickles of Oklahoma and Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire, Helms tried to talk the bill to death. The willful clique was able to delay a final roll call until Thursday, two days before Christmas, hoping that by then enough members would have gone home to prevent the Senate from mustering a quorum.

Baker retaliated by using a fleet of 11 military jets (each costing $742 an hour out of the Pentagon's budget) to bring Senators back for the vote and ensure them a quick flight home when it was over. Even Barry Goldwater, who was in an Arizona hospital recuperating from open-heart surgery, returned to Washington. "The sky was dark with Air Force planes bringing back Senators, kicking and screaming," Helms complained. Senators finally strangled the filibuster for good by an 81-to-5 vote, then passed the gas tax, 54 to 33. Baker, who had triumphed because of the reservoir of good will he had built up with both Democrats and Republicans, slipped back to his office to celebrate with a glass of champagne. He and Minority Leader Robert Byrd put in a joint call to the President to say that they had passed the gas tax, just as House Majority Leader Jim Wright and Minority Leader Robert Michel had done two days before.

The gas tax was not even part of the original agenda for the lameduck session, which was requested by President Reagan to prod Congress into passing the necessary appropriation bills for fiscal 1983, a period that began, of course, last October. The members bungled that task, the result being that 80% of the Government's funding needs had to be lumped once again into a catch-all piece of legislation called a continuing resolution. They did better when it came to granting themselves a pay raise and grabbing pork-barrel goodies (see box). Said Oklahoma Democrat James Jones, chairman of the House Budget Committee: "This lameduck session was not our finest hour."