ably-it is not something that we touched on lightly, because for many years this has been a subject of current discussion on the floor, differences of opinion, and so on. I think we have had proposals here, for example, that, well, the simplest way to handle it is to let the majority pick its staff. The majority selects their portion of the staff and they have control over it, the minority picks its portion of the staff and they have control over it, and that we divide the money and turn over to the minority their portion of it and to the majority their portion. Actually, when you get to the practical operation, in the operation of a committee, the day-to-day, mundane tasks of answering the telephone, doing a thousand and one things, sending out notices, a large portion of which the staff is involved in, then you get down to how you are going to divide that. Are we going to wind up, as one person suggested, that we divide it three ways? We have three committee staffs. We have a staff employed by the committee as a whole, and it does the mundane things, sends out notices, answers the telephones, furnishes the thousand and one answers to questions that come. Then we have a staff for the minority which works exclusively on problems of legislation, and so on, for the minority. Then we have a staff for the majority that concentrates on that. So that we actually wind up with a kind of troika arrangement.

I don't know whether the gentlewoman would want to comment on that, but you do understand some of the problems. Generally, the staff which, of course, is basically responsible to the committee as a whole, does have a substantial portion of its work which certainly would fall in that broad area of bipartisanship, dealing with the vast responsibilities that the committee staff has to deal with, that does not deal in any sense with minority or majority or philosophical questions on legislative procedure. I wonder if the gentlewoman had given any particular thought to that, because we do get into this area, that this broad task has to be handled or should be handled on some sort of equal basis.

Mrs. HECKLER. I can see the problems there. Perhaps that would be the right approach. I do feel that the clerical function, the sending out of notices, and so forth, really could be shared, and a pool arrangement could be worked out. I have found on both committees on which I have been privileged to serve, Government Operations and Banking and Currency, that, while on the minority side we have really had outstandingly capable people, very often when I needed them most for the explanation of a provision that is troubling me, they were available to someone else, to some other Member. Their time was being used very, very profitably. I feel that perhaps an increase in staffing is required, since such information is obviously the basis of a judgment by a Member.

Yesterday, for example, in the Banking and Currency Committee we were considering the extension of regulation Q, an issue which would have ramifications in the financial industry, in the housing market and many other areas. It was not a simple extension. Yet my staff member could reach no member of our committee who was free to answer substantive questions. Now, in that particular case your suggestions contained in your bill on the notice of the meeting had not quite been observed. So that was perhaps partially to blame. But, in general, there is a serious lack of substantive help. On a committee like

Banking and Currency and many of the others, I think that a certain amount of tutoring is required for new members who have not had experience in the field. If they have had experience in the field of banking they are then guilty of conflict of interest, and so forth. If they have had no experience in banking, and if they are going to make sound judgments, a great deal of in-depth study must be made and there should be some staff available to help the member to do it. I just feel on our side that our resources, though they are outstanding, are pitifully inadequate.

Mr. ŠISK. I certainly sympathize and basically agree with what the gentlewoman talks about. I think all too often many of our committees are understaffed, either for the majority or the minority when you get down to it. This goes back to the colloquy with Mr. Hansen a while ago on the fact that we have been kind of pikers in going ahead and doing the things that are essential if we are going to serve our constituents and our country as we should.

Mr. SMITH. In being too kind to the minority, don't forget that there is a remote possibility that you may be in the majority some time. Mrs. HECKLER. That is right; that is why in the interest of justice that we said this.

Mr. SMITH. Don't forget that you said that when the time comes. Mrs. HECKLER. I look at the long range of history, Mr. Smith. Thank you, gentlemen.

Mr. SISK. We are very happy to hear from the gentleman from Michigan, Congressman O'Hara. We appreciate your patience.

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES G. O'HARA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN

Mr. O'HARA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I do not have a prepared statement. If I may be permitted to do so, I would like to speak extemporaneously.

Mr. SISK. Fine; and we would be happy to listen to you.

Mr. O'HARA. Let me say I am one of those who feels that there are a number of practices, customs and procedures in the House of Repre sentatives that could very well stand reform and modernization. I am going to have to begin by confessing that I think the bill that I have seen, with phenomenal inaccuracy, misses most of them.

