of such over-all importance would be much better discharged by Policy Committees than by four regular standing committees for the following reasons:

1. Fiscal responsibility would be more clearly focused upon the party than if fiscal policy were in the hands of bipartisan committees.

2. Policy Committees would bring about a much more complete synthesis of conflicting interests.

3. Policy Committees would ensure representation of all points of view to an extent not to be expected in the case of the four regular standing committees. 4. Since the Policy Committees would be responsible for the general management of Congress, it would be necessary that they control money matters, just as in the case of any general management.

With fiscal matters in the hands of Policy Committees, the responsibility of the majority party would be clearly fixed.

Sometime in the early spring, the Majority Policy Committees would issue a statement giving for the following fiscal year the estimated revenues and the proposed expenditures, and stating that the public debt would be increased or decreased accordingly. Then, if total appropriations exceeded the estimated expenditures, either the appropriations would have to be reduced or the increase in public debt approved.

Nor would the minority party be able to escape accountability. It too would be obliged to come forward with its fiscal program and to be specific about ways and means.

These things are wholly possible.

XVII. Miscellaneous

Several miscellaneous recommendations were made by the Joint Committee, most of which were adopted by Congress. All are deemed good. However, with

the possible exception of the provision for the registration of lobbyists, they are not of major significance. They are listed below for the record:

1. Regular recess period at close of each fiscal year.

2. Limitation on conference reports.

3. Experimentation with meeting schedules.

4. Remodeling of House and Senate chambers.

5. Remodeling of House and Senate caucus rooms.

6. Improvement of restaurant facilities.

7. Reassignment of Capitol space.

8. Improved schooling, housing, and supervision of pages.

9. Improvement of Congressional Record.

10. Transfer of inactive records to National Archives.

THE IMMEDIATE Job

The Act is divided into six separate "titles," or parts. The last five are statutory and hence can be changed only by an act of the new Congress. However, the first title which contains the all-important matters of committee reduction, rider elimination, ban on private bills, legislative budget, and reduction of excessive itemization-is simply a change in rules. In the case of the Senate, these rules go into effect automatically unless specifically changed, since the Senate is regarded as a continuing body. In the case of the House, these rules must be adopted as part of the complete new set of rules adopted at the beginning of each Congress.

Therein lies the real danger of losing the gains already made. This danger is pointed up by the very first sentence in Title I, which reads:

* * *

"The following sections of this title are enacted by the Congress with full recognition of the constitutional right of either House to change such rules (so far as relating to the procedure in such House) at any time, in the same manner and to the same extent as in the case of any other rule of such House." The constructive steps outlined in Title I of the Act can therefore be nullified in the House simply by failing to include them in the new rules which it adopts, and in the Senate simply by amending its rules.

Amendment of the rules would not affect the provision for salary increases and retirement pay. These measures are part of the statutory sections of the Act. It is not probable that a new Congress will pass a law changing the statutory provisions of the Act, for to do so might jeopardize the provisions for salary increase and retirement pay.

Many people who might have opposed the pay increase were mollified by the fact that the Congress at the same time took important steps to improve its organization. To backslide on these steps but preserve the salary increase and

the pension should be embarrassing to Congress, especially in view of the public attention which enactment of a bill to do so would inevitably attract. These facts clearly highlight the next job. The legislative leaders, with the assured backing of the people themselves, can accomplish this job by making it known that they want the rules of the new Congress to give effect to the Act as passed. This is an immediate task. As pointed out in the Reorganization Timetable, the rules go into effect in January.

The move to strengthen Congress cannot afford a set-back.

THE NEXT JOB

The Senate and House Committees on Expenditure in the Executive Departments are vested by the Act with the duty of evaluating the effects of the Act and hence with the consideration of the next steps. It is to majority and minority party leadership and to these two committees specifically that efforts for the further strengthening of Congress should be directed.

Here are the next steps needed, classified in order of their importance:

Class 1.-Vital necessity

Majority and Minority Policy Committees

Class 2.-Extremely desirable

Additional help for members

Elimination of filibuster in Senate

Abolition of the seniority rule

Reduction of Congressional work load

Fiscal policy and legislative budget handled by Majority Policy Committees Class 3.-Desirable

Provisional legislation

Question period to hold Executive Branch accountable

Additional salary increase

Additional retirement pay

Formal inquiries into basic national affairs

Broader appropriations bills

This will be a continuing job for enlightened legislators. It will require hard and sustained effort. But the goal is worth many times the cost.

