Leadership in the U.S. Senate

Herding Cats in the Modern Era

Colton C. Campbell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351655286
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Unlike leadership in the House of Representatives, the nature of Senate leadership continues to remain a mystery to so many. Due to the absence of an "operator's manual, " leaders have had to use their individual skills, intelligence, and personalities to lead the Senate, which means they each have had their own unique leadership style. How have Senate majority leaders advanced their agendas in this traditionally egalitarian institution, a chamber like no other legislative body, where they must balance the rights of 99 independent senators with the collective needs of their party?

Featuring a foreword by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Leadership in the U.S. Senate offers students a comprehensive and contemporary examination of three different eras in the evolution of the Senate. Collectively, contributions written by those who have served the senators offer insight into how different Senate leaders have operated, chronicle changes in Senate life over the past four decades, and describe how they have changed the institution. The chapters cover:

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• How leadership styles are shaped by both individualism and party goals

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• Eight biographical perspectives from Senator Howard Baker (R-TN) to Senator Harry Reid (D-NV)

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• The political context of the Senate during which the respective majority leader served

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• Individual leadership style and performance in office

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• Contributions individuals made to the institution while serving as majority leaders

This book paves the way for political scientists and others to examine the topic of Senate leadership.

1

Legislating in the Senate

From the 1950s into the 2000s

Mark J. Oleszek and Walter J. Oleszek¹

The United States Senate, according to James Madison’s oft-quoted metaphor, is “the great anchor of Government.” His view is predicated on the ability of the Senate to hold fast against unwanted House-passed measures or the public passions of the moment. The Senate is an institution well-equipped to block and stymie action on measures and matters because the chamber’s permissive rules grant large procedural prerogatives to every member regardless of party or seniority. To engage in lengthy debate and to propose germane or non-germane amendments are traditional rights accorded each senator. A single senator, a small group, or the minority party has the capacity to slow down decision-making or to stop legislation outright.

When Senator Robert J. “Bob” Dole (R-KS) was the minority leader, he stressed the importance of the Senate’s emphasis on minority rights: “The rights of the minority in the Senate are precious; they protect not just the interests of a partisan minority, but also the interests of economic and geographic minorities, including individual states. Those rights have been exercised by both parties as well as a combination of Republicans and Democrats.”² On the other hand, the chamber’s emphasis on minority rights allows opponents to block action on proposals favored by a large majority of senators as well as many in the general populace.

Unsurprisingly, lawmaking in the Senate can be difficult because it is easier to block than enact legislation. This reality complicates the ability of the top party leaders—especially the majority leader, who sets the chamber’s agenda—to process the chamber’s business in a timely manner. Moreover, the majority or minority leaders of the Senate, who consult regularly in determining the chamber’s schedule of activities, have an array of other important internal and external functions beyond trying to make the legislative trains run on time. Internally, as an example, the top Senate leaders are responsible for mobilizing winning coalitions to accomplish the legislative goals of their party as well as other high priority measures (e.g., bills addressing unexpected crises). Externally, party leaders are active in campaigning for party colleagues, acting as public spokesmen for their side, and raising campaign funds to ensure that their party either retains or claims majority control of the institution.

The basic point is that the portfolio of the party leader is diversified, and the endeavor is strenuous. Their decisions, too, can be subject to sharp criticism from inside and outside the Senate—by colleagues, the president, their party’s voters, and outside groups that want to oust them as party leaders.³ Former Senator Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-OH), who sometimes created parliamentary headaches for the majority and minority leaders, once said, “I think the position of the majority leader and the position of minority leader are the two worst positions that our colleagues can give to any two men or women.” He added that party leaders are the first ones present to open the chamber and the last ones to leave. In between, they strive to ensure that the Senate “functions as well as it does”—or as well as it can—to process the Senate’s business.⁴ As Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said in the foreword to this book, when he is asked what the majority leader’s job is like, he often says, “It’s a little bit like being the groundskeeper at a cemetery. Everybody’s under you, but nobody listens.”⁵ Other majority leaders have employed different metaphors to explain their position: “herding cats,” “janitor,” or “shepherd” are examples.⁶

Needless to say, party leaders operate in a legislative and political context largely not of their own making. Context refers to such factors as electoral results that determine the size, composition, and cohesion of each party; whether there is unified or divided control of Congress and the White House; or the power dynamic between committees and party leaders. Scholars note that contextual conditions generally influence the role and work of party leaders more than the reverse circumstance.⁷ The governing challenges and opportunities created by the legislative environment influence the leaders’ performance—which can change from issue to issue or year to year. The fundamental purpose of this chapter is to focus on the contextual environment in which party leaders operate.

More specifically, we examine the Senate’s evolving institutional context and the general role of party leaders within that environment. Three Senate eras are chosen for this purpose, with the discussion focused on selected features of each period. Analyzing three different periods can reveal the diverse pattern of politics and policymaking broadly unique to each period as well as provide some insight into how and why major changes can occur in the Senate. To be sure, characteristics associated with each era vary and often overlap. We begin with the Senates of the 1950s because they have been well researched and provide a useful basis for comparison with the Senate eras that follow. We next discuss the “individualist” Senate (roughly from the 1960s to about the 1990s), and then we turn to the polarized Senate that emerged in the mid-1990s and will likely continue into the foreseeable future. Finally, we conclude with summary observations.

IMAGE 1.1 Desk, Senate Chamber. Image courtesy of U.S. Senate Commission on Art, U.S. Senate Collection.

