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