U.S. SENATE, FROM FLOOR TO MAILBAGS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100010009-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 25, 2011
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: July 27, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
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LOS ANGELES TIMES
27 July 1986
U.S. Senate,
From Floor
to Mailbags
By Rabwt Cant
The Rev. Billy Graham delivered the
opening Prays;. Pete V. Domenici
(R-N.M.), chairman of the Senate
Budget Committee, and Lawton Chiles
(D-Fla.>, the ranking minority member,
took turns lambasting Office of Manage-
ment and Budget Director James C. Miller
III and the Administration's proposal to
elimiruate '~ Progi'alns from the budget.
Two other members of the m~ority,
moderate Rudy Boechwitz (R-Minn.) and
conservative William L. Armstrong (R-
Colo.) battled each other. Armstrong said
he was perplexed:
"We are in the sizth year of an
Administration, the moat conservative
President in our lifetime. The Senate is
under control of a bipartisan conservative
majority. Yet ... we have runaway
federal spending-rising every year.
Now, it is my observation that most
,people out in the country who have
thought about it think that Congress is
populated by a bunch of gutless wonders,
and in general I think that perception is
correct." _
In the sparsely occupied galleries a few
score tourists sat glassy-eyed, looking
down on the all-but-empty chamber
where no more than a handful of senators
were present. Even they disappeared,
seemingly Perversely, when Domenid
suggested "the absence of a quorum," an
observation of a not unusual condition.
"Mr. Abdnor ... Mr. Andrews ... Mr.
Armstrong ..." the clerk began to call
the roll in a soporific voice, no more than
one name every 30 seconds.
It was a representative day in the
oratorical minuet of the Senate of the
United States; and when the tourists
departed they were less comprehending
of-and leas impressed by-the proce-
dures of the upper chamber of Congress
than when they had arrived.
The Senate is an institution that has
always marched to its own drummer,
succored until Prohibition by whiskey
decanters and snuffboxes strategically
placed in the chamber. The framers of the
Constitution intended this to be a patri-
cian body, counselor to the President and
counterweight to the popularly elected
House of Representatives. Though the
Founding Fathers favored democracy.
they didn't quite trust it.
The Senate has indeed often been, as it
is now, a fulcrum between the White
House and the House of Representatives.
The siz-year, overlapping terms of sena-
tors give the body a stability and continu-
ity beyond that of _the presidency and the
House. Independence and individuality
are. consequently, senatorial hallmarks.
The necessity to campaign statewide, to
espend large sums of money for election
and to appeal to a diversity of voters, have
tended to make senators older, wealthier
and more representative of the main-
stream of the electorate. The ideological
Republicanism of the White House is
generally not the pragtnatit; Republican-
ism of the Senate. The croescurrenta in
the Senate tend to blur party distinctions;
when Dwight D. Eisenhower was Presi-
dent, he had better relations with moder-
ate and conservative Democrats than
with many members of his own party. The
fact that senators represent states, rather
promote regionalism, particularly during
the one-party, Democratic era in the
South, when the same senators were
returned election after election. Seniority
helped them gain control of Senate ma-
chinery and solidarity gave them power
far beyond their numbers.
But the dynamics that can further a
state's Senate influence can, conversely,
also diminish it, as has happened in
California during the past 30 years. Since
the abolition of cross-filing in the 1950s,
Republican Party senatorial contests
have been dominated by the right wing;
mossbacks defeated the party's best hope
for senatorial longevity, moderate Thom-
as Kuchel, in 1968, only to see him
replaced by a liberal centrist Democrat,
Alan G4'anston. The other seat, vacated by
conservative William F. Rnowland in
1958, turned into a musical chair, occupied
by a suxxeas[on of one-term, largely
amateur politicians. They left scarcely a
mark beyond the names they carved in
their desks-a peculiar senatorial custom
that dates back to the days when Sam
Houston whiled away the hours by whit-
tling wooden hearts that he passed up to
ladies in the gallery.
Since seniority it almaet synogymous
with influence. Cranston has carried the
principal burden of representing the state
for the past 18 years. During this
California has far outstripped all oar
states in diversity and size of its economy
and population. With almost 26 million
people, the state is 50% more populous
than New York, its nearest competitor,
and ezceeds in numbers the combined
total of the 221east populous states. It ie
No. 1 in agriculture, No. 1 In the value of
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manufactures, No. 1 m aetense espena~-
tures-and a close second to New Jersey
!n number of toxic sites. It is. in other
words, America's first superstate.
While most senators need ata,Y atop
only a limited number of iss~us affecting
their states. CranaWn and Republican
Pete Wilson are compelled to keep up
with virtually every hearing. every brill
and every debate. There ie scarcely an
issue or problem affecting Amerka t>Yat
does not have an impact on California. A
senator from California is not simply a
legislator but the chief of an oi'lioe
employing about 75 people-and actwlly
needing a good many more. Yet he
receives only about t1.7 million for annual
staff and office espensea, while senators
from states with populations of 1 million
or leas get;1 million each.
