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BY MICHAEL SANDEL
Chronicle Washington Bureau
Washington-For many of
the 38 members of the House
Judiciary Committee consider-
ing impe -chment of the Presi-
dent, fame came suddenly and
may be fleeting.
These relatively unknown 21
Democrats and 17 Republicans
may in time "slip back into
anonymity," as Rep. Walter
Flowers, D-Ala., predicted,
but not before they set in mo-
tion a momentous constitution-
al process.
Their chairman, Rep. Peter
Rodino of Nwark, N.J., won
praise for his even-handed
conduct of the impeachment
inquiry.
RODINO, frequently declar-
ing his reverence for the
presidency, succeeded in
mediating between some zeal-
ous Democrats, impatient to
impeach, and some staunch
Republicans, adamant against
impeachment.
At the outset, some thought
Rodino would fall short of the
commanding chairman he re-
placed, Emanuel Celler of
New York. But he surprised
the skeptics, and succeeded in
doing it his way, rarely losing
a procedural vote.
The 65 year-old liberal was
elected to the House in 1948,
and represents a district that
is now 52 per cent black.
To Rodino's right sits Rep.
Harold Donohue, D-Mass.,
who, at 73, is the oldest mem-
ber of the panel, and plans
retirement at the end of the
session.
DONOHUE,..a quiet man,
has taken little role in the
proceedings, but loyally has
supported Rodino. Occasional-
ly he has been known to doze
off during a slow moment,
and once Rodino had to jostle
him to answer a committee
roll call.
Rep. Jack Brooks, 51, the
cigar-pulfing Democrat of
Beaumont, is the President's
most vocal critic among sen-
ior Democrats on the commit-
tee.
BROOKS, elected to the
House at 29, chairs a govern-
ment operations subcommittee
that looked into government
spending on Nixon's two pri-
vate homes, conduct Brooks
considers impeachable.
Toward the. end of the im-
peachmentkinquiry, Brooks
began to take an active role,
circulating proposed articles
of impeachment. As third-
ranking Democrat, he looks to
a leadership role when im-
peachment reaches the House
floor.
Reps. Robert Kastenmeier,
D-Wis., and Don Edwards, D-
Calif., are two ardent civil
libertarians, who have been
given near perfect marks in
rating by the liberal Ameri-
cans for Democratic Action
(ADA).
EDWARDS, 59, is a former
national chairman of ADA,
and led the House fight for
the equal rights amendment
to the Constitution.
KASTENMEIER, 50, repre-
sents Madison, a bastion of
Wisconsin's progressive tradi-
tion, and the home of theEDWARDS
University of Wisconsin. He
and Edwards had been count-
ed as firm advocates of im-
peachment, but each was
careful to keep a nonpartisan
profile. Edwards supported
Republicans in voting to keep
sessions closed, and opposed
the release of voluminous
committee evidence.
Rep. William Hungate is a
moderate Democrat f r o m
Mark Twain's district in Mis-
siouri.
HUNGATE, 51, provided the
committee with its rare mo-
ments of comic relief during
t h e otherwise ponderous,
strait-laced proceedings. His
homespun humor, delivered in
a Missouri accent that belies
his Harvard law degree, drew
smiles even from Republicans.
Explaining once why he
favored giving the President
another chance to answer
committee subpoenas, Hun-
gate said, "Every dog is en-
titled to one bite, every horse
is entitled to one kick."
Reps. John Conyers, D-
Mich., Joshua Eilberg, D-Pa.,
and Jerome Waldie, D-Calif.,
on the top bench of the hear-
ing room, and Reps. George
Danielson, D-Calif., Robert
Drian, D-Mass., and Charles
Rangel, D-N.Y., who sit below
them, were early advocates of
impeachment and voted to im-
peach the President immedi-
ately when he refused to coin-
ply with committee subpoe-
nas.
CONYERS, 45, one of three
b1hoho on tI h o committee,
represents a central district in
Detroit, a n d appeared on
Nixon's enemies list. He said
he, finds Nixon guilty of im-
peachable offenses "regard-
less of a n y standard we
apply."
