Word: 95th
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Driving toward adjournment by mid-November, the 95th Congress last week was embroiled in the toughest struggle of its ten-month opening session. Contentious, unpredictable and highly independent of the new man in the White House, the lawmakers faced a politically unpleasant task: fashioning an energy bill designed to reduce the nation's dangerous dependence on imported oil?a piece of legislation likely to take money out of just about everybody's pocket. Their situation was aptly described by Indiana's John Brademas, the House Democratic whip: "It is tough enough with separation of powers and the absence of disciplined...
...praise for his heady pace. "I remember in this room last May," he said with a smile, "someone asked me if my Administration was all style and no substance. Lately the criticisms have been that there's too much substance and not enough style." Yet the much-maligned 95th has had a productive first session, and it stands a good chance of atoning in 1978 for some of its miscues...
Part of the 95th's problem is that it breezed into Washington with unrealistically high expectations?a display of naivete not confined to Capitol Hill. After eight quarrelsome years of Republican Presidents and Democratic majorities in Congress, there were high hopes of a new spirit of harmony between the White House and the Congress. Instead, Carter and the legislators were jaw to jaw from the very outset...
...some respects, the 95th is unique, and that has a great deal to do with its problems. It was elected in the psychological aftermath of the Viet Nam War and Watergate?wrenching historical episodes in which a complacent legislature failed until too late to question excesses of Executive authority. Thus Congress bristled when Carter indicated that he would decide what was best for the country and that Congress's role in accepting (or rejecting) those decisions was more a frustrating nuisance than a necessary part of democratic government...
...does the record of the 95th rate...