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are there, and the radio is there, and after that they go and they do not come back again-I have often thought it is ironical, because I have heard so much comment lately from the leadership of the House that things are getting a little out of balance: the President is too powerful, the Executive is too powerful, and the Congress is not covered by the media as it should be. But it seems to me that in this respect particularly we are creators of the very problem we are talking about, and so I agree with you: we should let the electronic media more fully into our deliberations. I commend you for your statement.

Representative VAN DEERLIN. Thank you, Mr. Cleveland.
Chairman METCALF. Congressman Giaimo?

Representative GIAIMO. I certainly agree with you, Van; we should not try to regulate them. We ought to open up our own processes and invite everyone in, whether it is a TV camera, radio, or the publicwhoever wishes to come in or to be able to observe the workings of the Congress.

Do you not think that there is another real problem, however, which is to try to get the proper impression across to the American people, and that is the educational process of what really is involved in the institution of Congress?

For example, Congress came back to work after the Christmas recess on the 21st. It had a recess since then. If we were to add up the actual working days in the House since January 21 to the present time, we would find very little floor activity; therefore, the impression and the stories go out that Congress is not working.

I am sure you can sit there and testify that you have been working in your office, in your committees, and in all of our other activities. This message also-in other words, the totality of a Congressman's function-has to be somehow transferred to the public, does it not? Representative VAN DEERLIN. I find it difficult to believe that an empty Chamber would be visited by television camera crews showing an empty Chamber when the House was not in session, just to show that Congress was not doing its job.

Representative GIAIMO. Don't bet on it.

Representative VAN DEERLIN. If so, that is one of the risks I guess we have to run. Obviously, this would not make a good program more than once, and I do not think it is a real problem.

Representative GIAIMO. But you would agree that part of their function, also in addition to covering just activities on the floor and in committee rooms, would have to be a total educational process of trying to explain all of the activities that take place in the Congress; not just the floor activities.

Representative VAN DEERLIN. I think what you suggest there may sound a little more like the role of public broadcasting than what I could expect to see on any networks that were interested in keeping their audience share.

I do not like to think of this in terms of education, although everything is educational. I look on it as an extension of the right of the people to know how the people's business is being conducted. If somet of us are hams, if some of us are inarticulate, if some of us are lazyRepresentative GIAIMO. That will come out.

Representative VAN DEERLIN. Let the chips fall.
Chairman METCALF. Congressman Dellenback.

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Representative DELLENBACK. Having just come from a subcommittee meeting on our side, then, where we have dealt with the very important matter of how to distribute certain lands in the West between the Hopi and the Navajo, which was not covered broadly by the news media, I understand what you mean by the difference in the importance of specific areas, or at least a widespread issue.

An issue like that is very important to a few people. I do think the record, if it reflects the idea that all important action in the House is not open to coverage, whereas only unimportant action is open to coverage, that is not a fair reflection of the picture, because the Education and Labor Committee on which I serve, long before it was adopted in the House rules, that our deliberations be opened up not only in hearings, but in markup sessions and in full totality. I think the deliberations on the floor of the House, while not open to all media, are not closed hearings. They are not closed deliberations, and people are welcome to be there and report on it. I do not take the view that congressional business conducted in secret in the Congress is anything in toto. You are just pleading for, and I think we join you in this, opening up Congress still further because the public's business is indeed the public's business.

Representative VAN DEERLIN. Your committee, Mr. Dellenback, has one of the very best records on the House side for open access. My Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce has a pretty good record, but it is significant that we had innumerable sessions which were closed to the public, all dealing with the Northeast railroad bill, the saving of the Penn Central.

Inasmuch as it involved about a quarter of a billion dollars in public funds, I think it was unconscionable that a meeting of that magnitude should be closed to even the print media.

Mr. Dellenback, by no means am I saying that that which is perfect, but I am saying as we go forward in these hearings, Mr. Chairman, what we want to do is see that we push as hard as we can to go forward from here, but there have been situations which exist for some time in the House, where if the media deems it of sufficient importance, they have had access, and we have appreciated it in those instances when they have helped open up beyond that which is, and to that which ought to be.

