WPCP 2 BVP Z Courier 10cpi?xxx,Jx6X@8X@Kyocera F-2010KYF2010.PRS1x6X@8,h,h0fX@2< LN#|xm 3'3'Standard3'3'StandardKYF2010.PRS1x6Xm Њ  < United States Senate @ Committee on Rules and Administration Washington, DC 205106325 %Hearing on 4S. RES. 230, TO DESIGNATE AND ASSIGN TWO PERMANENT \ SENATE OFFICES TO EACH STATE H'_______ Thursday, July 28, 1994 The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m., in Room 301, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Wendell H. Ford, chairman of the committee, presiding. Present: Senators Ford, Stevens, and Cochran. Staff Present: James O. King, Staff Director; William McW. Cochrane, Senior Adviser; John L. Sousa, Chief Counsel; Gail S. Martin, Chief Clerk; Albert L. McDermott, Republican Staff Director; Carole J. Blessington, Assistant Chief Clerk; and Mark Mackie, Minority Counsel. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. WENDELL H. FORD, CHAIRMAN The CHAIRMAN. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This morning the committee will receive testimony on S. Res. 230, which designates and assigns two permanent Senate offices to each State. The committee will hear from the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Wofford, who is the sponsor of this resolution. The longstanding policy of the Rules Committee has been to assign office space to Members based on seniority and population of a State. All Senators, at the beginning of each new Congress, are offered the opportunity to select on the basis of seniority new office space from suites available at the time of contact by the Rules Committee. Prior to the completion of the Hart Building, which opened for occupancy in January 1983, the Rules Committee met in September 1982 to discuss the overall floor plans for the three office buildings. At that time, the Committee reaffirmed the policy of assignment of space based on the seniority system and unanimously agreed to adopt the following policy, which remains in effect today: X36 Senators' offices would be in the Russell Building, each basic suite consisting of 9 rooms (8 where there were alcoves), 3,100 to 4,100 square feet;(#h)0*0*0*ԌX14 offices would be in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, each basic suite consisting of 10 rooms, 3,200 to 3,700 square feet; and(# X50 Senators' offices would be in Hart, each basic suite ranging from 3,600 to 4,600 square feet.(# The committee also agreed that large States would receive extra space over and above the basic suite as follows: New Jersey would receive one room in the Russell Building or one room in the Dirksen Building or 300 square feet additional in the Hart Building. Michigan, Florida, Ohio, Illinois, and Pennsylvania would receive two rooms in Russell or two rooms in Dirksen or 600 square feet in Hart. Texas, New York, and California would be entitled to three rooms in Russell or three rooms in Dirksen or 900 square feet in Hart. This policy was distributed to all Senators on October 18, 1982. Large States in 1983 were assigned suites that included the extra space to which they were entitled. As reassignment of space was made over the years, it was not always possible to have a State's extra space contiguous with the basic suite. At the present time, five of the Senators from large States have suites with extra space that is not contiguous. I am sympathetic to Senators' desires for contiguous space and understand the difficulty of managing an office when staff is separated. I wish it were possible for all offices and committees to have contiguous space. Since the adoption of the suite policy in 1982, California's population has increased steadily over the years. The chairman and ranking member in 1991 allotted an additional 350 square feet of space to the State. Contiguous space was difficult, if not impossible, to find, and committee staff was directed to study the establishment of a separate space allocation category for California and the feasibility of assigning two permanent suites to that State. The committee, on June 17, 1992, agreed to designate the two largest suites in the Hart Building as permanent office space for the State. The current suite assignments for Senators are included in each briefing book here this morning. There have been a total of 104 moves in the last five Congresses--15 in 1985, 23 in 1987, 19 in 1989, 15 in 1991, and 32 in 1993. As we will hear in the testimony from our colleague today, one of the reasons for the move to permanent State suites is to eliminate the costs of these moves. The Rules Committee has also been concerned with the amount of time and money expended on the suite selection process. However, there are a number of developments which should reduce'0*((@@ the costs: offices converting from minicomputers to Local Area Networks; installation of modular furniture in the offices because it may not be transferred between offices; electrical renovation, now underway, which will provide adequate outlets so that new cabling, with a reduction of expense, will not be required. While suite moves include repainting and refurbishing, this type of maintenance would be necessary whether or not office moves occur. In fact, the Architect of the Capitol has said that it costs less to repaint and refurbish an empty office. The committee has looked at many options. There does not appear to be a solution, to date, that is fairer than the present system which is based on seniority. A possible alternative would be to establish a separate category for those States eligible for extra space. Contiguous office space could be created for these States, and assignment would be based on seniority. The remaining States would be in a separate category and also would be assigned suites by seniority. We look forward to hearing from the Senator from Pennsylvania today. After announcing this hearing, Senator Stevens and I sent a letter to all Members asking for their comments on the resolution. Senator Moseley-Braun, Senator Faircloth, and Senator Murkowski responded, and I ask unanimous consent to include these statements in the hearing record. Copies are in each Member's briefing book. [The responses are included in Additional Materials submitted for the record.] The CHAIRMAN. This is an issue that concerns all Members, and we will keep the record open for one week for additional statements. It is appropriate for the Rules Committee to report a resolution on assignment of office suites. However, it is also consistent with past practice for the committee to adopt a policy on office suites under Rule XXV of the Standing Rules of the Senate. Senator Stevens, do you have any comment you would like to make? Senator STEVENS. No. I agree completely with your statement, Mr. Chairman, and being from one of the smaller States, I can say that I believe we, particularly those of us from the West, would categorically oppose the change that the Senator has suggested. '0*((@@ԌMy colleague, Senator Murkowski, has asked that his statement be placed in the record, and I would ask that be done. The CHAIRMAN. It has been inserted in the record, his statement and Senator Faircloth's and Senator Moseley-Braun's. Senator STEVENS. