A last Hurrah

Most satisfying outcome of yesterday's election is the resultant end of Mrs. Pelosi’s speakership along with the change in Committee chairmanships from Democratic to Republican which on the Hill is no small thing. Those chairmanships are where the real power on Capitol Hill lies.

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There will be a mass exodus of hundreds of Democratic staffers who will be replaced by their Republican counterparts and much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth among the reduced Democratic contingent on the Hill. This is no small thing. To begin with the specter of gridlock looms large. Whatever agenda the President has in mind will be stalemated for the final two years of his term in the White House something that could sharply reduce his chances of winning a second term. Some observers mainly on the left bemoan this situation convinced as they are that all wisdom comes from Washington’s elite and that anything that stands between them and the electorate threatens the survival of our Republic. They couldn’t be more wrong. Given the public’s current anti-Washington mood more and more attention is going to be focused at the grassroots – at the state and local level and that’s a very good thing indeed. There’s a doctrine known as subsidiarity – that the closer government is to the people the better and more reliable it is. Our founding fathers understood this and devised a system of government that relied on the consent of the governed – on the people where they live. We need to reassert that doctrine and put it into effect wherever ever it is called for in any proposed legislation and the public made aware of its purpose, presence and benefits. In my many years as a staff officer of the House Republican Policy Committee our staff of three consisted of a full professor , who along with me, studied and analyzed pending legislation and produced written descriptions of the bills up for discussion at the weekly meetings and after they had been approved by the Committee membership we produced statements expressing and explaining the committee’s decisions. One of our vital responsibilities was to learn everything there was to know what was in a bill with all its ramifications and communicating the information to the Republican members thus assuring that thy knew exactly what the were voting on. It worked so well that a study that examined the Committee operation noted “that with a staff of three and no official budget and working out of three tiny offices in the basement floor, The House Republican Policy Committee is the most effective policy making body in Washington including the White House.” In those days the GOP contingent in the House was not much more than a corporal’s guard yet under the brilliant direction of minority leader Charlie Halleck and the cooperation of the Eisenhower White House we frequently ran circles around the Democratic majority. It was a nickel and dime operation that produced results. After we left a large staff was installed supported by a generous budget and the committee, thanks to its new moneyed status, lost its luster and effectiveness and became a bureaucracy. Mr. Speaker to be, I’m an old man but I’d be happy to come up to Washington and explain the artifices we used to dumbfound the Democrats in those desperate days.