Democrats Oust Price as Military Panel Head : Desire for Effective Leadership in Arms Fights Outweighs House Tradition; Post Goes to Aspin

House Democrats on Friday broke one of Congress’ deepest and most stabilizing traditions--awarding committee chairmanships according to seniority--by narrowly ousting frail, 80-year-old Rep. Melvin Price (D-Ill.) as chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

And, in a secret ballot to choose Price’s successor, the Democrats reached far down the committee’s seniority list to Les Aspin (D-Wis.), a frequent Pentagon critic who was the committee’s seventh-ranking Democrat.

Vote Was 121 to 118

The unseating of Price, by a vote of 121 to 118, was the most dramatic break with the seniority system in a decade. The close vote reflected the pull and tug between Democrats’ urgent desire to strengthen their hand against President Reagan’s arms buildup and their attachment to a system that many credit with bringing order and continuity to the often unruly body.

Congressional scholar Norman J. Ornstein explained: “Once you stop using automatic criteria (to select chairmen), you get into the criteria of personality and ideology that split a party.”

Although nearly all House members recognize value in the seniority system, Price’s defeat demonstrated the dissatisfaction that younger members often feel with making longevity almost the sole criterion for controlling a powerful committee in Congress.

“The rewards for diligent service and old age should be respect and maybe a good pension,” Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said, “but not a committee chairmanship.”

Politicians are an ambitious breed, added Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), and, in the 435-member House, “there is a certain impatience and ambition to change the system rather than wait and let the system work for them.”

After ousting Price, the Democratic Caucus chose Aspin over Rep. Charles E. Bennett (D-Fla.), the second-ranking committee Democrat, by a vote of 125 to 103.

In a separate vote, the Democratic Caucus elected Rep. William H. Gray III (D-Pa.) to be chairman of the House Budget Committee. Gray, who was unopposed, won the post by acclamation.

Although allegiance to the seniority system nearly saved Price’s job, House Democrats widely agreed that his fragile health had hindered his ability to lead a committee that is expected to be the front line in coming battles between House Democrats and the White House over arms control and the military budget.

Some contended that Price had effectively yielded control of the committee in recent years to ranking Republican William L. Dickinson of Alabama.

“Age affects different people in different ways,” Frank said. “Mel just isn’t capable of doing the job.”

Support From Speaker

Even House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.), who had supported Price in a passionate speech before the caucus, stressed Price’s past achievements and the need to adhere to the seniority system--rather than his present abilities--as reasons for allowing him to keep the post.

O’Neill aide Christopher Matthews quoted the Speaker as pleading with Democrats during the closed caucus: “Let Mel Price leave the House with what he brought with him--his dignity.”

O’Neill reminded younger members that the seniority system they were about to violate had made it possible for the first black to become a committee chairman in 1949.

As one high-ranking Democrat recalled, Rep. William Dawson (D-Ill.) became chairman of the forerunner of today’s Government Operations Committee at a time when “there were those who would cut off one arm before they would give a chairmanship to a black, but they would cut off both arms before they would deny the principle of seniority.”

Committees Insulated

Among the advantages of the seniority system, congressional scholar Ornstein said, is the insulation it provides important committees against the influence of well-financed special-interest groups. If every committee chairmanship were considered open at the outset of each two-year congressional term, he said, “very clearly you’d have interest groups jumping in with both feet.”

But the system also protects chairmen, even those who mishandle their jobs, from criticism. Until the early 1970s, seniority ruled so firmly that congressmen were not even given an opportunity to vote for each committee chairman separately. Rather, they had the option of accepting or rejecting a full slate of candidates.

In 1975, Democratic reformers joined forces with the huge “Watergate class” of freshman Democrats elected in 1974 and used the new rules to eject three committee chairman who were considered too autocratic. Ironically, Price gained his chairmanship in that last break with tradition because he had been the second in line behind ousted Rep. F. Edward Hebert (D-La.).

The drive to unseat Price had been gaining momentum for several months. Price, who was first elected in 1944, reportedly had offered to retire in two years and to give up some of his responsibilities, such as leading the committee when it negotiates over legislation with the Senate Armed Services Committee. However, he was said to have refused when asked to step aside and become “chairman emeritus.”

Ornstein contended that Aspin’s selection reflected dissatisfaction with O’Neill. Younger Democrats, he said, “explicitly slapped their Speaker” by turning to a 46-year-old congressman who in 1981 accused O’Neill of “reeling on the ropes” against President Reagan and having “no idea where to go” beyond the party’s traditional New Deal doctrines.

“The message that they’re trying to send is that they want O’Neill to fade into the background” in favor of leaders who are “more presentable, more telegenic and more able to reflect the views of the 1980s,” he said.

But one of those junior Democrats, Santa Monica Rep. Mel Levine, dismissed that idea. The vote, he said, was not a slap at O’Neill but rather “a message to (Defense Secretary) Caspar Weinberger” that Democrats are not going to swallow his defense budget whole.