opinion Battalion/Page 2 March 24,1982 Strange rituals rule in Senate chambers ~F by Steve Gerstel United Press International WASHINGTON — The strange, archaic rituals of the U.S. Senate, emu lated by no known tribe, came to full flower in the ushered exit of the de parted Sen. Harrison A. “Pete” Williams J r - No man has ever been executed while bathed in so much friendship and lavished with so many words of admira tion. A stranger walking into the Senate could not have been faulted for believing that Williams was being honored for some noble deed, rather than drummed out in disgrace. Yet, such are the tribal ways of the Senate, no other outcome was even faint ly conceivable. Even if Williams, through some short circuit in his mental process, had chosen expulsion to resignation, the Senate would have booted him out with affec tion. Williams, no matter his admirable re cord in the field of social legislation over almost a quarter of a century, was a con victed felon, albeit appealing, who faces three years in the Big House. The question of entrapment, which the .Senate intends to ponder at a later date, aside, Williams had been convicted by a federal district court jury, a verdict upheld on appeal by the presidingjudge. Yet, the workings of the court seemed barely to intrude on the Senate as it pon derously moved about the odious task of sitting in judgment on a fellow. To be sure, Williams was hauled be fore the Senate Ethics committee which, after listening to testimony and watching tapes, recommended unanimously that the New Jersey Democrat take his place in history as the first senator expelled since the Civil War. Still, as is the way in the Senate, Wil liams was accorded all the honors and perks of office, even though he spent much of his time last year as a defendant in federal court. Three times Senate leaders bowed to his wishes and postponed the Senate trial. The third and last delay was granted to let Williams’ recover from surgery. No one questions that Williams underwent an operation although it was one that he had resisted for over a year. Once the proceedings began, the Sen ate extended every courtesy to Williams — even to the extent of listening to the case for six days. On one of those days — as if all were normal — Williams was allowed to offer a resolution recessing the Senate in mem ory of former Sen. Clifford Case, R-N.J., who had just died. Just as promptly, he was named, along with Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N. J., as a mem ber of the official delegation to the Case funeral, an assignment he carried out the following day. But it was on the final day, after Wil liams finally resigned during a long and rambling speech, that the Senate’s tribal insticts were fully on display. Senate leaders Howard Baker and Robert Byrd, their voices somber, ex pressed their grief at his downfall. Senate after senator marched up to him, shook his hand. Vice President George Bush and Sen. Daniel Inouye, DHawaii, rushed to the family gallery to embrace Williams’ wife. And not much later, a defrocked Wil- by C An elec ling again: idential c:j or canij: upheld 1: [udidal B The J in favor < sinner Cit cision p from car pan. Thi ruled Pe election i ing elect i< til Sunda p.m. Last i 3 Vorm Bills coi Senator speaks out against b liams, was greeted by hundreds of his admirers in the marbled, four-story rotunda of a Senate office building. Williams was driven out of the Senate with cause but the visible evidence was hard to find on that final day. And should the final court appeal fail, some fellow convicts might w’onder why one of their own gets a pension in the neighborhood of $45,000, has all the Senate floor privileges and is welcome, any time after he gets sprung, in the Senate gym. Slouch By Jim Earle “And rarest of all is my quart of original, unopened gasoline, 29.9 cents per gallon vintage!” By David S. Broder WASHINGTON — If you ask most people, they will tell you that the changes of the past generation have erased many of the regional differences in the United States and have blunted the sharp moral edges of controversy over public issues. The conventional wisdom is that we are a homogenized society, governed by men and women of adaptable conscience. Both those beliefs were sharply chal lenged this month in the Senate debate over legislation to restrict the federal courts and the Justice Department from using busing as a remedy for proven cases of school segregation. The final Senate vote on the bill con taining the restrictive language was 57- 37. Among senators from outside the Old Confederacy, the vote was 34-36 against the measure. Among the senators from the Confederate states, the vote was 23-1 in favor. The one southern senator who voted against the bill was Dale Bumpers of Arkansas. Outside his own state, not much was made of the fact. But his action is more than a rebuke to the