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Page 12
Maroon Tiger
April 13, 1978
U.S. Congressional Happenings
The House passed a
reasonably good version of the
Humphrey-Hawkins Full Em
ployment and Balanced
Growth Act of 1978 (H.R. 50)
and, earlier in the month, Full
Representation for the District
of Columbia. Our task, now, is
to use the Easter recess to urge
prompt Senate action on both
of these bills and to push for
other legislative objectives,
particularly Labor Law
Reform and Equal Benefits for
Pregnant Workers. Here’s the
situation members leave
behind as the House takes off
from March 23 through April 2
and the Senate, from March 24
through March 31.
The Humphrey-Hawkins
bill came under severe attack
during the three days the
House had it under con
sideration. Attempts by its op
ponents to load the bill down
with unworkable goals were
beaten back, often by small
margins. What remains is a
bill that would establish, on
the part of the Federal
government, an obligation to
shape programs and policies
that, in general, seek to
provide jobs for all Americans
able and willing to work, and
in particular, to reduce overall
unemployment to 4 per cent by
1983. It would set in motion a
process that would require the
President, the Federal Reserve
Board and the committees of
Congress, particularly the
Joint Economic Committee
and the Budget Committee of
the House and Senate to work
together toward achieving full
employment and balanced
growth.
Many amendments were
offered during the time the
House debated and voted on
the bill. Three that would have
gutted H.R. 50 and were
defeated, were (1) an
amendment by Rep. Ronald
Sarasin (R., Conn.) and Rep.
James Jeffords (R., Vt.)to seta
goal of reducing inflation to
three per cent by 1983; an
amendment by John
Ashbrook (R., O.) to make a
balanced budget a coequal
goal with full employmentand
balanced growth; and (3) an
amendment by Rep. A1 Quie
(R., Minn.) that would have
struck the full employment
goal from the bill and instead,
mandated massive permanent
tax cuts for individuals and
corporations over a three-year
period as the means of solving
economic problems. The effect
of all of these amendments
would have been to restrict ef
forts to achieve full em
ployment. We include with this
MEMO the vote on the Jef
fords 3 per cent inflation goal
as typical of the close votes by
which these amendments were
defeated. In their place, the
House did adopt amendments
that make even more explicit
the need to seek to curb in
flation, and that make a
balanced budget one of H.R.
50’s economic goals.
Hearings on S.50, the Senate
version of the Humphrey-
Hawkins bill, have been com
pleted. Markup will take place
on April 10 and 13. Con
sideration of the measure may
be a few months off.
Nevertheless, Senators ought
to be urged now to support the
bill when it comes to the floor.
By a vote of 289-to-127, more
than two-thirds of the House
on March 2 approved H.J. Res.
554, which would amend the
Constitution to grant to the
residents of the nation’s
capital the right to full
representation in the House
and Senate—two Senators and
at least one, maybe two
Representatives, depending on
the 1980 census. The vote is in
cluded with this MEMO.
Action now shifts to the
Senate, where two-thirds ap
proval is also needed. Senators
must be urged to end the
present shameful situation in
which approximately 750,000
residents of the nation’s
capital have all the obligations
of citizenship and are still
denied representation.
One of the first bills the
House may face when its
members return next month is
the bill, H.R. 6075, to end dis
crimination against pregnant
workers.
On March 1, the full House
Education and Labor Com
mittee reported out the bill by a
vote of 25-to-6. However, as we
feared, the Committee by a
vote of 19-to-12, added an anti
abortion amendment spon
sored by Rep. Edward Beard
(D., R.I.). Although the bill, as
reported, would prohibit em
ployers from denying the
benefits of their disability
plans to workers because of
pregnancy, childbirth or
related medical conditions, the
Beard amendment would
allow employers to exclude
abortion from coverage. Thus
it would permit one form of sex
discrimination in a bill
designed to end sex dis
crimination.
