And oftentimes argue on the floor. There is not much of they can do in changing the legislation. The house works by numbers more so than the senate. Whereas if the Majority Party pretty much calls the shots of what gets on the floor. So theres only so much you can do on the floor if you do not like somebody. Of course, you have the chamber and even if you do not like somebody you are supposed to call them nice things for you my distinguished colleague, for example instead of you rotten s. O. B. That is part of parliamentary procedure and style. Brian what do they do in the senate . Don Thomas Jefferson wrote the manual of parliamentary procedure to really cool down the tempers that would be there for any legislative issues pre members are not to address each other by name. They are not to criticize another persons state or question their motives and not to read a newspaper while another person is speaking. The senate has a high sense of the koran. I remember senator robert byrd who epitomized the senate and when he was mad at somebody, he would far get poor on the compliment that it will he would pour on the complement to the point that person was being embarrassed about them. The complete opposite of what he was thinking. He never broke his character of what a senator was supposed to do. Brian we had don ritchie and ray smock to join us. Don ritchie retired as the historian and United States senate. Ray smock retired as the whole story in 1995 as of the house was at the robert c. Byrd center. Lets go to this clip of a member of congress no longer alive, out of congress, third time in prison. Here is what he used to sound like on the floor. [video clip] of baseball will eliminate tw teams. Osome surprise. Tickets average 20 bucks. A program is 10. Popcorn is five dollars and parking is 20 and a hot dog and a beer cost about 10 and most stadiums. Beam me up. The amp test of the umpire said play ball, not monopoly. When a family of four needs a second mortgage to see a baseball game, it does not take dr. Ruth to explain to Major League Baseball what has gone wrong i yield back what is left of americas great pastime after the greatest world series perhaps in our history. Ride explain Jim Traficant brian explain Jim Traficant. Ray he was flamboyant and sarcastic and also for the underdog and in this case at this clip and he is saying baseball cost too much and the average family cannot go see it. He made references to being me up. He said it in pretty much every one of his speeches. These are the one minute speeches where he gets to rant and rave where all members can all about whatever subject they want to talk about. A reference to star trek beam me up, scottie, he used as his brand was something was outrageous. Brian what kind of discipline do they use for somebody they do not like when somebody uses though floor like this . Don if members were the rules and something beyond the core, you cant decorum, you can be forced to sit down and not take part in the debates. That is rare. Sometimes we get new senators coming in and especially from the house and they are used to the roughandtumble of it all. Veteran citizens will often take the junior senators the side and coach them on what a senator is supposed to be like. How a senator supposed to dress and act. And they realize it is an important part of the institution. Going back to the 1950s a senator from vermont who came in and he was giving a speech. The democratic leader at the time made a comment about what a great young promising representative he was going to be. This was a Democratic Leaders saying something nice about a brandnew republican senator. Flanders said he was so taken by this he vowed to berkeley after he finished his speech. When they walked away, berkeley came over and said you do not do that. I was doing something thats part of a tradition, you do not mock of the tradition. Flanders was very embarrassed. He realized he was getting a lesson from a Senior Member on how to act as a United States senator. There is the process. Brian this was from 20 10, a member of congress very controversial, no longer there from new york. Lets watch. [video clip] great courage to all members who have spoken. Wrap your arms around the teacher. We see it and us in every day where members say we were all amendment but we are still a no. We stand up and only if we had a different process. You would vote yes. You vote in favor of something you think is the right thing. We are following up i will not yield. The gentleman will not gets up and yells to what today people into thinking he is right. He is wrong the gentleman is wrong it is republicans are wrapping their arms around republicans instead of doing the right thing it is a shame asian a shame brian any comments . Don nobody could get more than anthony weiner. You yield when, you have to yield if you have the floor. Somebody can ask you to yield. It is procedure you supposed to follow. You are addressed the chair and do not really talk to one another. Although they do. Here, he is in a shouting match. He is mad and he is reeling against the republicans. He did that fairly regularly. A number of members throughout history have had been more for buoyant when there been on the floor. If you are there every day and watching this, you just say anthony is being himself or Jim Traficant is being himself. Sometimes they are funny. Sometimes you enjoy the fireworks. It breaks up the monotony of routine business. In the end, not good parliamentary percentage seizure and usually do not get anywhere. Don the house has been a more boisterous. Is a bigger body and passions arise. Sometimes fights on the floor and all times of things. They have a silver rod put into the chamber. If an emotion should break out, the sergeant in armaments in arms lives up of the dignity. And things down. There was an occasion when a member was speaking and she finish, her woman it was up and she was ruled to have