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Chicago Tribune

Tax Reform Bill Shaped Behind

Closed Doors
November 10, 1985|By Lea Donosky, reporter in The Tribune’s
Washington bureau.

WASHINGTON — The first decision the House Ways and Means

Committee made last September when it began writing a bill aimed at
overhauling the federal tax code was to do its work in closed-door
sessions.
The committee now is roughly halfway through the job and among
the decisions it has made were to give tax breaks to the superwealthy
who want to pass on their money to grandchildren and to operators of
small timber companies, including the relatives of U.S. Rep. Beryl
Anthony (D., Ark.) who pushed the amendment.
That may not sound much like the reform of the tax code promised by
President Reagan and committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (D.,
Ill.).
But almost everyone connected with the process agrees the legislation
being written would be even more riddled with sops to special
interests if it were being done in public.
As a result, federal tax law, which touches the life of every American,
is being debated and decided in private.
It’s a sign of the “topsy-turvy world of tax reform,” says Jeff Drumtra,
editor of “People and Taxes,” a publication connected with a Ralph
Nader organization, that even liberals like himself tend to support
meetings closed to the public.
“The only thing I feel sure about is that an open mark-up would
produce a bill that is even worse than what the Ways and Means
Committee is cooking up now in ‘private,’ “Drumtra says.
“My guess is legislation coming out of the committee is more reform-
minded than if it were open,” says Rep. Donald Pease, (D., Ohio), who
along with Rep. Andrew Jacobs (D., Ind.) are the only representatives
on the 36-member committee who consistently vote at the outset of
each session to keep the meeting open.
Pease, a former newspaper editor, says he votes that way to support
the principle of having elected officials do their work in public.
Rep. Philip Crane (R., Ill.) initially voted to keep the sessions open,
but has changed his mind. “I’ve come to the conclusion that we make
better progress in the more collegial atmosphere when we are not
looking over our shoulder at constituent interests who have been
generous in the past.”
Supporters of closed sessions argue that it speeds the process since
members don’t feel as much need to posture on issues for an audience
and that it provides protection from lobbyists for special interests.
The horde of lobbyists in the hallway outside the committee hearing
room has led Rostenkowski to claim his panel is the most heavily
lobbied group in Congress.
Business political action committees (PACs) gave $2.8 million to
House and Senate tax writers from Jan. 1 through Jan. 30, according
to a Common Cause study of information filed with the Federal
Election Commission. Only four Ways and Means members,
including Crane, and one Senate Finance Committee member decline
PAC contributions.
Rep. Richard Gephardt (D., Mo.) argues that the public is not
deprived of knowing what its elected representatives have done.
“If there’s something somebody does that’s wrong, the press gets the
story,” argues Gephardt.
Maybe, maybe not. Or maybe not for awhile.
When the Ways and Means Committee meets in private, committee
staffers, whose loyalty lies with the representatives who hire them,
brief the press and others. The recorded votes of the committee
members are made available 24 hours later.
But more than half the votes taken thus far have not been recorded.
The panel sometimes specifically avoids recorded votes on
controversial issues so no one will know who took what position.
“With a closed mark-up you can always claim you fought like a tiger
for a position when you really said ‘I am offering this amendment but
it doesn’t really matter to me if it passes.’ Then you can say you asked
for a recorded vote but not enough members raised their hands in
support,” said Pease.
One example of how a closed session provides protection from special
interests came early in the process when the committee voted to give
banks even better tax treatment than they now enjoy.
The vote put the future of the tax reform effort in jeopardy.
Rostenkowski, angered by the unfavorable publicity the action drew,
insisted the Reagan administration pressure Republican members of
the panel to reverse the decision.
In the initial recorded vote, only one Republican member of the panel
voted against the more favorable treatment for banks.
But when the committee voted a second time and decided to reverse
the decision, it did so on a voice vote. Neither the public nor the bank
lobbyists waiting in the hallway knew who changed sides.
Rep. Dante Fascell (D., Fla.), a prime sponsor of the 1973 legislation
that opened committee sessions unless members publicly voted to
close them, says he understands the intensity of pressure on tax
writers. But, he added, “tax legislation, as far as I’m concerned,
should be out on the board.”
Fascell says his legislation was designed to open Congress’ work and
eliminate the suspicion that, behind the closed doors, there are “big
fat guys smoking cigars, saying ‘dese’ and ‘dose’ (and) cutting up the
pie.”
Robert Juliano, a lobbyist for the hotel and restaurant industry, says
he too would like to dispel the “perception that I’m walking around
with a brown bag. The perception that we’ve got a member in our hip
pocket hurts.”
Rostenkowski supports the private sessions as a way to speed the
work and lessen the pressure from special interests. “If it hadn’t been
done this way, we would have come half as far and given up twice as
much revenue,” an aide to the chairman said.
But while Rostenkowski may believe the work is more efficient and
the bill produced will be “cleaner,” as the committee aide said, one of
the tax-writing panel’s biggest problems at the moment is the
perception that tax reform has turned into backroom tradeoffs.
Rostenkowski hinted at the concern last week in a speech in
Lincolnshire, Ill., in which he defended the committee’s work.
“The path to reform is precarious and uphill. There’s a special-
interest ambush around each curve,” Rostenkowski said. “Editorial
writers measure our work against Holy Scripture rather than the hard
realities (of writing legislation) in a climate so charged with partisan
politics, economic uncertainty and the pressure of special interests.”