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Subject: House Appropriations Committee Faces Unaccustomed Change<By Eric
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 05:02:45 EST
Message-ID: <58.1992Nov16.050246@AmeriCast.com>

House Appropriations Committee Faces Unaccustomed Change<By Eric
Pianin=Washington Post Staff Writer=

For as long as anyone can recall, the House Appropriations Com-
mittee, the spigot for a large portion of government spending,
has changed at a glacial pace.

Newcomers often labored for years before even earning the right
to speak up at a meeting. Most decisions were made in secret. And
committee chairmen, like the storied George Mahon, measured their
reigns in decades.

Now, as President-elect Clinton and a new Democratic Congress
prepare to make major shifts in spending and tax policy to stimu-
late the economy and reduce the deficit, the once-stolid commit-
tee is experiencing unprecedented turmoil.

Since Chairman Jamie L. Whitten (D-Miss.), 82, suffered a mild
stroke in February, the committee has been torn by a dramatic
power struggle pitting Whitten against his longtime friend, Rep.
William H. Natcher (D-Ky.), who has waited nearly 40 years to
taste real power.

The courtly Natcher, 83, the chairman of the labor-health and hu-
man services-education subcommittee and the No. 2 Democrat on the
committee, insists he would "never do anything to hurt my good
friend, Jamie Whitten." But with time running out in his own
career, Natcher, who has been acting chairman for six months, has
signaled the leadership that he is entitled to the job.

"When my time comes, I want to be chairman of our committee,"
Natcher said last week. "I have served on the committee 38 years
and I have endeavored at all times to be a good committee member.
. . . I've paid my dues."

Whitten, who returned to Washington this week to confer with
aides and associates, declined to comment. But Natcher is almost
assured to be named to replace Whitten, according to a number of
House Democrats and leadership aides.

If Natcher somehow falters next month, when the Democrats meet to
appprove new committee assignments for the 103rd Congress, two
younger members - Reps. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), 54, and Rep. John
P. Murtha (D-Pa.), 60, who also aspire to the chairmanship - are
waiting in the wings.

Other changes are afoot that will give the committee a much dif-
ferent look. Retirements and elections have left 19 vacancies on
the 59-member committee, including three subcommittee chairmen.
The leadership is likely to assign one or two freshmen and other
younger, more aggressive members to the committee, where the
average age of the 13 subcommittee chairmen is 69.

Meanwhile, Rep. Joseph M. McDade (Pa.), 61, the ranking minority
member on the committee, may be forced by his Republican col-
leagues to step aside pending the outcome of a federal bribery
case against him, according to GOP sources.

Clinton and congressional leaders have pledged swift action on a
domestic economic package that might require changes in the 1990
budget agreement between Congress and the White House. House
Democrats want an Appropriations Committee leader in place who
can deal as an equal with Senate Appropriations Committee Chair-
man Robert C.  Byrd (D-W.Va.).

A number of senior Appropriations members, who have agitated for
a new chairman, also want a leader who is agile enough to protect
the panel's interests and turf at a time when the Democratic
caucus is considering a number of reforms to the committee sys-
tem.

"Somebody has got to be able to explain and defend the commit-
tee," said a committee source.

It became painfully clear this summer that Whitten had lost clout
after the House approved an amendment to a spending bill to kill
funding for a space project in Whitten's northern Mississippi
district. The money eventually was restored, but the point was
not lost on other members.

Many say that Natcher's gentlemanly demeanor, unquestioned hones-
ty and indefatigable service to the House (he has never missed a
roll call vote and he never accepts  campaign contributions)
practically guarantees him a crack at the chairmanship. Natcher
pleased the leadership by skillfully "It's fairly obvious that if
Natcher wants (the chairmanship) he can have it. . . . "<

-Joseph White, Brookings Institution>

shepherding all 13 spending bills through the House in a diffi-
cult election year.

"It's fairly obvious that if Natcher wants it he can have it and
he's unbeatable from either side of the party," said Joseph
White, a research associate at the Brookings Institution who is
writing a book on the appropriations process. "This is not a guy
who is unacceptable on political grounds to any political fac-
tions."

Natcher does have his enemies.  As chairman of the labor-health
subcommittee, he alienated the women's caucus and other abortion
rights advocates by frequently blocking abortion rights riders to
his spending bills to avert a veto.

In 1989, after President Bush had vetoed one of his bills that
had been amended to allow abortion funding in cases of rape and
incest, Natcher publicly rebuked Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), a
leader of the abortion rights forces, for failing to muster the
two-thirds majority necessary to override the veto.

"Mr. Natcher is the epitome of a Kentucky gentleman, but on the
particular issues of women, we've just been beaten about the head
for too long," said Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.). "We don't
want to be pushed around anymore."

But Natcher and others note that with a Democrat favoring abor-
tion rights in the White House, the contentious issues of abor-
tion counseling and funding will be moot next year.

"I don't think that will enter into the picture at all," Natcher
said.  Natcher and Whitten are essentially cut from the same
cloth. Both men are lawyers from small southern towns who par-
layed positions as county prosecutors into political careers in
Washington. Both arrived in the House as conservatives and gradu-
ally moderated their voting records to change with the times and
move into the Democratic mainstream.

Both are traditionalists who fully embraced the archaic, insular
culture of the Appropriations Committee.  The appropriations pro-
cess, with its political horse-swapping and back-scratching, is
most easily performed behind closed doors, away from the prying
eyes of other members, lobbyists and the press. Most subcommittee
chairmen, including Natcher, regularly draft spending bills in
executive session and rarely divulge any information until the
deed is done.

Natcher also is staunchly opposed to appropriating money for a
program unless it has been approved by the appropriate authoriz-
ing committee - a view that while technically correct is not
universally shared by other appropriators because it puts a crimp
in the spending process.

"The style of Whitten and Natcher is very much that of an insider
whose attitude is: 'We'll try to accommodate you, but you are not
to question our decisions,' " said another committee member.
"It's a bit out of date, and members don't accept that approach
anymore."

Natcher is not likely to change many things if he takes over the
committee, although as acting chairman he has shown a willingness
to open up the process more.

One of his first acts was to call a news  conference to brief re-
porters on the committee's work. While news  conferences are a
way of life elsewhere in the Capitol, it was the first time in
its 127-year history that the Appropriations Committee formally
held a news conference, according to staff members.

Considering his age, a Natcher chairmanship is likely to be tran-
sitional, according to committee watchers, who believe the long-
term leadership will fall to Obey or Murtha.

Obey, a brilliant but hot-tempered liberal activist who chairs
the foreign operations subcommittee, believes the committee is
behind the times, and could do more in terms of oversight and
economic analysis. He likely would favor taking a more central-
ized approach to running the committee, one that might reduce the
influence of the subcommittee chairmen or "cardinals," as they
are called.

Murtha, 60, a towering, amiable former Marine who heads the de-
fense subcommittee, is more conservative in his outlook. A
Pennsylvania power broker who relishes behind-the-scenes negotia-
tions, Murtha would be less inclined to tamper with committee
operations, and likely would be more concerned about "making the
trains run on time."

"Obey and Murtha are the two natural leaders we see," said a
knowledgeable committee source. "They are definitely the movers
and shakers."<02:55 11-16C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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