Those Emerging House Liberals Give Aid to the Hawks

One of the first actions by Democrats reorganizing Congress after their victory last November was a 130-124 vote by House Democrats to oust Wisconsin’s Les Aspin from the chairmanship of the Armed Services Committee. While Aspin may yet reclaim the chair in a second vote scheduled for Thursday, the clear front-runner at this point is one of the party’s “boll weevils,” Marvin Leath of Texas.

Why would the party dump a moderate liberal like Aspin, who in 1986 helped to produce a powerful arms-control package as part of a Democratic consensus on national-security issues? Why would liberals like California’s Barbara Boxer and George Miller help engineer the accession of the ultra-hawkish Leath to chairman of the Armed Services Committee? Why would one of the heroes of the American left, Ronald V. Dellums of Oakland, pledge his fealty to someone whose views are almost 180 degrees opposite his own?

These strange twists confirm a congressional verity: Contests for House or Senate leadership are determined primarily by personal relationships and internal power struggles, not ideology. Leath’s district includes the Army’s Ft. Hood, a major force in the local semi-rural economy, and he has been a down-the-line Pentagon supporter. He has been a staunch opponent of House-passed nuclear-arms-control measures--at least until he began running for Armed Services chairman last year. He deserted the Democratic Party position on issues ranging from aid to the Nicaraguan contras to the equal-rights amendment to the creation of a Martin Luther King holiday. If elected, Leath would be one more in a string of Southern conservative Pentagon loyalists who have chaired the military committee even while the rest of the Democratic Party has been moving in a different direction.

But Leath is popular among his colleagues. For the past two years he has worked well with Democrats of all ideological stripes in shaping a federal budget that passed with the support of most House Democrats. He has voted to trim the Pentagon’s budget request, but only to hold down the federal deficit. He plays the banjo and sings country music. He is considered a straight shooter in an institution where a person’s word is considered of the highest importance.

Aspin is closer ideologically to the center of the Democratic Party, but is simply not trusted by some of his peers. Many feel that he deceived them when he voted for the new MX missile after apparently promising otherwise. And many were infuriated when he voted for the Administration’s contra aid package last year. Enough committed liberals are willing to support a conciliatory hawk like Marvin Leath rather than a candidate who is closer to their positions but can be disingenuous.

There are several House precedents for liberal Democrats turning on their own. Ten years ago House Democrats turned their backs on one of their most formidable liberal leaders, the late Phil Burton of San Francisco, to select moderate conservative Jim Wright of Texas, now House Speaker, to be House majority leader. A few years before that, Arizona’s Morris Udall thought he had enough votes to be selected majority leader, only to be overtaken by an Oklahoma Democrat far to his right, Carl Albert. Now Aspin, who upset the seniority system with his victory two years ago, is beset by a challenger many terms his junior.

Ironies abound in this situation. Three of the most able liberals in the House--Boxer, Miller and Dellums--are leading the fight for a man who is likely to turn the Armed Services Committee back to the days of unquestioned support of Pentagon priorities. The Democratic Party is on the rebound, with liberals the predominant bloc; yet if Leath prevails they will have selected four Southern conservatives to lead the key military committees in Congress: Sam Nunn of Georgia and John V. Stennis of Mississippi in the Senate, and Leath and Bill Chappell Jr. of Florida in the House. Two other House Democrats could emerge as compromise candidates--Massachusetts’ Nicholas Mavroules and Florida’s Charles E. Bennett.

Although the voting on Thursday will be by secret ballot, the outcome will tell a lot about the personal relationships that determine House power struggles, if not much about the future direction of the Democratic Party.