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. Senator Wofford, we welcome you here this morning and look forward to your statement. We will probably have some questions that we would like to ask you at the end of your statement. You may proceed. STATEMENT OF HON. HARRIS WOFFORD, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA Senator WOFFORD. Mr. Chairman, Senator Ford, Senator Stevens, I thank you for scheduling this hearing so promptly and for working with me on this matter. I have always found you, Mr. Chairman, and your staff to be attentive and responsive. I found the assistance in the one move I experienced, to be very helpful. That is not the subject of my concern. I am not one who came into this institution, or into any other institution that I have gone into in my life, with a sense that everything has to be turned upside down and that things are probably wrong to begin with. I adhere to the Biblical injunction that I know you hold, Senator Ford, "Hold fast to that which is good." But there also sometimes are things that are self-evident that have been neglected for some time, and I want to put forth the reasons why this resolution seems to me to self-evidently move in the right direction. I want to make it clear, Mr. Chairman, my argument is with the policy of office moves, not with the way that policy has been administered by this committee. And I respect greatly the hard work of this committee on so many fronts, and I am sure this is one of the hardest fronts. You were just recounting to me the anticipation you now have perceived from one or more of our colleagues as to the moves to come, and I am sure that begins to be a problem for you from now through however many moves there turn out to be in 1995. I only experienced the process as a result of the 1992 election. The point of my proposal is, first and foremost, to save taxpayer dollars. There is also a larger goal. All across the country in recent years, we have seen companies, large and small, forced to tighten their belts, cut their fat, become leaner, more efficient. Back in Pennsylvania, I was in the process of helping'0*((@@ to promote high-productive organizations and giving Governor's awards for high-productive labor-management cooperation organizations, and I saw how our business sector is pioneering new techniques of doing things better. The most successful CEO's are not ones who accept the old ways of doing business, but who look at their organizations top to bottom, with a fresh eye for every possible savings to the bottom line. Mr. Chairman, I think we have to send the message loud and clear in ways both symbolic and substantive, in large ways and in small, that Government is doing the same thing. American companies cannot afford to stick with long-time standard operating procedures and remain competitive in the world, and neither can we. We also have to show that we are changing the way we do business. The idea of the United States Senators jockeying every 2 years for bigger offices and better views might be funny if it were not such a waste of time and money. I have seen published reports--and I will put in the record at least one of them--in which the Office of the Architect of the Capitol estimated the cost of the Senate moves that followed the 1992 elections at $859,000. I am skeptical of that figure. It is difficult to believe that total includes all of the costs that we know go into each of these moves, because it is not just moving the furniture and the files. It is rewiring telephone and computer lines; it is architectural drawings and designs; it is new carpentry and carpeting, fresh painting and plumbing; it is printing new stationery and business cards. Independent consultants suggest that when you add up all of these costs, the total may be considerably more than $859,000. But whether the total cost is $2 million each of these occasions or $1 million or just $859,000, it is still too much because it is unnecessary. I submit that if moving costs came directly out of our office budgets instead of a great invisible pot of money, Members of this Senate would be much less eager to move, and some of us might never choose to move if we had to be accountable in our own budget for those costs. Because beyond the waste of taxpayer money, the moves are a huge waste of staff time and energy. Hundreds of hours are lost that could have been used responding to constituent concerns. Instead they go to packing and unpacking files, desks, computers. It is a huge undertaking which, at least for a few days, can put these offices largely out of commission. Now, I know that some people in this country might think that putting the offices of Senators out of commission is not a loss to the country. But I hope we do not believe so.'0*((@@ԌWalk through these buildings during one of the changings of the guard, and you will see people waiting in empty offices for their furniture to arrive or their phones to be reconnected. Finally, moving every 2 years is confusing to people who come all the way to Washington to see us. Almost every day people still come to my office at 521 Dirksen, looking for Senator Jeffords, and he has not been there for a year-and-a-half. And what for? Why all this expense and chaos? For a bigger office, shorter trip to the Capitol, a better view? It was hard to be sure when dozens of my fellow Senators came through our office when looking over whether they wanted to choose it or not in 1993. And I am not sure exactly what I was looking for as I went through other Senators' offices looking at the choices that were available to me. But there was a lot of rustling going on, a lot of time lost. A million dollars every 2 years may not seem like a lot compared to the billions of dollars that get tossed around in the Federal budget. But to paraphrase Everett Dirksen, a million here and a million there and pretty soon we are talking about real savings. Cutting this unnecessary cost is just one of the many steps we can take to restore the confidence of the people who sent us here. No other organization I know shows so little concern for the cost-benefit ratio of moving offices. A restaurant with 50 employees does not move across the street because the boss likes the view. They do it because it is better for economic reasons. Robert Prior, president of an office management firm called Corporate Priorities, Inc., advises his clients to think hard about the bottom line in considering any move. Sometimes, he says, logic and economics are thrown to the wind in the private sector. Sometimes the decision is based on what Mr. Prior calls ``the boss's preference.'' Here in the Senate, sometimes is all the time. The boss's preference is the rule, not the exception. Mr. Prior has constructed an economic analysis form to help companies determine whether moving makes sense. I had that chart blown up for this hearing. Remember, this is how decisions are made in the private sector when they are made well. Let's also look at how decisions are made in other parts of the Federal Government. In the executive branch, the rules are clear. The law which Congress wrote says that the General Services Administration may assign and reassign space after determining that such assignment or reassignment is advantageous to the Government in terms of economy, efficiency, or