Wilson, a mainstream, coneervatlve-
leaning Republican who slithered through
party mine fields to win nomination and
election in 1882, appears to have an
excellent chance of being the first occu-
pant of the seat in aquarter-century to
win reelection. Aone-time state legWator
and popular former mays of San Dlego,
his forts fs organisation. He was not
pleased when, during his first couple of
years in Washington, wage were saying;
"Pete Wilson defeated Jerry Brown for
senator-and neither has been heard from
since." Yet it takes about that much time
to build a staff, organize an offcee and
even settle in domestically. During one of
the earn months, Wilson, carrying a pail,
map and various other cleaning devices,
was refused admittance by a Senate
guard. Hies chief of staff had to vouch far
Wilson being a senator masquerading a. a
janitor, and not vice versa.
A generation ago, Sen. Ralph Flanders
of Vermont personally answered the
half-dozen letters a week he received
from constituents. Today, the mailbags
are trundled in on hand dollies and spill
15,000 to 20,000 pieces a week is both
Cranston'e and Wilson's offices. The bulk
ie topical, dealing with specific legislative
issues. Much of it is generated by special
interests that "personalize" the cat'e'e-
spondence in a half-dozen different ver-
sions by computer. Every piece 1a sorted
and processed, then responded,to accord-
ing to one of 1,000 forms and varlatiorn
stored in computers. Virtually every stall
member participates in a process that
takes up half of all office time.
A visitor is impressed by the quality,
dedication and diversity of the staffs,
Cranston'e chief legislative adviser for the
past 18 years, John Steinberg, Jerked for
retiring Chief Justice Warren Burger
when Burger was an appellate court
judge; he could quintuple his incite with
a law firm. Wil^nn',. defense E7m0lt. Matk
Albrech 18 a medievalist who holds a
ea s "c~neider the B zantine maneu-
~~
Wilson's operation is more structured
than Cramton's and the staif~ tend W
reflect .the personalities of the senators.
Wilson's has the enthusiasm of youth.
Craneton's ie more experienced, more
skeptical of the bureaucracy. Both staffs
are spread thin; 60- or 70-hour work
weeks are common.
Ninety-five percent of legislative busi-
ness is conducted in committee, some-
times referred to as "kitchen work; ' as
well as in private meetings between staffs
and between senators. What occurs on the
floor merely represents the tip of the
legislative iceberg-confirmation and
packaging of a product that has been
crafted elsewhere. Moat orations are de-
signed for the Congreeaional Record,
perhaps the most voluminous, rarely read
publication in history. Now it will be
interesting to see whether television has
any effect on senatorial style. The quorum
call, which typically bewilders spectators,
is a device to place the Senate in
suspended animation while senators con-
fer in the cloakrooms since, according to
one of the more arcane traditions, once
the Senate is called to order, action cannot
be suspended for even one minute without
triggering a recess.
The ultimate in legislative pennissive-
ness ie the filibuster, truly an endurance
contest; senators cannot pause for 10
seconds without rink of losing the floor.
But since senators are subject to the same
biological processes as less exalted crea-
tures, they are forced to equip themselves
with an appropriate device strapped to a
lower extremity. One day in 1954 when
Eetea Kefauver (D-Tenn.) had been
declaiming for six hours, his device began
descending, threatening to spill its con-
tents. In desperation he had to plead for
unanimous consent to be e~ocused.
UnW Lyndon B. Johnson, as majority
leader, began to use these so-called
"unanimous consent agreements" to
schedule bills, the Senate conducted buai-
nees in a largely unstructured atmos-
phere. It was difficult to tell what would
be on the floor at any given time, how
long debate would last and when a vote
would be called. Johnson's reform has
made it somewhat easier to plan ahead;
still, surprises do occur. One day Wilson
was having lunch when a staffer rushed
in: "You'd better get to the floor right
away, senator. "When Wilson arrived in
the chamber, he discovered that, in his
words, "the distinguished but sneaky
senator from Kentucky was trying to
offload half the liquor tax increase onto
California wine."
Wilson has a puckish sense of humor,
and can be an engaging mime and hoofer
when he loosens hie inhibitions. But as a
senator he ie very much aware of his
image. Cranston, to the contrary, is
uncomfortable with formality-at his in-
sistence staffers call him Alan. When he
flies to California-three weekends out of
every four-he buys coach tickets; and
when he runs in track meets, as he has
since high school, he blends right in to the
senior-dozen field.
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The Senate is still one of the world's
moat exclusive clubs but the nature of its
leadership has changed. No longer would
the members look the other way ae they
did when Robert Kerr (D- Okla.) used his
position to promote the interests of the
Ken-McGee Oil Co., or when Elmer
Thomas (D-Okla.), chairman of the Agri-
culture Committee, bought and sold com-
modity futures in accordance with his
committee's actions.
What ie needed now is a better under-
stsnding of the Senate by the federal
community as well as the general public.
"You'd be surprised how many people
have no contact with or conception of
Capitol Hill," said Albrecht of Wilson's
staff. "They have this cartoon image of
Sodom and Gomorrah. To thousands of
people who work in flit' executive branch,
as I did, Congress is one of the beat-kept
secrets." p
Robert Corot is a Thousand Oaks author
who has spent the past seven months
studyeng U.S. laumwkenp and Iawmokers.
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