s< ii M i in i in wiiii i in H si 641 



Till HOUSE RATIFIES COMMITTEE DECISIONS 



The Ford letter not only helped solidify Republican backing in the 

 committee, but also was instrumental in lining up support in both the 

 Rules Committee and on the House floor. Many of the Members, for 

 example, did not seem to be as interested in the content of the bill as 

 the issue of whether or not the President supported it. And Democrats 

 generally might have decided that passing a bill which the President 

 did not want to use would be simply a futile gesture of political 

 defiance. 



The committee had no difficulty obtaining a resolution for one- 

 hour of debate from the Committee on Rules. The bill was then debated 

 on the House floor on November 6, 1975- Ordinarily, the public might 

 conclude that debate by the entire House of Representatives would 

 bring into focus all the mighty pressures for and against a major piece 

 of legislation, with a stenographic public record and rollcall on how 

 everybody' stands. Such may be the case at times. With respect to the 

 bill in question, the House debate was clearly an anticlimax. The skids 

 had been well greased in advance, and all opposition had evaporated. 

 Nobody spoke against the bill during the general debate, nor were any 

 questions asked during the amending process. To be sure, 28 Members 

 of varying political persuasions were recorded against the bill on final 

 passage, but none of them took the trouble to explain why. Two 

 amendments were offered, and quickly adopted. Fuqua, who also served 

 on the Government Operations Committee, presented an amendment 

 to remove a section of the bill which affected the jurisdiction of the 

 Government Operations Committee over reorganization plans. Another 

 amendment was sponsored by the Post Office and Civil Service Com- 

 mittee, to clean up language on the power of the Director of the Office 

 of Science and Technology Policy to appoint and fix compensation of 

 certain employees. 



The debate was desultory, and very few Members remained on 

 the floor. The time was devoted primarily to placing material into 

 the Record to explain the bill. This was done by Teague, Mosher, 

 Frey, Fuqua, Winn, Emery, Myers, Hechler, Symington, Bell, and 

 Wirth. Bell was so enthusiastic that he had two different sets of 

 remarks inserted in support of the bill. In those days, one clue as to 

 whether a Member actually delivered his remarks on the House 

 floor sometimes was contained in the permission granted to "revise 

 and extend remarks," especially when the floor manager yields "such 

 time as the gentleman may consume" rather than a specific number of 

 minutes. The more modern custom of placing bullets in front of 

 remarks not actually delivered personally, but merely inserted into 

 the Congressional Record, was not in effect in 1975- For example, 



