There is a lot of equality in the senate. Most of what we do is under unanimous consent. Any one of the hundred of us could object and throw the place into a stupor. Every senator has some real clout. The majority leader has more clout in the ability to set the agenda and be recognized first, which gives you some tactical advantages. But the house always says we are like a pyramid. At the top, you have the speaker. The senate is more like a level Playing Field with the majority leader having a little more advantage than anyone else. But a strongwilled senator can frequently get his weight simply by a objecting. Susan James Wallner, you study the senate. In that interview that senator somewhat did, he downplays the leaders roll. You said Party Leaders are more powerful today than have been at any time in the Senate History . James we take leadership for granted. We think leaders are the most powerful and essential leaders in the United States senate. And if we did not have them, the senate could not function. To be honest, that is probably correct, given how the rankandfile senators approach their job. What majority leader mcconnell left out from his statement just there was that there is a lot of stuff that goes into structuring the process to when you do ask unanimous consent. Objects, yes,or that senator can object, but the majority leader can make it really, really difficult for that senator to actually object. Susan you wrote in the same piece that i referenced that rankandfile members, despite their frustration with the status quo, cannot imagine the Senate Working without the active involvement of their leaders. I want to spend a few minutes on that clear frustration part and understand that. Last week, 70 former United States senators signed an oped piece that ran in the Washington Post that said, essentially, the senate is this functional and really points fingers at the leaders. You responded to that with disagreement. What is your case on how the senate works and what the causes . James i think the leaders have a big part of the responsibility and help create the environment. But ultimately it is the rankandfile senators. The senate is broken, because the senators broke it. That letter was interesting, because approximately 40 of the senators who signed it, the former senators had served , inside the senate as senators over the last two decades, the period of time over which the senate begin to unravel, or the dysfunction increased. They did not act in ways at that time to reverse that trajectory. And now, they are writing a letter. And if you read the letter and read between the lines, it is very passive. It is that there is a Mysterious Force out there that is somehow preventing senators from doing things preventing the committees , from working. As i was reading the letter i , thought the letter was aimed at the leaders. But at the very end, they said they want to make clear this is not a critique of Chuck Schumer or Mitch Mcconnells leadership. We are not critiquing what they are doing. So it is not the committees, it is not the rankandfile, it is not the leaders who does that leave . Who has broken the senate . Susan in what ways is it broken . James today, we often think of the senate as a factory. You think it is its job to produce legislative widgets. The senate is certainly supposed to pass legislation. But how it passes legislation is how it matters. There is a whole deliberative side of things. The senate as a crucible of conflict. It is a place where americans see their claims adjudicated. Whether on the majority or Minority Side of the debate. I think the senate today is broken because it is no longer serving that role. It is no longer deliberating. Ironically, if you look at it, once we begin to see the senate as a factory, it becomes even less productive. Now we think the senates job is to produce legislative widgets, and it does not even make those anymore. Susan we will look not at the Current Senate but look over the past 60 years to 70 years and help people understand the path that it took to get to where it is today. Before we do that, would you tell me about yourself and how you got interested in the senate . James i worked in the senate for over a decade. I loved the place dearly. I wept like a baby on my last day in the senate probably should not say that on television. But it is a fabulous institution. A fabulous institution, even on its worst day. What i worked there, i got my phd in political science. I have written books on the senate. Now i am a senior fellow at the R Street Institute that spends my time thinking about the senate and how it works and how it does not work. I teach classes at American University on congress, on parties, Interest Groups and politics, and how our system is supposed to work and how it works today. Susan what is the R Street Institute . James the r she is a is a think two tank of Public Policy is attrition that focuses on ways to cut through everything and focus on how we identify solutions for problems we have today. It is not dogmatic. What are the Real Solutions we can identify to fix the government and politics . A big part is the governance project, which looks at how to fix congress. It is a big focus. How can we make Congress Great again after 2016 . We will use a couple of senate specific terms. I would like to have you explain what they are. You heard about unanimous consent. Whats that . Unanimous consent is when the senate decides not to follow its rules. The senate never follows its rules. You have rules and you break the rules, and any senator can make a point of order. To not follow the rules you say i would like unanimous consent that we not follow this rule. That point of order no longer lies against what the senate wants to do. Its a shortcut. The leaders play a very Important Role in that process. Susan and explain the filibuster as it is today. The filibuster from mr. Smith goes to washington, we picture that iconic scene where you have an exhausted senator who has not shaved in a while and has all these letters in front of him. That is not what we see today. The filibuster today is basically voting against cloture, which is a special motion we have to an debate over a senators objection. Unlike in the house when a Senate Majority can do that whenever. The presiding officer cannot call