national'0*((@@ security. It is time for this branch of Government to start living by the rules we make for the other branches. In the great Frank Capra movie, Mr. Smith did not go to Washington for the dramatic view of the Capitol dome. He went to restore a sense of decency and accountability to a Government that had lost touch with the people it was elected to serve. Mr. Chairman, that should be our urgent goal as well. We cannot expect people to trust our solutions if they think we cannot begin to understand their problems. We cannot expect people to trust us with their tax dollars if we appear not to know the value of a dollar. The practice of taxpayer-paid office moves may have made sense back in 1909 when it began, but it has become a costly and chaotic perpetual motion machine that we simply cannot afford anymore. My bill would end that practice by building on the solution that our California colleagues are already using effectively. Each State would be assigned two permanent offices. When a Senator retires or leaves the Senate, his or her office would go to his or her successor. My bill does not suggest how to divide office space. When it comes to decisions like that, I agree with General Patton, " Never tell people how to do things; tell them what you want to achieve, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity." Mr. Chairman, I am confident that this committee has the ingenuity to come up with a workable plan for permanent office assignments. I am sure some people will call this approach impractical, unfair, or too much of a change from the old ways of doing things. But permanent offices seem to be working well for the Senators from California. It is also working for the Vice President and the Majority and Minority Leaders and the Senate committees. It can be done. Mr. Chairman, eliminating the practice of taxpayer-paid office moves by itself will not restore people's faith in Government, but it is a beginning. People can offer all kinds of reasons the Senate should continue our million-dollar game of musical chairs. I believe one of the most honest reasons can be found in the 1952 classic, ``How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.'' That book contains a short chapter called ``Your Office Is Important,'' which offers this advice to office social climbers: ``The caste of the junior executive is determined by the size and magnificence of his office. In fact, when your office is indistinguishable from that of the senior executives, you will be a senior executive.'' In closing, Mr. Chairman, let me suggest that we have a better way to distinguish ourselves than the size of our offices, and that is the quality of our service to the people who sent us'0*((@@ here. I know the chairman and other distinguished members of this committee share that sentiment. I look forward to working with you to bring the right change about. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator. I have a question or two. We have been joined by the distinguished Senator from Mississippi. Mr. Cochran, do you have any opening statement that you would like to make? Senator COCHRAN. No, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. The CHAIRMAN. Senator Wofford, your resolution requires that the designation of permanent suites shall be accomplished in a manner consistent with the current rules and practices of the Senate. As I said in my opening statement, the current criteria for office selection is State population and seniority, or seniority and State population. What criteria do you suggest for assigning suites to States? Senator WOFFORD. Mr. Chairman, I do not wish at this time--having no aspiration to be on your committee, I do not wish to suggest any specific approach to assigning office space in the Senate. I do hope that we can agree or that the Senate will ask you to find the ways and means to give permanent assignment to States that best reflect your judgment of what is practical and respect the present policies of the Senate, unless you looking at that come up with proposals and modifications in those present policies. The CHAIRMAN. We need change, but we should suggest it. It makes it difficult on this committee. Of course, we have a lot of difficult problems to work out. We attempt to do it in an appropriate manner and one which is economically feasible. But, historically, Senate assignment policy has not been a Senate decision, but has been delegated to the Rules Committee under the Standing Rules. It would appear to this Senator from your resolution that this responsibility would be taken out of the hands of the committee. Is that your intent? Senator WOFFORD. No. My intent is to establish a principle or a goal; namely, that of permanent space assignment by States and leave to this good committee the way to work that out, as you did when you decided to do that in regard to California. The CHAIRMAN. California was the exception that proved the rule, in my opinion, and if you talk to the California Senators now, they do not have enough space. And they have space on the seventh floor and the first floor in another building. So even though they do have a permanent position suite, they also are'0*((@@ scattered to the four winds, and that, I think, has to be included in the mix here somehow. Senator WOFFORD. Mr. Chairman, the other argument could be drawn from that proposition; namely, what you did with California may be the exception that points the way to the right rule. I ask you if at each occasion when the offices are up for selection or for grabs, if California Senators were in that mix, your problems would be infinitely greater if you had all of that space and all of that problem to deal with election after-- The CHAIRMAN. I say to my friend, if they just stayed in the Hart Building suite, it would not make any difference because they would still be in the mix. They could keep their offices that were not contiguous because most of the suites are basically the same size. We add and reconfigure, which makes it somewhat easier to do in the Hart Building. Your proposal has elicited some strong feelings from our colleagues--I am sure you understand that--who believe that the current system works and works reasonably well. Some have suggested that your proposal will penalize junior Members who were forced into less desirable space, as well as more senior Members who will not have an opportunity to improve their location. I am 18th in the Senate, and I do not know what I will be next year, Lord willing let me live. I am 10th on the Democratic side. And I have a suite I like. But we have the freight elevator right there, and I want to tell you, in the last 6 or 8 months, I have had a hard time adjusting to all the stuff that is going on the elevator, and coming off, and the workmen there. I am near the entrance for visitors as well. It is very difficult for me to hear. They come in in droves, 75 to 100, and I would like to move out of that. But under your situation, if I was assigned to that suite, I never could get away from there. You cannot change the freight elevator. You are not going to change the door. I am not going to be able to change my space. I have nine rooms. I am just trying to throw out a personal thing rather than