EILBERG, 53, was elected
from a middle-class Philadel-
phia district in 1966, and gain-
ed a reputation as an antiwar
liberal. He said almost noth-
ing during the committee's
procedural debates, but pro-
voked controversy when he
announced to the press that
evidence linked Secretary of
State Henry Kissinger to wire-
taps of newsmen and govern-
ment officials.
WALDIE, 49, dignified by a
solemn posture and white side-
burns, introduced an impeach-
ment resolution after the fir-
i n g of special prosecutorRAILSB'ACK FISH
Archibald Cox. He will lose
his House seat due to an
unsuccessful b i d f o r the
Democratic nomination for
governor in California.
DANIELSON, 59, always
cheerful and talkative, repre-
sents an east Los Angeles dis-
trict that is 39 per cent
Mexican-American. L i k e
many of his committee col-
leagues, he seems to enjoy the
sudden attention from scores
of reporters.
DRINAN, 53, an antiwar
activist and a Jesuit priest
from a Boston suburb, intro-
duced the first resolution for
impeachment, in July, 1973. A
former law school dean, he
thinks the secret bombing of
Cambodia should be included
among the articles of im-
peachment.
RANGEL, 4 4, represents
New York's Harlem, where he
ran on both the Democratic
and Republican ticket. The
Korean War veteran defeated
former Rep. Adam Clayton
Powell in the 1970 primary.
Three Southern Democrats,
Reps. Walter Flowers, D-Ala.,
James Mann, D-S.C., and Ray
Thornton, D-Ark., w e r e
thought to be undecided on
impeachment until the last
stages of the inquiry.
FLOWERS, 41, an articulate
and an influential conserv-
ative from rural Southeast
Alabama, didn't speak often
during the committee's pro-
ceedings, but when he did, hisHUNGATE-
OWENScolleagues listened. George
Wallace carried his district in
1968 with 61 per cent of the
vote. It went heavily for
Nixon in 1972. Flowers' vote is
likely to influence other South-
ern Democrats in the House.
MANN, 54, a soft-spoken
conservative supported the
President's position in Con-
gress 59 per cent of the time
in 1973. Nixon carried Mann's
South Carolina district last
time with 80 per cent of the
vote.
THORNTON, 46, a freshman
protege of the powerful Rep.
W il b u r Mills, supported
Nixon's position 45 per cent of
the time in 1973. The former
Arkansas attorney general
represents a district in which
Nixon drew 69 per cent of the
vote in 1972.
Two thoughtful sophomores,
Reps. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md.,
and John Seiberling, D-Ohio,
have solid liberal credentials.
SARBANES, 40, the sober-
faced son of a Greek immi-
grant, is a Rhodes Scholar. He
was elected from East Bal-
timore, supported by Ralph
Nader, peace groups a n d
organized labor.
SEIBERLING, 55, Harvard
and Columbia educated, repre-
sents a district including
Akron and Kent State Univer-
sity.
In addition to Thornton, four
committee Democrats a r e
freshmen: Rep. Barbara Jor-
dan of Houston, Elizabeth
Holtzman of N e w York,THE .CHRNICLE'S
Waslintonl
Report
Is A
.Exclusive to Houston Area ReadersELBE RG
SANDMAN WIGGINS DENNIS MAYNE SMITH
Six freshmen sit on the
Republican side of the com-
mittee. Reps. Trent Lott of
Mississippi, Carlos Moorhead
of California, and Joseph Ma-
,P raziti of New Jersey, backed
Nixon from the start. The
loyalist ranks were joined by.
<> ', Rep Delbert Latta of Ohio.
LATTA, 54, a vocal partisan
COHEN BUTLER FROEHLICH-.,Wayne Owens of Utah and Ed-
ward Mezvinski of Iowa.
JORDAN, 38, the first black
congresswoman from t h e
S o u t h, is well-respected
among her colleagues in the
committee and in the House.
She speaks forcefully, with
carefully organized logic.
