History of the United States Senate
.jpg)
The history of the Senate is the story of one of the two chambers of Congress , the Parliament of the United States . It begins with the ratification of the constitution on March 4, 1789.
The Senate was created primarily for two different reasons. On the one hand, it was supposed to have a stabilizing and moderating effect on the legislature and the entire political system of the United States , similar to the British House of Lords . On the other hand, the smaller federal states enforced that each state is represented in the Senate by an equal number of senators. However, their hope of gaining direct influence on central political power was quickly dashed.
In the history of the American Congress, it was distinguished from the House of Representatives on the one hand by its different composition, which gave smaller states greater weight than in the House, on the other hand in more formal rules and the associated greater freedom for individual senators, which originally resulted from the fact that there was a Chamber of deliberation and not political action should be.
After it was clearly the less prestigious and in fact less powerful chamber in the early years, this order turned since the early 19th century. The confrontation with President Andrew Jackson gave the Senate its own profile. In the years before the American Civil War it was the most important forum for discussion between the slave-holding southern states and the abolitionist northern states. Important compromises of the time such as the Missouri Compromise or the Compromise of 1850 were primarily negotiated in the Senate.
After the civil war , however, the liberality of the internal rules of procedure ensured that the widespread political corruption in the so-called Gilded Age could spread particularly easily in the Senate. Important reforms of the early 20th century, such as the introduction of direct election of senators through the 17th Amendment to the Constitution , the first-time possibility of ending a debate by majority vote, or the possibility of hiring professional staff, ensured a sustainable modernization of the Senate.
In the following decades he repeatedly played an important role in the political system. He prevented the United States from joining the League of Nations , Joseph McCarthy had his power base in the Senate, and the great parliamentary debates on the Civil Rights Acts took place here.
A total of three impeachment proceedings against presidents were negotiated in the Senate . While the Senate acquitted Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998, Richard Nixon resigned before the end of the trial in 1974 to avoid the likely impeachment.
Origin: 1789
The Senate was created along with the Constitution and the other political institutions of the United States at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. The constitution came into force on March 4, 1789 by ratification in the individual states. It made a federal state out of the previously existing federation and created a much more pronounced central authority than before, in which the Senate was to become an important element.
The Senate, together with the House of Representatives, replaced the Continental Congress , which had been the only central power in the United States since the American War of Independence . The Continental Congress was a unicameral parliament in which each state had one vote. He had neither the executive nor the judiciary at his side, nor did he have any influence on important areas of economic policy such as tax laws or import duties between the various member states. The states attached little importance to the central government and often did not send any delegates at all, so that the Congress remained without a quorum for long periods of time.
This led to problems early on, especially in economic issues, as trade between states became so complicated. The Senate in its form arose as a compromise between the representatives of a strong central power with a strong legislature and the representatives of largely independent states who wanted to secure their influence at the state level through it.
Bicameral parliament
Most of the 55 constitutional fathers assumed a bicameral parliament , as outlined in the Virginia Plan . With the exception of Pennsylvania , all member states of the confederation already had bicameral parliaments. In addition to the obvious example on their doorstep, the English tradition with the House of Lords and House of Commons inspired the Constitutional Fathers; Both Alexander Hamilton and John Adams avowedly believed that the British system of government was a model to be emulated. On the other hand, they saw it as a necessary compensation within the legislature. Assuming that the legislature would become the dominant element in the political system, the Constitutional Fathers believed that the ordinary separation of powers was insufficient and wanted two elements in the legislature. James Madison justified it in Federalist No. 51 :
“In republican government the legislative power necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconvenience is to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions dependence on the society will admit. "
“In a republican form of government, the legislature necessarily dominates. The antidote to this inconvenience is to divide the legislature into different parts and, through different electoral processes and different principles of action, keep them as little connected as the nature of their dependence of their common functions on society allows. "
In this concept, the Senate assumed the role of a stabilizing and controlling chamber, which was based on the British House of Lords, the House of Lords. He stood in opposition to the House of Representatives , which was supposed to directly reflect popular opinion and will. While the House of Representatives exclusive rights got where it was active - the sole right of initiative in financial laws and the possibility of an impeachment to start process - were the exclusive rights of the Senate in controlling areas: deciding on impeachment and its approval is necessary if the president concludes international agreements or wants to fill vacancies.
This distinction continued in the envisaged membership. It should, according to Delegate John Dickinson from Pennsylvania:
"Consist of the most distinguished characters, distinguished for their rank in life and their weight of property, and bearing as strong a likeness to the British House of Lords as possible."