say hypothetical. So I am looking very seriously at the opportunity, which the rules will give me, to move. It is not just around the corner to get away from the door and freight elevator. Senator WOFFORD. Well, it might, Mr. Chairman, be one result of the goal that I am suggesting you set that there would be less use of that freight elevator in moving offices back and forth during the moving season. The CHAIRMAN. Say that one more time? ' 0*((@@ԌSenator WOFFORD. I would hope that the result of the proposal I am making would be that the office moves each election would be so diminished because of the permanent space and the lack of choice by all the Senators in musical chairs, or musical offices, that that freight elevator next to you would not be used in such a constant way that it probably-- The CHAIRMAN. I would say to the Senator, you stop ordering paper and things of that nature and stop having banquets and meetings and so forth in the caucus room, taking the Botanic Garden flowers up and down, and all those good things out there. That does not stop. The moves never have bothered me. It is the constant, everyday flow around here which will never stop, regardless of whether we accept your proposal or not. I am just saying that, you know, when the opportunity comes, I am going to give it serious thought to get away from the freight elevator. Somebody is going to get stuck there. Some Senator is, and it may be you. But I am just saying that somebody is going to get stuck by the freight elevator and the door, and they are not going to be very happy about it. Your proposal, too, could create an inequity in that if two permanent Senate offices were assigned to each State, new Members of the Senate in subsequent Congresses would have better space than the senior Members. How do we as a committee respond to that? Just know what you are going to get before you run, and say that is your luck of the draw? Senator WOFFORD. I would assume, Mr. Chairman, that in some cases space might be a little better than they would otherwise have; in other cases, it might be worse, that there would be no correlation between seniority and juniority after you had allocated permanent assignments to States. Not only would the people coming into the offices know that there was a space for their State, but the people in their State would know where those offices are. I think you would at least be able to see from the point of view of the citizens of a State, in addition to their concern as taxpayers for having some costs reduced and some taxes reduced, you have their interest in knowing where their Senators are. I have talked about the people that are looking for Senator Jeffords. The same thing comes about for Pennsylvanians. You may not, since you have not--I do not know when your last move was, Senator Ford. The CHAIRMAN. Eight years ago, I think. H& 0*((@@ԌSenator WOFFORD. After that move, did you not experience quite a period of time when your constituents went a long way around and had a lot of confusion? The CHAIRMAN. I hate to say this to you, Senator, because this would dispel what you believe happens. I have never had a bit of trouble with my constituents finding me. Senator STEVENS. There are signs on every elevator. The CHAIRMAN. There are signs on every elevator, on every corner, and they just go to that corner and say he is in 173A, and there it is right there, right down the hall they go, or up the elevator or down. I have never experienced any problem. And I do not know how many people come in looking for Senator Jeffords, whether that disrupts your front office or not. But I have never had any problem with my constituents. Senator WOFFORD. It was quite a few months before the elevators had the signs changed. The CHAIRMAN. I understand that, and maybe that is something we ought to do a little faster, change the signs. Let me get back to my last question. I do not want to keep you too long or prevent my colleagues from having the opportunity to ask you some questions. Would you consider--in my opening statement, I pitched out an alternative plan of establishing a separate category for those States eligible for extra space and another category for the rest of the States and assigning suites by seniority within those categories. Senator WOFFORD. I do not think myself that many people would respond very well to a threshold between larger States and smaller States. The CHAIRMAN. We have it now. Senator WOFFORD. You have it to a certain extent, but you do not have it--you have looked at it case by case, as I heard you state the policy. The CHAIRMAN. Well, what we do, each State is assigned so many additional square feet. Senator WOFFORD. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. Based on the size. Senator WOFFORD. Yes. ' 0*((@@ԌThe CHAIRMAN. And so we do then give them additional space, and so you would have California, which is exceptional because of the huge population, then we have, I think, four or five other States that are entitled to a couple of extra rooms, which would put them in the one-room, two-room extension or the 350 to 600 square feet additional space. We could put those in a different category and try to get them contiguous. I think that would be as important to a Senator and his ability to work with his constituents as anything we could do. Senator WOFFORD. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. And we are trying to do that now. One of the things I see that we are doing is beginning to rewire. So you will not have to worry about the expense of putting in new plugs in new locations and that sort of thing for the configuration of a new Senator moving into the suite. We are moving with modular furniture in practically every suite. We are working in the Russell Building now and the Dirksen Building. That furniture will not be moved. So basically the only thing we are looking at moving now is files, so you do not have to box a file. You just go in and be sure it is locked, and they slide it or lift underneath it; out they go and they put it in a space, because the furniture is already there. The plugs are already there for your computer system, et cetera. So as we move forward, we are reducing the cost, which we have tried to do. We have reduced the cost. Now, we cannot determine how many moves we are going to have. We do not know what the electorate is going to do on November 8, or whatever date it is. It is obvious I am not up, or I would know the date pretty well. [Laughter.] The CHAIRMAN. If you do not have to move the furniture, if you do not have to worry about rewiring the offices for computers, the only thing you have to worry about is maybe refurbishing some or painting the walls. The Architect says it is better to do that in an empty office, anyhow. So part of the move is refurbishing or painting your walls or doing a few things that might be necessary. We are moving in a direction that you want us to go, but maybe not as fast as you would like for us to do it. I have no further questions. Senator WOFFORD. Mr. Chairman, could I just say one thing? The CHAIRMAN. Sure. ' 0*((@@ԌSenator WOFFORD. I do recognize that what I am proposing puts a special burden on this committee now. In doing well and doing fairly what I am proposing, it