I do not know whether or not your testimony dealt not only with the matter of opening up the proceedings, because that is clearly the thing you pushed for. I have long pushed for this also in our own deliberations. I think there is more to it than that, and of course I will yield to Mr. Giaimo.

Representative GIAIMO. Well, Van, when we talk of opening up committee activities, it is not just the hearings about which we are talking, is it?

Representative VAN DEERLIN. Markups.

Representative GIAIMO. You take in the case of the Appropriations Committee, many of our hearings are now open to the public, but that is not where the real work is done. The real work is done in the markup meetings. Although I am sure that the Education and Labor Committee has open markup sessions, I would suspect that many of the committees in the House of Representatives still have closed markup

sessions. Sitting down and hammering out particular legislation, and determining the amounts of money that are going to be appropriated, as in the case of appropriations, are significant. The markups and conference committees are where the legislation is really written. Representative VAN DEERLIN. In final form.

Representative GIAIMO. Irrespective of what happens in the House or Senate, it is the conference committee that really writes most of our legislation. The public would be shocked at times if they could see the way in which some of the conference committee work is done. I think it would be extremely healthy and helpful if they were open meetings.

Chairman METCALF. If the Congressmen would yield, I think that we should make note that it was Congressman Staggers and Senator Jackson who did open up a conference committee on energy, which is the first time in my memory that we have had an open meeting of a conference committee, so your Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee did exercise some leadership in that special area.

Now that there has been a breakthrough, a historical first in opening up a conference committee to the press, to the people and to the public, I am hopeful that in the future we can follow through. Whether we have rules or not, those of us who are interested, can make the appropriate motion when the conference convenes. And of course that also means we will have to hold our conference committees in more accessible places.

One reason for limited participation in conference committee is that they are all crowded into some little room around a table. We do not even have sufficient room for our own staffs.

Now, we have another historic first here today. This Joint Committee is meeting not in the Capitol where by custom such committees meet, but in the Senate Office Building. We are going to hold half of these hearings on the House side of the Capitol and half on the Senate side. We have gotten away from that appropriations conference conflict of some years ago, where the committees would not meet on the House side or on the Senate side, but insisted on meeting in the Capitol, exactly midway between the House and Senate Chambers. And the House Members of our Joint Committee have acquiesced in coming over to the Senate side, so I think we are making progress.

Representative VAN DEERLIN. The Chairman has pointed up another failing, and that is some of the most important committees, and the most important deliberations, at least on the House side are held in quarters that most housewives would not consider sufficient for kitchen space.

The Rules Committee, which happens to be one of the most powerful committees on either side of the Hill, meets-I must say, not as by design, but if it were by design, they could not make it any less convenient for press coverage of Rules Committee sessions.

Representative DELLENBACK. Mr. Chairman, I recognize during the course of these hearings, we will have a chance to open up our own sessions. I recognize we have another witness waiting that we want to hear, and we may have to depart, so I will withhold further questioning.

Van, we appreciate your being here.

Chairman METCALF. Thank you very much, Congressman Van Deerlin. We look forward to further consultation with you, because we are aware of your expertise in this area.

Representative VAN DEERLIN. I am just going to let the record stand on that one.

[The prepared statement of Representative Lionel Van Deerlin follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE LIONEL VAN DEERLIN

Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee:

The question before us today-what Congress can do to improve its capability for communicating with the American people-has many possible answers. These range from doing nothing at all to writing new laws requiring the media to make space or time available to politicians and political parties. The latter proposals would cover the print as well as the broadcast media, and go far beyond the present relatively mild demands imposed on broadcasters by the Fairness Doctrine.

This is an old dilemma, how to improve the institutional "image" of Congress. And our problem has been exacerbated in recent years by the success enjoyed by the White House in taking advantage of the availability of network television. How can Congress compete? Or should it even try?