“Consist of the most distinguished personalities; excellent for their position in life and the weight of their property and [the Senate] should be as similar as possible to the British House of Lords. "
Senators had to be older than MPs in the House of Representatives (at least 30 years as opposed to at least 25 years), longer have American citizenship (nine years as opposed to seven), their tenure at six years is three times as long as that of the Representatives and they became not directly elected at the time, but appointed by the respective parliaments of the federal states ; among other things, they should be withdrawn from the currents and moods of daily politics. The naming is based on this: While the House was supposed to represent the population, the Senate was supposed to stand for tradition and continuity of the republic , the constitutional fathers named it after the Roman Senate .
One state - two senators
The fact that the states are all represented in the Senate by two MPs without the slightest consideration for the size of the population of the states arose less from political and philosophical considerations, but was a concession to the small states so that they would approve the constitution. At the beginning of the negotiations, the delegates from the small states entered into negotiations with the New Jersey Plan , which provided for a chamber with one seat per state.
During the Philadelphia Convention , an agreement was reached on the Connecticut Compromise , which in the design of the Senate was largely based on the parliament aimed at in the New Jersey plan. Despite considerable opposition - among others, Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin , George Washington and James Wilson were against the plan - the smaller states were ultimately able to prevail. In the meantime, they threatened to seek foreign powers as allies if they were not successful. The decisive vote took place according to states, so that the proponents of equal representation could prevail, although despite all the threats and negotiations they still represented fewer inhabitants than the opponents.
Both James Madison and the delegate Gunning Bedford Jr. from the smallest state of Delaware admitted frankly that there was no systematic justification for this distribution of seats, but that it was simply realpolitik . Madison described it as being in Federalist 62
“[I] t is superfluous to try, by the standard of theory, a part of the constitution which is allowed on all hands to be the result, not of theory, but 'of a spirit of amity, and that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable. '”
"There is no need to attempt to justify theoretically a part of the constitution that did not result from theory, but from a spirit of friendship, mutual respect and concessions that made the particular situation of our position indispensable."
Gunning justified himself:
“Can it be expected that the small states will act from pure disinterestedness? Are we to act with greater purity than the rest of mankind? "
“Can you expect the small states to act out of sheer disinterest? Do we have to act more selflessly than the rest of humanity? "
The disparity between the number of residents and representation in parliament has worsened since the Senate was founded. At that time the largest state Virginia had twelve times the population of the smallest Delaware , today California has about seventy times as many inhabitants as Wyoming . In 1790 30% of the American population could theoretically vote for a Senate majority; today it is 17%.
Early years: 1789–1797
The Senate met for its first session on March 4, 1789 at Federal Hall , New York City . He reached the number of senators required for the quorum on April 6 of the same year. On December 6, 1790, he moved to the Congress Hall in Philadelphia , where he was to meet until the new capital Washington, DC was established. On December 17, 1800, he finally moved to his new seat, the north wing of the Capitol in Washington, where he still meets today.
The exact position, tasks and working methods of the Senate were initially not completely clear to either the Senators themselves or the other actors in the political system. He took far less initiative in legislation than did the more clearly defined House, and in the first few years the prestige of the senators was well below that of the representatives or even below that of the MPs in the state legislature. The pay was rather poor for the comparatively expensive life in Philadelphia and, due to the modest travel options in the 18th century, the Senate appointment meant long months of separation from the family. Many senators therefore preferred not to attend the sessions in the spring and summer - about a quarter of the senators were absent from these sessions throughout the 1790s. Resignations were so common that around a third of senators voluntarily ended their term early.
The states hoped to have a voice at the federal level through the directly dispatched senators: However, they lacked the control options, so that the senators could act relatively independently from the start. In contrast to the Continental Congress, the federal states could not remove the senators from office. Even the possibility of refusing them re-election had only minor practical consequences: the term of office of the senators was longer than that of the parliaments at the state level, so that an instructing parliament could no longer exist in this composition when it came to the re-election of the Senators left.
The senators themselves had to work out their self-image, because the constitution had openly defined their role: They could be representatives of the states, as they hoped; they could represent a class of bourgeois wealth, as the intended composition of the body suggested; be an extended advisory body for the president, as suggested by the exclusive rights of the Senate, or a group of elder statesman who advised unaffected by day-to-day business.
The role of the Vice President was also largely unclear : officially the President of the Senate, he was not a regular member; he had the decisive vote in the event of a stalemate, but no right to vote in all other votes. While early vice-presidents were still actively drafting laws and participating in the debates, the Senate quickly began to deprive parliamentary outsiders of these rights and downgrade the role of the Senate president to an above all formal one.
The first Vice President of the United States, John Adams , was still a regular attendee of the Senate sessions. His exaggeratedly formal appearance and his tendency to give lectures on constitutional issues in the plenary, however, made him a mockery of the senators, so that he was hardly a power factor. The Senate eventually forced Adams to hold back more. The senators put a resolution on the agenda that would have deprived Adams of speaking on all matters except rules of procedure. Adams understood and held back so that the resolution did not have to be passed.
