
          North Carolina Pays the Price
          By Sitton, ClaudeClaude Sitton
          Vol. 4, No. 6, 1982, pp. 9-11
          
          Americans don't ask much of
those whom they send to the U.S. Senate. A senator can usually pass
muster at the polls if he tips the pork barrel toward home
occasionally, votes his constitutents' pocketbook interests and keeps
enough goodwill among his colleagues to avoid becoming an
embarrassment to his state. Sen. Jesse Helms will leave Washington
shortly it appears on two of those three counts.
          Helms has offended the tobacco industry by switching his vote to
assure passage of a tax bill that doubled the 

levy on cigarettes. He
has drawn the contempt and ridicule of other senators by threatening
political retribution against those who opposed his proposals on
abortion and prayer in the schools. And, now, he has suffered two
stunning defeats on these very issues in as many weeks.
          Not even Helmsites can deny that the session soon to recess has
raised more critical questions about his ability than any other in his
ten years in the Congress. There's much irony in this. Helms could not
have asked for a brighter political prospect than that which faced him
in the Senate two years ago.
          The apparent political mood was conservative, if not
reactionary. Ronald Reagan, the Tar Heel senator's own choice, had
assumed the presidency. Republicans had taken control of the Senate,
thanks in some measure to the PACman blitz against moderates and
liberals financed by Helms' National Congressional Club. And hot-eyed
disciples of the moral majority were flooding Capitol Hill to demand
that congressmen and senators toe their radical, right-wing
line. Given those odds, success was a certainty.
          But Helms managed to blow it. All manner of excuses come to
mind. Post-election polls indicated that the conservatism read into
the defeat of former President Carter was more apparent than real and
was by no means the radicalism espoused by the Helms' camp. Further,
the single-issue factions of the right are a contentious lot. Helms,
who compromises grudingly at best, soon found himself feuding with
them. This same rigidity added to the senator's troubles with
others.
          Republican control of the Senate had given Helms the chairmanship
of the Agriculture Committee, which once carried the obligatory prefix
"powerful" before its name. One of the chairman's important
responsibilities, perhaps his most important, is shepherding the farm
bill through the Senate. But Helms flunked his test as a legislative
quarterback and Sen. Robert J. Dole, the Finance Committee chairman
had to assume floor management of the bill to save it from defeat.
          It's possible that newfound fame had led Helms to feel he was above
compromise. After all, had he not graced the cover of
Time? But news magazine cover stories have hexed far
greater figures than Helms. And, as observed by Lauch Faircloth, the
canny state commerce secretary, "The higher the monkey climbs up the
flagpole, the better you can see his rear."
          There's a double irony in the recent twin defeats suffered by Helms
under circumstances that once seemed so promising. He did not take a
truly conservative position on either of the issues he chose for his
fight-and-die stand in the Senate. Remember that the conservative
theme sounded again and again in the 1980 campaign was "Let's get
government off our backs."

          Instead of halting government intervention, Helms sought
legislation interposing government between a woman and her doctor in
that most private of decisions--whether to end a pregnancy. He
endorsed interventionism again with an amendment to a debt ceiling
bill, an amendment that would have permitted states to order prayers
in the public schools, a blatant contravention of the Constitution's
pledge of religious freedom.
          That latter piece of mischief also would have stripped the Supreme
Court of authority to review state prayer laws. This raised the
specter of constitutional amendments voted by the legislative majority
of the moment. That and other aspects of the two Helms proposals
proved too much for even some conservatives.
          Sen. Barry Goldwater, the Arizona Republican whom Helms
acknowledges as the father of conservatism, was among the
naysayers. Goldwater said Helms had damaged the conservative cause
with his radical measures and bullyboy tactics. And it was Goldwater
who gave the coup de grace to the Helms prayer amendment with a motion
to send the debt ceiling bill to committee with instructions to rid it
of all riders.
          Some other senators thought that Helms was less interested in
government-imposed morality than in whipping up emotions that would
generate contributions to his National Congressional
Club. Undoubtedly, those Helms apponents standing for re-election will
feel the club's lash. But whether Helms' objectives are ideological or
monetary, his actions leave no doubt that he ranks them ahead of
everything else. That means that even his constituents' economic
welfare and the goodwill of his colleagues, without which no senator
can be effective, come second.
          This session, then, poses a question that only North Carolinians
can answer. That is whether the state wants to go on paying the price
of keeping this true believer of radical stripe in the Senate.
          
            Claude Sitton its the editor of the Raleigh News
and Observer.
          
        