Nostalgia Time

erhaps Lee Hamilton can be forgiven for indulging in nostalgia. When he first came to Congress 34 years ago, Washington was a very different place.

Elected to the House in the wake of Lyndon Johnson's landslide victory over Barry Goldwater, Indiana Democrat Hamilton arrived in a town caught up in the spirit of federal activism and ruled by a single party. He also came to a Congress noted for the strength of its committee system within which senior chairmen-often referred to as barons-wielded great legislative influence and kept close check on the performance of government agencies.

In today's Washington of bitter political division and budgetary retrenchment, the congressional committee system is in disarray. The authority of chairmen has been eclipsed by party leaders and substantive issues are often resolved with a minimum of public debate through deals cut privately with the leadership or during the hectic rush to complete the annual appropriations process.

To Hamilton, now retired after 17 eventful terms and several committee chairmanships of his own, one of the largest casualties of the breakdown of the committee system is the deterioration of congressional interest in keeping check on how well government programs are performing-especially as they absorb Draconian budget cuts.

Somewhat wistfully, he has spoken out in support of House Speaker Dennis M. Hastert's efforts "to move the House back to its traditional oversight functions." But Hamilton, who is now director of the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, ruefully conceded in a recent interview that "Congress really only focuses on those things the media is interested in," which of late has primarily meant "personal investigations" of the scandals surrounding President Clinton and his administration.

High stakes confrontations between a Republican Congress and a Democratic President make great television drama but they do little to shed light on the adequacy or effectiveness of day-to-day governmental operations and services. The former Indiana lawmaker also worries about the increasing use of special investigative panels, which bypass the standing committees. "Continuity and expertise are critical to successful oversight," he notes, as is the element of "follow through" on the part of committee members and staff who need to work closely with the agencies they oversee. "Oversight is a two-way process in which the legislator learns the problems of the executive branch and executives learn the political problems of the legislature. It's a very important mutual education."

Both Democrats and Republicans, however, have played important roles in the erosion of the influence of congressional committees. The large post-Watergate class of Democratic freshman elected to the House in 1974 spearheaded a wave of reforms that broke the iron-clad seniority system that had vested elderly-and mostly Southern-committee chairmen with vast power for many decades.

Under Democratic House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, control was greatly decentralized with considerable influence devolving to subcommittee chairmen and with junior members assigned seats on powerful committees once reserved for veteran lawmakers from noncompetitive congressional districts. Those changes weakened not only the committee chairmen, but also granted individual members considerable independence from their party leaders.

A second wave of change came with the Republican takeover of the House in 1994. The newly elevated GOP Speaker, Newt Gingrich, moved quickly and decisively to reassert the House leadership's control, further eviscerating the authority of the committees. As National Journal's Richard E. Cohen has noted, "Gingrich circumvented and intentionally undermined the committee process by creating Republican task forces and demanding that they write legislation reflecting his views."

Hamilton makes it clear that he does not yearn for a return to the days when the seniority system was inviolate and the prerogatives of committee chairmen went unchallenged. But he mourns the changes that have rendered the hearing process "much less important" and shifted "enormous power to the leadership and to their staffs."

Hamilton laments that "the intensity of American politics has picked up over the past several decades, and the power of the extremes in both parties has increased."

What Hamilton really longs for is a Congress that enjoys the respect of the American people. "A strong record of congressional oversight will do a lot to restore public confidence in the institution," he stresses, but adds that such attention to nitty-gritty detail "is not very appealing from a political standpoint, especially in today's highly partisan environment."

Hamilton hastens to note some positive developments-in budget rules and the adoption of ethical standards-over the years. But all in all, he concludes that "there has been a dramatic drop in accountability in the whole process. These things wax and wane, but I do think that in years past, Congress has done a better job."

Dick Kirschten is a contributing editor for National Journal.