Above Their Own Laws

— By one count, only 61 of the 2,500 senior policy staff members working for the Senate are black. There are, however, no exact records — because Congress has exempted itself from equal-opportunity and affirmative-action laws.

— House Speaker Jim Wright’s office catches fire, but there are no sprinklers. The laws requiring them do not apply to the Capitol or other federal buildings.

— A controversy erupts over dangerous working conditions in the Capitol’s mail-folding room, where newsletters are processed. Congress does not fall under the occupational safety and health (OSHA) regulations that bedevil other employers.

— Legislators are about to decide whether to raise the federal minimum-wage level for the first time in seven years. At the moment, however, the minimum- wage laws do not protect the 15,000 people who work for Congress.

— Congressional Aide Tom Pappas leaps to his death after it is revealed that for years he engaged in unorthodox employment practices, including advertising for single young men (photographs requested) and making unusual demands on their social lives. Congress has exempted itself from equal-employment laws that might prevent such practices in private industry.

— Michael Deaver and Lyn Nofziger face jail terms because their lobbying ran afoul of the Ethics in Government Law. Congressmen and their staffers who become lobbyists and do the same things have no fear: the law does not apply to them.

Congress’s attitude, says Senator John Glenn, “is the rankest form of hypocrisy. Laws that are good enough for everybody else ought to be good enough for us.” Instead, Congress has exempted itself from a broad array of laws covering civil rights, minimum wages, and safety requirements and discrimination. “Congress would exempt itself from the laws of gravity if it could,” says Illinois Congressman Henry Hyde.

As a result, practices that would provoke lawsuits elsewhere go virtually unnoticed on Capitol Hill. “We have Congressmen who discriminate against blacks, against whites, against Hispanics, against women,” says Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson. Says Jackie Parker of the Senate Black Legislative Caucus: “There are offices that employ no blacks at all.” An investigation found that of the 152 Senate employees earning more than $70,000 a year, only 18 are women.

One place on Capitol Hill where most employees are black is the House folding room. Workers there complain that they are sometimes forced to labor 70-hour weeks under sweatshop conditions. A House committee found that the dingy basement room has poor air circulation and that it exposes workers to noxious fumes.

Defenders of congressional exemptions point out that legislators face special pressures: they often need to employ home-district personnel or friends of supporters. Stanley Brand, a former general counsel to the House, says Congress historically has not placed itself under the yoke of various laws to protect itself from inter-Government conflicts. Imagine, he says, the Justice Department using charges of job discrimination to harass unfriendly Congressmen. Besides, “the reality of going before the voters and seeking election should force Congressmen to behave,” he says.

Realizing the weakness of such arguments, Illinois Congresswoman Lynn Martin last week introduced legislation that would place congressional employees, as well as workers of the federal judiciary, under federal civil rights and employment laws. She says that if her proposal had been law, the Pappas tragedy “could have been avoided.”

Another bill, expanding the Ethics in Government Law, has passed the Senate but is facing stiff opposition in the House. It would impose the same one-year lobbying restrictions that apply to people leaving the Executive Branch on * those who leave the Legislative Branch. Some of the most effective opposition has been mounted by staffers who see their future careers hindered. Persuading Congress to whittle away any of its exemptions will be difficult. Hyde notes that the tradition of a double standard runs deep in Washington and Congress has never shown much enthusiasm for curbing its own privileges. Introducing legislation that reminds Congress of its hypocrisy, says Texas Congressman Steve Bartlett, “is a little like bringing a skunk to a garden party.”