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The President's congressional troubles are not entirely due to the Democrats. Because of Watergate and the intransigent positions he took on issues early in his second term, there has been a sizable defection of Republicans. In the Senate, G.O.P. opposition to measures sponsored by the White House grew from 20% in 1972 to 34% in 1973. Senator Edward Gurney, the Watergate committee member who is most outspokenly sympathetic to the President, voted with the White House 89% of the time in 1972; this year his support fell to 59%. Democrats, of course, are also backing the White House less. Sam Ervin, who voted with the Administration 70% of the time last year, has slipped to 50%. Even so, he remains the third strongest supporter of the White House among Senate Democrats. This decline in presidential authority is a consequence not just of the Watergate scandal as such but of the failure of the Watergate-preoccupied Administration to press the legislators of both parties on the bills it wants passed.
Realizing that he had raised something of a storm by his attack on the 93rd, Nixon decided to be simultaneously relaxed and assertive when he met with G.O.P. congressional leaders last week to map out strategy for getting his legislative programs passed. "Glad to see you all," he jauntily began. During the course of the two-hour and ten-minute meeting, Watergate was not mentioned once, nor was Vice President Agnew, who happened to be present. Nixon put forward 37 different proposals, most of them reworkings of earlier bills on foreign trade, housing, energy and crime. Said a congressional leader: "He was very much in control of what he wanted to do, what he wanted to say, what he did say."
Anti-Power Mood. Once again, he was urging on Congress his New Federalism, though it goes against the congressional grain. In place of a collection of categorical grant programs, he has proposed special revenue-sharing schemes that would give federal funds to states and localities to spend pretty much as they see fit. Congress objects because it would lose control of programs it presently supervises; it also worries that local officials would use the money for purposes that were not intended. Congress has been slow to act on the revenue-sharing programs for education, urban community development and manpower training.
Nixon's foreign trade bill is similarly stalled. It would vastly increase the powers of the President by giving him the right to negotiate trade agreements or raise and lower tariffs or quotas on goods from foreign countries without congressional approval. In the wake of Watergate, Congress is scarcely in a mood to add to presidential power, though it may be willing to compromise on the issue. The President's proposal, moreover, would give him authority to grant most-favored-nation status to Communist nations, including the Soviet Union. Though this is a basic element of the American-Russian detente, Congress is unlikely to approve it without an amendment. Most members of Congress appear to favor Senator Henry Jackson's proposal to deny most-favored-nation treatment to any country that does not allow free emigration, a measure aimed mainly at easing restrictions on Soviet Jews.