Mr. HELLER. With Congress overburdened, I see no other way ultimately of organizing so that there would be a center of responsibility in the majority party and a definite and formal manner in which the minority party could have its say. There would be essentially general management committees in Congress on which would be represented all standing committees which are now not too many. Now management may not be the right word. Is is a question of semantics. It might be coordinating or guiding committees, but I choose to call it management and hope that no one will be frightened by the use of that term.

Then and only then do I believe that Congress would have the proper vehicle for fiscal control. With the responsibility for management always goes the power of the purse.

2. The seniority rule, if not abolished, should be amended by limitation of term of service or by rotation of membership. On page 13 "Strengthening the Congress-progress report" I say that several factors should bring the seniority system to a crisis in the near future.

3. If it is too much to expect the Senate to adopt a cloture rule rigid enough to eliminate filibuster, then I believe debate should be limited to subjects pertinent to the discussion at hand.

4. There should be more expert help for standing committees on an all-year-round basis and an increase in the appropriation for the Legislative Reference Service of the Library of Congress. A good start has been made but more should be done.

There have been very few open and formal instances of opposition to the Legislative Reorganization Act. While not perfect, it is an encouraging beginning. None of us, therefore, should be discouraged in our efforts to bring about the establishment of modern, adequate machinery in Congress. This machinery, as I see it, should provide for complete decentralization under a responsible standing committee structure, in control of and managed by majority and minority policy committees.

Senator THYE. Speaking of the question of seniority, how else could we proceed to select committee chairmen other than by the mere fact that a member had served longer and was thereby senior to all the others on a committee? Would you expect a prospective chairman to carry on an intensified campaign to get sufficient support so that he would have enough votes to make him the chairman? I can see some abuses if that were permitted or if that was the course to be followed in seeking a chairmanship.

Mr. HELLER. Well, Senator, in my original report, published in 1944, I brought out the various alternatives for the seniority system and said that it was not too easy to get a system better than the seniority system. It is very easy to say abolish it. It is an automatic way of doing the job which, I believe, can be improved upon if it is not desired to abolish the automatic system. The late Senator Norris proposed a committee on committees. The details of that suggestion are in my report. It, in my judgment, could work. The appointment by the Speaker of the House, for example, or by the Majority Leader of the Senate is not too bad.

Senator THYE. But even then, they would be quite influenced by the seniority of the members within that legislative body. I have never seen in any legislative body the recognition of someone with no seniority over someone with a great deal of seniority, and yet I have also recognized that seniority alone is no indication of wisdom.

Mr. HELLER. I suggest here today that possibly the way to improve the system would be to limit the term of service or have a system of rotation of membership, so that you still retain the automatic features, which admittedly are good, without being saddled with an incompetent chairman.

Senator MCCLELLAN. If you have a compulsory system of rotation, you may rotate out the good man who is competent and put in the man who isn't competent.

Mr. HELLER. That is right.

Senator MCCLELLAN. What is the remedy for that?

Mr. HELLER. There is no perfect remedy for the system at all. Senator MCCLELLAN. Wouldn't it just as often work to a disadvantage on a compulsory rotating system?

Mr. HELLER. In business, in corporations, we take the position that the president of the company is forced to accept a cross section of his board of directors, good or bad. Now I don't say that rotation is the only answer. I say that it might be a combination of rotation and limiting the term of service.

Senator MCCLELLAN. I think the latter would be just as much an evil as the rotation system. I don't see how you can eliminate any fault in the seniority system by rotating.

Mr. HELLER. In my original report, I took the position that it ought to be abolished, but when the joint committee was set up to

make a study of it, the Congress elected to prevent the committee from considering the question of seniority.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Heller, under the present law, each committee is required to designate one or more meetings a month at which members of the committee can make motions which the chairman himself would disapprove of and would never bring up if left to his own devices. I think that is a wise provision of the law. Under that law, is it not possible, as you see it, for a committee to designate its own chairman, even though the chairman is designated by law? Mr. HELLER. It is by rule, isn't it, not by statute?

The CHAIRMAN. I am asking you. I am displaying a great deal of ignorance.

Mr. HELLER. I guess I am, too.

The CHAIRMAN. I am inclined to think it is by custom.

Mr. HELLER. It is by rule of Congress, isn't it, not by statute?