to stop her she was so passionate she caps on talking. They kept grabbing the gavel. Somebody yelled get the maze. So many new members did not realize what it was and they thought there were told by a story can of mace. That is not it for you they were looking for the sergeant of arms to hold up the mace to show it is serious and people have to behave. Brian 21 years ago, the following was given. This is senator bob smith from new hampshire. I wonder what each of your comments might be with what he had to say then. [video clip] a very simple underlying commitment and will prohibit to any School System receiving funds under the elementary and secondary education act from implementing any School Program that encourages homosexuality. It merely prevents taxpayerfunded advocacy of the homosexual lifestyle. That is the question here. Should federal tax dollars in this bill be spent to advocate and encourage the homosexual lifestyle in the curriculum of Public Schools in this country . Brian he was in the senate from 1992 until 2003. What is your reaction . Ray on the political side of it don on the political side of it, they have more ability than the house. The senate controls the process of how many members there are. Senators dry history are able to add an amendment on to anything. An amendment is that has something to do with the bill and in many cases it can be different. It is an issue of changing social perspectives. Before bob smith, it would be jesse helms that will introduce similar resolutions. It also suggests not much has changed over time. You cannot imagine a member today introducing legislation like that. Ray they issue that senator smith was talking about, amazing when you look back at that and think it was 17 years ago and how far we have come on that issue politically, both parties. It is still an issue and the current election, it is hardly an issue it was. It is never going to be framed the way it was and the way he spoke about it in 1998. Brian what is the in other words, what can you say on the floor of the senate you cannot say out in the world . Ray members of congress have the ability to say what they think without being arrested and you go back to the king and of the parliament. The king could have somebody imprisoned. You have complete freedom to speak. You do not defame anybody or liable anybody but if you put into your newsletter or go on television and say it, as a member of congress, you are liable a you can be sued. We had a case in which senator of wisconsin used to give the Golden Fleece award to the person who milked of the government for the most amount of money. And he gave it to scientist he thought had done this and identified them on the floor. He was totally free. He put in its newsletter. The Supreme Court said you are liable. The senator was sued. The scientists collected. Brian do you remember any time on the house floor when somebody was get because they were protected . Ray whatever they say is protected. I cannot think of any incident where anything particularly outrageous said was protected. The house floor and the senate floor are aware of america has its debate and where all of the voices are supposed to come together. They are not always going to be on the same page. That is part of the greatness of the place. Someone gets up and says something and something that could be totally outrageous and somebody else will get up and offer a correct or alternative position. Usually they do it with a great decorum and when they do not, the fireworks fly. Sometimes you have to get out the mace. Brian what are the rules today all about the congressional record and editing your comments from the floor . Ray yes. Brian do you identify you edited them . Ray there are lots of different ways the congressional record not only what is said on the floor of the house but material that can be entered in an extraneous manner. You can add later. That usually shows up in a different type of face in the record and shows up in a session called extension of remarks where you do not a it on the floor but want to add it. Sometimes you make reference to an article in the New York Times and you want to read it on the floor but add to the record. The record is more complete than of what is said on the floor. You have the right to edit mistakes or oversights or make corrections. Don it has been going on for a long time. Clay and webster edited the remarks before they went into the record. It smooths out. Sometimes because they misspoke during the debate. In the 19 century when members fall to duels the leading insult was an apology for you is that saved you from having to go to the dueling grounds with that person. And exchange between henry clay and calhoun. How old was various the next day that clay had says something. Clay said it has been removed. It does not exist anymore as far as we concern for you concerned. Ray one television came in, the question then, what is the record . If the Television Camera shows you saying one thing on the videotape and at the record shows you saying something else, which is the record . I remember having conversations since i was involved in some of the earlier debates and discussions about when i first got there the house was not saving the broadcast, they were recycling to them after 60 days thinking they were only newsworthy for 60 days. I said what about history . What about the fact you may have somebody on the floor like an Abraham Lincoln . Why are you erasing history . One lincoln was a congressman, if we had a speech, it would be priceless break brian this is dirks in, a senator from illinois until 1969. Dirksen, a senator from illinois until 1969. He mentioned Abraham Lincoln watching this. [video clip] i sometimes think my desk is piled hig. [indiscernible] they ratify in all corners. All of these papers. [indiscernible] finding the very simple answers. The problems of mankind. We would be benefiting. Without articles