For the Record

Citing bipartisan support for Social Security legislation and jobs bill, Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker feels “the President has achieved a bipartisan approach to major problems.” But many Reagan supporters, inside and outside White House, don’t share euphoria of GOP leadership. “We’re playing politics as usual,” says Rep. James T. Broyhill (R., N.C.), “and the Democrats are conducting all-out war.” One battle: Broyhill, ranking minority member of House Energy and Commerce Committee, says Democrats are stacking Energy and Commerce subcommittees. Though GOP holds 38 per cent of seats in House, Democrats have limited GOP representation on subcommittees to less than one-third. Seating ratios would accord with Democratic gain of 57 House seats in 1982 elections instead of actual 26 seats. . . . Some disgruntled conservatives, angry over White House concessions on Social Security and jobs bill, are looking elsewhere for 1984. New Right fundraiser Richard Viguerie says that if Reagan doesn’t stop moving left, “I and other conservatives don’t think he should run for re-election.” Speculation is that Viguerie may toss his own hat into the ring. But Rep. Mickey Edwards (R., Okla.), president of American Conservative Union, isn’t ready to abandon Great Communicator for Great Fundraiser. “You have to keep in mind that Richard Viguerie didn’t support Ronald Reagan in 1980,” Edwards told Washington Post. “He started out with Phil Crane and then drifted over to John Connally. So it’s not surprising he’s looking for another candidate.” Phil Gramm, newest member of House GOP, will get good look from Viguerie, who predicts Gramm “is going to play a major role nationally” and move the GOP away from “the country club, elitist types running the White House now.”

War on PAC men: Bill Moyers is credited with getting the ball rolling with his editorials on CBS News against political-action committees. Then came Elizabeth Drew in New Yorker and ex-Naderite Mark Green in New Republic. Finally, Common Cause called a press conference, with CC president Fred Wertheimer charging that PACs “have placed representative government under siege.” . . . Democratic presidential candidates Gary Hart and Walter Mondale have already announced that they won’t accept PAC money. Within GOP, Robert Dole is leader of anti-PAC throng: “Poor people don’t make campaign contributions. You might get a different result if there were a Poor-PAC up here.” (It’s quotes like this that have earned Dole endorsement of Village Voice columnists Alexander Cockburn and James Ridgeway, who have called Dole “our kind of guy.”) Why the anti-PAC fever? Columnist Patrick Buchanan offers his diagnosis: “Because the largest PAC put together by the friends of a single senator is not Teddy’s PAC but the Congressional Club of Jesse Helms.” . . . Departure of Rich Williamson from White House staff has disappointed many conservatives. Williamson resigned his post as Assistant to President for Intergovernmental Affairs to become U.S. Representative to International Organizations in Vienna, but he will be in a position to return for a Reagan encore in 1984. In 1980, Williamson served as deputy to Reagan campaign chairman Paul Laxalt.

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Citing bipartisan support for Social Security legislation and jobs bill, Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker feels “the President has achieved a bipartisan approach to major problems.” But many Reagan supporters, inside and outside White House, don’t share euphoria of GOP leadership. “We’re playing politics as usual,” says Rep. James T. Broyhill (R., N.C.), “and the Democrats are conducting all-out war.” One battle: Broyhill, ranking minority member of House Energy and Commerce Committee, says Democrats are stacking Energy and Commerce subcommittees. Though GOP holds 38 per cent of seats in House, Democrats have limited GOP representation on subcommittees to less than one-third. Seating ratios would accord with Democratic gain of 57 House seats in 1982 elections instead of actual 26 seats. . . . Some disgruntled conservatives, angry over White House concessions on Social Security and jobs bill, are looking elsewhere for 1984. New Right fundraiser Richard Viguerie says that if Reagan doesn’t stop moving left, “I and other conservatives don’t think he should run for re-election.” Speculation is that Viguerie may toss his own hat into the ring. But Rep. Mickey Edwards (R., Okla.), president of American Conservative Union, isn’t ready to abandon Great Communicator for Great Fundraiser. “You have to keep in mind that Richard Viguerie didn’t support Ronald Reagan in 1980,” Edwards told Washington Post. “He started out with Phil Crane and then drifted over to John Connally. So it’s not surprising he’s looking for another candidate.” Phil Gramm, newest member of House GOP, will get good look from Viguerie, who predicts Gramm “is going to play a major role nationally” and move the GOP away from “the country club, elitist types running the White House now.”

War on PAC men: Bill Moyers is credited with getting the ball rolling with his editorials on CBS News against political-action committees. Then came Elizabeth Drew in New Yorker and ex-Naderite Mark Green in New Republic. Finally, Common Cause called a press conference, with CC president Fred Wertheimer charging that PACs “have placed representative government under siege.” . . . Democratic presidential candidates Gary Hart and Walter Mondale have already announced that they won’t accept PAC money. Within GOP, Robert Dole is leader of anti-PAC throng: “Poor people don’t make campaign contributions. You might get a different result if there were a Poor-PAC up here.” (It’s quotes like this that have earned Dole endorsement of Village Voice columnists Alexander Cockburn and James Ridgeway, who have called Dole “our kind of guy.”) Why the anti-PAC fever? Columnist Patrick Buchanan offers his diagnosis: “Because the largest PAC put together by the friends of a single senator is not Teddy’s PAC but the Congressional Club of Jesse Helms.” . . . Departure of Rich Williamson from White House staff has disappointed many conservatives. Williamson resigned his post as Assistant to President for Intergovernmental Affairs to become U.S. Representative to International Organizations in Vienna, but he will be in a position to return for a Reagan encore in 1984. In 1980, Williamson served as deputy to Reagan campaign chairman Paul Laxalt.