Word: chairmen
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Liberal rank-and-file Democrats in the House of Representatives had long been seething at the independence and aloofness of some of the chamber's committee chairmen. So too had House Speaker Carl Albert and Majority Leader Thomas P. ("Tip") O'Neill. With the election of 75 new Democratic Congressmen in November, the pressures for change mounted. But when they finally burst the restraints of tradition last week, the results were astonishing. For the House, that glacially sluggish institution, it amounted to a revolution...
...dramatically as an instrument of power. The moderate leadership and ambitious rebels combined to move first against the House Ways and Means Committee and its once indomitable chairman, Wilbur Mills. Earlier this year the House had voted to force Mills to subdivide his committee into four subcommittees with separate chairmen and thus dilute his authority. Angered at his unwillingness to act on such legislation as national health insurance and tax reform, the liberals now aimed to relieve Mills of all but his chairman's gavel...
...into the leadership vacuum, gearing up for a legislative onslaught worthy, on paper at least, of the New Deal or the Great Society. To that end, they are undertaking a major reorganization in the House. In meetings this week, the Democratic caucus intends to strip slow-moving, conservative committee chairmen of their power by putting more liberals on key committees. The caucus, in fact, plans to reassign Democrats to a better than 2-to-l majority on every committee, arousing cries of legislative tyranny among Republicans...
Other potential conflicts, over various rules that may increase the authority of the national party over the state parties, could surface this weekend and would pit state chairmen and most governors, particularly George Wallace, against party reformers and liberals of the McGovern camp
...began trying to rebuild. In Illinois, for example, the party in recent years had fallen under the control of conservatives, who alienated moderates. "We'd better get the message," declared Senator Charles Percy, as he called for a strategy meeting next week of the Illinois party's county chairmen and other officials...