IOLTZMAN, 32, a Harvard-
e ccated Brooklyn attorney,
in 4972 upset 84-year-old Eman-
uel Celler, who, for 22 years,,
had ruled the House Judiciary
Committee as chairman,
thereby elevating Rodino to
the position.
OWENS, 37, represents Salt
Lake City, which went heavily
for Nixon in 1972. He will
abandon his House seat to
make a run for the Senate
this fall.
MEZVINSKI, 37, has spe-
cialized in the President's tax
matters, and pushed for will-
ful 'tax evasion to be included
amneng articles of impeach-
in.t.
Rep. Edward Hutchinson, R-
Miobh., 59. the ranking minor-
ity ember of the committee,
wa leader of the Republicans
in n me only.
HUTCHINSON, a staunch
conservative unalterably op-
posed to impeachment from
the start, played little role in
the hearings. He was the only
Republican member of the
committee to oppose all sub-
poenas voted for presidential
evidence.
He represents a r u r a 1
Republican district, and sup-
ported the President 75 per
cent of the time in 1973.
Rep. Robert McClory, R-Ill.,
was a leader in protecting the
President's rights on the com-
mittee, but was frustrated and
upset by Nixon's continued
refusal to answer committee
subpoenas.
MCCLORY, 66, was equal in
seniority to Hutchinson, but
lost t h e ranking minority
status by a random draw.
Usually a reliable Nixon sup-porter, McClory represents a
conservative Chicago suburb
that went for Goldwater in
1964 and heavily for Nixon in
1968 and 1972.
Four of the senior Republi-
cans, like Hutchinson, support-
ed the President faithfully
throughout the proceedings:
Reps. Charles Sandman of
New Jersey, Charles Wiggins
of California, David Dennis of
Indiana and Wiley Mayne of
Iowa.
SANDMAN, 52, who lost a
1973 try for the New Jersey
governorship, delivered a
vehement, strident defense of
the President. He included a
castigation of the news media,
waving a Newsweek magazine
for emphasis He also appear-
ed to depart from rules of de-
bate to take a partisan stance
while directly challenging lan-
guage of the proposed anticles
of impeachment. He was par-
ticularly scornful of John
Doar, the committee's chief
counsel, who is also a Repub-
lican.
WIGGINS, 46, represents
Nixon's former congressional
district, which includes the
President's hometown of
Whittier. An articulate attor-
ney. Wiggins presented a case
in the President's behalf. To-
gether with McClory, he filled
a leadership vacuum on the
minority side. His white hair.
attractive appearance a n d
deep voice combined to make
a strong television impression.
DENNIS, 62, a feisty. some-
times irrascible Nixon defend-
er, represents a conservative
Indiana di st r i c t, including
Muncie. The balding, besneck-
led Harvard law graduate
supported the President in 76
per cent of 1973 congressional
votes, and was an outspoken
member of the committee.
MAYNE, 57, a former FBI
agent, comes from a rural
Iowa district, and faces a stiff
race this fall. In opposing the
impeachment of Nixon, Mayne
cited wrongdoing by pastpresidents. He claimed that
President Johnson increased
his wealth substantially while
in public office, but was not
investigated.
Four senior and middle-
ranking Republicans w e r e
undecided on impeachment
until late in the proceeding:
Reps. Henry Smith III, R-
N.Y., Thomas Railsback, R-
Ill., Hamilton Fish, R-N.Y.,
and Lawrence Hogan, R-Md.
SMITH, 62, tall, gray-haired,
soft-spoken and Ivy League,
said he was unconvinced by
most charges, but was dis-
turbed by the secret bombing
of Cambodia. Smith, w h o
plans retirement from the
House said little during the in-
quiry.
RAILSBACK, 42, a moder-
ate from western Illinois.
spoke often during the proce-
dural stages of the inquiry,
and proposed that the commit-
tee go to court to require
presidential compliance with
committee subpoenas, a
course the committee reject-
ed. He expressed deep an-
guish over his inability to sun-
port the President, and said
faiure to impeach would
bring unnaralleled disillusion-
ment to America's youth.
