Senate Pushes Radical Reform of Congress : Government: Joint panel is urged to act on plan to cut committees and reform ethics process. Lawmakers hope to defuse public call for term limits.

WASHINGTON —  Senators on a joint committee charged with recommending internal reforms in Congress unveiled an ambitious set of proposals Thursday that would cut the number of committees, reform the ethics process and bring the Legislature into compliance with the labor laws it imposes on private businesses.

Nearly a year in the drafting, the reforms would streamline significantly the way Congress conducts business by limiting the number of committees on which members could serve, cutting back on staff and moving the House and Senate to a two-year budget cycle in which government funds would be authorized and appropriated every other year instead of annually.

Sponsors of the reforms hope that they also would defuse much of the public clamor for term limits and other possible public reactions to what is perceived as growing gridlock, partisanship and privilege in Washington.

But in an indication that even these more limited reforms remain controversial, the Senate side of the joint committee decided to move ahead quickly with a news conference to unveil them even though the House members are not expected to complete their proposals for another two weeks.

Sen. David L. Boren (D-Okla.), co-chairman of the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, said he regrets that the House is not yet ready to move forward but expressed confidence that it will do so after his House counterpart, co-chairman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), has more time to consult with House members.

*

With the reform committee’s mandate expiring at the end of the year, the Senate side is moving forward on its own to send a signal to the House “that we cannot sit back and let this situation founder,” Boren added.

The proposals, some of which are likely to meet with strong resistance when they are taken up by the full Senate early next year, would bring about what Boren and Vice Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) characterized as the most radical reform of Congress since World War II.

One of the biggest changes would be to the budget cycle, confining authorization and appropriation of funds to the first year and freeing up lawmakers to concentrate on legislation involving other matters and oversight during the second year.

“This may not be the sexiest of the proposals but it is the most far-reaching,” said Domenici. “This change alone will lead to a more effective, streamlined Congress . . . enabling us to stop the redundant procedure by which we vote on the same programs year after year.”

Another proposal likely to meet with opposition would reduce delays by limiting the right that senators now have to keep bills from coming to the floor by putting “holds” on them.

Other reforms would:

* Limit senators to membership on only three committees--two major committees and one secondary committee.

* Abolish all joint committees and limit the number of subcommittees attached to each main committee to no more than three--with an exception for the Appropriations Committee, which could have more.

* Trim the size of the congressional staff, now numbering 38,000, by 12%.

* Reform the Senate ethics process by forming a panel of outsiders, preferably composed of former senators, who would, in effect, serve as a grand jury for the purpose of investigating allegations of wrongdoing by senators.

* Bring Congress into compliance with the various health, safety and employment laws it has enacted for the rest of the country.

Boren conceded that there will be resistance to some of the proposals. “Some empires are no longer going to exist, or will become smaller,” he said. But he said there also is broad support for the package as a whole because, taken together, the proposals represent, “a truly bipartisan reform that seeks advantage for neither party.”