* * *
No one denies that Daly makes frequent trips to Washington. Robin Schmidt, assistant vice president for Government and Community Affairs estimates that he and Daly averaged roughly ten days a month in Washington last year when Congress was in session. Daly, uncharacteristically modest, states that he has been to Washington "as many as two times" a month.
Whatever the frequency of visits or opinions of Mooney. Thompson and Donsanto, both Daly and Schmidt have some arguments against the lobbyist label. Among them is what they claim to be primarily a listening role at the nation's capital.
"We might stay on federal bills, and let legislators know where we stand," Schmidt says. "We might write letters or see people involved in the activities... We try to maintain fairly close contact with committees involved in education, the staffs and parts of HEW." But Schmidt stressed that the large bulk of such contact consisted of "information gathering." and that when Harvard's views were presented to officials, it almost always came in response to queries. "'Lobbyist' has bad connotations--cigars, broads, booze," Schmidt said. "In that sense, we're not lobbyists."
Daly gives the subject very short shrift. "I'd rather not talk about it," he said last week. "The opinion of lawyers who have looked into this is that we're not required to register."
The prime point of legal disagreement centers on a 1946 definition of lobbying which introduces the concept of "principal purpose." At one point in the legislation, anyone who receives or collects compensation "to be used principally to aid or the principal purpose of which in to aid" in influencing the passage of legislation is held to be liable to the Office's contact with government is spent presenting Harvard's views, there is, it seems some doubt as to whether compensation going to Daly or Schmidt is marked in say way for lobying.
But Donsanto, the Justice Department attorney who specializes in lobby law, has different views. To him, "If someone travels to Washington on a regular basis to lobby--even if it's only a part-time thing--it doesn't matter, he's still covered by the law." Donsanto admitted, however, that the law had numerous problems in interpretation and that prosecutions for its widly flouted registration and reporting clauses had been few. "It's an abominable statute he said. "Most of the people we find who aren't registered or making quarterly reports don't think the law applies to them, or have forgotten it.
Seven years ago, in the Pusey administration, some Harvard official apparently decided that the lobbying law did in fact apply to University activity in Washington. A Washington law firm called Miller and Chevalier registered in 1965 as Harvard's lobby with the Secretaries of the Senate and House. But the lobby's quarterly reports were never forthcoming and no one now at the law firm or Harvard confreres to know the reason for the reason why the University decided then it was doing, or needed lobbying.
Back at the Massachusetts State House, however, Harvard has kept polished all aspects of its relations to the legislature. And except for a minor scuffle in Congress over an attempt by Armed Services Committee chairman F. Edward Hebert (D-La.) to stop support for officers completing graduate studies at schools which banned ROTC, Massachusetts was the site of a number of vanquished challenges.
Ropes and Gray, a prestigious Boston law firm, is recorded as the official Harvard lobby with the Mass. Secretary of State. It makes a perennial appearance whenever a perennial bill to strip private colleges of their tax exemption appears, and the bill perennially flames down to defeat. With the aid of Mike Brewer, another OGCA McCloskey alumnus who spends most of his time monitoring the federal government, Ropes and Gray politely surveys the legislative landscape for potential sneak attacks on the University.
During the past year there were several. The legislature determined that a fine $100 million medical school at U Mass Boston would be just the thing for a doctor shortage, appeared set to authorize appropriations--until Harvard and other medical schools in the area stepped in, pleading greater need. The bill then stopped cold.
On another occasion, an unexpected missile did slip through and do damage.
The legislature, hoping, to find new ways to squeeze blood from anemic taxpayers, passed a levy on stock-pension plan offered only by universities, which substantially worsened the bite on professorial retirement pay. Since the bill passed late in the session furious efforts to urge reconsideration of the measure were dimmed by the press of legislation, and only "the House rescinded the measure. We hope to get it passed in the Senate this session." Schmidt said last week.
A further warhead has penetrated the screen, but so far proven a dud. Belmont residents unhappy with the University's decision to fill in Blair Pond, a Harvard-owned prospective site for development, last year goaded the legislature to empower the MDC to expropriate the land. But, strangely, when it came time for the needed appropriations to fund the takeover, the money just wasn't there. Harvard still owns the land, and shows signs of staying indefinitely.
Daly's office, taking its federal role with the state, had thus demonstrated an ability to pilot the university through what it has deemed to be threatening government snags. From its past performance, the University appears likely to continue despite some confusion on the federal lobbying law, downstream towards its Utopia of maximum federal funding with minimal government control. Whether it will continue to gland over the snags of increasingly unfriendly, and financially pressed, governments so easily, however, is an open question. And the issue of equal or sex-blind admissions remains unaswered