The Battalion
Texas A&M University
Tuesday
March 24, 1981
Slouch
By Jim Earle
“It’s my class schedule. I’ve forgotten when and where my
classes meet.”
Baker keeps GOP
senators in line
By DAVID S. BRODER
WASHINGTON — A year ago this
monthuS^h-.Howard Baker Jr, .quit the
race for the Republican presidential nonii-
nation. After four straight third-and fourth 1
place finishes in caucuses and primaries,
the man most feared by many Democrats as
a White House challenger shut down his
campaign, telling reporters with unpitying
candor, “It isn’t going anywhere.’’
Today, the 55-year-old Tennessean sur
veys his domain as the first Republican ma
jority leader of the Senate in 26 years and
says, “I really enjoy the hell out of this job.
It is pure delight.”
There is every reason to believe that Ho
ward Baker is as honest in appraising his
present situation as he was a year ago. He
has thrown his considerable intellectual
and political skills into the task of shepherd
ing the 53-member GOP majority. And,
unlike those primary voters, both the sena
tors and the President appear to appreciate
the quality of Baker’s effort.
“This is probably the most unified major
ity party in the Senate in decades,” said one
White House lobbyist. “You don’t know
what a help it is to us,” said another pres
idential assistant, “to know that Baker’s got
the Senate in hand.”
That was not the general assumption im
mediately after the November election.
There was talk that moderate Republican
Baker would have a hard time with the
platoon of incoming freshmen GOP sena
tors, many of them conservative ideo
logues. There were rumors that he might
be dumped in favor of Ronald Reagan’s
friend. Sen. Paul Laxalt (R-Nev.) or up
staged by Laxalt in dealings with the
White House.
But Laxalt — far from challenging Baker
— nominated him for majority leader in the
GOP caucus, and there are fewer and fewer
stories suggesting that anyone other than
Baker is calling the shots for the Senate
GOP.
The rambunctiousness of his flock was
tested early. Conservatives despised voting
for increases in the national debt limit, but
the first request from Reagan was for such
an increase. Despite the tooth-gnashing.
Baker held all but three of his 53 votes in
line for the President.
He is managing to inculcate among his
Warped
Halt planning of new dorms
If there is a single convincing reason why
Texas A&M should put a moratorium on
new dormitory construction, it’s evident in
this week’s Board of Regents meeting.
The Board was scheduled today to
approve a 20 percent across the board in
crease — the largest ever — in dormitory
room rates. The cheapest rooms, in un-air
conditioned men’s dorms, will go up from
$219 per semester to $263; the most expen
sive, the Commons halls, will increase from
$546 to $655 per semester. The increase
will thus range from $44 per semester to
$109, depending on where a student lives.
Sure, this is the first increase in rates in
three years. Sure, there’s no way to get the
needed money except from raising room
rates. Sure, increased utility and labor costs
account for a good portion of the needed
increase.
But the University also needs the money
to pay off the indebtedness incurred by sell
ing construction bonds to finance the new
dormitories. That indebtedness has risen
by $760,000 in the last year.
Sidebars
By Dillard Stone
Dorm rates are going to rise periodically,
as utility and labor costs go up — there’s no
way to control these expenses.
But the University can control its bond
debts — simply by not building any more
dorms or trying to finance their construc
tion.
The demand for on-campus housing now
is great, partly because it’s more conve
nient, but mostly because it’s cheaper. The
students and administrators who encourage
freshmen to seek dorm space to “learn all
about Aggie Spirit” only exacerbate the
problem; witness the 1,500 students who
lined up outside the HousingOfficeo:j
1, trying to reserve housing spacefc;j
semester 15 months away.
Add to that the increasing num!^
entering students, and you’ve
tremendous need for immediate
campus housing.
Some regents have been notk
favorable toward the mention ofyetai
new dorm or dorm complex. That;
construction bonds to finance thet
and that means higher dorm rates to||
those bonds.
But the immediate may notnecsj
coincide with the long-term.
A time will soon come — afterutir
labor costs have risen even more-i
living off campus will be cheaperthaii
in a dorm room. The regents andUnii^
administrators should view critic
proposals for new dorms, before'
the point where further constnjcj
counter-productive.
Otherwise, the University mayjusj
itself out of the housing market.
novice legislators his personal ethic of re-
sponsiblity in the exercise of power by
being very sure that everyone is part of the
. • -'fher'are weekly lunches with rotating
groups of four freshmen. Often, at the end
of the lunch. Baker gets on his “hot line” —
a direct tie-line to Max L. Friedersdorf, the
head of Reagan’s congressional liaison staff
— to relay some freshman’s request or sig
nal a need for some White House attention.
Once a week, the Republican committee
chairmen gather in his office to go over their
agendas and vent their problems, with one
of the freshman (from a rotating roster) sit
ting in to share the learning experience. “It
gives me a central role in managing the flow
of legislation,” Baker says, “and it gives all
the committee chairmen an overview of
the agenda, too.”