a vote on something as long as the senator speaking or seeking recognition to speak. We call it filibuster when you oppose cloture. Its when you try to stop a bill. Susan what is the magic number for ending it filibuster . Its 3 5. But if you can change the senate rules it will be two thirds of senators present voting. Its basically however many people are on the floor at that moment. It could be, if all 100 are there, up to 67. Susan the former senators said they point to the overuse of the filibuster is one of the things spoken about the senate. I want to show you a clip from january of 1995. This is long time and late senator robert byrd, democrat, who talks about the rules and the use of the filibuster. Lets watch. [video clip] workic baker and i, both ng together with points of order. We both have filibuster. I dispose of more than 30 amendments within the course of a few minutes. And the filibuster is broken. Back, neck, arms, legs, it went away in two hours. I understand that it has been abused. I understand that senators dont very often stand up and debate anymore. But lets not try to blame it on the rules. Blame it on the senators. [end of video clip] susan what is your reaction . I think he is absolutely correct. I dont know exactly the bill that he was referring to as leader, but byrd would do things to make a motion to suspend the rules for purposes of tabling all of these amendments at once. You can typically only do that with one amendment. He would use the rules to dispose of obstruction and overcome obstruction. What he is referencing is that it takes effort. It takes a desire to win. It takes someone on the floor whos willing to use every tool that they have at their disposal to overcome obstruction. Today, relating to how i described the filibuster, you find out a senator will object to a unanimous consent request to get rid of those rules, and say, well, we can do anything. Then you point to cloture motions and votes as if thats a reliable count of filibuster, when in reality, that is a vote to win a debate. The cloture rule that came about in the 20th century was designed to empower the majority. It allows the majority to set the schedule and to call votes. It allows the majority to do a whole host of things. Its not entirely clear that thats whats happening. But byrd is right, its easier now than it was then, and when it is easier, you are going to have more of it. Susan that was a debate in 1995 to change the rules on senators to end a debate, which failed. Subsequent majority leaders continue to be frustrated with the filibuster. Harry reid, when he led the senate, first invoked what he called the Nuclear Option, and Mitch Mcconnell extended it. Can you explain what they were trying to do by curtailing the use of the filibuster . Article one section five of the constitution gives the senate the power to determine its rules of proceedings. Because they can set whatever cans it once, they basically negate or circumvent, or ignore, or overcome, or set aside the rules whenever it wants. That is what we call the Nuclear Option. When you have a minority that says we are going to use the rules we have to block you, and the majority says we are going to use our constitutional power to ignore those rules, to break those rules or circumvent them, or even change them to overcome your filibuster. That is the Nuclear Option. It was first attempted in recent decades by republicans in 2004 and 2005. It did not work. It was successfully used by democrats in 2013. It was used by republicans in 2017 and 2019. Its really a way in which majorities, when they get truly frustrated, can overcome obstruction to make something happen. Senatorrequently quoted byrd said, if you know the rules you can control the outcome. Are there any real rules in todays senate . We think about the rules differently. One of the things you hear a lot decisions,make referring to the senate, the senate makes decisions behind closed doors in private negotiations. When all of the process is playing out in that environment, the rules do not mean as much because they dont govern those deliberations as they do deliberations in a public and formal setting. You begin to look at them differently. When you think of the senate as a factory that makes widgets, you begin to conceive of your job as a senator as assembling a widget on the floor according to a blueprint designed elsewhere. The rules become means to an end , and that it the ability to really serve as a powerful weapon because the majority can get rid of them whenever they want. There are no longer islands of predictability to know what is going to happen in the future because the majority can wipe them away when they want. Susan we will spend some time looking at the recent past powerful majority leaders. We should note that the senate did not become constituted with leaders. When did the position actually come around . Little bit ambiguous and a little vague. Democrats and republicans began electing their caucus chairman in 1903 and 1911, and those positions eventually became the floor leader position in the 1920s. Oscar underwood from alabama is typically considered to be the first democratic floor leader. Charles curtis from kansas is considered to be the first republican floor leader. Susan you wrote that Party Leaders derive their power from the senates precedents, not from standing rules. One of those is the right of first recognition. Former majority leader robert byrd called it the most potent weapon in the majority leaders arsenal. Weve got a clip from leader mcconnell talking about his role and how he can set the legislative agenda through that right. Lets watch. [video clip] so, you dont think its a good idea . You dont think its something the president would entertain or should entertain . Sen. Mcconnell i dont think he should fire mueller, and i dont think hes going to, so this is a piece of legislation that is not necessary. Your colleagues say it should be in there. Sen. Mcconnell im the one who decides what we take to the floor. Thats my responsibility as the majority leader, and we will not be having this on the floor of the senate. [end of video clip] i love this quote, im the one who decides what we take to the floor as majority leader. Because its not true. Any senator can make a motion to approve anything on the senate