May 8, 1974

Judiciary Committee Beholden To Labor

The ultimate exercise in political hypocrisy gets under way this week as the House Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against President Nixon by "investigating" milk lobby contributions to his reelection campaign.

It had been hoped that the committee would put aside the blatant partisan politics of the last two years and assess the involvement of Nixon in the Watergate break-in on the basis of evidence.

We learn instead that the old political issues are to be rehashed - principally the implications that the dairy men and the International Telephone & Telegraph Company bought favors from the Republicans.

Very well.

Let us start with the conflict of interest overlaying the Judiciary Committee itself.

Let us purge the judges so he who is without sin may cast the first stone.

It is ironic that the committee should start its proceedings with the charges of influence peddling - for nowhere else in Congress is this insidious practice so graphically demonstrated.

Next to the Eastern liberal press, the most active group after Nixon's scalp is the American Federation of Labor-CIO.  George Meany, head of the giant labor union, initiated the drive to circulate petitions for the impeachment of the president.

Meany unabashedly declares he wants a "veto proof" president so labor can run the country for the special benefit of the AFL-CIO.

The cash that labor bestows on friendly Congressmen makes the milk lobby and IT&T look like fire-sale shoppers.

No matter that the law says BOTH unions and corporations shall not contribute to candidates.  Labor sets up front funds to launder its bribes, while industry tries to compete with phony expense accounts.

In view of the orchestrated drive by Meany for elimination of the president by political pressure, the contributions of labor to members of the Judiciary Committee are enlightening.

The non-partisan Americans for Constitutional Action (ACA) recently investigated the investigators and found that the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee received heavy contributions from organized labor during the last election.

It is a matter of record - not much publicized, however - that labor contributed $189,195.95 to Democrats on the committee and $2,100 to Republicans.

All but two of the 21 Democrats on the committee were on the receiving end of labor contributions, while only two of the 16 Republicans were noticed financially by labor.

Largest single beneficiary of labor generosity was Peter Rodino, Jr., chairman of the Judiciary Committee.  He got more than $30 thousand.

Following is a breakdown by ACA of labor cash contributions to members of the committee, and it does not include the additional help given to candidates in the way of volunteer time, office space and similar incidentals:

Democrats

Republicans

Under the circumstances, it would seem that the only fair thing for committee members to do would be to disqualify themselves from judging contribution questions.  They should be replaced with Congressmen who did not receive any tainted contributions of any kind - union or corporate.

But, this likely would exclude the whole of Congress.

The alternative, therefore, is the logical and fair one - judge the possible CRIMINAL (that is, indictable) offenses of the president.  This is the suggestion of Senator Sam Irving who certainly can't be considered an advocate of Nixon's.

Could it be that two years and $3 million of intense investigation has failed to turn up an indictable offense against the President?

Could it be that the hullabaloo over release of the tapes is a demand for a fishing license?  Until the politics of Watergate is put behind us, the justice of the situation can not come out.

Author: Lindsey Williams