Hill Aide Howard Shuman, 84; Helped Craft Civil Rights Bills

Howard E. Shuman, 84, a veteran Capitol Hill aide who played important backstage roles in battles over civil rights and consumer protection legislation, and who helped compile Sen. William Proxmire's "Golden Fleece" awards to highlight frivolous federal spending, died of kidney failure Nov. 18 at the Goodwin House retirement community in Alexandria.

After teaching economic history at the University of Illinois, he was a top Senate aide to the liberal iconoclast Paul Douglas (D-Ill.) from 1955 until the senator's reelection defeat in 1966.

He helped Douglas shape the major civil rights bills of the era and spoke with admiration of Douglas's highly unusual criticism of defense spending during the Cold War -- "Nobody did that then," he said.

Mr. Shuman also drafted truth-in-lending legislation intended to force companies to disclose finance charges and annual interest rates. In a 1987 Senate oral history, Mr. Shuman said his anger at hidden fees involving a Sears dishwasher he purchased on credit prompted him to take his concerns to Douglas.

Douglas was credited with laying the groundwork that allowed Proxmire (D-Wis.) to successfully shepherd the 1968 Consumer Credit Protection Act, known as the Truth in Lending Act. The next year, Mr. Shuman joined Proxmire as his administrative assistant and aided the senator, who became chairman of the banking committee, in successfully eliminating funding for a supersonic transport plane.

Mr. Shuman also helped write and edit the senator's monthly Golden Fleece awards, which exposed the use of public money to investigate such concerns as behavior patterns in a Peruvian brothel, the effects of alcohol on fish, why prisoners like to escape from jail and the shapeliness of airplane stewardesses.

"He [Proxmire] really took from Mr. Douglas the phrase 'A liberal need not be a wastrel' and practiced it," Mr. Shuman once said, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "I think he did it for two reasons: One, he thought it was correct. And two, he thought it was very good politics for a Democrat."

In an earlier interview with The Washington Post, Mr. Shuman said his own personal habits fit neatly with his work for Proxmire. At grocery stores, he said, if two bottles of the same brand of ketchup were separated in price by five cents, "sure, I'd go see the manager. I don't sit still for that kind of thing."

Howard Eugene Shuman was born Feb. 23, 1924, in Atwood, Ill., and raised around the state while his father worked as a farmer and a teacher.

During World War II, he served in the Navy's V-12 college training program. At the University of Illinois, he received a bachelor's degree in 1946 and a master's degree in speech in 1948.

On a Rotary Foundation scholarship, he attended Oxford University and was among a core of American students who stirred controversy with their dominance of the university's cultural life.

As president of the Oxford Union debating society, Mr. Shuman said he went against protocol and invited several prominent women speakers, including one he called a "radical" "just to disprove the stereotype that all Americans were Joe McCarthyites."

After graduation in 1952, he returned to Illinois and began his career in politics. His books included "Politics and the Budget: The Struggle Between the President and the Congress" (1984). After his Senate retirement, he taught political science at the University of California at Santa Barbara and then at the National War College in Washington until 1990.

Mr. Shuman grew roses, which he often brought to work wrapped in newspaper, and was an umpire at tennis tournaments, including the U.S. Open.

Survivors include his wife of 55 years, Betty Hoigard Shuman of Alexandria; three children, D. Ellen Shuman of New Haven, Conn., Barbara Shuman of Arlington and Scott Shuman of Falls Church; a brother; a sister; a granddaughter; and two great-grandsons.

Reflecting on his career, Mr. Shuman told the New York Times in 1982 that the durability of senators' reputations depended on whether their passion was for power or for issues. The ability to make colleagues tremble was no guarantee against being forgotten, he said, but "the issue-oriented senators have survived the test of time. . . . People remember the Hubert Humphreys, Bob LaFollettes and Paul Douglases."