calendar. Any senator can put a bill on the calendar without having gone through committee first. Any senator can use the rules at his or her disposal to make a motion to proceed to force his or her colleagues to consider something that he or she wants to consider. This came up a lot in recent years. What is fascinating is, the last time, and the majority leader is correct, senators differ to to leaders tofer make this decision and motions and they have been for decades. But the last time a senator who was not the majority leader made a motion to proceed over the objections of the majority leader and filed cloture on it to force a vote was in 2010, and it was Mitch Mcconnell. It is interesting because he was the minority leader at the time. He demonstrated his ability to use the rules to force action on an issue. Susan if the senate operates on precedent, when did the precedent for the majority leader getting the first right of recognition come about . Right of recognition comes from 1937. You have john nance garner, vices jack, my favorite president nickname, is in the chair. He decides he will grant preferential recognition to the majority leader first and the minority leader second. The favor that they are doing or giving to the majority leader. And incidentally the minority leader. Its not something the senate can require the chair to do. It is not something the senate can pass a rule to force the chair to do. The chair can recognize any senator, it does not matter, but it is more of a tradition that they defer to the majority leader, and the senators defer because it makes their life easier. Susan why did his that deference give the majority leader so much power . Once you make a motion to proceed you can set the schedule. If you are creative and can come up with innovative ways, you can control the agenda. You can meet motions to proceed, and block other senators from doing the same things using priority of recognition. Once you offer an amendment, you lose the floor. The majority leader gets the floor right back. Same as the minority leader, so long as the majority leader doesnt want to do so as well. That is a huge power for them that allows them to act ahead of other senators. Susan while we are talking about john nance garner, captain texan. Cactus jack, a another texan around this time was lbj. He was dubbed master of the senate. He served when as the majority leader . James Lyndon Johnson was the majority leader during the late 1950s. He was minority leader prior to that and was assistant leader prior to that, but all during the 1950s. He was master of the senate and was an incredible leader. He did so much to shape the position, the institution that we see and know today. But it is interesting because he was a master of a senate that was bounded in time. Johnson could not have done, at least i dont believe he could have, the things he did had he existed in a different era. I think that is key to understanding a lot of the dysfunction we have today, and understanding why the current approach to managing the institution on both sides of the aisle has been unsuccessful. Susan lets listen to robert karen talk about power in the senate. [video clip] a lot of rules have been put in to make sure most senators can leave the senate. One of the predecessors said no one can lead it. He said, i have nothing to promise them, i have nothing to threaten them with. So how was Lyndon Johnson able to run the senate . Probably the most significant sentence in the book that answer s this question is a quote from Lyndon Johnson, talking about himself. This is Lyndon Johnson talking about himself. It is the epigraph of this book. I do understand power, whatever else may be said about me. I know where to look for it and i know how to use it. Lyndon johnson was right in that selfassessment. He looks for power in places that no one else had thought to look for it. I have nothing to promise, i have nothing to threaten with. Johnson found things to promise. He found things to threaten them with. [end of video clip] susan in 1955, when he took over as majority leader, he had a onevote majority. How did he find things to lead the senate . James it is such a fabulous quote and fabulous book. Not just about johnson, but also about the senate, its history and the moment in time in the 1950s. Johnson was so astute. This predates his time in the senate. When he becomes the assistant leader, he looks for Different Things he can do. Can i give you information about this Committee Meeting . Can i know what amendments you are going to offer . He starts to amass all of this and becomes almost the senate chief information officer. He uses his financial ties in texas to raise money. Two then dole out to people who support him. He slowly starts to insert himself into the center, if you can imagine, the center of a tire. Hes in the middle, and hes going out. Everything radiates through johnson. It was subtle and nuanced, but it was ultimately the key to creating what we know today and recognize today as Senate Leaders, the minority leader and majority leader. Susan when the 1958 elections happened, he increased this is a he increased his majority to 55, but it said he had a more difficult time leading a larger majority. Why would that be . James this is a key moment where we can get a better insight into how Senate Leaders work. Its partly personality, but its also the environment. Its the majority makers, the senators who come in on new classes. The issues on the agenda and the presidency. In 1958, you have 12 liberal Democratic Senators from the north come in, and they want to act on a whole host of issues. They dont want to wait forever to become a committee chairman. Because there are senators in their party who have been there, and they are not going to go anywhere anytime soon. They are secure. So they start to look for other ways. They start agitating. They say the system does not work for us. They may go around committees and start pushing to go to the floor. The power basis on which johnson relied to master the senate began to erode. They get weaker. You get a new, more collegial, open and free wielding Senate Environment that i believe johnson could not manage. If he stuck around, if he was not in white house as Vice President and president in the 1960s and had stayed in the senate, we would