Representative GIAIMO. I want to compliment the Senator on the proposed legislation. I find it intriguing, and I think it would be very helpful.

You do not feel that we could compel them to come, do you?

Senator MONDALE. It is separation of powers issue. It is doubtful that we have the direct authority to order them up here, but as I say, I think there are other ways of accomplishing the same thing.

Chairman METCALF. Does your legislation address itself to the problem of getting people up here to respond to questions, not only administration representatives at the Cabinet level, but perhaps more importantly with the modern presidency, those serving as Presidential advisors as well?

Senator MONDALE. Yes, I think that is very important. For example, I think one of the great tendencies today that is terribly damaging has been this tendency to take all of the key questions out of the Cabinet, put it in the White House, set up a staff there, hide behind executive privilege, national security, and just the power of the White House to intimidate, and take it out of the hands of a person who has to come up here for confirmation. That is the one time we can get our hands on a Cabinet officer. Yet the tendency is to convert what is essentially a public process into a private, closed door operation.

That is exactly what has happened with foreign relations, the National Security Council, and Mr. Kissinger. I do not want to be unkind to Secretary Rogers, but I think it is pretty well recognized the real policy questions were made in the White House.

It is also what happened in the Budget Bureau. I remember when I came down here 10 years ago, the Budget Bureau was really a shared agency. You could call on it rather freely as a Member of the Congress, but now under the OMB that is in the White House, you cannot get them to answer any questions, unless they want to. The whole question of how we spend money, impound money, and all of the rest is now a private process. There are other examples-under the Domestic Counsel for a few years, it was clear to me that Erlichman and those characters over there under the Domestic Counsel were really running the affairs of Health and Education.

They did not know anything about it. You could not ask them a question, and the people we did talk to were without authority. I think if you can not also request some of these to appear, we may find that we are unable to open up that public dialog the way we want. Of course, that is one of the reasons a few months ago, I tried to lead a fight in the Senate to reduce White House funds which I thought went for the purpose of bringing these decisions out of the Cabinet, and into the White House, matters that really should be in the Cabinet. Chairman METCALF. Congressman Dellenback?

Representative DELLENBACK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Senator, we do appreciate your being here. This is, as your testimony invariably is, very helpful.

Senator MONDALE. Thank you, Congressman.

Representative DELLENBACK. Í say this because I read in your testimony the idea that you were advocating much more than a public relations thing.

You have expressly stated that, and you have previously stated that our system of Government is a complex one.

It is not only possessed of variants, and sometimes strange interrelationships between the executive and the legislative, but we have interesting interrelationships between your end of the Capitol and our end, on the House side, on the Senate side. I read in your testimony, a clear statement that our real goal is not in anyway for the Congress to look any better than the President, or for the Congress to gain more public exposure, for the purpose of building up our own images. I read you as saying-and I state this because I want to be sure I do read you properly-the purpose of what you are talking about is opening up to public view and public hearing, and hopefully public understanding of what the Congress really is doing.

Senator MONDALE. That is correct. I have reviewed the press releases. that I have put out about myself over the past 10 years, and you know, everyone of them is favorable.

I have never done anything wrong, and every idea I have had is superb. I will bet you if you check most Members of the Congress, what we say about ourselves is always quite flattering, and of course, that is what is called public relations, but there is no reason why the public should accept our definition.

They have got a right to see us, to hear us, to watch us debate, to see us be questioned by our colleagues, watch how we vote in executive committees, and to see us as we are.

I see my colleague, Senator Humphrey, here, and I have heard him say many, many times that the Government was not established for the comfort of the governors, it was established to serve those who are governed. If the emphasis of our study is how we can put a better face in a public relations sense in what we are doing, I think I will be against it, because the public has seen through that. They want to see the raw data, they want to see the raw truth, they want to see us in action, they want to see what happens behind those closed doors, and then they will make up their own mind. All we can ask to do is to make certain they can see us all, and if we are as good as we claim we are, then they will send us back here.

Representative DELLENBACK. I appreciate your confirmation, that is, what I draw from your testimony, that is the thrust of this committee.

We are trying to look not just at something we can do to be more out in the public eye. Our question really is what will improve it.

Now, I think there is a danger in what we have both just said, Senator, because it really calls for an improvement in our ability to be viewed, then we better be sure what we are doing really is as effective as we can make it, and that means we have to go forward with real congressional reform.

We have to increase the capacities of agencies, like the General Accounting Office, and our other agencies, we have to improve the capacities of our committees.

We have to clean up some of the tangled jurisdictions that we are struggling with in the House now. We have to improve our budgetary processes so that we are not irresponsible in the way we go at it. We have to make further changes in the seniority system, and so on.

Senator MONDALE. Amen. I would like to endorse that completely. In other words, it is the reality of what we do which will be the determinant of how we are seen. I think what you are saying is that

if they can see the totality of what we do, we might do a better job than we are now.

Representative DELLENBACK. For those of us struggling with real congressional reform of this kind, this will be, I think, helpful to us, to marshal behind us efforts to make changes of the kind we have been alluding to.

We need support within our own body, and if we can hold ourselves up to view for the reasons that we have talked about, we will find that the public will demand some of these changes for which you have struggled, and some of us have struggled, and we will find that that demand would be transmitted by these constituents some of our colleagues, so we will have hopefully stronger support within our own bodies to bring about this very kind of change, so I think this is what I read in the kind of thing you are talking about.

It is a secondary reinforcement and pressure on us, on the Congress, to make the changes we ought to be making.

Senator MONDALE. Precisely. I agree with you completely.

Representative DELLENBACK. I appreciate very much your input. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman METCALF. Thank you very much, Senator Mondale, for your appearance here, for your suggestions.

