Mr. STEIGER. I am not sure you want to escalate the possibility of a fight on that issue.

Mr. MEEDS. Politics aside there. I just mention this. I suppose there are a number of other people who would augment either one of those clauses. It is not a complete grandfather in either one of those instances.

Chairman BOLLING. The solution might be instead of attempting to come up with a hard figure on the major committees, might make that less rigid and be less concerned about this and of it.

As a matter of reality, I have never seen the figures that are called for in the rules hold up anyway. While we wanted to set up 15, more or less, equal committees with the same number, we were pretty sure we weren't going to end up with that.

Instead of worrying so much about this type of grandfather, we might look at the other end of it and be less specific about what we do with size of committees.

Mr. MEEDS. Mr. Chairman, could I simply suggest that I think this problem will take care of itself in 6 years. I can foresee of no circumstance under which it will not have completely taken care of itself in 6 years, at the very most. Probably in four.

Mr. MARTIN. The paragraph limits it to the 94th Congress.

Mr. MEEDS. That is what I say. If they strike out "to the close of the 94th Congress" and just leave it blank or put in "at the close of the 95th Congress."

Chairman BOLLING. What are you suggesting? "At any time prior to the close of" and just leave it?

Mr. MEEDS. If it is going to be grandfather, it ought to be a grandfather.

Mr. WIGGINS. Mandatory grandfather? Is that what you had in mind?

Mr. MEEDS. No. It takes this very language, but strike out the bar of the 94th Congress because I am sure there are some people who are going to transfer to committees that will raise the number over 29 and it will probably remain over 29 into the 95th Congress. Their presence will cause that.

If we leave it the way it is, then they will be thrown off, not next year but 2 years hence, when it will be even more painful.

Chairman BOLLING. That could be used as an argument to throw them off.

Mr. MARTIN. Lloyd, the rate of attrition over the last eight or ten Congresses would take care of it, I think, with the 94th Congress in there.

What is it, 70 or 75 or sometimes more. If you take two of them, you have 150. That is 35 percent in the House.

Mr. MEEDS. First, of all, I don't think it is going to happen in too many instances.

Has anyone done any gamesmanship on this?

Mr. DAVIDSON. We have some specific figures on the probable impact on various committees. The problem is that turnover is going to be especially heavy on certain committees, and on certain other committees your turnover in the 94th and 95th and 96th Congress will be less than for the House as a whole.

In other words, turnover doesn't affect the committees equally. You don't have a serious problem with regard to the so-called exclusive committees: Ways and Means, Appropriations, and Rules. But on some others, particularly on Armed Services and Commerce and Health, and maybe one or two others, there is going to be a problem. I would expect that the turnover on these committees, both through transfers and regular attrition, would be less than an over-all turnover in the Congress.

Mr. MEEDS. I don't think it is going to be a big problem, but for those people involved it is going to be pretty serious.

Chairman BOLLING. Is there further discussion?

Mr. WIGGINS. I have a suggestion. It is my observation that we are trying to deal too precisely with something that is in its nature imprecise. Accordingly, we might serve just as well by having a paragraph which states the sense of Congress, that any Member required to change his committee membership by reason of the application of these rules shall be given in the committee selected by him a proper consideration of his status, or words to that effect, and leave it like that without trying to break it into every conceivable situation, splitting of one committee, all of these things. Just express our sense that the status of a Member of the 93d Congress ought to be considered by the 94th Congress in placing him on the committee.

Mr. MEEDS. Charlie, you have an immediate conflict there with some people right now, with some of those people-how many are there in the Armed Services Committee?

There are 43 people on the Armed Services Committee. We limit the size of the committee by another rule to 29. And if you go by that hard fast rule of 29, then somewhere along the line they are going to have to bump people off. I assume they would start from the bottom. Mr. WIGGINS. Well, I am simply saying we can deal with that problem by the added number of the committees for a short period of time, but rather than to have a precise procedure for dealing with something which frankly we have no power to deal with, we ought to just state in general language that we want consideration given to the senior Members when they are forced to move to other committees.

Mr. MEEDS. We ought to go further than that. This other rule we adopt should not be used for derogation.

Chairman BOLLING. The reason we are precise and the reason the discussion came down the way it did is that we, I think, are getting more real complaints on this aspect of it, we Democrats, than you all are. We are getting a monumental amount.

There are people who think we ought to be very specific and protect them one by one and clearly we can't do it. The reason we came up with a listing of the various factors that ought to be taken into account is that we very badly need something to at least partially reassure our Members that we are concerned about it and we hope that everybody else is too and that there will be expressions on the floor of concern and support.

I am sure there will be, but it is amazing how unsure these fellows

are.

Mr. STEIGER. What is your suggestion?

Chairman BOLLING. My suggestion is to make two amendments and revise the grandfather provision, one at the third line up from the bottom of the first page where in brackets appear "on the former committee" and then again brackets "in the House" and say "service on the former committee as well as in the House" so that that is considered, and then strike, to meet Lloyd's objection to the 4th and 5th lines of the second page "at any time prior to the close of the 94th Congress" and just leave it straight up in the air.

Mr. MEEDS. Yes.

Mr. MARTIN. I shall move, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. STEPHENS. I second.

Mr. STEIGER. Vote.

Chairman BOLLING. Question by the gentleman from Nebraska. Those in favor say aye. Opposed, no.