would require a lot of effort. But 2 years from now and 4 years and 6 years from now, you and the next generation of you, would have a lot less burden each year if you go through the process--subject to later occasional adjustment, but go through the process of permanent space assignment. It is not easy. It would be very hard. I recognize I am suggesting a very hard task for this committee. I yesterday was given a T-shirt by some of my colleagues that are fighting with me for health reform, and the front of the T-shirt said, ``Health Reform,'' and the back said, ``Nobody Ever Said It Would Be Easy.'' I am not suggesting what I am proposing would be easy for you, but I do think it would be better. The CHAIRMAN. I doubt if you ask any Senator outside of my friend here from Alaska that we have been saving better than $250 million a year in the Government Printing Office--you can ask 98 other Senators, and I do not know how many would know about that. But we work hard at these things every day, and all of a sudden, bam, somebody things you are not doing it well enough. And it does become a little bit disheartening. Senator Stevens? Senator STEVENS. Mr. Chairman, that reminds me of the problem of the retirement system. We changed that in 1985 and saved the taxpayers some $5 billion within 3 years. And people are out there criticizing the old program and convincing the public that we are still operating under the old Civil Service Retirement System. It takes a little while for things to settle in. Senator WOFFORD. It does. Senator STEVENS. Senator, your proposal reminds me of my late wife, who used to tell me that two moves equals one fire. The process of change in this place is that we do move once in a while. But as we move, we also eliminate a lot of stuff we have gathered. So I think you will find that the problems of storage in this building would be overwhelming under your suggestion. Secondly, Senator, the difficulty I have in this--and I will ask my staff to remind me when the Dirksen Building was opened. But I came to first visit the Senate when all Senators were in this building. All Senators had equal space. We operated for almost 200 years in equal space. It was only after the Dirksen Building became available that some people thought that larger' 0*((@@ populations ought to be entitled to more consideration in the Senate. How many Congressmen do you have, Senator, in Pennsylvania? Senator WOFFORD. Twenty-six. Senator STEVENS. Well, we have one. I could save the taxpayers of the United States a lot of money by saying that your allowance should be equal to mine because your State has 26 times more taxpayers' money to support that conduct of your State in the House of Representatives than mine. Why should you have more space than I do in these buildings, anyway? We all do the same functions. We have the same responsibilities. We have the same number of committee assignments. We have the same allowances except for the time when we get down to things like staff. When I came here we had the same number of trips. Each Senator was paid for 17 trips home, whether you lived across the Potomac or in Alaska. That was the case. That is no longer the case. We are tending now towards inequality already, and you want to perpetuate inequality. I hope to get to the time when we get back to the point where all Senators are treated alike. I do not think California deserves that much space here and the taxpayers' money to hire more staff. They have all of the staff representing the population in the House of Representatives. They have 54 times the allowance that Alaska has for congressional participation in the House of Representatives. Your State is really not entitled to the staff that you have got, in my opinion, and the system is wrong right now. So I can tell you, I am going to oppose anything that would entrench the differences between Senators. Furthermore, I have got to tell you, having the staff that you have, the difficulty is--you provide more difficulty for this committee than others--not you personally, but those that represent large populations. For instance, I raised the subject in this committee some time ago about the differential in space for employees. If your office was downtown in the Executive Office and you were Secretary of Agriculture and you had the number of employees you do, each one would be entitled under Federal law to at least 169 square feet for their personal use. In the Senate, our employees, each one of them, have less than 70. The more we increase the differences between us, the more difficult it is for our employees. When I first visited the Senator from Wyoming in his space in 1949, he had three rooms and he had exactly the same number of employees as the Senator from California. They performed fairly'0*((@@ well, and I really believe our function in the Senate does not reflect population. It represents States. Our State is being discriminated against in this situation already. I do not blame anyone for the transition, but it was an overwhelming demand that came from the most populous States in the 1960's. One of these days we are going to get a large class of Senators from smaller States, and they are going to say, What is going on? Aren't we all equal? The first day I was here, Senator Mansfield took me aside on the floor as the majority leader and said, ``One thing you have to keep in mind, we are all the same here. We are all equal.'' It has taken me 25 years to realize how far we have gone since Mike said that, because at that time we were closer to being equal. When I first came here as an appointed Senator--and that is the last thing I want to get into. Do you realize that widows of Senators have by law rights here in these buildings in order to take their husbands' materials and preserve them for their State and to transition their employees? Do you know how much time we have when a person dies in office for the widow? A substantial amount of time, up to six months in some instances. That is what requires moves around here, is the changes in our membership brought about by death--too often, since I have been here. When I first got here, I shared six rooms with Senator Bellmon from Oklahoma. We were in those rooms for 8 months. I do not know how long you waited for your rooms. I waited for a full year-and-a-half before I had a full six rooms in this building. Now we have a spare suite. We have rooms for adjustments. We have given you people from the larger States even more room. The larger States, we have given them assurance that they have the most spacious suites in these buildings. I think that you are coming on a period where we have had substantial reform, and I do not understand the proposition that we are moving too much. We are not moving at all like we moved in the first years that I was here. As a matter of fact, the first years I was here, we were changing the assignment rooms, and the Rules Committee twice told me I had to move because another Senator was going to take a portion of my suite. And that happened in this building. Now, that does not happen anymore. We have worked that out. And I have got to tell you, also, Senator Ford deserves great credit for having put into print the rights of families of