and books and essays and all of the problems of the day. Brian in case you missed it, he was talking to a statue of Abraham Lincoln. He was from illinois as was Abraham Lincoln. He said politicians had to get right with lincoln. Lincoln was the model for their party. This is a folksy way of talking about Current Issues and connecting to the past. He was doing that in a recording studio. Many senators over time have done tv programs or little clippings that were broadcast back to their state. A way of trying to communicate with the citizens and show you can talk with their language and discuss things that would be important to them. And to show them that Everett Dirksen and lincoln were close enough to have a conversation on television. Brian what was your reaction . Braving i love Everett Dirksen number one. When i came from illinois, he was my congressman. The first time i visited the capital to get a pass to visit the gallery and the senate and go to the Senators Office and got that. I loved to listen to his voice for he was one of the great orators. He was a real smooth talker. And there was a story that george told, the great photographer for the New York Times about a group that came to visit with Everett Dirksen. He was on the floor of the senate and came out. His style which i cannot imitate but i will do a semiimitation. He said, ladies, i have phone off the mental of the cloak of the senate to speak with you. What is it that you could possibly have in your mind that i can help you with . What is the latest popped up and said, nothing, senator, we just want to hear you talk. [laughter] brian who else can you think of that people want to hear talk . Don when Daniel Webster sometime the entire house would go to the senate to hear him speak. And albert on foreign policy. The press gallery would be full. In recent times, that kind of oratory has disappeared. I loved to hear speaker he was always a bit unpredictable and amusing in everyday. Erudit. Te. Oratory is not the same as it was a century ago. Brian in 1994, a senator and he was a republican from north carolina. You can hear the southern accent and going back to the speech and debate clause, he is talking about people specifically. This is during the bill clinton years. [video clip] i did not say that Cassie Thompson use cocaine. I did say very clearly she had a close business relationship with a man who used cocaine extensively. I said that she was not assuring members of the house that at the people monitoring the white house and drug testing including herself, worked among the especially tested group of white house employees with the history of drug use. Given that fact and get her past relationship with i still believe that the president should certify that and no one in charge of that the Drug Testing Program has a history of a drug problems themselves. Brian mr. Smock . Ray those were ugly times. The clinton impeachment. That was just and that was in 1994. That was the year the republicans took over control of the house. In the election of 1994, a lot of i remember the 1990s as pretty contentious times and of course growing business that have plagued the clintons going back to arkansas was a relentless effort to smear them or what was going on in the white house. Don i was listening to him speaking when i first came to the senate was before cspan was there. A little green box on your desk a you could hear what was going on, like a radio. Without an announcer telling you who was speaking and you had to guess. I was always ankle for senators like Lauch Faircloth because you could identify him. I could identify strong arm and or update Strom Thurmond or others because they had accidents. Then the middle of the country senators who all sounded alike and you sat at thinking, who is that . South dakota or north dakota . Was out of the picture, you are really without the picture, you are really lost. You still get regional flavor. It robs us of the nation and the nation sending people who sound like them. Brian remember some voices from the house but before we do that, here is senator hollings that you mentioned. We run this clip for a couple of reasons. The way he was approaching the budget in those days. [video clip] you can come to washington and forget about it. There was a time and i saw one article with the other day put in relative to president lyndon b. Johnson and said, oh, no. He did not give guns and butter. He came in 1969. The last time the United States government balanced the budget was on the under president Lyndon Johnson. We ended up in the allblack with a surplus. Bride bank he did not give credit to bill clinton balancing data brian he did not give credit to bill clinton balancing the budget. What is your reaction . And somebody you can remember the voice . Ray Fritz Hollings was right out of central casting as the silver haired southern senator preif you was going to do a movie with that kind of character, you cannot pick anybody Fritz Hollings that are then for that role. He cultivated that. That was him no question. I think one senators and members of the house do have a certain style, they probably have magnified it a bit since television. Always the question whether they played the television. I do not think they do consciously all of the time but there are times when they clearly know the cameras are on. Brian do you have somebody you can remember that a distinctive voice, distinctive accent . Ray i like to jim wright that a texas accent and was very precise when he was majority leader and speaker. He was he could speak wonderfully and in a different asleep manner extem poraneoulsy manner. Brian he recently died. He was in his early 90s and suffered mouth cancer and had operations. When you think back to jim wright in the house and what happened to him, 55,000 book deal or something compared to what we have now . What is your reaction . Don too bad his tenure was short and. Working in th