The CHAIRMAN. I should be able to answer your question, but you have been studying this for many years longer than I have. Mr. VAN HORN. It is not by statute.

The CHAIRMAN. It is not by statute. I really think it is by custom. Senator MCCLELLAN. I think so.

The CHAIRMAN. I believe that a committee probably has the right by law now of organizing itself, but it never exercises that right, and I don't know what you can do about it. The committee may have the right to do the things it ought to do, but it is so bound to custom that it would never leave it. That is why the Reorganization Act of 1946, which you worked so hard for, does in a way spell out that right more clearly than it has been before by requiring each committee to have an official meeting at which time any member of the committee can make a motion and require the committee to act upon it.

Senator MCCLELLAN. Wouldn't that pertain to bills pending? The CHAIRMAN. I should think that would pertain to whatever bills that might come before it.

Mr. HELLER. I went into that, Mr. Chairman, in my studies several years ago, when alternatives were set up for the seniority system. I found that the evils of so-called "Cannonism" were not necessarily the result of the appointments by the Speaker, but were the results of having control of the Rules Committee in addition.

Senator Norris' suggestion of the appointment by a committee on committees is a very democratic procedure which could become custom if it were established as a rule and used.

Senator THYE. Even if you had a committee on committees, it would be governed and controlled by the senior Members. Again you come right back to the question of parcelling out the chairmanships to those who do hold seniority within that legislative body. I doubt whether it is that way in the State legislatures, but I think they all ultimately find themselves with that sort of a thought.

Mr. HELLER. Well, it is that way in labor unions and it is that way in business.

Senator THYE. In labor unions, I have recognized from outside observation that a labor leader who had lots of ability on the platform usually came to the front and came there very rapidly. I haven't always recognized this in legislative bodies.

Mr. HELLER. I have no perfect answer for the seniority system.

Senator THYE. I don't think you will find a perfect answer. From my own personal observation, I have never been able to see a better answer than the right by seniority. You will find what you might call jockeying to get certain men into certain positions. The seniority of two men might be the same, and therefore there is a jockeying in order to gain the strategic place, so to speak, within the legislative body.

Mr. HELLER. Well, as I said in my report in 1944, it is difficult to get anything better. It could be worse. There could be many evils worse than having an automatic rule.

The CHAIRMAN. With reference to what we were talking about a few minutes ago, the Legislative Reorganization Act in section 133 (a) states:

Each standing committee of the Senate and the House of Representatives (except the Committee on Appropriations) shall fix regular weekly, biweekly, or monthly meetings days for the transaction of business before the committee, and additional meetings may be called by the chairman as he may deem it necessary. In other words, each committee is required to have one official meeting a month and may have as many as four a month besides those called in between dates by the chairman.

Now the purpose of that, as I understand it, was to prevent the chairman from killing legislation through the simple procedure of not calling the committee together. So far as I know, when the committee is in session, any member of the committee can make any such motion as he desires concerning any work which may come before the committee. He can move to hold a hearing at 10 o'clock on Thursday on Senate Resolution 269, or perhaps before the committee he can make any other motion. I think that is one of the important things about the Reorganization Act of 1946.

Now I think we had better clear this other matter. Standing Rules of the Senate, rule XXIV, states:

APPOINTMENT OF COMMITTEES

1. In the appointment of the standing committees, the Senate, unless otherwise ordered, shall proceed by ballot to appoint severally the chairman of each committee, and then, by one ballot, the other members necessary to complete the same. A majority of the whole number of votes given shall be necessary to the choice of a chairman of a standing committee, but a plurality of votes shall elect the other members thereof. All other committees shall be appointed by ballot, unless otherwise ordered, and a plurality of votes shall appoint.

2. When a chairman of a committee shall resign or cease to serve on a committee, and the presiding officer be authorized by the Senate to fill the vacancy in such committee, unless specifically otherwise ordered, it shall be only to fill up the number on the committee.

Now the chairman of the committee and the other members of the committee are nominated by the committee on committees of the majority and the minority party, you see. There appears to be nothing in those rules that would prevent designating any member of the committee as chairman except as they are bound by custom. That is as it would appear. Whether the enactment of any other legislation would unloose those bonds of custom or not is rather doubtful.

Senator HOEY. As a matter of custom, the procedure is not to vote on them separately.

Mr. HELLER. Still, the Reorganization Act of 1946 made a pretty good start in breaking custom.