Transcript on Contra Debate Costs $197,382

WASHINGTON —  Readers of the Congressional Record received an unexpected bonus Tuesday--a 402-page transcript of 3 1/2 years of congressional debate on banning U.S. aid to the Nicaraguan contras.

The total cost to taxpayers: $197,382.

The special supplement in the June 15 issue of the Congressional Record, the daily journal of House and Senate business, was the idea of Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), an opponent of President Reagan’s Central America policies.

Alexander said the debate transcript, prepared by the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, was intended to “aid the American people in judging the legality and credibility of the President’s defense” in the Iran-contra affair.

Reagan has asserted that the Boland amendment, which prohibited direct or indirect U.S. military aid to the contras, did not apply to the President. But Alexander argues that nothing in the law or in the congressional debate that began in December, 1982, suggested any intent to exempt the President or his National Security Council from the aid ban.

“Now that the record is collected in one compendium, it will be easier for legal scholars and journalists to analyze the debate and report thereon,” Alexander said.

As the unusually fat volume of the Congressional Record was being circulated Tuesday, House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.) said that henceforth his staff will object to insertion of any additional material that costs more than $10,000 to print.

“We have gotten quite excessive lately, and it’s just got to stop,” Michel said in a House floor speech.

House rules require members’ unanimous consent for insertion of more than two pages of additional material in the Congressional Record. Alexander received consent Monday for his addition, but witnesses said that only a handful of his colleagues were on the floor at the time and apparently did not heed his warning of the cost.