January 24, 1978
Page 586
SENATOR LEE METCALF
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, another of our colleagues was also my friend; LEE METCALF. We worked together on many issues, shared many interests, and cooperated on a number of projects.
LEE served the Senate well. He was the Senate's lawyer. He gave a great deal to this institution. He worked steadfastly, to modernize the law making mechanism. And he was the primary advocate of many recent Senate reforms.
He was, at the time of his death, in charge of the effort to defend the franking privilege. He was selected for that role by his colleagues, because of our tremendous respect for his brilliant legal mind. And he justified our confidence in his ability.
Mr. President, I have a very personal reason for missing LEE METCALF. He was the first Member of this body to endorse my candidacy for President. He was an unstinting supporter. He was enthusiastic. Given my shortcomings — demonstrated by history — I shall never forget his confidence. He did more than support me with word and political assistance. He took on important projects in the Government Operations Committee, from which I was distracted during the campaign.
In his work on the Governmental Affairs Committee, LEE was concerned about a government grown unresponsive to the needs of ordinary Americans.
As chairman of the Subcommittee on Budgeting, Management and Expenditures, he was responsible for guiding historic budget reforms through subcommittee and full committee. As chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, I hope are can justify his efforts and his commitment.
He pursued the elusive phenomenon of Federal advisory committees, which grew in number by leaps and bounds aver the last decade with little or no public accountability. Under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, enacted in 1972 as a result of LEE's work, the number of Federal advisory committees has actually been reduced, and their operations have been opened up to increased public scrutiny.
LEE's constant concern with protection of consumer interests was evidenced in his determined pursuit of a fair deal for consumers before State utility commissions. After countless hearings and study, LEE's idea of a State utility consumer council was enacted into law as part of the Federal Energy Administration Reorganization Act.
And every year, for the last several years, LEE's subcommittee, along with my Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, has released a report on State Utility rate increases, pointing out repeatedly the enormous — and sometimes questionable — increase in fuel adjustment clauses which pass higher costs automatically onto customers.
But, above all, LEE was a valued source of friendship and help to me over the years in the give and take of committee work.
Mr. President, LEE METCALF was as much a Member of the House of Representatives as he was a Member of the Senate. It was in the House of Representatives that he first proved his leadership qualities. He was a founder of the Democratic Study Group — an institution in the other body which was formed to provide liberal Democrats with a mechanism to balance the dominance of conservatives in control of that body in the 1950's.
Had LEE METCALF stayed in the House, there is no doubt that he would have been elected to its leadership. In an interview in the Great Falls Tribune, printed shortly before he died, LEE commented on aspirations in his final year in the Senate and his career in politics. I ask unanimous consent that the article be Printed in the RECORD at this point.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD as follows:
SENATOR LEE METCALF APPROACHES HIS FINAL SESSION IN CONGRESS
(By Thomas Kotynski )
HELENA.— Sen. Lee Metcalf begins his final session in Congress Jan. 19 which will bring to a close a political career which has spanned 42 years.
In a Tribune interview during the congressional break Metcalf said:
— He plans to resign his Senate seat as soon as his successor, Democrat or Republican, is certified as elected. Metcalf wants the new senator to have an edge in seniority.
— Metcalf has no plans to get involved in primary campaigns or publicly support any particular candidate as his successor.
— He says he intends to support only the Democratic nominees for such posts as U.S. Senate or House of Representatives from the Western District.
— Metcalf says one of his biggest political mistakes was his decision to run for U.S. Senate.
He believes he could have had more impact and realized more self satisfaction had he remained in the House.
— Metcalf says he found his Senate options closed because of former Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield's prominence and the Senate taboo against letting two senators from the same state rise to leadership posts.
— He has no retirement plans other than returning to Helena. Metcalf says he doesn't intend to get any other job and doesn't expect to travel or play any role in state Democratic politics.
— Metcalf doesn't believe the loss of Montana's seniority, because of his and Mansfield's retirements, will affect the state's relations and influence with Congress and the federal government.
— He expects to be immersed in his last session with: His bill to set aside immense portions of Alaska into national parks, wilderness and wildlife refuges; passage of two major Montana wilderness areas, the Great Bear and Absoroka-Beartooth; his legislation to revise and open to the public governmental advisory committees; oversight hearings on his probe into regulation of accountants; and work for a better farm bill, ratification of the Panama Canal Treaty, an energy bill and President Carter's tax revision proposals.
Does Metcalf, who served four House terms and three Senate terms, have any final goals he'd like to accomplish?
"No," he says tersely, "I think whether or not this is my last year in the Senate will not make much difference. It will go along as it has in the past. Legislation will pass or fail just the way it would pass or fail as it has for the last 26 years. I have supported a lot of legislation that hasn't gotten anywhere and I suppose that it still won't."
Metcalf. who will be 67 on Jan. 28, began his political career in 1936 when he was elected to the Montana House of Representatives, from Ravalli County.
