(6 of 9)
When he became party campaign chairman in 1970, O'Neill won the respect of his fellow Democrats by distributing funds fairly, whatever the candidate's state or political philosophy. Old Pol O'Neill also earned points in the House by supporting the reforms of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970, which made public for the first time votes taken in committees and made on amendments offered on the floor. By steadily playing his own cards right, he rose to become party whip in 1971. Then, in October 1972, an airplane carrying Majority Leader Hale Boggs disappeared while flying across Alaska. In November, with Boggs presumed dead, the Democrats prepared to elect his successor. Before he became a candidate, O'Neill asked permission of Boggs' wife to go ahead, to be sure that she had given up hope that her husband would ever be found. Working the telephone, O'Neill lined up the support of 121 Democrats in three days and 190 by Thanksgiving. His only rival was Sam Gibbons of Florida, who quickly withdrew when he saw that the struggle was hopeless. Said Gibbons: "I know better than anyone that Tip doesn't have an enemy in the House."
In January 1973, the new majority leader was responsible for the adoption of a party reform weakening the traditional seniority system that automatically kept committee chairmen in power year after year. Now the chairmen must be approved at the start of every Congress by a vote of the entire Democratic caucus.
Agnew Rejected. As majority leader, O'Neill admits, "I'm a terrifically Democratic partisan." He has shown himself to be a skilled and salty battler with the White House, a role that Speaker Albert has never been able to fulfill because of his natural tendency to avoid controversy. When the President called for cooperation last summer between the Administration and the Congress—and then threatened to use some vetoes —O'Neill cracked: "It was hard to tell whether the President was calling for teamwork—or a scrimmage."
But O'Neill said he was willing to try to work with the White House—especially with former Congressman Melvin Laird, who was then on Nixon's staff. When the two old acquaintances met, O'Neill told Laird: "We've got the votes to pass legislation. You've got the votes to sustain vetoes. Let's talk." Talk they did, and what emerged from the conference was compromises that led to the passage of such bills as the act reforming manpower training.
O'Neill showed his influence—and political sensitivity—last September when Spiro Agnew sought to have the House of Representatives investigate reports that he had accepted bribes from Maryland contractors. During the meeting between the Vice President and the Democratic leadership, O'Neill immediately sensed that Agnew was desperately trying to keep the case out of the courts. When there was some indecision about how the matter should be handled, O'Neill was the man mainly responsible for convincing Speaker Albert that he should reject the plea out of hand.