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player ready...In the 1976 re-issue of George B. Galloway’s 1962 “History of the House of Representatives” are the pictures of 36 of the men who served in the House, from the first speaker, Frederick Muhlenberg, to modern leaders such as Gerald Ford and Tip O’Neill.
Were Galloway’s book to be updated again, there would be three or four more pictures-maybe Speaker Tom Foley, possibly Minority Leader Robert Michel, perhaps former Rep. Morris Udall.
And almost surely Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.
Since the House opened for business on March 4, 1789, it has had 9,559 members, so it is reasonable to consider the top 40 among them the giants of the institution.
Now one of those giants is in danger of being toppled. By pygmies.
Start with the federal prosecutors who have been looking for some excuse to indict Rostenkowski. Political corruption is simple. If two years of investigation have not discovered any crimes, perhaps none have been committed. Word from Washington now is that the prosecutors are considering some kind of “pattern of corrupt activity” indictment. That’s what they do when they can’t find anything real but want to get their names in the papers anyway.
The prosecutors have been abetted by a few reporters with whom they enter into a symbiotic relationship, similar to the one between the hyena and the vulture. It works like this: The prosecutors leak selected tidbits to selected reporters, certain that the tidbits will be reported as leaked.
Then, with one exception, there are Rostenkowski’s four opponents. Only two of them, both of whom appeared at a candidate forum last week, deserve mention. Dick Simpson, the former alderman, is a self-absorbed moralist with a weak grasp of public issues, whose attempts to come across as an intellectual succeed only at revealing him as pretentious and shallow.
John Cullerton is the exception. He is a responsible, articulate state senator who dearly wants to be a congressman but was prepared to wait his turn. Only after it seemed that Rostenkowski could lose to someone else did Cullerton decide to run. Unlike Simpson, he is not running a divisive campaign, and he is the kind of capable politician who could make a real contribution in Washington.
Still, Cullerton is a long way from being Rostenkowski. No, this has nothing to do with all the federal goodies Rostenkowski brings to his district, city and state. Voting for a congressman because he brings home the bacon is understandable, but petty. Voting for him because he is an important and productive leader of the nation is a civic duty.
That is what Rostenkowski has become. In his scholarly study of the Ways and Means Committee, Emery University political scientist Randall Strahan concluded that Rostenkowski’s “active but pragmatic leadership” had energized his committee, making it once again an indispensible part of any national debate over taxes, health care and welfare.
Rostenkowski’s importance is not parochial. He is one of the people governing the country. His premature departure would create an institutional gap in the House of Representatives and severely weaken the move toward reforming the health insurance system.
Ironically, considering all the attacks on Rostenkowski’s integrity, one source of his congressional success is trust. Strahan’s book, “New Ways and Means,” published in 1990, reports that members of the Ways and Means Committee follow Rostenkowski because of his “strict code of fairness.” One member said, “if he’s against you. . . he’ll tell you up front.”
Giants are not always angels. In the past, Rostenkowski did some things which were once acceptable but are now considered improper. In some cases, he kept doing them, either not knowing or not caring that the climate had changed. Arrogance is a common failing of giants, and this one has succumbed to it at times.
As he has succumbed to the temptation of giants to surround themselves with flunkies and take their bad advice, including the advice not to participate in forums with his challengers. So if he loses the March 15 primary, he will bear some responsiblity for his defeat.
But less responsibility than voters who reject him. There has always been a good reason to vote against Rostenkowski. Republicans should vote against him. They disagree with his centrist Democratic conviction that government power and money should prudently be spent on behalf of middle- and low-income people.
But Republicans will not be voting in the Democratic primary. The Democrats of the 5th District will reject Rostenkowski only if they heed the pygmies, and heeding, join them.