deceased Senators. It eliminates a lot of the problems we have had. As a matter of fact, you would save us time. Your proposal would not increase our work. But I think it would increase'0*((@@ dissension in the Senate, and eventually it would lead to a wholesale attack on the rules of the Senate when we had a very large class. The largest one I remember was 18 new Members, 17 or 18, in 1980 I think. The CHAIRMAN. There was a large one in 1956 or 1958. Senator STEVENS. Yes, 1958, that class, and then there was another in 1966. But when those huge classes come upon us and all of them believe they are equal and they are suddenly told, no, decide in your own way who is first in line, but we are going to have to find some fair way to assign these suites, so pick your way, but determine who is number one and who is at the bottom of the list. And then they have to discover how they find out the system that the number one gets the best suite. There is no other way. Now, if you would come up with a new way to tell us how to do that, I think you would do the Senate a service. There is no way to do that. Your way would put into stone the decision of the last class. A very small class, by the way. I think, Senator, the savings that you reflect in your statement are not true. Our changes now have wired these offices. We have got modular furniture, as the Senator says. The only cost to move these offices now is a few people to move files and to meet the newcomer's desires as to where the desk might be moved. The detriment would be, as the Senator has said, we would not have vacant offices to maintain and repair these buildings except for that one brief time when the old Senator is out and the new one is coming in. Your proposal is no savings to the Congress. It would increase the cost of maintenance of these buildings. And I would seriously oppose it. I do not have any questions. I would just tell you I think that the proposal has not been well conceived. It is untimely, and it is not based on fact. And under those circumstances, I do not see why the Senate should consider it. Senator WOFFORD. Senator, the facts as to the costs, this committee, your committee has greater capacity to look into than I do, and I put some of those facts forth, and we can look at those facts in due course. I want to make it very clear that I am not here proposing an allocation of space by the size of the population of the State. I think you and I might have more in common than you may imagine in terms of an approach to equality of Senators. I might be very much on your side in terms of reductions. '0*((@@ԌI am not proposing anything other than a simple proposition that you should, with whatever time it takes, you should get permanent assignments of space. I am not saying what amount of space there should be. I do not propose that larger States have more space than smaller States. I would be very open to the principle of equality that you are talking about. I certainly do not want to take away the rights of widows that you have established, along with many other good things the committee has done. I have my seat as a result of the tragic loss of John Heinz, and I vowed to make something good come out of that tragedy. And the last thing I am talking about is to in any way diminish the rights of widows. I do think what I said was a self-evident proposition should be the goal; namely, States should have permanent spaces that new Senators move into. Senator STEVENS. Well, Senator, your statement, I would suggest to you that if you had permanent space, the rights of the widows would have to be eliminated because the new Senator must have space. We accommodate it only because of the ability to move Senators and to have empty space at some time. Senator WOFFORD. I have confidence, Senator, that if you should adopt this new principle of permanent space, your rules, aside from the rules of decency by the successors, your rules could take care of the needs of widows or spouses of whatever gender. The CHAIRMAN. That set aside, I moved three times in my first 9 months here. I moved to the bunker, which was four small offices with insulated tile. It must have been the old radio broadcast station or something. Then I moved back up in the Dirksen Building, three rooms from where I was at the beginning. We have improved on that some, and when a Senator comes in now he has got office space and a telephone and a secretary. If he is elected on November 8, he can come in here on November 9. He has got an office over there he can go into. And I waited and waited and waited until I could find some place. And they said I could not handwrite an application for a typewriter. I had to type. Well, I did not have a typewriter, so I had to go to another Senator's office and use his typewriter to type up the requisition for a typewriter. Times have changed a little bit. Senator Cochran? Senator STEVENS. If you would just yield, that costs taxpayers little money. It costs taxpayers more money in order to assure that a new Senator walks in, his staff can go to work, he can go to work. I did not get mine until, I think, the end of'0*((@@ February. I literally was bunking. You know, I remember I had a room that was right off the stairway coming up from the basement here in the Russell Building. It was a spare room. It has been a storeroom. My first staff and I were in there for a couple of days--longer than that. We have changed that, but at a cost to the taxpayers. We now have what amounts to a roving suite, in effect. And it will not ever happen again that a State will have to wait, its Senator and staff cannot work because of loss of space or facilities or equipment. You have it the minute you walk in now. That costs money. Now, I think we could save a lot of money by going back and just living in this building. Up until the time that the Dirksen Building was built, that was the case. And there were 48 States represented here; there were 96 Senators in this building. The changes that have come about are what give us the luxury of being able to have new Senators move about and older Senators make a change they might want to just be near their basic committee assignments. I do not know what motivates people to move, as you said you do not know either. But the opportunity to move is something that gives a little bit more peace for people who have been here longer than people who are just walking in the door. But I do think that we should not change the system on the basis that we are going to save money. We have already saved the basic money by our procedures that we have worked: modular furniture, same kind of equipment, the same kind of telephones, the same basic wiring. That will not happen. That is the basis of the cost in the past, and that will not happen again. I have to go. The CHAIRMAN. Senator Cochran? Senator COCHRAN. Mr. Chairman, I noticed in my folder letters or statements from three other Senators who have commented on this legislation, all expressing opposition to it--the Senator from Illinois, Carol Moseley-Braun, and the Senator from North Carolina, Lauch Faircloth, and the Senator from Alaska, Frank Murkowski. My question is: Have there been any Senators to your knowledge who have expressed support for the