Panel Kills Registration For Women

A House subcommittee yesterday voted 8-1 to table President Carter's request to include women in a draft registration program, effectively killing the issue for the remainder of the Congressional session.

The vote, which came in the Sub-committee on Personnel of the House Armed Services Committee, does not affect legislation proposing the registration of 19-and 20-year-old males, which is currently tied up in the Appropriations Committee.

Rep. Richard C. White (D-Tex.), chairman of the Personnel Subcommittee, said yesterday the purpose of registration is to provide a manpower reserve for combat, adding that because women would not be sent into combat, there is no need for them to register.

Encore

Although the bill can be revived in the full Armed Services Committee or by the full House, Capitol Hill observers said yesterday neither body will raise the issue.

"In this session of Congress, for all practical purposes, it is dead," Maxine Nagel, an aide to White, said yesterday.

The subcommittee held extensive hearings on the subject before voting yesterday afternoon to table the issue. Delegate Antonio Won Pat (D-Guam) was the only panel member to vote for the measure.

Brayton Harris, assistant director of the Selective Service System (SSS), said last night that although the issue remains alive in Congress, it will probably not be considered in the near term.

Harris said the vote does not change the president's feelings. "It's not a matter of mathematics, but a matter of equity," he said, adding "If you're going to require men to register and to be subject to a draft, then it's equitable to require women to do the same."

The Appropriations Committee, originally scheduled to meet this week and consider granting supplemental funds for registering males, will probably consider the issue next week, sources close to the committee said yesterday.

Government agencies this week filed reestimates of their budget needs for the current year, which pushed Congress over its budget ceiling, thus delaying action on the president's request for supplemental funds to register men.

The Committee will probably resolve the issue by reapportioning some of its funds for the year, sources said.

The 54-member Appropriations panel, which was entertained by Carter in an attempt to garner support for his proposal, will probably either allocate enough money to upgrade SSS facilities for registration (about $4.7 million) or enough to register only men (about $13.3 million)