ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 1, 1996 TAG: 9609030064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TONY WHARTON LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
NOTE: Below
The job awaiting the next Sen. Warner from Virginia, be it John the Republican or Mark the Democrat, is very different from what the Constitution's framers expected.
A senator today is a powerful, highly visible politician, constantly on the move, who can significantly influence the national agenda in a number of ways.
If the senator is a freshman, he is expected to hit the ground running; the ``apprenticeship'' system for junior senators died long ago.
In fact, the power of any and every senator is considerable, and that's considered one of the Senate's problems today.
In the electronic media age, senators are among the most sought-after guests for talk shows and network news. Even a freshman senator can easily gain national recognition. This is a far cry from the days when seniority was all, and freshman senators were meant to be seen and not heard.
Today's senator is likely to be more individualistic and less team-oriented than his predecessors - witness the rise of filibusters. This is somewhat more democratic, but it also means that it's much harder for Senate leaders to control the proceedings and get things done.
Senators are less specialized than they used to be. Even if a senator doesn't sit on the appropriate committee, he or she can latch onto an issue and ride it right through floor debate to passage.
Senate debate is more acrimonious than it was 40 years ago, and is possibly more similar to pre-Civil War days.
There is serious discussion today of the state of the Senate, with multiple voluntary departures in recent years by leading senators such as Bill Bradley, Nancy Kassebaum, Warren Rudman and Sam Nunn. Many warned as they went that the Senate's effectiveness as a legislative body was breaking down.
``Senators are burned out by endless partisan wrangling,'' wrote Rudman, a Republican from New Hampshire, in ``Combat,'' his memoir. He noted that the number of Senate votes is increasing, but mostly because of ``politically inspired and meaningless'' legislation.
``I thought the essence of good government was reconciling divergent views with compromises that served the country's interests. But that's not how movement conservatives or far-left liberals operate. The spirit of civility and compromise was drying up,'' he said.
Barbara Sinclair, a political science professor at UCLA who has long studied the Senate, agrees with the substance of these complaints but doubts their sincerity.
``A lot of them are willing to say this is a crummy way of doing things,'' she said. ``But they're still not willing to make change, at least not in large numbers.''
The nation's founders intended the Senate to be the nation's highest arena for debating the republic's most pressing issues.
From states' rights and slavery in the early 19th century to civil rights in the 1950s and '60s and balancing the budget in the 1990s, the Senate has been exactly that.
Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Taft, Kennedy, Johnson, Goldwater, Humphrey, Ervin, Dole - when you think of leading American politicians and debaters, many of them will be U.S. senators.
The Senate, with six-year terms and entire states for districts (senators used to be chosen by state legislatures), was to be the more level-headed, conservative body, balancing the free-wheeling House of Representatives.
Thomas Jefferson was uneasy with the elitist-seeming Senate, and told George Washington so. Legend has it that Washington asked Jefferson why he poured coffee into his saucer. ``To cool it,'' Jefferson replied.
``Exactly,'' Washington said. ``We pour legislation into the Senate to cool it.''
Yet within a few decades, the issues of states' rights and slavery, left unresolved at the nation's founding, began to crack the Senate's calm. Senators came to work armed, and oral battles inside the Senate led to duels outside. In 1856, a South Carolina congressman walked up to Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner's desk on the floor and savagely beat him with a cane for remarks he had made during an anti-slavery speech.
The verbal and physical violence in the Senate waned after the national bloodletting of the Civil War. The Senate began quietly building a system of committees, consensus and seniority.
By the 1940s, the chamber worked so smoothly that nearly 98 percent of the bills that passed the Senate did so without need for a roll call vote. Most of the work was done in committees; senators cultivated specialties appropriate to their states and often deferred to each others' expertise.
Freshman senators were expected to serve an ``apprenticeship,'' following their seniors' lead and speaking seldom.
Today, the apprenticeship system is long gone. The power of committees has waned. Senators now routinely become involved in bills their own committees do not address, and 10 percent to 20 percent of all bills passed go to a roll call vote.
The smoothly running machine of the past is slowing down, mostly because power has been diffused in the Senate from a central authority, the leadership, to the individual members. Senators are ``more equal'' than ever before.
One indication is the increase in filibusters. They used to be rare, but only because of individual restraint that seems to be missing today. A senator can ``filibuster'' - speak at length as a delaying tactic - to stop legislation or extract concessions.
The Senate needs 60 votes to stop a filibuster, and that's hard to get. Some ingenious senators have even found ways to continue after the membership has told them to be quiet.
Sinclair said that with the number of interest groups seeking the Senate's attention and the variety of media stages, all senators can make names for themselves if they want.
``There are many niches for senators to play important roles,'' she said. ``There are many groups looking for champions.''
Sinclair concludes that the new, more democratic Senate offers more opportunities for small interest groups to be heard. The Senate's role, more than ever, is in helping to set the agenda for Washington and the nation.
"Although decision-making is less efficient," she said, "it may be more responsive to the desires of citizens as a whole."
Got a question for the candidates for U.S. Senate? Let us know so we can follow up. In Roanoke, call 981-0100. In New River, 382-0200. Press category 7821.
LENGTH: Long : 117 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshots) Ebbett, Neill, St. Clair, Randolph, Zawacki,by CNBSullivan, Prillaman, Platt. color. KEYWORDS: POLITICS CONGRESS