The ayes have it and the draft is agreed to.

We agreed that we would only meet for a brief time this afternoon. I thank you for your cooperation.

I propose, unless there is pretty violent objection, to go back to jurisdiction on Monday. That is the one that we really have to complete sometime on Monday. I hope we will have a redraft of the matter that we finished on referral so that we can see actual language on the part that was left up in the air.

As soon as we finish jurisdiction, and I want to schedule it in that order, we will proceed to the other matters that are before us, and there are a variety. I hope that as you have the opportunity you will refresh your memory on those other matters. We have been so preoccupied with jurisdiction, referral, and so on, that it is easy to let some of the others escape us. There is staffing and whether we are going to suggest commissions, and so on.

So unless there is further business, the committee will stand adjourned until 2 on Monday afternoon.

[Thereupon, at 2:30 p.m., the committee adjourned, to reconvene at 2 p.m. on Monday, March 4, 1974.]

COMMITTEE REFORM AMENDMENTS OF 1974

MONDAY, MARCH 4, 1974

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SELECT COMMITTEE ON COMMITTEES,

Washington, D.C.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., in room 321, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Richard Bolling (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Bolling, Stephens, Meeds, Sarbanes, Martin, Frelinghuysen, Wiggins, and Steiger.

Also present: Charles S. Sheldon II, chief of staff; Melvin M. Miller, deputy chief of staff; and Gerald J. Grady, Spencer M. Beresford, Linda H. Kamm, Robert C. Ketcham, Walter J. Oleszek, Roger H. Davidson, Terence T. Finn, Mary E. Zalar, Linda G. Stephenson, and Joan Bannon Bachula, staff members.

Chairman BOLLING. The committee will come to order.

I am going to have distributed to you some material, which is the third or fourth or fifth or sixth staff draft of a highly controversial matter.

It is not something that I think the committee is going to be able to handle this year in the form in which it is being distributed, but I wanted you all to have an opportunity to look at it-it has to do with intelligence-because it is the kind of thing I think we should be thinking of down the line.

The committee may disagree and think we should adopt it. There have been other materials handed out, without making it absolutely clear-and it is my fault-that some of the material is the kind that should be tactfully used. It has to do with conflicts between committee meetings.

There is no great mystery about it, but it is a complicated material that I would like you to look at and not have it wandering around. I am sure that stimulates interest in it. You understand the reason I suggest that it be handled tactfully.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. What is the last thing to which you referred? Chairman BOLLING. The one that was distributed last week has to do with conflicts of committee meetings.

We have returned to jurisdiction. I want you to have some notionand clearly, I have absolutely no control over what happens, but this is what I hope will be a tentative schedule.

Now we are talking about something that I hope will be a firm schedule and not one with some flexibility. I hope we will conclude our markup this week on Friday. That will give the staff an opportunity to spend 5 days on writing.

I hope that a week from this Wednesday, on the 13th of March, we can have an afternoon meeting and ratify the document which is the result of our conclusions this week.

Then the staff and the members will have several days in which to perfect the final report. We hope to be in half galley over the next weekend of the 16th and 17th.

We hope to have page proof on the 18th to 19th. We hope to have the report in final print on the 21st. We hope to go to the Rules Committee on either the 2d or the 9th of April and we hope to reach the floor on the 23d of April.

None of this is rockhard, because a good deal of it depends on us. A good deal of it depends on entities different from us. However, I hope we can live up to that schedule. That is said very briefly.

It obviously is subject not only to your concurrence, but your willingness to do the kind of work that is envisioned in the coming week.

I do not think we can wait any longer. I will tell you why. I will tell it in the most completely sterilized fashion that I can. I have no special information. However, the indications are that early May we might be dealing with the most difficult subject that confronts us and one that is more difficult than this.

I have no assurance of this, but it is conceivable that something might be out of the Judiciary Committee on impeachment in May.

I think all of the effort we have put in on this meeting will go by the board if that came into the picture before we had this considered. While I am not in any way suggesting we should proceed unless we are ready or finish until we finish, we do have some constraints which I hope you will all keep in mind.

We have a revised confidential committee print with no number, of which each of you has a copy, revised March 4. It deals with jurisdiction.

The first matter is that of Agriculture and Forestry, as we now call it. The changes that have been made from the first print are marked. In effect, what we need to do is decide whether we will stick with what we decided before. Then we have one unresolved issue. That is where should international fishing agreements go. I don't remember where the alternatives were.

Mr. MARTIN. Fisheries was crossed out from Merchant Marine. We discussed that and there was a distinction between salt water and freshwater fishing. I don't know how that is listed; however we did split them up.

Chairman BOLLING. We split the proposal.

Mr. SHELDON. Essentially what we did was to put commercial fishing, saltwater into the Maritime Affairs and Fishing Committee. Sports fishing, we thought was probably likely to go to Energy and the Environment. There were some options left to the committee and not yet decided. I hope that shows up. One of the questions undecided was Great Lakes fishing.

Chairman BOLLING. In effect, what we did was we decided fisheries would go out of this committee and into other places. There was a lack of decision.

Mr. MARTIN. So it is split and part of it is in another committee? Chairman BOLLING. Yes, sir. It is in two other committees. We had a very long discussion on this. I think, in all fairness, it should be