In the early years of the United States, if the Senate was supposed to be the controlling body exerting a moderating influence on deceleration, it was the other way around. The great duels between the executive and legislative branches took place in the House of Representatives; Both Hamilton's initiative to build the Bank of the United States and the Assumption Bill had to overcome vehement opposition in the House of Representatives, while the Senate passed them quickly and easily.
The "Golden Age": 1797–1861
The Senate initially saw itself as a secret committee that only occasionally published a report on its activities. The Senate's first official decision was to hire a bouncer. For the first five years, the Senate didn't even publish minutes of meetings. The Senate has met in public since 1794. In these early years, however, the press showed little interest in dealing with Senate matters, which were far behind those of the House of Representatives in terms of importance and tension.
Thomas Jefferson began as Vice President in 1797 to develop the style of the Vice President in dealing with the Senate, which is still decisive today. He only attended the meetings under special circumstances. Jefferson wrote Jefferson's Manual , the most stringent and comprehensive collection of parliamentary practice at the time. Originally written for the Senate, it still complements the written rules of procedure of the House of Representatives today.
A fairly stable committee system had developed by 1809, and there have been permanent committees in their current form since 1816. In the period before the Civil War, the parties began to exert more noticeable influence: from 1835 the principle prevailed that the majority party chaired all committees and a majority of the members in most of them. Since 1846, the Senate has occupied the committees on the basis of the recommendations of the parties and no longer through the individual vote of all senators in plenary, so that a coordinated approach could prevail in the parliamentary groups. The current seating arrangement, according to which the senators sit separately according to parties, was also created in 1846.
The Senate still had few members at the time, so, unlike in the House, it was not necessary to change the procedural rules to enable more effective work. With as few members as the Senate, for example, anyone interested could speak on a topic without prolonging the sessions indefinitely, just as they could propose amendments to any law.
The first non-Christian to take office as senator was the Jewish democrat David Levy Yulee from Florida in 1845 .
Resistance to the Executive
1804, both the Senate president opposed and public opinion: The House of Representatives had an impeachment procedure against the judge of the Supreme Court , Samuel Chase intently. The Democratic-Republican Senate voted 18 to 16 against the dismissal of the federal judge, as then-Vice-President Aaron Burr commented:
“This House is a sanctuary; a citadel of law, of order, and of liberty; and it is here - in this exalted refuge; here if anywhere, resistance will be made to the storms of political phrensy and the silent arts of corruption. "
“This house is a refuge; a citadel of law, order and freedom; and it is here - in this sublime sanctuary; here, if at all, that resistance to the storms of political intoxication and the silent art of corruption is being offered. "
The vote and the failed impeachment process were an important milestone in the development of a lawless judiciary in the United States. During this time, the Senate began to demonstrate its independence from the government on other points as well, and for the first time to develop a decidedly resolute opposition to the incumbent government: on March 28, 1834, it officially reprimanded President Andrew Jackson for trying to to acquire powers of Congress. On June 24 of the same year, he rejected a proposed government member for the first time: Roger B. Taney did not become Treasury Secretary of the United States . The clashes with Jackson reached a hitherto unknown extent and led to the fact that a new party was formed with the Whigs . After the Jackson supporters managed to win a majority in the Senate, they revoked all resolutions of the old Senate in these disputes.
National discussion forum between North and South
Due to the openness and liberality in the internal rules, the Senate began to develop as the nation's primary forum for discussion and debate, in which all the positions represented had sufficient time and space to present themselves. The debates between Northern and Southern nationals , opponents and advocates of slavery became known in the years before the Civil War .
The period before the outbreak of the Civil War is considered to be the Senate's “golden age”. Senators like Daniel Webster , Thomas Hart Benton or Henry Clay for the Northern States; John C. Calhoun , Jefferson Davis and Stephen A. Douglas for the southern states, reached public notoriety and popularity of presidents or even shone beyond them.
The Senate was able to play its role in the period before the civil war, as it was composed differently than the House of Representatives. The sparsely populated slave-holding southern states were far more represented in the Senate than in the House of Representatives. While it was no problem for the northern states to outvote the southern states in the House, there was an approximate balance in the Senate that made it necessary to find compromises that would then be sustainable enough to hold the nation together for a long time. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 formulated by Henry Clay in the Senate held the Union together for 30 years, while the Compromise of 1850 negotiated by Clay and Douglas gave the United States ten years before war broke out.