remember him differently today. Susan his signature issue was civil rights legislation. When he was leading the senate, why was he not more successful . James people dont remember the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Everybody remembers the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A big part is because of what they did. The 1957 act was not as important as the 1964 act. It wasnt as farreaching. It relates to how johnson tried to get it through the senate. He wanted to control the institution. He wanted to write bills off the floor. He wanted scripted speeches to fill floor time. He wanted to resolve all matters of dispute before a bill hit the floor. So naturally, when he gets a bell, no one is going to be happy with it because theres no process to work with these issues. Today, or in 1964, his successor from montana has a completely different approach. That approach aligns with the environment and gives him a better bill in the end. Thats why we look at mansfield and see him as one of the greatest leaders, even though we think of johnson as master of the senate. Susan when you read the book, you see a character named bobby baker who is secretary of the senate. Does the secretary of the Senate Position still exist . How did johnson use it versus how it might be used in later times . James it does come although it is much different. Baker was a kid from pickens, South Carolina and comes into the senate as a page. He ends up staying in the senate and has all of this formative moments in life in the senate. He has a wedding reception in the senate. He marries another senate staffer. He begins to insert himself into the senate. Johnson uses that in the information and connection he gleans from baker to manage the institution. More broadly, johnson had an approach to staff that was different than other senators. Johnson had an approach we would recognize today. One of his predecessors, majority leader johnson from arkansas, would have a very loyal, tightknit staff as well, but johnson takes staff to a whole new level. He shows the senate and his colleagues that you can you staff to do big things. Baker, incidentally, got into a little trouble in the 1960s. We can talk about that under mansfield potentially, but the secretary of the Senate Position is more different today than it was then. Susan if you look at personalities, lbj and Mike Mansfield cannot seem more different. Tell me about Mike Mansfield. Quiet,he was a unassuming man, as far as i can tell. I never had the privilege to meet him, but reading about him and watching him speak about the senate, one of the things that was remarkable about him was his deep and abiding sense of senatorial equality. He saw the senate not as a factory, not as a place where senators come in and clock in on their way into the floor every day, but a place where they go to participate in an activity. Where equals go to participate in an activity on behalf of the citizens that they represent. That permeates everything about his leadership style. It informs how he approaches the senate, and ultimately leads to one of the most explosive periods in legislative productivity in the nations history. Susan he served as majority leader from 1961 to 1977. Quite a long tenure. His counterparts on the other side of the aisle, how did he work with them . James they really built on the precedent that johnson set on more centralized party control. He began to mimic a lot of the things that johnson did. But dirksen was also more public. He was more forward facing. He is one of the first Senate Leaders we see being out in the public pr. Mansfields unassuming style meshes very well with that. It allows for dirksen to have the spotlight. A lot of people say thats why the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ultimately passed. Because mansfield was able to secure dirksens cooperation, and was ok with dirksen being out front and taking a lot of credit for this stuff. Scott is interesting because he has a concept of shared leadership. It is a much more decentralized model, and he wants to bring more people in from the republican side into the leadership structure. Other than that, you dont read a lot about hugh scott. Theres a hugh scott room in the United States capitol. Pennsylvania. It was a very important time. He continues a lot of what he does and steps back from the pr side and brings more people in. Susan lets watch Mike Mansfield. There is a tradition of Senate Leaders giving lectures on leadership skills in the old senate chambers. Weve covered so many of those. This is from 1998. He is talking about his approach to leadership. [video clip] by mid1963, various Democratic Senators had begun to express publicly their frustration with the lack of apparent progress in advancing the kennedy administrations legislative initiative. After all, they reasoned, democrats in the senate enjoy a nearly 21 party ratio. With those numbers, anything should be possible under the lash of disciplined leadership. 65 democrats, 35 republicans. Think of it, senator daschle. [laughter] of course, i use the word enjoy loosely. Ideological differences within our party seriously undercut that apparent numerical advantage. A democratusan had in the white house for much of the time a democrat and a house , and democratic senate. Why would he have problems . James the majority leader is reading a speech he intended to deliver for the criticism of his style as majority leader after johnson left and went to the white house as Vice President. He was going to give it on the senate floor. It was the day that president kennedy was assassinated. Naturally, that did not occur. Afterwards, he submitted it for the record and waited Something Like 35 years or so to actually deliver it. He delivered it in the old senate chamber. But he is absolutely correct. We think today in terms of this factory model of leadership. We think if you have more workers, its great. You can do more things. In the senate, if you can get more than 60, you can overcome filibusters. If you have 65, you can do a lot of stuff. Thats not the reality of the situation because the parties are very divided. The senate isnt debating health care today. It is not debating immigration. It is not debating legislation to deal with gun control or gun safety. Its not dealing with these