
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 27, 1994                   TAG: 9403270009
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: D-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Orange County Register
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

C-SPAN NO LONGER PANS THE HOUSE

It's 9 o'clock on a Tuesday night, and almost no one is in the House. Reporters have filed their stories. Lobbyists have packed their briefcases. The only congressman stirring is Rep. Robert Dornan, R-Calif.

His booming monologue on the Whitewater investigation brings neither protest nor applause, because the 435 brown leather chairs in the chamber are empty, the House deserted except for a handful of tourists who sit stone-faced in the visitors' gallery.

His voice echoes off the gray marble walls and walnut paneling during "special orders," the time after regular hours when individual House members turn to the whimsical, arcane and ignored issues of the day.

C-SPAN, the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network, beams to 60 million cable-wired homes - but tonight viewers do not see a wide view of the nearly vacant hall. For 50 minutes, they see only a tight camera shot of Dornan.

Reversing a decade-old order, the House Democratic leadership quietly told congressional camera operators earlier this month to stop panning the empty chamber - a practice angrily instituted by former House Speaker Tip O'Neill to show viewers that few members attended the after-hours speechmaking sessions.

The order to stop camera panning was an unpublicized part of a compromise reform package being tried as a 90-day experiment. The reforms are designed to limit speeches that at times stretched into early morning.

But it was the panning of the chamber that had brought the most scorn from Congress, particularly Republicans such as Dornan.

"It was petty, insulting and demeaning to the decorum of the House," said Dornan, one of the most prolific users of special orders. "We don't do it during routine debate."

Both Democrats and Republicans wanted the cameras to stop capturing the empty chamber, said J. Toscano, spokesman for the Democratic Caucus, which brokered the reform.

"I don't know of any members who think that panning an empty chamber is communicating a positive view of their work habits," Toscano said. "One thing that a lot of people say is, `How come that guy is up there talking to an empty chamber? Why isn't my congressman up there working?' "

Not everyone is happy with the compromise.

"The purpose is not to provide a forum for political theater," said Bob Schiff, staff attorney for Public Citizen's Congress Watch, "but to show what is actually going on in the House."

But no viewers have called C-SPAN to complain, said Brian Lamb, the cable network's founder and chief executive officer. Still, he disagrees with the decision by the House, which controls the cameras and where they are pointed.

"I think they went the wrong way," Lamb said. "I think they should pan during all business of the House."

Because Congress is funded by taxpayers, everything should be open to the public - including television, Lamb said.

"We are better off in this country showing people everything in our public meetings instead of managing what people see," Lamb said. "You don't fool anyone for long."

by CNB