The Transformation of the U.S. Senate*

Newt Gingrich should have retired in the summer of 1995 and gone directly to Biloxi. Or Atlantic City, I don’t know if there was casino gambling in Biloxi by then. The Congressman from GA-6 caught aces on the flop, the turn, and the river – to wit:

* Tremendous public discontent in 1992, to the point of 19% vote for a third party candidate.

* Democratic President elected with only 43% of the popular vote. **

* A Republican Party so long out of power in the House of Representatives that they were willing to hand the controls to this maniac from down South, at a time when the GOP was still not a lead-pipe lock in that part of the world.

* A groundswell of anti-incumbent sentiment going back at least one election cycle.

* A slew of retirements and open seats resulting from changes in the campaign finance laws that would have otherwise resulted in lawmakers giving up a windfall of campaign cash upon leaving office.

* A talk-radio world just coming into its own, providing a megaphone to rile up the faithful and rally the troops.

Newt made a bet: that a guy who wouldn’t last two weeks in a serious Presidential campaign could shift the balance of power to the Congress, and within the Congress to the House, and effectively make himself Prime Minister of the United States. It was a preposterous longshot, especially for anyone who knew APSA’s 1950 treatise on the subject and the institutional difficulties it would present. But he pulled it off.

Obviously, it didn’t last. He was in over his head, and had the misfortune to be up against one of the three greatest political communicators of the 20th century in American politics, and the era of Newt lasted about as long as it took Clinton to be re-elected. Ultimately, the Republican takeover of Congress would have one lasting legacy: providing a supine and compliant legislature to the second Bush administration, which had no room for any executive power not residing at 1600 Penn or the Naval Observatory.***

The Gingrich legacy, if you want to be precise, is in the Senate. Since Bob Dole left to run for President in 1996, the Republican leadership in the Senate has always been Southern – first Lott, then Frist, then McConnell. But Gingrich and his team also introduced measures to limit the impact of seniority, make some changes to how chairmen were picked – in short, took steps to make the Senate run more like the House. And it had an effect – of the current Senate, 53 of 99 have served less than two complete terms. You will probably never again see a Robert Byrd, a Strom Thurmond, a Ted Kennedy – somebody whose career is measured in generations rather than years, somebody with that kind of institutional memory. In fact, two-thirds of the Senate were only elected in the Gingrich era or later, including 25 of the 40 Republicans.

I feel like the worst kind of son of a bitch saying this, given how utterly critical it was in my last life – it’s sort of like pissing on the Magna Carta – but “Folkways of the U.S. Senate,” the seminal 1959 article by Donald Matthews that is to Congressional studies what V.O. Key is to Southern studies, is only of interest as a historical document now. The modern United States Senate is a louder, prouder, more obnoxious version of the House of Representatives – and at least in the lower house, the Speaker has the power to make the trains run on time. I take no pride at all in saying this, as a former Senate Youth (1990) and former acolyte (however briefly) of Bruce Oppenheimer, but it’s got to be said: the title of “world’s largest open-air kindergarten” no longer belongs in the south wing of the Capitol.

* I hope that if she ever sees this, Dr. Barbara SInclair can find it in her heart to forgive me for aping the title of her landmark book on the Senate, which I am not worthy to carry into the toilet for reading material.

** Ah, but how much did Bush the Elder have? The people who went around crowing about “only 43%” were annoying as hell simply because yes, it’s less than a majority, but it’s more than your guy got. I think that was largely sour grapes at the idea that they should have won if not for Ross Perot – and on that score, I will say that they have a legit beef, but there’s no blue ribbon for should’ve.

*** Look, if you still think Unca Dick didn’t have final veto around there, I don’t know what else to tell you.

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