issues precisely because republicans and democrats are divided internally on the issues. What is remarkable about the speech, and i would encourage everyone to read it or watch it online, is that this notion of equality and what a leaders job is. Mansfield saw his job is something very different than johnson. His job was not to control things. His job would not to his job was not to work out problems before they occur. Mansfield saw his job as facilitating the participation of interested members in a process. He had ideas, priorities and goals. But ultimately, his responsibility was to make the senate work, not to produce widgets, but to debate legislation. Then the widgets would come in the end. Susan two important issues. We talked about civil rights, but two other important issues, we should talk about mansfields leadership briefly. Vietnam, because he disagreed with the president s policy. Did he do that publicly or did he use the senate to express his concern . James mansfield doesnt usually use his official positions as leader to push an agenda. You dont see that from mansfield. Civil rights is another great example. He is a big proponent of civil rights, but he is also terrified that this is going to destroy his party and its going to tear it apart. He goes forward, but not because he is a proponent. He goes forward because its the job of the senate to debate bills. He recognizes he has senators who wants to debate those things. Vietnam is a similar issue. Its an issue that was dividing the party on both sides. It provoked a lot of unrest amongst the citizenry. People wanted to see their claims adjudicated. So eventually, the senate has to acknowledge that and deal with those issues. Also under susan his tenure watergate happened. , how did he approach that . James in very much the same way, i think. Its not something if you look at watergate and compare it to what happened today in regards to impeachment and President Donald Trump and the scandal with ukraine, its remarkable. Then, there is a notion of this isnt the outcome we want to get to but more, this is our , responsibility of senators to participate in this process. We want to make sure the process itself is legitimate and respected. You have a lot more bipartisanship. In terms of statements coming from the senate, the hearings and investigations are playing out in the house. It is much more bipartisan for that reason. Susan robert byrd took over. Weve talked about him a bit already. His biggest legislative challenge seems to be the panama canal treaty vote. How did he handle that . James the panama canal treaty was a huge debate. It divided the parties, it divided republicans. People dont even think about it. It was an existential type debate. Robert byrd gave a speech after mansfield does where he references it. That was his trying time. He is a little bit mansfield, there is a criticism that the senate was inefficient and unproductive. Byrd starts a legislative starts to harness legislative procedure and combines it with his principled commitment to the gala terry and senate that mansfield the gala terry and an senate thatri mansfield has, and he makes the senate operate more smoothly. You see that from the panama canal debate. He starts to learn and starts to learn how to do that. In the 1980s is when you see him shine. Susan in 1986 the senate went on television. Something that senator byrd encouraged senators to support. Does it end up costing him his leadership . James some say he wasnt as successor, thes majority leader mitchell from maine. Perhaps. I am not in these deliberations, resignedl say byrd abruptly, probably because he probably saw what was happening, out and asked to. But the senate was changing. The job of the senator was changing. He was an oldschool senator and does not want to spend his time fundraising or engaged in partisan attacks. He still sees the senate as a forum, a place where you go to participate in this activity. As a crucible of conflict, if you will. Even if he wants to stay leader, it does not look as enticing. Becomeseps down and chairman of the Senate Appropriations committee. Susan in 1980, the election swept in Ronald Reagan and the republican senate, and howard baker took over in the position of majority leader. He had a long political promenade. What was his background . James his father was a congressman, and he was someone who wanted to be in leadership. He challenged hugh scott for the majority leader position many times before ultimately becoming the leader, and that is something unheard of today. If you challenge one of your colleagues who is in leadership, instead of saying we want more competition to see how this will work and these are my ideas for how the conference could work better or the senate could work better, backed income of that still was also unheard of. I think that is a testament to his desire to be in leadership, to really try to live up to especially his fatherinlaw, and the goals he set for himself. James it is interesting susan it is interesting that he was that ambitious. His nickname was the great conciliator. How did he approach leadership . James it is interesting because baker comes in, and he is propelled into the leader position by a class of republican senators who were more conservative. Think Jeremiah Denton from alabama, for instance. But they are new. They are freshmen, and they have not been exposed to this environment before. Baker uses the moment to try to centralize control a little bit more over the senate, and over the process. He begins s response abilities as leader a little different than byrd does. Someone who says i am working for you, the rankandfile. Baker began to see that departure during his tenure. And i think it relates to the fact that he comes in with a bunch of freshmen, and he wants to take this opportunity to exert control over congress. Election ahe 1980 fulcrum where we begin to see a shift in the Republican Party ideology . James yes and no. 1994 is a big deal both in the house and the senate, but in the senate, its not ideology. Its not conservative or liberal that is breaking the senate. If you think back to former majority leader byrd on the floor of the senate talking about senators breaking the senate, its the fact that they are not using all the tools that they have. And so im not sure that 1980 