The result has been a sense of teamwork
among Republican senators of diverse
views. When he needed help on the debt
ceiling vote, for example, Baker asked Sen.
Strom Thurmond of South Carolina — that
symbol of conservativism — to talk to the
freshmen. “He told them he’d never voted
in his life to lift the debt ceiling, but he was
going to do it this year for Ronald Reagan —
and they were too, ” Baker recalled. “It was
a damned effective speech.”
Beyond such political satisfactons, what
Baker enjoys is his growing identification as
a Senate man. That does not mean he has
ruled out another run for President some
day. But it does mean that the view from
his office window, looking down the Mall
to the monuments and the hills of Arling
ton, is one he deeply cherishes.
The three-room suite he occupies was,
he reminds visitors, the first part of the
Capitol put to use. One room was the
House of Representatives, one the Senate
and one (now his conference room) was the
Library of Congress. The 3,000 volumes
that were once on its shelves were the
books the British set to the torch when they
burned the Capitol. But their titles are
known from catalogs of the present Library
of Congress, and Baker is joyfully engaged
in raising $1 million in private funds to have
library copies rebound in 18th century
bindings and placed on replicas of the ori
ginal Latrobe shelves.
WHERE NO
HAS TAKEtf
STDEWALK
you BEFORE
NOW available
XN PRARIE FILM
Beware of the foot faults, though
Variations of £ Stennis. Anyone?’
By DICK WEST
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The big personnel
turnover in Congress this year has given
new life to the old game of “Stennis,
Anyone?”
Veteran players were quick to note the
arrival from Pennsylvania of freshmen
Reps. James Coyne and William Coyne.
Team them up with Rep. L. H. Fountain of
North Carolina and you’ve got a wishing
well deregulation bill sponsored by two
Coynes and a Fountain.
For better or worse, the new House and
Senate rosters are rife with such possibili
ties. Nevertheless, some of your world class
“Stennis, Anyone?” players still mourn the
loss of ex-Sens. George Aiken of Vermont
and J. Glenn Beall of Maryland.
The former, joining forces with the late
Sen. Philip Hart of Michigan, made possi
ble all sorts of Aiken-Hart welfare prog
rams. And the latter was always lumped
with Rep. John Dingell of Michigan in bel
fry noise control bills.
The Senate now has another Hart, Gary
of Colorado, and Dingell is still about. Also
surviving in the House are the ingredients
of the famous Pickle-Pepper bill, Jake of
Texas and Claude of Florida. But without
Aiken and Beall, the game just isn’t the
same.
Some neophyte players have tried to
take advantage of the advent of Vice Presi
dent George Bush. They have linked him
with the Senate’s two Byrds, Harry of Virgi
nia and Robert of West Virginia, for varia
tions of the old adage about two in the hand
being worth ... well, you know.
Under the game’s complicated scoring
system, this is a technical foul. A vice presi
dent’s only function is to preside over the
Senate and break tie votes. He cannot lend
his name to legislation.
Beginners also lose points occasionally
by pouncing too heavily on the obvious. For
example, a senator from Louisiana and a
former House Republican leader may favor
raising gasoline taxes to raise funds for the
interstate highway system.
But calling this the Long-Rhodes bill is
the “Stennis, Anyone?” equivalent off
fault.
The more subtle players likewise H
clear of Rep. Joseph Early
sachusetts. The temptation to puttogl
an Early-Byrd bill is simply tod muctij
ter to have him join a Texas congresssj
in an Early-Frost bill.
Correction
Monday’s Battalion incoi
named deceased Texas A&M sM
Bob Leslie Boyles as Bob Leslie Boi
Boyles died March 19 in a traffic
dent in Crosby, and he was buriedj
White Cemetery in Highland, n
Dayton, as the article stated.
Silver Taps for Boyles will be
April 7.
The Battalion regrets the errors
By Scott McCulIar
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The Battalion
MEMBER
ISPS
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Congress
Editor Dillard Stone
Managing Editor Angelique Copeland
Asst. Managing Editor Todd Woodard
City Editor Debbie Nelson
Asst. City Editor Marcy Boyce
Sports Editor Ritchie Priddy
Photo Editor Greg Gammon
Focus Editor Cathy SaathofF
Asst. Focus Editor Susan Hopkins
News Editors Venita McCellon,
Scot K. Meyer
Staff Writers Carolyn Barnes,
Jane G. Brust, Terry Duran, Bemie Fette,
Cindy Gee, Phyllis Henderson,
Kathleen McElroy, Belinda McCoy,
Marjorie McLaughlin, Kathy O’Connell,
Richard Oliver, Rick Stolle
Cartoonist Scott McCulIar
Photographers Chuck Chapman, Brian Tate
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