Word: rayburns
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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House Speaker Sam Rayburn found himself last week facing a dilemma somewhat akin to that of a gold prospector who spots a huge nugget on the far side of a chasm perhaps too wide to jump across. Splendid would be the reward if he leaped and made it; but then how painful the penalty if he missed. Understandably, Rayburn hesitated at the brink...
...nugget in Rayburn's case was what he would gain from victory in his battle to add three new members to the House Rules Committee, chaired by Virginia's courtly, conservative Howard W. Smith. Over the years, in alliance with committee Republicans, Smith had repeatedly held up legislation he disliked by keeping it in the Rules Committee, through which most bills ordinarily pass before they can get to the floor (TIME, Jan. 13). By adding new members Mister Sam could gain a working majority on the committee and clear away a formidable congressional roadblock to the Kennedy Administration...
...Camp. Fortnight ago, with Democratic Congressmen from the Northern and Western states solidly behind him, plus a sprinkling of Southern Democrats, Rayburn thought he could count on enough liberal Republican votes on his side to assure a majority on the floor. But then House Republican chieftains, captained by Indiana's gut-fighting Minority Leader Charles A. Halleck, decided to make opposition to the Rayburn plan an official party stand. That move dragged all but 20 or so of the Republican liberals out of the Rayburn camp. Then some of the Southern Democrats who had agreed to vote with Rayburn...
...Rayburn decided to add three new members-two Democrats and one Republican-to the committee, bringing the membership up to 15 (ten Democrats, five Republicans). If the two new Democrats were men who would go along at Rayburn's bidding-and Mister Sam would see to that-the change would drastically curb Smith's power. In the past, Smith formed a bloc with the committee's four Republicans, plus Mississippi's conservative William M. Colmer. Since nearly all major bills require a positive O.K. from the Rules Committee before they can come to the House floor...
Smith refused to go along with Rayburn's plan, set about marshaling Southerners for battle. But Missouri's Boiling was doing some marshaling, too. A hard-thinking strategist and Rayburn's straw-boss member of the Rules Committee, Boiling had started preparing for the battle months ahead of time. He had saved up as ammunition all the lOUs that he had collected last autumn for helping Democratic House candidates while he was serving as the Kennedy-picked chairman of the committee to coordinate congressional and presidential campaigns. Making use of the detailed information in a fellow liberal...