legislation? Senator WOFFORD. Senator Cochran, having just worked with you on the Allegheny National Forest and the forest timber issue successfully, I was hoping you might be one of those. [Laughter.] '0*((@@ԌSenator COCHRAN. Well, I was determined to keep an open mind, I will tell you. Senator WOFFORD. Well, I have talked with a number of my colleagues, and I can assure you that a number of them are interested. We will have to see, after you all have considered this and we see what you say, where we think we need to go and how to do it. But the one thing that I really would like to assure you and especially assure our chairman is that my opening remarks of the respect for the hard work, the good work, the constructive work of this committee were genuine. In no way am I suggesting that the various good things that Senator Stevens was talking about, reasonable steps you have taken, we should go back on. And I well understand how those of you who have been carrying this responsibility would see a relative newcomer coming in with a question like this as lacking in respect for all the things you have done. I administered two colleges and a department in State government, and every day I had the sense that nobody appreciated all of the burdens that we were carrying and all of the good things we were doing. Nevertheless, in what may seem a modest but, I see, unsettling proposition, I think that if you could see the way to invest the one time very difficult investment of time and thought in how you would allocate permanent space, later when we look back on it, as in so many other reforms in our life, our public life, some years from now if there are permanent spaces and the annual moves no longer occur, I think people will say, well, why did we wait so long? Senator COCHRAN. I suppose the statements I mentioned will be put in the hearing record. The CHAIRMAN. We have already put them in the record, Senator. Senator COCHRAN. You already have done that. The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir. Senator COCHRAN. My only comment is that the frequency of moves is not the same as the number of elections we have. I have not moved in quite a while. Most Senators, after they have moved once or twice, or maybe three times, do not move anymore. That is the practical side of it. I was a three-term Member of the House of Representatives. Even there one does not move every election, and there is a much greater turnover and a lot more office shuffling going on. There is, however, less waiting in the House of Representatives than there is in the Senate, and I never have'0*((@@ understood the reason for that. I am sure there are reasons for it, and many of them are justified. But in the House, you get moved pretty quickly. There is not much waiting around. I think there probably is too much delay here, and maybe it is unnecessary. I never really explored the reasons. This is my first time to serve on this committee, so I have a lot to learn about the day-to-day operation. The CHAIRMAN. I will tell you why it is so slow. Senators will not make up their minds. Senator COCHRAN. I would institute a proceeding where they had to or you would make it up for them. The CHAIRMAN. We have that, but you try doing it. [Laughter.] Senator WOFFORD. In fairness to our brother and sister Senators, they do not know what the options are until after the election and it is described. Thereafter, when we come back, all of them who are possibly interested need to take a look at those other options, and that is why dozens of Senators went through my offices and I went through a half a dozen offices. And the degree of that that went on--the chairman I think said 32 moves in 1993 was quite large. Now, is this large enough to do something about it? If it is a million dollars, or less or more, is it something that is worth saving that money for? I gave some of the reasons why I think it is better for efficiency as well as for saving money, but I agree there are some things that are so small that they are not worth changing. I sort of enjoyed the musical chairs in our Senate Chamber seats, because I came in as the newest person in 1991, and when the moves then came in seats in the Chamber, I would sometimes change my seat three times in a day. And the pages were wonderful. They would see me coming to the seat I was in yesterday, and they would say--they did not want me to be embarrassed, so they come and say, No, that has been taken now by Senator Someone. And they were wonderful. And it was a small matter, but it went on for, I would say, maybe a couple of months, quite a protracted period of time. Until one person had decided, all the others did not know what the options were. And that same thing goes on with offices. I think it is de minimis in the Senate Chamber seat-changing. I sort of enjoyed seeing a lot of different people that way. But office moves affect a lot of people, including our constituencies. I do appreciate the chance to make this case here with you. '0*((@@ԌThe CHAIRMAN. There has been an objection to committees meeting beyond the 2-hour period, so since we came in at 8:30 this morning, we must cut this hearing off at 10:30. I apologize. I do not mind if they may fuss at me. We are not voting on anything; therefore, they cannot object to anything on the floor that we do. But being the Rules Committee, I think we had better follow the rules. Senator, we thank you for your patience this morning with us and your humor and your intent in this legislation. We look forward to working with you. Senator WOFFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. We are adjourned. [Whereupon, at 10:32 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] H'_______ [Additional materials follow.]0*((@@ ` ADDITIONAL MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD Statement for the Record by Hon. Frank H. Murkowski a U.S. Senator from the State of Alaska While the Senator from Pennsylvania should be commended for exploring methods to make the Senate's operations more efficient, I must strongly oppose his proposal to make personal office assignments permanent for some very basic reasons. First, Senators already have the power to avoid the disruption and expense associated with biennial office moves any Senator may simply elect to stay put. Second, the Senator from Pennsylvania is asking us to accept a pig in a poke. We do not know the specifics of how office assignments would be carried out under this plan. Senator Wofford's resolution states that the designation of permanent offices would take place in the most cost efficient and cost effective manner consistent with the current rules and practices of the Senate but what does that mean? Would a lottery process be used? Would the power to decide who would occupy which office be vested in a few, or just one? Could partisan, regional or even personal agendas be pursued in the process of assigning offices? We simply don't know. Third, while I might be less opposed to the imposition of a process or procedure that would limit my own choices, I cannot agree to a procedure or process that would constrain the prerogatives of all Senators from Alaska who will follow me. I do not regard my office or my Senate seat, for that matter, as