The Senate of the 1950s

There is a voluminous literature on the Senate of the 1950s, the landmark analysis of this period being U.S. Senators & Their World by Donald R. Matthews.⁸ This study explored a variety of topics, such as senators’ relationships with lobbyists, reporters, and constituents. For our purposes, three subject areas are important to underscore because they illuminate key elements of the inward-focused and club-like Senate of the 1950s. Each stands in marked contrast to Senates of the contemporary period. First, an array of informal norms and folkways governed the behavior of many senators who served during this era. Second, powerful committee chairs, part of an “inner club,” largely dominated policymaking. Chosen by a rigid seniority system, the chairs were lawmakers to be reckoned with because the locus of decision-making was largely “committee government.” Even Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson (D-TX) had to woo and broker deals with powerful chairs because they influenced or controlled votes of colleagues in committee and on the floor; selected the measures for committee action (hearings, markups, and reports); and influenced the substantive contents of the legislation. Third, Majority Leader Johnson exercised significant authority in shaping the Senate’s activities. He is often viewed as the most powerful majority leader ever, a post which became institutionalized sometime during the early 20th century.⁹

Norms and Folkways

Matthews stressed the key role of the Senate’s unwritten norms and folkways in influencing policymaking and the workings of the Senate. The Senate, wrote Matthews, “has its unwritten rules of the game, its norms of conduct, its approved manner of behavior. Some things are just not done; others are met with widespread approval.”¹⁰ In essence, the norms and folkways were critical components of the Senate’s “culture,” defining the expected behavior of senators toward colleagues and the institution itself. Briefly, the informal norms and folkways included:

Apprenticeship. New senators should first spend time learning how the Senate functions before participating in committee and floor activities in an active and sustained way. Deference to the chamber’s committee and party leaders was also expected of the newcomers.

Specialization. Senators should concentrate on a limited number of issues, particularly those that come before the committees on which they serve and on the matters of special concern to their constituents.

Legislative Work. Senators should focus on the work of the Senate rather than seek publicity. Senators were to be “work horses,” not “show horses.”

Courtesy. Senators should treat all colleagues respectfully and not engage in personal attacks or criticisms of them.

Reciprocity. Senators should assist colleagues whenever that is feasible. This norm includes a two-way exchange: senators who are aided are expected to provide assistance in return.

Institutional Patriotism. Senators should defend the prestige and prerogatives of the Senate from those who would unfairly castigate its role and work.

Procedural Restraint. Senators should be reticent to use their many procedural prerogatives and employ them sparingly and only on matters of particular interest to their constituents.

Many of these norms no longer apply as they once did, and most went into decline not long after Matthews’s study was published. For example, the 1958 midterms saw the election of many ambitious and activist liberal senators who from the start of their careers sought to influence senatorial action on their preferred policies and priorities.¹¹ The Washington lobbying community was transformed, with “wall to wall” interest groups devoting considerable time and resources to persuading senators to become advocates for their cause.¹² Wider media coverage gradually eroded the insular character of the Senate and heightened the national coverage of relatively junior senators, such as Barry M. Goldwater (R-AZ) and John F. Kennedy (D-MA), who were not members of the so-called “inner club.”

The “Inner Club”

The notion of the Senate being guided by an “Inner Club” was popularized in a 1956 book written by journalist William S. White entitled Citadel, The Story of the U.S. Senate.¹³ The club consisted mainly of senior Democratic senators from the South and senior Republican senators from the Midwest and New England, many of whom served as chairs or ranking members of key Senate committees, such as Finance. Ostensibly, they dominated the inner workings of the Senate. The inner club was “an organism without name or charter, without officers, without a list of membership, without a wholly conscious being at all.”¹⁴ According to White, members of the inner club dominated the Senate’s policymaking, often from their perch atop committees. Majority Leader Johnson even gave copies of Citadel to newly-elected senators so that they would develop an understanding of what was expected of them, which was to follow the advice of Johnson’s close friend in the House, Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas: “to get along, go along” with the priorities of inner club senators.

Prominent club members included Senators Richard B. Russell (D-GA), Russell B. Long (D-LA), Henry “Styles” Bridges (R-NH), and Robert Taft (R-OH). Lawmakers in the inner club held the levers of power in the Senate, especially the chairmanships of committees. To be sure, there were mavericks and outsiders who neither genuflected to members of the inner club nor observed regularly the norms and folkways identified by Matthews.¹⁵ Some scholars challenge the notion of an all-powerful inner club, given “the progressive centralization of power in the hands of the majority leader.” He controlled, for example, committee assignments, campaign funds, and floor procedure. Thus, by “the time Johnson left the Senate …, the ‘Inner Club’ could command little of the power attributed to it. It had too long been merely a façade for Johnson’s own activity.”¹⁶

Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson (1955–1960)

Scores of analysts have examined the period when Lyndon Johnson was the Senate’s majority leader (he also served as minority leader during the 83rd Congress, 1953–1955). Noted historian Robert Caro, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, has spent much of his adult life writing books that dissect the political career and roles of Johnson, including Master of the Senate, the thi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• List of Images
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Legislating in the Senate: From the 1950s into the 2000s
• 2 Howard Baker and the Conditional Use of Parliamentary Procedure in the U.S. Senate
• 3 Robert C. Byrd: Tactician and Technician
• 4 Bob Dole’s Leadership: The Partisan as Dealmaker
• 5 George J. Mitchell: Majority Leader
• 6 Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle
• 7 Ambition and Achievement: The Senate Republican Leadership of Trent Lott
• 8 William H. “Bill” Frist, MD: “The Doctor as Leader”
• 9 Leave It to Harry: Harry Reid as Democratic Leader
• 10 Recent Senate Party Leaders in a Historical Perspective
• Index