The anti-abortion
amendment is totally unneces-
sary. It introduces a
diversionary and con
troversial subject into a bill
that had a clear, single
purpose: to correct the ine
quality created by the Supreme
Court decision in the Gilbert
case. House members need to
hear from you during the
recess. Urge them to oppose all
further amendments when the
bill reaches the floor. The
Senate passed a similar bill, S.
995, without an anti-abortion
amendment in it. If the House
bill comes through without
any further encumbrances, it
may be possible to modify or
eliminate, the Beard
amendment in the House-
Senate conference on the bill.
The struggle over the Labor
Law Reform Bill S. 2467 is
heating up. The business com
munity is mounting a tremen
dous campaign to seek to stop
the bill in the Senate. Mail on
the issue is coming into
Senators’ offices in the
millions. Passage of the bill is
already being seen in the press
as a test of the political
strength of the liberal-labor
coalition. The bill may come up
in the Senate after action is
completed on the pending
Panama Canal treaties. Visits
to Senators’ offices when they
are home for Easter should be
scheduled now. Senators
should be urged to support
cloture in case a filibuster
develops on the bill; and they
should also be urged to support
the bill without amendment.
Crucial decisions about the
kind of National Health In
surance this nation will have
are expected to be made by the
White House in the next 6 or 7
weeks. The President’s bill,
now under review, may not
reach the Hill till June and ac
tion by this Congress is
unlikely. But the bill that the
Administration finally settles
on can determine decisively
the sort of Insurance program
we will end up with eventually.
President Carter defined
that program clearly during
his campaign for office. In a
speech to the Student National
Medical Association on April
16, 1976, the President
declared, “Coverage must be
universal and mandatory.”
Now there is talk of shifting
from that to some sort of cost
sharing plan that will still
leave Americans heavily
burdened with the high cost of
medical services. The
Leadership Conference sup
ports the Health. Security Bill
(S-3, H.R. 21). Your
organization should write to
President Carter immediately,
urging him to hold to his cam
paign pledge and to support a
universal, federalized, com
prehensive health insurance
plan along the lines of the
Health Security Bill.
A new threat to civil rights is
shaping up in a Federal
judgeship bill that is now in a
House-Senate conference. The
Senate version, S.ll, has a
rider in it, sponsored by
Senator James O. Eastland
(D., Miss.) that would split the
Fifth Court of Appeals into two
circuits. The Eastern circuit
would include Florida,
Georgia, Alabama and Mis
sissippi. The Western circuit
would include Texas and
Louisiana. The House
Judiciary Committee, after
two days of hearings on the
matter decided not to divide
the circuit and so this is not in
cluded in the House bill, H.R.
7843.
The Fifth Circuit has been
the seat of major civil rights
cases. Right now there is a
close balance of moderate and
conservative views among the
13 members of the court. U nder
the proposed division, the new
Eastern circuit would become
a “deep South” circuit,
dominated by judges who have
been consistently hostile to
civil rights.
The conferees have still to
meet and consider the bills.
House conferees must be urged
to stand firm and oppose the
split. Senate conferees, frien
dly to civil rights, should be
urged to do all they can to see
that the proposal is dropped.
We list the conferees below:
House Conferees
Rep. Peter Rodino (D.-N.H.)
Rep. John Brooks (D.-Tex.)
Rep. John Sieberling (D.-Ohio)
Rep. Barbara Jordan (D.-Tex.)
Rep. Romano Mazzoli (D.-Ky.)
Rep. William William Hughes
(D.-N.J.)
Rep. Robert McClory (R.-Ill.)
Rep. Charles Wiggins (R.-Cal.)
Rep. William Cohen (R.-
Maine)
Rep. Walter Flowers (D.-Ala.)
Senate Conferees
Sen. James Eastland (D.-
Miss.)
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D.-
Mass.)
Sen. Birch Bayh (D.-Ind.)
Sen. Robert Byrd (D.-W.Va.)
Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D.-
Ariz.)
Sen. Strom Thurmond (R.-
S.C.)
Sen. William L. Scott (R.-Va.)
Sen. Orin Hatch (R.-Utah) -
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article five medical education
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