He resigned from the legislature in 1937 to become an assistant attorney general, a post he held until 1941 when he began law practice in Hamilton.
After World War II he was elected to the Montana Supreme Court, a job he held for six years.
In 1952 he succeeded Mike Mansfield as Western District congressman. He ran for Sen. James Murray's seat in 1960 and was reelected twice.
Metcalf has been in poor health in recent years, bedeviled by a right knee injured playing football and then wounded during the war, he also has a erratic heart beat. Last fall he had a throat hemorrhage which hospitalized him for nine days.
Elaborating on his political "mistake" of running for the Senate in 1960, Metcalf said he didn't resent Mansfield, but that his own inability to rise in prominence was "just one of the facts of life. I was delighted for Mike. But had I remained in the House I could have done parallel and analogous things that I couldn't do in the Senate."
Metcalf noted that all those in his freshman House class (1953) "are in a lot better and advantageous positions of leadership than I am in the Senate and doing the kinds of things that I would have liked to do but were foreclosed to me because I was from the same state as the majority leader."
Metcalf dismissed the notion that Montana will be hurt because it won't have senators in positions of seniority and leadership now that he is retiring.
"I don't think it will make a great deal of difference," he said, "we'll get along just as well as we ever have before."
He said he was referring particularly to the amount of money the state could expect to receive from various national programs.
Congressmen from all sparsely populated and western states would continue to work for distribution formulas in such areas as aid to education, Indians, vocational education and recreation.
There also will be congressmen from neighboring states, such as Idaho's Sen. Frank Church who will look out for Montana's interests as well as Idaho's, just as "Mansfield and I looked out for Idaho as well as Montana," he said.
And, when Church is no longer around, "he'll transfer his interest in Montana to someone else."
An example of this, Metcalf said, was Church's special interest in keeping MHD in Montana.
As far as those projects referred to often as "pork barrel," Metcalf said, "every once in a while there are special projects (where lack of seniority) might make a difference."
But, he added, "It will be a long time before there is another senator from Montana who has the special interest in wilderness that I have had, or the special interest in jobs in relation to the labor community. But, that will be offset by the interests of the other Montana congressmen and senators.
"The framers of the constitution said that every state shall have two senators and that can't be changed and as long as Montana has as many senators as Rhode Island, we'll have just as much to say in the Senate as New York or California."
Metcalf said when there are major changes in such things as defense, weapons systems and base closures, there is nothing much even ranking members of Congress can do about it, no matter what the weight of seniority.
He noted that when Strategic Air Command (SAC) bases were being closed, Arkansas could do nothing about closure of its SACA base despite having Rep. Wilbur Mills as chairman of Ways and Means, Sen. William Fulbright as chairman of Senate Foreign Affairs and Sen. McClellan in charge of Armed Services, and Rep. Harris chairing banking and finance.
"And I don't think that Mansfield or Metcalf could have saved Malmstrom if there was a change in weapons policy in the U.S.,"he said.
Metcalf said that with the relationships Rep. Max Baucus and Sen. John Melcher have built up in Congress that if Malmstrom were threatened in any way, "they could save it." Malmstrom is in no trouble now, however, he indicated.
Metcalf also denied the Montana congressional delegation is not getting along, to the detriment of the state's interests.
He said he blasted Melcher last summer only because he disagreed with Melcher on the impacts of his Montana Wilderness Study Act, S. B. 393.
He admitted he and Melcher have different approaches to economic, labor and federal-state relations ("and that's his privilege"), but that he and Melcher and the rest of the delegation and their staffs communicate and cooperate.
Most recently, he said, he and Melcher fought together on the Northern Tier pipeline issue (which Melcher strongly supports),and they appeared together on the farm bill.
The Montana delegation's staffs, including Republican Rep. Ron Marlenee's, meet together weekly, although the meetings don't always consist of top administrative aides as in the past.
That's partly because of Mansfield's retirement and the fact that his top aide, Peggy DiMichele had spearheaded such meetings and Metcalf's top aide Britt Englund died, Metcalf said.
Metcalf says he has no particular hobbies, interests or plans for retirement other than returning to Helena.
As far as future Democratic party involvement, he said, "Look, no one was more rejected by the Democratic party than I. Three times I've sought to be a delegate to the national convention and three times I've been rejected. I know the Democratic party officials (the precinct people, not the party chairman) are not fond of me or I would have gotten to be a delegate, senators almost always get to be delegates. I'm not going to impose myself and I won't try for it in 1980."
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the Senate did not have the opportunity to say goodby to LEE METCALF in the way each of us personally, and as a group, would have liked. I do so now — with warm affection and deep respect.
I will miss LEE and the Senate will miss LEE. I know that the legacy of LEE METCALF participating in conservation of the Nation's dwindling public lands and wilderness areas will hold his memory for all Americans.
He was a good man — a man of keen intellect, sound judgment, unquestioned integrity, unswerving commitment to the public welfare, and a rare capacity for friendship.
Jane and I extend to Donna our profound sympathy, and we presume to share her sense of loss.