For the Record

Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd says the New York blackout indicates the urgent need for Congress to pass President Carter’s energy package and promises much of it will be enacted this year—even if he has to keep the Senate in session past the October 8 target adjournment date. . . . Part of the problem: the energy package is now embodied in 113 separate bills, some of which have been considered by 11 separate House committees. Initial action in the Senate won’t come until September. . . . Carter’s moves toward restoring relations with Castro are not particularly popular. Latest Gallup shows only 35 per cent of Americans favor full diplomatic ties with Cuba, down from 48 per cent three months ago. . . . Carter’s own approval rate is 63 per cent, which makes him less popular after six months in office than were Kennedy (74 per cent), LBJ (74), and Richard Nixon (65). Gerald Ford had the approval of only 39 per cent of the people at the end of his first six months.

The five Republican senators who voted against the Senate ethics code (Laxalt, Curtis, Goldwater, Weicker, and Hayakawa) have gone to court to test its constitutionality. What they object to most is limitation on outside earnings to $8,625 a year. Says Hayakawa: “I am not capable of being bribed, and if I were I would trust the people of California to vote me out of office.” . . . Rep. Bud Shuster (R., Pa.) is taking the lead in opposing Brock Adams’ order on mandatory airbags in cars. Shuster has over one hundred cosponsors in the House for a resolution to block the airbag requirement. . . . Not even intensive lobbying by House Speaker Tip O’Neill and Vice President Mondale could get the House to adopt President Carter’s instant registration plan. Nor was the program helped, incidentally, when Frank Thompson (D., N.J.), chairman of the House Administration Committee, called two Republican committee members (Steve Symms of Idaho and Robert Dornan of California) “goddam lying sons of bitches.” Symms and Dornan had brought false ID cards to the committee hearings to demonstrate how easy they were to get. . . . Bill that will probably be voted will make instant registration optional, which, as Minority Leader John Rhodes points out, makes the legislation “meaningless.” States already have that right. . . . Incidentally, Rep. Rhodes has informed NR that he did not sign a fund-raising letter for the Ripon Society as reported in “For the Record” on June 24.

Featured Tags

Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd says the New York blackout indicates the urgent need for Congress to pass President Carter’s energy package and promises much of it will be enacted this year—even if he has to keep the Senate in session past the October 8 target adjournment date. . . . Part of the problem: the energy package is now embodied in 113 separate bills, some of which have been considered by 11 separate House committees. Initial action in the Senate won’t come until September. . . . Carter’s moves toward restoring relations with Castro are not particularly popular. Latest Gallup shows only 35 per cent of Americans favor full diplomatic ties with Cuba, down from 48 per cent three months ago. . . . Carter’s own approval rate is 63 per cent, which makes him less popular after six months in office than were Kennedy (74 per cent), LBJ (74), and Richard Nixon (65). Gerald Ford had the approval of only 39 per cent of the people at the end of his first six months.

The five Republican senators who voted against the Senate ethics code (Laxalt, Curtis, Goldwater, Weicker, and Hayakawa) have gone to court to test its constitutionality. What they object to most is limitation on outside earnings to $8,625 a year. Says Hayakawa: “I am not capable of being bribed, and if I were I would trust the people of California to vote me out of office.” . . . Rep. Bud Shuster (R., Pa.) is taking the lead in opposing Brock Adams’ order on mandatory airbags in cars. Shuster has over one hundred cosponsors in the House for a resolution to block the airbag requirement. . . . Not even intensive lobbying by House Speaker Tip O’Neill and Vice President Mondale could get the House to adopt President Carter’s instant registration plan. Nor was the program helped, incidentally, when Frank Thompson (D., N.J.), chairman of the House Administration Committee, called two Republican committee members (Steve Symms of Idaho and Robert Dornan of California) “goddam lying sons of bitches.” Symms and Dornan had brought false ID cards to the committee hearings to demonstrate how easy they were to get. . . . Bill that will probably be voted will make instant registration optional, which, as Minority Leader John Rhodes points out, makes the legislation “meaningless.” States already have that right. . . . Incidentally, Rep. Rhodes has informed NR that he did not sign a fund-raising letter for the Ripon Society as reported in “For the Record” on June 24.