The Liberal House

THE CONGRESS

Shortly before the Republican National Convention last summer, 54 conservative Republican Congressmen signed a statement urging the nomination of Barry Goldwater, arguing that his candidacy would aid Republican candidates throughout the U.S. When the new Congress convenes in January, at least 23 of those Representatives will be among the missing, either through defeat or retirement.

The next House of Representatives seems certain to be the most liberal since the early years of President Roosevelt. The Democrats, by seizing 47 Republican seats while losing to just ten G.O.P. challengers, scored a net gain of 37. The new House thus will be dominated by Democrats by at least 294 to 138-better than a two-thirds majority.-Greater than Indicated. Impressive as they are, even these figures do not signify the full extent of the ideological shift. A majority of the defeated Republicans are conservatives who could rarely be enticed to support a Johnson Administration bill. Seven unseated Republicans in New York were conservatives, including such unbudgeable veterans as Katharine St. George and Steven Derounian. Texas lost its only Republican Congressmen, Goldwater-styled Bruce Alger and Ed Foreman. Five of Iowa's six Republican seats, held mostly by conservatives, slipped away; the survivor was H. R. Gross (TiME, June 15, 1962), who has won a reputation more as an anti-spendthrift than a conservative. On the other hand, many of the G.O.P. survivors are moderates who remained aloof from Goldwater and will vote with the Johnson Administration a good part of the time. They include such potentials toward higher office as Manhattan's John Lindsay, Minnesota's Clark MacGregor, Massachusetts' Silvio Conte and F. Bradford Morse.

The liberal gain is also greater than the Democratic pickup of 37 seats would indicate, since seven of the ten districts taken over by Republicans are in the Deep South, including five in Alabama. At least four of these Southern seats were held by conservative Democrats who consistently voted against the Administration, just as their G.O.P.

replacements will do.

Victory Euphoria. Basking in the sunny prospects of what such a majority could produce, some Democrats are predicting that the new House-and the Democratic-dominated Senate-will submit meekly to L.B.J.'s every whimsy. Where the Administration could count on only about 170 sure House votes on major bills in the past session, and such measures as medicare, grants for school construction and expansion of area redevelopment were blocked, Democratic leaders expect to be able to deliver some 220 votes (218 is a majority) with certainty in the new House. In their victory euphoria, some even foresee a runaway House that might embark on congressional reform and propose welfare legislation on its own-thus proving to be even too liberal for Johnson's taste.

Actually, the Democratic emphasis on nose counting overlooks one stubborn fact: bills still must get out of committee before those floor votes can be cast -and the committees are still considerably dominated by Southern Democrats. Not even the L.B.J. landslide is likely to make Ways and Means Chairman Wilbur Mills like medicare, or goad Rules Chairman Howard Smith into smoothing the legislative path of liberal bills toward the House floor.

Moreover, as Franklin D. Roosevelt discovered after 1936, an overwhelming legislative majority could just prove unpredictably independent of the man in the White House.

* The results in three races are still uncertain: Missouri's Seventh, New York's 30th, and the At-Large seat in Alaska.

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