Word: bayh
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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After being picked by President Johnson for the No. 2 post in the Agency for International Development, Rutherford ("Rud") Poats had to wait six months for Senate confirmation of his appointment. The opposition to Poats was led by Indiana Democrat Birch Bayh, whose objections increasingly seemed to be motivated as much by vindictiveness as by vigilance. Last week his colleagues bypassed Bayh and voted down a motion that would have recommitted Poats's nomination to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Senate then confirmed...
...Bayh, 39, first clashed with Poats, 44, when he was chief of AID for the Far East and overseer of the crash program to bolster South Viet Nam's chaotic economy during the herculean U.S. buildup in 1965-66. After Bayh learned that AID officials had bought galvanized steel from Korea for quick shipment to Viet Nam, he lambasted Poats and insisted that AID purchase primarily U.S. steel. Though the Senator comes up for re-election next year in a state that has a large steel industry, he claimed his opposition to Poats was based purely on his belief...
Power & Principles. Last week the Senate finally faced up to the problem and passed (72 to 0) a proposed constitutional amendment giving Vice Presidents full power until disabled Presidents recover.* Sponsored by Indiana Democrat Birch Bayh, the amendment provides that if a President fails to make known his inability, the Vice President could take over "with the written concurrence of a majority of the Cabinet or any other body specified by Congress." If a still unrecovered President tried to return, the Acting President and the Cabinet would have seven days in which to ask Congress to "proceed to decide...
...backed proposal reaches the House it will face more of the same sort of opposition it survived in the Senate: the argument that the problem should be solved by statute rather than constitutional amendment. Critics note that statutes, unlike amendments that contain rules as specific as those in the Bayh proposal, are easily revised to meet changing needs. "The strength of the Constitution rests upon its broad statement of power and principles," says Minnesota's Democratic Senator Eugene J. McCarthy. "It is not weighed down with detailed procedural provisions...
Unfortunately, though, the Constitution does not clearly empower Congress to handle presidential disability by statute alone. Indeed, Bayh backers argue that such a statute might worsen the next disability crisis because it would be open to constitutional challenge. By contrast, an amendment becomes part of the Constitution, and Congress would have the right to pass later disability legislation if necessary...