Mr. SMITH. Thanks, friend.

Mr. O'HARA. So I thought you would like a little area of divergence here before the committee.

Mr. SISK. We appreciate your frankness, Jim.

Mr. O'HARA. I would like to help you in that regard.

Mr. Chairman, I think that most of title I, if I may say so, is really either unnecessary or indifferent. For example, I notice a section having to do with calling of committee meetings, which is no major change from the present rule on that subject. It doesn't include the Appropriations Committee. I don't know really what advance is made by section

102.

Section 103 is sort of illusory, Mr. Chairman, if I may say so. It says committee meetings should be open unless they are closed, that sort of thing. Well, I don't know of any third kind of meeting. So I would

have to agree that they should be open unless they are closed. But I think we can do better than that. We can say

Mr. SMITH. Closed, unless they are open; is that it?

Mr. O'HARA. Yes. Or why don't we just say maybe they ought to be open, something like that? Let's be rather definite about it.

Mr. SISK. Since the gentleman is speaking extemporaneously and off the record

Mr. BOLLING. Not off the record.

Mr. SISK. Yes; he is on the record. We want to keep it on the record. Mr. BOLLING. We don't want his defensive maneuver to get lost.

Mr. SISK. Does the gentleman recommend any procedure other than majority or democratic procedure in the committee in the determination of this? Would the gentleman recommend anything other than permitting the majority to work its will in committee as to whether they are open or closed?"

Mr. O'HARA. Yes; I would, Mr. Chairman. I think one of the areas where real reform is needed, where this bill does not provide it, is in providing for open proceedings and open votes by members acting in their representative capacities.

you

I believe very strongly, Mr. Chairman, that no elected Member of the Congress of the United States who was elected to represent a constituency ought to be in a position where he can cast a secret vote or take a secret action on matters that come before him in his representative capacity. I feel very strongly about that. I would think that if really want to do something in that regard you should say the meetings shall be open-period-unless there is a strong national security reason to close them. All the meetings during which a bill is being marked up or reported by a committee ought to be open so that the public can examine what is going on and can be made aware of what is going on. I think, as well, you have a provision in the bill that says we ought to announce committee votes with respect to how many voted each way but not who voted each way. Now, really, Mr. Chairman, I think we ought to announce who voted each way. If we have a "record vote" it ought to be a record vote.

Mr. BOLLING. I agree with his last point entirely, if the gentleman will permit an interruption, but I think, although he wants to get the reality, that he misses the point on the representative functioning in his representative capacity. As the gentleman knows, there is very long history on this.

What happens with open committee meetings and I entirely agree with the fundamental point that everything that we do should be open to public scrutiny and there may be some virtue in making every official act open to public scrutiny-but the history indicates that when one has open committee hearings that the job is done in another place, in another fashion, and it is done in a secret caucus. There is a famous quote that I know my friend from Michigan is familiar with, from a very frank Speaker who was also chairman of the Rules Committee, and he would caucus the Republican majority of that Rules Committee three-and then he would have a formal committee meeting in which he was joined by the two Democrats, and being an honest and overt type of fellow he would say that the "majority is about to perpetrate the following outrage on the minority." While I entirely agree with the idea that we should always be on the record and that there

may be some slight virtue in having our official acts always on the record, that there is no practical way to get away from the fact that if there is going to be some kind of a secret arrangement it is going to be made.

Mr. O'HARA. I think that is perfectly true.

Mr. BOLLING. So we shouldn't exaggerate the importance of that. Mr. O'HARA. People may not announce at a public meeting why they are voting the way they are, whether or not it is the result of an understanding arrived at beforehand why they are offering the amendment they do but, Mr. Chairman, let us at least put it before the public how they are voting, even though we perhaps can't get at the reasons and why they are offering what amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I used to think it would increase the amount of demagoguery if we had open meetings and Members could grandstand, and so forth. Then there is some rather recent history which I think you are all aware of. In the last Congress, because we were having difficulty in the Education and Labor Committee in getting a quorum on our executive sessions to mark up a bill, on occupational safety as I remember, we voted to open up the meetings, invited the press and the public in so that they could tell who was present and who wasn't. That did produce a quorum so that we could proceed with the business of the committee. We didn't have any more quorum problems. We did not have any more posturing, any more demagoguery than we had before. So this year the committee, I think unanimously or practically unanimously, simply voted to amend its rules to make all of the meetings open.