FISH, 47, a ouiet moderate
from New York's Hudson
River Valley, said little during
the debates. He is the son of
President Franklin D. Roose-
velt's a r c h congressional
adversary, Hamilton Fish Sr.
In the 1968 Republican pri-
mary, Fish defeated a candi-
date named G. Gordon Liddy.
HOGAN, 46, a conservative
who supported the President's
position 67 per cent of the
time in 1973, announced his
intention to vote to impeach at
a dramatic press conference.
The former FBI agent, elected
to the House in 1968, has
given up his seat to try for
t h e Maryland Republican
nomination for governor.and a veteran of 16 years in
the House, sits last in senior-
ity.
LOTT, 32, is a former aide
to Democrat William Colmer,
the retired chairman of the
House Rules Committee. Lott,
a solid conservative, had little
role in the committee's delib-
erations.
MOORHEAD, 52, from Los
Angeles, was one of the four
opponents when the House
voted 410-4 to give the com-
mittee its mandate to conduct
the impeachment investigation.
MARAZITI, 61, an affable
former judge, represents a
conservative rural district in
western N e w Jersey, and
stuck closely by the President
throughout the inquiry.
The remaining three fresh-
men are Reps. William Cohen,
R-Maine, Caldwell Butler, R-
Va., and Harold Froehlich, R-
Wisc.
COREN, 34. from Bangor,
has attracted attention as
articulate, attractive, a n d
independent. He stood alone
among Renublicans in a vote
to inform the President of his
failure to comply with the
committee's first subpoena,
and likely has ambitions for
higher office.
BUTLER, 49, represents a
solidly Renublican district in
western Virginia that went 74
per cent for Nixon in 1972.
Since coming to the House,
Putler h a s sunported the
President's position 75 per
cent of the time. He said little
during the hearings, and sur-
prised many with a dramatic
announcement that he would
support impeachment, saying,
"I cannot condone what I
have heard, I cannot excuse
it, and I cannot stand still for
it."
FROEHLICH, 42, is a husky
conservative from a conserv-
ative rural district in Wiscon-
sin. He defended the President
vigorously on procedural mat-
ters, but finally said he would
vote to impeach, if the lan-
guage were properly drawn.I
ISpecter of Specificity Keep Rising
The Facts and Due Process for the President0 1974, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service
Washington-During arguments over wording of resolu-
tions, Richard Nixon's defenders took their cue from that
classic TV cop, Joe Friday. Over and over, they pleaded:
"Just the facts, ma'am."
"A common jaywalker is entitled to know when and where
the alleged offense occurred," said Rep. Delbert L. Latta, D-
Ohio, the point-man on the Nixon team. "Is the President of
the United States entitled to less?"
The Democrats on the committee, backed by counsel John
Doar and Albert Jenner, gave Latta and company different
answers.
* Some said the President is entitled to less consideration,
because an impeachment is not like an ordinary legal pro-
ceeding, even one involving as trivial an offense as jaywalk-
ing.
* Others said the President is entitled to less, because the
scant history of American impeachments includes the action
the House voted against Andrew Johnson prior to any bill of
particulars at all being drawn.
e A third group said the President has already received
his due, because the article of impeachment drafted by Rep.
Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., mentions nine specific "means," one
or more of which Nixon and his men may have used to carry
out the Watergate cover-up.
Some Concessions to Generality
e A fourth group said the President has had due process,
despite what they conceded to be the generality of the Sar-
banes article, because his lawyer, James D. St. Clair, had
been allowed to hear all the detailed evidence the committee
had received.
e A fifth group said the President had not yet had his due,
but was asking for it too soon. Modern legal practice recom-
mends "general pleadings," not the vivid, detailed specifica-
tions that marked the 19th century judicial impeachments,
they said. The place to spell out the factual case against
Nixon is not in the bill of impeachment, they argued, but in
the accompanying report the committee will send the House
and in the bill of particulars its managers will present if and
when the Senate prepares to conduct a trial.