You have always been innovative, and we will continue to work with you on congressional reform. We will continue to work together to restore the people's confidence in their Government.

Senator MONDALE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee. I am most grateful.

Chairman METCALF. Our next witness is Senator Humphrey, one of the most experienced legislators in Congress, who has worked as a public official at all levels of government, including the executive branch as Vice President of the United States.

STATEMENT OF HON. HUBERT H. HUMPHREY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

Senator HUMPHREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman METCALF. Senator Humphrey, you appeared before my Budgeting and Management Subcommittee and made some suggestions on reforming the congressional budget process which are incorporated in a bill, that will be before the Senate shortly. I know that every time that you have appeared, it has been a most rewarding experience.

Congressman Van Deerlin suggested there are a couple of giants, Senator Muskie and Senator Mondale, but if any State is fortunate in having giants in the Senate, it is the State of Minnesota, which has both you and Senator Mondale. We are honored to have you here today, to give us the benefit of your very wide experience.

Senator HUMPHREY. Mr. Chairman, I am very grateful to you for the comments, for your words of flattering commendation. I am mighty happy to accept them, may I say, and I do appreciate the privilege of appearing before this important Joint Committee on Congressional Operations.

The subject matter of course, as I was informed, was the Congress and Mass Communications. I shall direct most of my remarks to that

limited part of the spectrum of the whole structure of Congress, and its relationships with the other branches of Government and the public. But let me just say a few words before I get into my prepared remarks. My distinguished colleague, Senator Mondale, has discussed the question-period concept I have long supported this.

Years ago, I joined with the late Senator Kefauver in urging that this be done in the Congress of the United States. I was greatly impressed when I saw the question period at work in the British House of Commons.

I think the point has been well made that the chief executive officers of the government are also members of Parliament under a Parliamentary system. Here, our Cabinet officers are officers appointed by the President, serving at his discretion. But I think it should be very clear they also serve to carry out the mandate of the law as authorized by the Congress of the United States, and without any further ado about it, I believe it is fair to say that this proposal of the question period ought to be pursued.

Whether it can be performed as well here in our system of Government of divided powers, the federal system, the legislative body, the House and Senate, as it does under the parliamentary system, I doubt it would do as well, but it would be helpful.

Chairman METCALF. Senator Humphrey, there is a quorum call in the House of Representatives, and so our colleagues from the House will have to leave us.

Senator HUMPHREY. It is a pity, because they are going to miss all of these words of wisdom.

Chairman METCALF. I feel that those in the House who called for the quorum call have not acted in the best interests of the House Members of this committee, because they are going to miss some very interesting ideas.

Senator HUMPHREY. I will send them my brief material.

Let me proceed, second, I think that one of the main problems of relationships of the Congress with the media-and when you are talking about the media, really, you are talking about the public, because the media is where the public gets information-is what I call the structural inadequacies of the organization of Congress.

I have introduced legislation, called the Modern Congress Act, which would propose a series of reforms in the organization of Congress.

Senator Metcalf, you have given a great deal of attention to this over the years and have been responsible already for many improvements. I want to include in the record of testimony my statement on the Modern Congress Act, and to highlight in that statement certain of the provisions which I believe could be helpful.

Chairman METCALF. That is S. 2992?

Senator HUMPHREY. Yes, sir.

Chairman METCALF. The statement will be incorporated in the record.

[The information furnished by Senator Humphrey on S. 2992 appears in the Appendix on p. 619.]

Senator HUMPHREY. I thank you very much. When I served as Vice President, I was a member of the National Security Council. The President has obvious control of the executive branch, far beyond

what any majority leader or minority leader may have in the House and Senate, and the National Security Council was set up by the Congress under the terms of law to coordinate all the areas in the executive branch of Government which relate in any way to national security.

For example, the Secretary of the Treasury is on the National Security Council. The Congress of the United States does not have anything like this at all, so we have no way, for example, of having a counterforce, so to speak, or even a cooperative force, or cooperative group.

We have the Committee on Armed Services, the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, the Committee on Foreign Relations, the Committee on Appropriations. We are scattered, and in any kind of contest, between the different areas of Government, if you can divide or disperse the opposition, you have the advantage, and one of the great advantages in the executive branch in anything it is to do, is that it speaks generally with one voice, it can be better coordinated, and it can bring to bear upon a particular subject the total force, or the total power, or ability or talent, or whatever you wish to call it, of the executive branch.

The legislative branch is not so organized.

I am not sure we can organize it quite that way, and I think one of the needs of the American people is to understand the structural organization of Congress, understand the purpose of the Congress.

I want to see the Congress made more efficient. I want to see it made more functional.

For example, we are wrestling today with the problems of energy. Where do you go to the Congress to talk about the energy problem?

You can go to the Committee on Interior, as we have, or Senator Jackson, who is doing a remarkable job as chairman of that committee; yet, there is the Committee on Foreign Relations, where Senator Church is looking into it from that point of view.

The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, the subcommittees under the Joint Economic Committee, the Public Works Committee, they are all involved. It is scattered all through the Government.

We do not deal with it in a functional way. It is not easy to regroup and redesign, and I think the American people need to be brought to understand that Congress is not designed to be efficient. It is designed to be able to bring together many points of view and find some accommodation which can resolve itself in the public policy.

That takes time, it takes adjustments, it takes compromise, a word which by the way has been abused, as if compromise was like a sell-out, when in fact most everything we do in life today requires some adjustments.

Without it, there can be no happiness in a home. Surely, there can be no effective conduct of a business, and I resent tht fact that compromise has been made to look like a bad word in politics.

The people I worry about in politics are people who think they are so right they are willing to do anything to prove their point. We have seen some of that of late.

People who not only thought they were above law, but people who think they are the law.