In my view, we should give the press free access, and then lay off. Instead of telling the media what they should do, we should make it easier for them to do what they want to do.

It just won't do to try to play Big Brother to the newsmen and women assigned to the Hill. They'd be on to our gambit in a second, if we try to give them unsolicited "guidance," and besides it's probably unconstitutional.

In reading an excellent study on "Congress and Mass Communications" prepared for these hearings by the Library of Congress, I was struck by the revelation that as far back as 1947 TV cameras were actually allowed in the House chamber to cover the opening of the 80th Congress.

The occasion was both a "first" and a "last." In the intervening 27 years, film and TV cameras were never again permitted in either chamber to cover a regular congressional session.

And in too many cases newsmen are restricted by their physical surroundings as well as by our often archaic rules. Broadcast newsmen in the Senate are still assigned to quarters that were completed in 1945, when television was still an experiment, in very limited use.

I feel strongly that if the enterprising reporters on Capitol Hill are given sufficient latitude as well as adequate working space our communications problems will largely take care of themselves.

I doubt, though, that Congress will ever be able to compete on a fully equal basis with the President for the attention of the national news media. The President and the White House are one and the same, but Congress speaks with 535 different voices.

We can perhaps derive some consolation from the fact that, with the concentrated exposure of the White House, the warts as well as the smiles soon become apparent.

In the meantime Congress, as an institution and as a gathering of highly diverse individuals, can get a fairer share of attention from the media by simply opening House/Senate chamber and some of the committee doors that still remain closed to the press and public.

Chairman METCALF. Our next witness is Senator Mondale. We are honored to have you here.

STATEMENT OF HON. WALTER F. MONDALE, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

Senator MONDALE. Thank you very much, Senator, members of the committee.

A few minutes ago Congressman Van Deerlin referred to the giants of the Senate. I think he is the King of the House, because he said what had to be said, in very clear, understandable and I think honorable terms-that we should open everything up and let the newsmen decide what is important, and then let the public decide whether they want us around here anymore.

That is what it should all be about, a very simple proposition.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am pleased to testify this morning at these hearings of the Joint Committee on Congressional Operations.

It is clear that we are meeting at a time of broad-almost frightening-public dissatisfaction with our governmental institutions. Many of us in Congress have watched the recent decline of the President's popularity, as measured by the public opinion polls, without always realizing that the people's confidence in the Congress was also ebbing. Clearly, we can no longer afford that luxury. Last week, a Harris survey revealed the extent and depth of public dissatisfaction with Congress performance. It presented a dismal picture of unhappiness with our handling of every major issue facing us today. On Watergate, the economy, inflation, and energy, from 70 to 80 percent of those questioned felt that we are doing only a fair or poor job.

And in almost every one of the questions asked, the rating which the people gave the Congress was actually worse than that given the President.

These figures come, ominously, in the wake of other recent survey data which indicate that the confidence of the public in the Congress has declined sharply in recent years, and that now less than 30 percent of the American public believes that the institution of the Congress inspires confidence-the type of confidence that a healthy democracy needs for its survival.

These are storm signals which we disregard only at great risk to ourselves, our institutions and our democracy.

The hearings beginning today will cover many areas of vital concern. Of particular importance will be the search for ways in which the role of the Congress can be more fully and accurately covered by the media. At the present time, as the excellent report prepared for the Joint Committee by John Stewart indicates, the executive branch has totally outstripped Congress capacity to get our message across to the American people.

I notice that practically every time we have a question and answer period, I am asked why the Congress spends so irresponsibly. I think people get that from what they hear from Presidential messages, so I point out to everyone that the past 6 years we have spent on the average $5 billion less overall, appropriated, than has been requested. They did not hear that side of the story. I also find that the Congress is being blamed for failure to spend impounded funds. In that case, we actually authorized appropriated money for a program. It is not our fault, but the public only hears the President's side of the story, and I think that contributes some to the bad public reputation the Congress has.

The power of the Presidential news conference and the Presidential address, in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars spent an

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