There were legal scholars ready to vouch for any and all of
these arguments. The very fact that the Democrats chose to
reply to the well-coordinated Republican attack on the propri-ety of the proceedings by lobbing up a miscellaneous handful
of oratorical pebbles, instead of a single verbal rocket, left
the President's defenders in the best mood since the hearings
began.
Echoing in many viewers' minds was the question raised
by Rep. Charles W. Sandman Jr. (R-N.J.). "Isn't it amaz-
ing," he asked about the Democrats and their 38 volumes of
evidence, "that they have so much but are willing to say so
little?"
It is a fact that there is no place or date or action
specified, and no "close subordinates and egents" named, in
the article of impeachment charging that the President and
his men did "delay, impede and obstruct" the investigation
of the Watergate case.
Nowhere is the kind of simple charge included in the bill of
impeachment of the long-forgotten William W. Belknap -
"that said William W. Belknap, while he was in office as
Secretary of War of the United States of America, did, at the
city of Washington, in the District of Columbia, on the 4th
day of November, 1873, willfully corruptly, and unlawfully
take and receive from one Caleb P. Marsh the sum of $1,500,
in consideration that he would continue to permit one John
S. Evans to maintain a trading establishment at Fort Sill."
Aimed at Establishing the Pattern
It was no secret to anyone on the committee that there
wouldn't be such a specific allegation. Almost all the drafts
that have been circulating for the past week were framed in
terms no more specific than Sarbanes employed. "Behind
each of these allegations lies an extensive pattern of conduct
that will be spelled out'"in the committee's formal report,
which will be drafted after the articles have been voted,"
Sarbanes said.
The "pattern of conduct" was summarized in detail last
week in the closing statement of impeachment counsel Doar,
who told the committee Friday that the Sarbanes draft
"meets the test of specificity" required by the Constitution
and precedent.
Sarbanes himself tried to suggest the wealth of the evi-
dence available by reading from the White House transcripts,
but the five-minute rule meant frequent interruptions and a
distracting lack of continuity.Time and again, the pro-Nixon minority of the committee
kept asking, in the words of Rep. Charles E. Wiggins, R-
Calif., why the bill of impeachment "cannot state what the
case is all about?"
Rep. James R. Mann, D-S.C., the soft-spoken Southerner
who has emerged as one of the most impressive of the
majority members, suggested, with a bit of professional dis-
taste, that the Republican lawyers were trying to "influence
the American people" with arguments they would be embar-
rassed to use among their legal colleagues in a closed hear-
ing room.
Converts Among the Membership
The impeachment proceeding has been recognized from the
outset as both a political and legal test. If ihe President's
defenders were playing to the political gallery, as Mann
charged, it appeared they also had won some converts
among the lawyer-members in the room.
Rep. Robert McClory, R-Ill., and Rep. Harold V. Froelich
R-Wis., both of whom had indicated earlier their readiness to
support impeachment, could not vote for the Sarbanes arti-
cle.
That still left the impeachment forces with a comfortable
majority in the committee. It also left them worried, as they
had not been 24 hours earlierhwhether more of their constitu-
ents would begin to accept the Nixon defenders' contention
that they were using their voting power to deny the Prdsi-
dent due process.
It also left those citizens in a quandary about the merits of
the argument - a puzzlement that was shared even by such
a scholar as Charles L. Black, Jr., of Yale University Law
School, author of a recent handbook on impeachment.
"This is a hard problem in all kinds of pleading," Black
said, "as to how specific you should be. The principle is that
you should plead enough to give fair notice. A man facing
any charge at any time should have fair notice, so he can
prepare his response.
"Certainly, an impeachment proceeding is no place for
surprise evidence or surprise testimony," he said. "So I
would look for some degree of specificity. But you can't
expect a pleader to specify every item of evidence he intends
to use."
"In between those two extremes, there's a line of reasona-
bleness that's hard to define."SettLing History in Motion:
1
(a-17*e.
The House Judiciary Panel
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[Barbara Jordan Scrapbook, July - September, 1974], book, 1974; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth616583/m1/59/: accessed May 22, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Southern University.