OPEN AND SHUT: At a Senate Finance...

OPEN AND SHUT: At a Senate Finance Committee hearing this week, U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor expressed wonder at the way international organizations “literally operate in secret and . . . have no accountability whatsoever to anyone.” Kantor said American representatives are beginning to have success opening up the proceedings of international trade panels. But efforts to do so are sensitive and cannot be discussed in a public Senate hearing. So, without a touch of irony, Kantor added: “I’d be happy to go into this in detail . . . in executive session.”

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ABOUT FACE: House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) apparently got too far ahead of his troops last weekend when he predicted Congress would renew the ban on homosexuals serving in the military. The idea landed with a thud in the conservative House and Senate armed services committees, whose leaders fought over the issue throughout 1993 and are in no hurry to revive it--at least until cases contesting the policy make it to the Supreme Court. After Gingrich’s statement, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) said: “I believe we should allow time for the judicial system to confirm the constitutionality of the policy.” And House National Security Committee Chairman Floyd D. Spence (R-S.C.) pointedly left the gays-in-the-military issue out of a speech he made this week outlining changes that his panel plans to make in Pentagon policies. On Tuesday, Gingrich retracted his remarks, saying that if the Supreme Court upholds the current policy, Congress most likely will not do anything to change it. “He appears to be backtracking,” said Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.).

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CREDENZA CAPER: As if being in the minority isn’t enough, Rep. Vic Fazio of West Sacramento, the Democratic Caucus chairman, has had trouble with Republicans pilfering his office furniture. Late last year, as he was relocating to a new office, some staff members noticed items disappearing overnight while the furniture was being stored in a hallway. They began surveillance and “kept watch out until 10 or 11 at night,” said a Fazio staff member. The lookout first nailed someone from the office of Rep. Andrea Seastrand (R-Santa Barbara) making off with some chairs. Last month, the same thing happened to Fazio’s leadership office in the Capitol. Two desk chairs, a desk, a credenza and two sitting chairs wound up missing. They were tracked to the nearby office of GOP Conference Chairman John A. Boehner of Ohio. Blame was laid to interns who overzealously followed the “law of the hall,” which holds that any pile of furniture not clearly labeled is vulnerable to scavenging. “The thinking goes: It’s all paid for by the taxpayers, so it’s as much ours as theirs,” mused a Fazio aide.

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DEAD PAN: So much for the new reality in Congress. The 30 House members who complained about House Speaker Gingrich’s decision to allow C-SPAN to pan the chamber for reactions to floor speeches have won a victory. House camera operators have now been instructed to limit their use of reaction shots and cutaways, which had caught many members unaware. “Several concerns were expressed, ranging from those relating to members being unaware that the coverage had changed to those relating to members being extremely upset about the propriety of taking the camera off the member who is addressing the House,” Gingrich wrote to Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of a task force looking into the issue. Among the complaining members were California Republicans John T. Doolittle of Rockland, David Dreier of San Dimas, Jerry Lewis of Redlands, Howard P. (Buck) McKeon of Santa Clarita and Bill Thomas of Bakersfield.