Mr. BOLLING. The gentleman must understand my point. I do not disagree at all with the point. I would not want to exaggerate its virtues. I think it has some virtue.

Mr. O'HARA. It has some virtue. Let me state another conclusion about that problem even more forcefully. If we are going to open up the meetings and record the votes and make them a matter of record, let us do it. If we are not going to do it, let us not write in a couple of provisions that seem to do it but don't. I think that is really a little deceiving. If we are going to keep them closed, let us keep them closed.

Mr. BOLLING. I think that is a matter of interpretation. I do not think you will find any member of the committee claiming anything for those provisions than they have.

Mr. O'HARA. No. I am sure you would not claim that. Indeed, there they are. I think a lot of the bill, too, is addressed to things that are not problems; 105, of filing of committee reports. I do not think that is a problem.

Mr. SISK. Some committees indicate it is a problem.

Mr. O'HARA. Whatever committee, if it wishes to direct another Member to file a report, the Members are free to do that. It happened in the House before the last one. When the chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor-the then chairman-refused to file a report on a particular bill, the committee met and directed another Member of the committee, who happened to be the chairman of the subcommittee involved, to file it himself. We filed it. I do not think there is a problem there.

The proxy voting thing I have some reservations about. I think you need to clean it up. I approve of the idea of filing written proxies with the committee before they can be voted. I think you ought to permit the proxy to state whatever it wants to state. As the proposed rule now reads, proxies can be voted only with respect to a specific measure or matter and any amendments thereto.

Mr. SISK. That has been broadened, I might say. Unfortunately, you do not have the additional language. It further states anything pertaining to it.

Mr. O'HARA. Any kind of thing that might come up at that meeting. Mr. SISK. That pertains to that subject or bill, like a motion to table or something of that kind.

Mr. SMITH. If I may interrupt, you do not think the chairman ought to have the right to get every Member on his side or the minority leader an open proxy for the whole session.

Mr. O'HARA. No, I do not think so, Mr. Smith. I think there is a better solution. I think Members of the House ought to be big boys and ought to learn how to say no if they do not want to give an open

proxy.

Mr. SMITH. Why don't we eliminate proxies completely?

Mr. O'HARA. Because there you get into an element of gamemanship. I know then if I had something I wanted to do in my committee, a bill I wanted to report or an action I wanted to take, and I did not have the votes to do it, but came close to it, I would organize the people that were with me, get them all there on a particular Tuesday, or whatever, and not give any warning in advance to my opponents hoping to catch them short, if there were not any proxies permitted.

Mr. SISK. We are requiring certain notices of meetings that would preclude that. That in itself is an unfair procedure, as I am sure my colleague would agree.

Mr. O'HARA. It certainly is.

Mr. SMITH. In the California legislature proxies are prohibited and all meetings are open, all executive sessions are open, all votes are tabulated, and everybody has to be there to vote yes or no or pass. We always get a quorum at the appointed hour.

Mr. O'HARA. I think that is an excellent practice.

Mr. SMITH. I think we ought to attempt to put it in here.

Mr. O'HARA. The gentleman will have my help if he does it. Mr. SMITH. We just stay there and work. Here the people travel around all the time and if the Chairman wants to get a bill out, he has to have the vote. We did not do it that way. Everything was open. We never had an executive session on anything.

Mr. BOLLING. The gentleman is not suggesting for a minute that the proxy approach is anything other than for want of a better approach, which is to have the members present.

Mr. O'HARA. That is absolutely right.

Mr. BOLLING. I think that is the key point.

Mr. O'HARA. I do not want to take a lot of the committee's time, Mr. Chairman, but let me suggest with respect to title I generally, I am afraid a lot of it does not really come to grips with the problems. I would prefer to either see it grasp these problems and do something about them or else forget it and not go fussing around making a few little changes that do not mean a lot.