The U.S. Senate: paralysis or a search for consensus?

• Author: Noah, Timothy

The U.S. Senate: Paralysis Or a Search For Consensus?

After completinga tour as press secretary in the LBJ White House, George Reedy wrote one of the most celebrated studies of the executive branch, The Twilight of the Presidency. This companion volume draws upon Reedy's earlier experiences as director of the Senate Majority Policy Committee in the fifties. Judging from the dreary title, Reedy (or perhaps his publisher) apparently intended this book to be a contemporary, political-sciencey tract that makes a case for a slow-moving Senate. Although Reedy's defense of legislative paralysis remains the perverse and not terribly persuasive thesis of the book, somewhere in the process of writing, Reedy seems to have been overcome by the desire to tell old war stories. The result is a lively and penetrating memoir whose unconvincing main point is obscured by a multitude of much more compelling, smaller insights into the legislative process.

Capitol guides often tell visitorsto the galleries that the floor is empty because "most of the work is done in committees." True enough in the House, Reedy concedes. But in the Senate, with the exception of Appropriations, all committees require a special dispensation to meet during a session. In fact, Reedy argues, senators do their crucial work neither on the floor nor in committee but in casual conversations conducted while walking through the Capitol corridors, attending parties, enjoying a cup of coffee, or working the Senate cloakrooms. "The real reason visitors so rarely see the Senate filled with members," writes Reedy, "is that most of them are out engaging in these chats."

Another misconception Reedyattacks is the notion that the key to Senate power is a committee chairmanship. Again, Reedy argues, this is far less true in the Senate than in the House. The real source of power is an individual senator's ability to work the levers of power within the Senate, which are more informal and complex than in the more hierarchical lower chamber. For example, in the early fifties the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee was Harry F. Byrd--a man who was so conservative on economic matters that he found himself totally out of step with both the committee and the Senate as a whole. As a result, Reedy writes, effective power ended up in the hands of a few low-ranking senators on the committee. When Reedy had to do business with Finance, he would pay a courtesy call on Byrd--and then, "as soon as I...