Does Congress Need a Nanny?

By Hugh Sidey

The world surely changed a bit with the Panama Canal vote last week, and so did Jimmy Carter, his White House and Government. Carter shed some more of that evangelical sheen, orchestrating millions of dollars for a few votes, just like an oldtime pol. There are no cases of his grabbing a man by the lapels and demanding his vote, but at last he abandoned his "I understand your problems" approach to a wavering legislator. He kept up the pressure, in the language of the cloakroom--"I need your vote bad."

He even resorted to shameless application of his Government expense account. He held business breakfasts and dinners for dozens. He plied hundreds of doubters with 100-proof Maxwell House coffee, and it may yet be proved that in the interests of the republic he authorized a three-martini lunch for a recalcitrant Senator or two. It is a fact that first-class limousine service was employed with abandon to cart the doubters up and down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Standing in the Oval Office one morning last week, Carter rather unhappily eyed Arizona's determined Dennis DeConcini, who had just wrested from Carter a significant change in the Senate resolution. "Next time I get into one of these confrontations," Carter sighed, "you are such a good negotiator I would like to have you on my side earlier."

The true blooding of Jimmy Carter? The dawning of greater political wisdom? A lot of people prayed it was so and sincerely hoped that the taste of this win would give Carter born-again leadership. Up until last week it had been many years since a President who was not burdened with world crisis or Government scandal had lost so much of America's confidence.

But there was another side to the story. Along with a wistful new look at Carter, there were new questions about Congress. Norman Ornstein, an authority on Congress, marveled throughout the Panama debate at the intensity of the struggle for a treaty plainly necessary for America in the modern world. Why should the national interest be so hard for the Senate to discern? he wondered. He offered part of an answer. Those highly educated and staffed members of the 95th Congress, so renowned for their independence, are too often more concerned about gaining political popularity by defying the President than they are about the national interest.

Ornstein believes that the majority of this Congress, having come to their positions in a political decade marked by corruption and cynicism at the top, often look down the Hill when Carter speaks and instinctively declare themselves against the President unless he can prove them wrong. Deliberation, debate and even outrage are all vital elements of the democratic process. Determining when legislators should enlist in the larger cause is not an easy thing. But observers like Ornstein fear that at times we are being ill served by dozens of members of Congress who claim their right to determine foreign policy or set up administrative goals and, if not heeded, turn to delay and defiance.

Even as the Senate moved forward on Panama, a lot of the other talk was not so pleasant to the Administration's ear. Wisconsin's William Proxmire attacked Carter's budget: "It should be cut and cut, by $25 billion to $35 billion." In the House, Illinois' Paul Findley raised himself up authoritatively on Korea: "I am opposed to [U.S. military] withdrawal in light of the ongoing threat of North Korea." And then Scoop Jackson blasted the White House for indecision and lack of savvy in almost all foreign and domestic matters. The bickering and the twaddling moved Colorado's peppery Pat Schroeder to her feet on the floor of the House, and she zinged her colleagues. "We need some nannies around here for the boys," she said. "We need some warm milk, we need some cookies, and then maybe we can have a little better decorum in this body and be able to deal with a little more substance." It is a new approach, and it may catch hold if there is any money left in Carter's expense account.

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