is the moment where we would say that is the moment it starts to shift away from where it used to be, and it is all the fault of ideology. Because there is a change in how senators think about their job and the institution. That change is unrelated to ideology. Susan we have a clip of howard baker, same series of leadership lectures, talking about his leadership style. Lets watch. [video clip] i remember, so vividly, my first day on the senate floor. After the caucus of this very room elected me majority leader, i walked over to bob byrd. I said, bob, i will never know the precedent and rules of senate the way you do. You are truly a man of the senate, speak to the traditions of the senate, and acknowledge the procedures. But i will make you a deal. I said, i will never surprise you if you wont surprise me. And bob said, let me think about it. [laughter] and he did think about it. And that afternoon, he came over to me on the senate floor and just said, all right. Susan can we envision the minority and majority leaders today having such a deal . James i think they do. The senate does not work, like it currently is structured, if leaders dont cooperate. Mcconnell and harry reid, leader,er minority cooperated as well. Senate leaders have to cooperate. They have always cooperated. You can really mess things up. The leaders job is to make things work, not mess things up. So they work with one another. This is not a new thing. If you think back to Mike Mansfield and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, at the beginning of that debate, which was in a president ial Election Year one of the biggest issues of our time, it divided the democratic party, and the majority leader hopes to get it going and put it on the floor in a president ial Election Year. But he has a meeting with a senator from georgia. They lay out what they think they will do. And russell, the senator from georgia, says, i will try to stop this bill. They treat each other with respect. When you see this and as a place where senators go to represent their constituents, you think about them as equals and dont surprise each other. You may use the rules of leverage when you can, and senator byrd used the rules as he could. Incidentally, baker changed senate parliamentarians. It was a big deal at the time. A lot of byrds critiques from republicans at the time were that he was using the rules in a partisan way, but they still cooperate. And they still cooperate, to this day. Susan i want to underscore this point, because people have just watched the two leaders through the impeachment process, a lot of partisan divide on the floor of the senate, but your message is, offcamera, behindthescenes there is , cooperation between the two leaders . James correct area they may not get along very well, but they are cooperating. Cooperating on setting the schedule. The two leaders cooperate on the nomination stuff. They do not like the rankandfile to get too into that. They want to set the schedule. When mcconnell made the motion to proceed over reids objections, it was not that mcconnell was excited to do it as minority leader and was not going to cooperate with reid. He was trying to talk the senator who did want to do out of doing it. That was senator tom coburn. If you look it up on cspan, you can see that mcconnell makes this motion, he immediately leaves the floor, and then coburn stand up and starts talking. The idea is that, you have two leaders, and their job is to control their conferences and to make the senate work and not surprise anyone. Liberal or, whether conservative, if they try to go on the floor and do something, all of a sudden, they will immediately be told by the leadership staff, floor staff, and ultimately by the leader that they cannot do that. Because if they do it, it will lead to all these bad things happening, all the surprises. We cannot have that. Susan i want to talk about bob dole. Until Mitch Mcconnell he is the , longestserving republican leader. 10 years, 11 months and nine days. Two stints as majority leader. 1984 to 1986. He also began to see republican members of the senate who had been part of the gingrich wave leaving the house. Talk about his leadership style with that changing body. James so dole thought institutionally. He was a conservative, it seems to me. Back then, at least he thought institutionally. He thought differently about his responsibility. All of a sudden the senate is , starting to change, and he has to figure out how to accommodate senators who come in and want to do things. Some started to challenge the this is not a new thing. Senators wanted to challenge the new guard at the beginning of the 20th century. This is not a new phenomenon. It leads to dynamism. It leads to innovation. Dole tried to work his way through that as best as possible. On one hand, he had a bunch of arebull chairman who basically controlling the plays, more or less, at least the conference. On the other hand, he had a bunch of reformers who wanted to change things immediately. It is a very difficult thing to navigate. Susan a couple of major pieces of adulation that had reverberations many years one was the balancedbudget bill. Another was the 1986 tax reform bill. And then 1 the big Immigration Reform bill. Can you talk about those pieces of legislation and how they got forged . James so the grahamre dmanhawlings do nots leap typically mention. I think he became upset at it at the end and was not proud of it. But it puts limits on deficits. They are eventually replaced by spending cap. That is the beginning of this government by cliff, appropriations by cliff thing we see. They are forged via it is a very kind of complex procedure, reconciliation, where they are trying to put things and get over filibusters, but they are really written off the floor. If you look at the budget enforcement act of 1990, the bill and structure to replace deficit targets, will ultimately happens as they negotiate this deal off the floor. The figure out how to cobble it together, put it on the floor, and pass it. They are still not blocking mms at this stage, but all of a sudden, you begin to see, in this era things shifting away , from the floor. And not necessarily to committees. Although the 1986 tax reform bill is a great example. Basically say, how can we save this process that does not look like it will succeed . They ultimately end up passing a bill. It may be a good bill. It may be a bad bill. But they still pass a bill. Its similar to today. Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell says theres nothing republicans agree on more than tax reform. They barely passed it one vote. The only reason they passed it, so far as i can tell, reading tea leaves and news papers off the hill is that members like pat told me on the finance committee were working aggressively, trying to come up with different solutions, talking to their colleagues, going around and bringing people into the process to say what can we do to make this thing happen . Because that is what lawmaking ultimately takes. Susan because we only have one hour with you, will bypass his move into the current era. Harry reid in the senate starting in 1987 through 2017 , he succeeded tom daschle. Lets start with a clip from him and then we will talk about his leadership style. [video clip] is like anythis job other job. People have to like you. Matt williams, who was a manager of the nationals wonderful guy. From nevada, by the way. Word got out that his players were not playing as hard for him, did not respect him, all that kind of stuff. Was this true or false . I dont really know. But he got dumped. And being the manager of a Baseball Team is no different than being manager of a bunch of senators here. Job,u are not doing a good they do not like you, they find a way to get rid of you. Susan he was in the senate the last two years of george w. Bushs presidency and six years of president obamas term. How did he approach his job . James in full disclosure, when i worked in the senate, senator reid was the majority leader for most of that time. Hes a very interesting senator and one who ive changed my appraisal of over the years as i think about it. Let me put it this way. He is the only senator, the only leader that ive ever seen or read about that changed how they did their job mainstream. Most leaders just keep doing what they are doing. If johnson is a leader in the 1960s, he will not leader like Mike Mansfield, he will lead it like Lyndon Johnson, and it wont work. Reid sees that and he reacts to a growing liberal class of senators that come into the senate, and he begins to change how he leads the center senate in response to that, in response to conservative senators forcing issue on the floor that divide his party on things like immigration. Also he really dislikes the president , at the time, i believe. I dont think this is a secret, president bush. I think all of that comes together and informs, ultimately, his decision to lock down the senate. And the most important thing about reid, and i dont know if it comes from his private career as a boxer before he enters public life or what, but he has a sense for the rhythm of the process. He has a sense for the way in which legislative compromise emerges out of legislative struggle. And its not always pretty. And you dont always like it. Very, very, very good at getting that. Very good at getting that. And i think that explains a lot of what we see. In the Nuclear Option of 2013, for example. It explains a lot of what he was able to do that Mitch Mcconnell has not been able to do. Susan could you specifically talk about his approach to the 2008 financial crisis . We were transitioning between two president s and two parties. It was an enormous challenge. They required swift legislative response. How did he approach it . And youhat reid does see this all the time now on virtually every bill. Once you get a bill on the floor, you immediately file cloture to get into filibuster. You use the tree to get your party recognition. The tree is a fancy way of saying all the bills you can have at once and you wait for that to run out. Reid would do that once he got a bill to negotiate with. Targetd go after and certain senators. He would say susan collins, i think you will be with me on this, so i am going to work with you to negotiate a bill. Once we get that bill together and i will hold my democrats, then i will use the tools i have as a leader to force that through the senate. Even if i dont think i have you all the way. If i have 59. 5 votes, i will put you in a position where it makes you very uncomfortable for you to vote no. Susan Mitch Mcconnell will consume our last eight minutes. He called his memoir the long game. And, unlike a number of the majority leaders we have talked about, has never had president ial ambitions. He is working in and wants the senate. How does he approach leadership . James i think Mitch Mcconnell approaches leadership like a factory foreman. He says my job is to produce widgets. To do that, i need to control the factory. To control the factory, i need members. To get members, i need to win elections. Which means i need to raise money and keep issues that divide my party and create a dysfunctional narrative off the agenda. Which leads him to clamp down on the factory. Which, ironically, leads to fewer widgets in the end. That is the secret to the dysfunction we have today. We are in Mike Mansfield senate today. Susan what do you mean by that . James the issues that divide the party. There are a lot of important issues that divide the party internally. Now between them but divide democrats from democrats and republicans from republicans. Immigration, health care, gun control those types of issues. ,then you have a leader that wants to run the senate like Lyndon Johnson did in this environment. I dont think it can work. Case in point, the senate now is probably the most unproductive it has ever been in its history. It is a little bit ironic, because the second you have someone who truly conceives of their job as a factory foreman, if i am correct, the outcome they are not getting any widgets. Susan one area it has been anonymously successful is in judicial appointments. Norma sleep successful is in enormously successful is in judicial appointments. James correct. Most of them are passing with bipartisan support. Most of them are passing with democrats and republicans voting for them. You might have someone like brett kavanaugh, for instance, for the supreme court. There was some partisan there, but they are largely bipartisan. And this specter, the specter of obstruction, i have not yet seen it. Mitch mcconnell gave an