my own. They belong to the people of Alaska, and I am their current steward. Alaskans elected me to protect and maximize their prerogatives, both today and in the future, and I cannot do that by supporting Senator Wofford's resolution. Fourth, each Senator has his or her own style of management or performance, and the Senate should respect those differences. For one Senator, proximity to the floor may be the primary criterion to be considered in the selection of an office. To another, a commitment to constituent responsiveness may be a factor encouraging a Senator to have a large office to accommodate a larger mail operation. My style of management and priorities may be different from yours, and different from those who will follow me. I do not desire nor will I presume to speak for you or for them. Finally, an office and staff are some of the tools we have as Senators to work on behalf of our state and promote its interests. I am not prepared to diminish the quality of one of the tools available to me, particularly when I am forced to use'0*((@@ much of my time and resources defending the rights and prerogatives of Alaskans against superior numbers of large population, urban states who presume to know how we ought to do things in our state. For example, there are national environmental groups with more members and contributors than Alaska has citizens. I've never found these groups to be timid in using their numbers to promote an agenda that is not in accord with the wishes of Alaskans. Fortunately, the Founding Fathers exercised great vision and wisdom when they determined that the Senate would be a place where every state has an equal voice, lest the interests of the smaller states be overwhelmed by the interests of the larger. Theirs was a brilliant innovation, and I believe we have already gone too far in providing larger population states with higher budgets, larger offices, larger paper allowances, larger staffs and other factors which run afoul of the Founding Father's intent. It is easy to see how Senator Wofford's proposal would lead to the assignment of the larger offices to larger population states. Frankly, Alaska would lose in such an arrangement. To ask the smaller states to accept unequal working arrangements in a body where equality among states was the intent is, quite simply, unacceptable. Not only would I urge the Committee on Rules and Administration to oppose this measure due to the impact it could have on smaller states, I urge the Committee to revisit the matters in its jurisdiction where the smaller states are not afforded quantitative and qualitative administrative resources equal to those enjoyed by Senators representing the larger states. I thank the Committee on Rules and Administration for affording members an opportunity to comment on this matter.80*((@@ Letter from Hon. Lauch Faircloth, a U.S. Senator l from the State of North Carolina ` `  hh#(July 7, 1994 The Honorable Wendell H. Ford Chairman Committee on Rules and Administration 305 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Dear Wendell: I am opposed to Senator Wofford's resolution S. Res. 230, providing permanent assignment of Senate offices. The system of seniority seems to serve fairly in Committee assignments as well as office assignments. I see no justification to change the present system and would vote against the resolution. ` `  hh#(Sincerely, ` `  hh#(Lauch Faircloth 80*((@@ #x6X@8JX@#Letter from Hon. Carol MoseleyBraun, a U.S. Senator from the State of Illinois ` `  hh#(July 18, 1994 The Honorable Wendell H. Ford, Chairman Committee on Rules and Administration United States Senate Washington, D. C. 20510 Dear Mr. Chairman: Thank you for inviting me to comment on Senator Wofford's proposal, embodied in S. Res. 230, to assign Senate suites permanently by state after the 104th Congress. I understand Senator Wofford's concern regarding the costs and disruptions created by the current system of senioritybased biennial moves, and I share his view that the Senate should do everything it can to operate as efficiently as possible. However, I cannot support S. Res. 230 for both equitable and practical reasons. S. Res. 230 abandons the current senioritydriven system in favor of a system that assigns suites, in perpetuity, based on the seniority of the Senators serving at the end of the 104th Congress. Under that system, if Senators from particular states are not high on the seniority ladder that year, their successors would never be able to aspire, for example, to have an office with a view of the Capitol. Future Senators from states assigned to the Hart Building, no matter how long they served, would never be able to have space in the Russell Building, with its ornate decoration and fireplaces. Future Senators from states assigned to the Dirksen Building, no matter how long they served, would never be able to move to either the more historic Russell Building or the more modern Hart Building. Further, the problems created by S. Res. 230 involve much more than just esthetics or taste. The resolution could have adverse practical consequences for some future Senators. For example, as a new member of the Senate, my suite is not contiguous. I have connected space on the third and fourth floors of the Hart Building, and additional space on the eighth floor of the Hart Building. I know I do not need to tell you that this arrangement is far from ideal, and that it creates real, practical problems. Obtaining contiguous space is one of the principal reasons I would very much like to move next year,'0*((@@ and I do not believe that any future Senators should have to live with noncontiguous space in perpetuity. While I therefore do not believe the Rules Committee should approve S. Res. 230, there may be other reforms that could accomplish at least a substantial part of the cost reduction goals Senator Wofford is seeking to achieve. For example, the Committee might want to consider moving toward a system over time where Senators could only move into vacant suites that are of the appropriate size (with size categories established by state). Under this approach, a future Senator from Ohio, for example, would not be able to move into a suite vacated by a Senator from Hawaii, or vice versa. The Senator from Ohio would only be able to occupy a vacant suite in the same size category. If the categories are reasonable, almost every Senator with the exception of the California Senators, who already have permanently assigned space would have a number of suite choices to select from over time. Such a system would greatly cut down the number of moves by Senators after every election, reduce the expense due to reconfiguring space to fit Senators' space allocations', and make it possible to eliminate any noncontiguous space for any Senator in the future. I do not support overturning the seniority system in the suite assignment area. Nor do I support locking in inequities based on an arbitrary date. However, I do believe we should look hard at other reform options that can preserve at least a reasonable degree of choice while also reducing Senate moving and other spacerelated expenses. Thank you in advance for your consideration of my views. ` `  hh#(Sincerely, ` `  hh#(Carol MoseleyBraun