majority in the Senate, which pushed through this radical and dangerous abridgement of the independence of the judiciary and the Justice Department. It was equally a reprimand to those who tend to see poli tics as a “go-along-get-along” scramble for the safest perch from which to pre pare for the next campaign. The point of this piece is not to elevate Bumpers to political sainthood. He is as fallible in his judgment as anyone else. But he comes from a state which in 1980 voted out of office two other Democrats, President Jimmy Carter and Cov. Bill Clinton, who were moderates on race issues and opposed to the court-stripping efforts. He knew what the risks were in the stand he took in isolating himself from every other southern senator of both parties, including his own colleague, David H. Pryor. orders or the courts from issuingti (beyond five miles or 15 minutes ii time), no matter what the findingsal the segregation in the school system, Senate was short-circuiting the Cons Ij tion and undercutting the independt of collateral branches of governmeiq I I 1 by L This is what he said in explaining his stand: “My words here this morning will not change a single vote. I rise to speak on this issue because I do not want either my children or my constituents to think I acquiesced in or only mildly objected to what we are about to do here. 1 want them and any person within earshot or whoever may read my words to know that the beginning of the end of constitutional guarantees in this nation occurred over my strenuous and vehement protest.” T he essence of his argument was the same one made by the American Bar Assn., the chief justices of the state sup reme courts, Sen. Barry M. Coldwater (R-Ariz.) and other conservative indi viduals and institutions, who were pre pared to risk offending popular pre judices in order to protect the Constitu tion. The argument was that in barring the Justice Department from seeking busing The argument did not prevailirii Senate and it may not prevail ioIp House, where pressures are build:,[I the Democratic leadership to pc t vote on a similar measure. I ^ ( e() l Even writing about Bumpers’siatu^i two weeks after the fact, mightbeaBLj ^ nt j ir dered irrelevant, were it not for it, lecture other point the senator made. Hbrchaeoloi , , • , Ary Field” Completely aside from my owndBU.. rin, dismay and repugnance oven«||(; (jmni i ttel tion today,” Bumpers said, “I amqMentarion i appalled by the virtual silence (wlent Cent press, which either does not underswonsors the implications of this action ., ,ofps emest y r 1 has not been paying attention." |!' ie var ' ()u: I Com mi The precedent of this law, he poll senting e; out, can easily be used to restrict thei speaker w eral courts from reviewing libel dedi searcji or against the standard of the First Aw univclMf y- ment or examining police searclie l <)IS(,,l( newspaper premises for possible ri j , tion of the Fourth Amendment. I ■po In time, I think the South will bei - 1 - 1 that one of its senators said what ft ■ p pers said about this assault on theCffl ‘ Q J "|^J tution. And the press will be ashai 1 that more of us did not. . i to b Letters: Bikes belong on the street Editor: I would like to make a comment on Roy Gunn’s letter and all those graced with his opinion. I ride a bike on the street, have never hit a pedestrian or been hit by a car. The sidewalks are there for the 30-odd-thousand students, facul ty and staff to walk on, not for you to take short-cuts on the way to class. You may be one of those more intelli gent bikers who pedals slowly, has both hands on the handle bars and watches out for that student who will pop out from a doorway or abruptly change dire ctions. But you must be an exception. Most of the people riding on the side walks have no common sense. Riding a bike without using your hands is asinine, not cool as you might think. For those of you that do, may a stone deflect your front tire while you are riding near a lampost. You will learn. Others think rid ing on a crowded sidewalk is a game where a near-miss at high speed is extra bonus points. If you were going to ride * Memory t ■sixth sense jinformatio on the sidewalk, you should set'iff: sen ^ es a,K * speed at a fast walk when it is cr 2611. The Battalion is published daily during Texas A&H 1 fall and spring semesters, except for holiday and eM# nation periods. Mail subscriptions are $16.75 personc ter, $33.25 per school year and $35 per full year. Advff tising rates furnished on request. Our address: The Battalion, 216 Reed McDoA Building, Texas A&M University, College Station,!!' 77843. United Press International is entitled exclusively the use for reproduction of all news dispatches creditei to it. Rights of reproduction of all other matter herein reserved. Second class postage paid at College Station, 77843. 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