interview in the 115th congress and said its the best congress he ever had. And he simultaneously said its the worst historic obstruction i have ever experienced. Those two things do not go together. They dont add up. I think the reason is there is not historic obstruction. Both parties are deferring to their leaders. Both leaders are negotiating things on judges, which they can agree on on some areas, and thats what they do. They keep other issues off the agenda. Susan if you have watched the interplay between Mitch Mcconnell and Chuck Schumer, current democratic leader, versus Mitch Mcconnell and harry reid, what do you see . James from my perspective, schumer and mcconnell appear to get along much better than reid and mcconnell did at the end. Reid was very adept, as i said, at putting senators in tough situations. One of the reasons why we have the Nuclear Option is that he would detonate, and he would get senators, like rob portman, to back down and vote for cloture on the nominee that he would threaten the Nuclear Option on. He kept doing that over and over again. Eventually, those senators would not back down, so he had to go through with it. I think that kind of mentality, that kind of hardnosed driving, always wanting to win, no matter what i have to do or what i have two say, that is going to grind on you if you are having to work with another individual. I think mcconnell got tired of that. I think it undermined their relationship. Simultaneously mcconnell had , more and more conservative senators who wanted to do things that he could not control. Which then created pressure and tension with him and his relationship with reid. Susan would you comment on Mitch Mcconnells relationship with the Current White House . James i am not privy to it. I do not know. Susan you watch it as a scholar. And we have talked about other majority leaders and their relationships with the white house. How does this one seemed to function . James one of the key reasons we have a Senate Leader position today like we have is because the presidency is now aggressive in the legislative sphere. In the leader is expected, in many cases, to assure that agenda through or to work on behalf of that president. Its not the only thing the leader is supposed to do, but its one of the main things, when the president is of your party. And that is certainly of some relationship we see continue with mcconnell and trump. But it could go both ways. I think you see that mcconnell may want to try to push back against some things privately that he does not like while, something silly, Going Forward on other things he likes, like judges. So thats why the senate only those judges, and it will not really deal with other issues. Susan the last three president s, frustrated with the lack of movement, have increased their use of executive orders. What does that mean in the scheme of how our government is supposed to work . James it illustrates how critical and vital congress is and how critical and vital the senate is. If you dont have a senate thats willing to be a crucible of conflict, if you do not have senators willing to debate things you will not get , legislative compromise, which means you cannot legitimize outcomes. Which means the people dont see their claims adjudicated. Yet there are still things that need to happen or people want to have happen, so people look to the courts and they look to the presidency to make those decisions. Ultimately, the courts and the presidency cannot legitimize their own decisions. Then he congress. They need politics. For that to happen, you have to have a senate that can serve as the senate. Until the senate does that, we focus on the presidency and executive orders, but this trend will continue until the senate decides it wants to start legislating. Susan lets close with a prescription. At the outset, you suggested that its the individual senators who it is really their responsibility for a dysfunctional senate. At the same point, you have a majority leader very focused on the legislative agenda. How does this situation resolve itself to a more functional senate . James a more functional senate, in this environment, and it does not always the same, but a more functional senate may be more chaotic, more messy, more conflict. Ultimately, that is what you need. You need more senators who want to win. Who come to washington, who become democrats or republicans, and they arrive in the senate on day one, and they look around and say what tools do i have to win . And then they go about trying to leverage those tools to win. Today, what is remarkable is Neither Party appears to want to win inside the senate. Neither party appears to want to pass legislation. You dont have senators who are ostensibly very liberal or conservative saying i can use these tools at my disposal, but yet they dont use them. That is interesting. Because polarization should induce them to act. And right now they are not , acting. That gets back to my original prescription. Which is the reason why the senate is broken is because senators are not thinking about the senate like they once did. Until they do, it will continue to be broken. All we need our new senators or existing senators to just wake up one morning and say, i want to win. And then go about trying to do so. They may lose, but in the it does not matter whether they win or lose, incidentally. Its the process that matters. Either that comes outcomes. Out of that, the system works. Susan James Wallner someone who , has spent your career in and studying and teaching, thank you for an interesting hour. James thank you. All q a programs are available on our website or as a podcast at cspan. Org. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] cspan has roundtheclock coverage to the federal response to the coronavirus outbreak at cspan. Org coronavirus. Watch white house briefings, updates from governors and state officials, track the spread throughout the u. S. And the world with interactive maps. Watch ondemand, anytime, unfiltered, on cspan. Org coronavirus. While the coronavirus pandemic continues, members of congress are working from their home districts. Many of my constituents work in the automated industry. The other majority are frontline workers, now considered essential workers. 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