The most outstanding debate was the Webster-Hayne debate between Daniel Webster of New England and the southerner Robert Y. Hayne . Another speech by Webster on the subject, however, that of March 7, 1850, is still required reading in most American schools, but ended his political career. In this he had called for reconciliation between northern and southern states, which in his abolitionist home New England was accepted as treason; Among other things, the writer Ralph Waldo Emerson advised Webster never to open his mouth again. Webster resigned a short time later.
Even more tragic went down in Senate history the anti-slavery Democrat David C. Broderick from California, who fell out so much with the slavery-favoring Democratic Party in California that it finally came to a duel; Broderick was the only Senator in office to date to be shot in a duel. In the last few years before the war, however, there was also increasing tension in the Senate. Senator Charles Sumner from Massachusetts had insinuated Senator Andrew Butler from South Carolina that he had the "ugly, filthy mistress called slavery," whereupon Butler's nephew, Congressman Preston Brooks , knocked Sumner unconscious with a cane in the plenary chamber a few days later.
The last speech of a Confederate held the senator from Mississippi and future president of the Confederacy , Jefferson Davis , in his farewell speech in the Senate on January 21, 1861 a few days after South Carolina, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi had seceded from the Union. He called on his former co-senators to peacefully accept the decision of Mississippi and the other states, otherwise catastrophe would hit every part of the United States.
Gilded Age Crisis: 1861–1913
The war had permanently changed the balance of power between the northern and southern states. During the Reconstruction and the following years, the Republicans had a clear superiority. They managed to organize themselves better as a party. However, this time also saw the heyday of corruption in American politics. Political machines like Tammany Hall dominated the party organizations in many large cities; Clientele and patronalism systems ran through the country. The Senate was not spared, its rules of procedure, which were based on openness and informal agreement, made it particularly vulnerable to the problems of the time.
In the age of Reconstruction, the first African American senator came to the Senate in 1870 : Hiram Rhodes Revels represented Mississippi, one of the states of the deep south . In 1879, the Republican Blanche Bruce from Mississippi, who fled slavery at the beginning of the Civil War, was the first African American to lead the Senate session. After the southern states were politically as sovereign again as they were before the war, a white segregationist majority dominated the politics of these states ( Solid South ) for decades , so that these remained isolated cases. In 1907, Charles Curtis from Kansas became the first Indian to join the Senate.
Little changed in the political programs in these years. The elections were highly controversial, the party programs remained largely identical and the election campaigns continued to be mainly about the civil war. The Republicans, who berated the Democrats for the outbreak of the Civil War, won clear majorities in the northern states, while the Democrats presented themselves as representatives of a humiliated South and thus clearly won the elections in the southern states.
Appointment problems
The time before the civil war had shown the importance of the Senate in the political system. After the war was over, more senators began to use this power for their own ends. The senators were still appointed by the state legislature at this time, so that influential and rich men had the opportunity to abuse them for their own purposes and to “buy” a seat in the Senate. Between 1866 and 1909, nine cases were heard before the Senate in which senators owed their office to a bribe. In some states, however, the political climate was so poisoned and the majority situation so tight that the states were no longer able to send a senator. There were a total of 45 cases in 20 states in which senatorial posts were temporarily vacant because the parliaments in the states were unable to come to an agreement. The Delaware legislature, for example, was unable to agree on a new senator for four years starting in 1899. Notorious senators from the so-called Gilded Age are Leland Stanford from California, James Graham Fair from Nevada , John F. Dryden from New Jersey and Philetus Sawyer from Wisconsin . They sat in office at the height of the political machine and thus had complete control over their party and the voters.
Organizational problems
The Senate began the post-war period with a radical change. In 1867 he established the grant committee to keep money spending under better control. Before that, the government and its authorities had often been able to get funds past the controls by threatening problems and thus protracted debates in times of hectic activity and the Senate thus approving the proposals to avoid conflict and speed up the process. The informal organization also meant that he was barely able to monitor the correct use of the funds. Since the state's duties had multiplied with the civil war, the Senate had the impression that it had to exercise stricter control. The grant committee soon developed into the center of power in the Senate, as it controlled the use of public funds and was dependent on it, and especially on the committee chairman, for anyone who got or wanted to get money from the state.
Due to further recordings of states and the accompanying enlargement of the body, the liberal rules of procedure began to become a problem. Senators used filibusters for the first time to massively hinder the work of the entire Senate; the rules also gave them plenty of leeway that they could use to advance their personal agenda. The committee system had taken on grotesque forms. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Senate had 66 standing committees, more than members of the majority party. Reform-minded politician Robert M. La Follette relates that he was appointed committee chairman of the Potomac River State Committee in 1906 , only to find that that committee had never, or even looked at a law in its long history had held a meeting.
The rules, which were designed to protect minorities strongly, also gave these minorities ample opportunities to prevent rule changes to their disadvantage. Changes in the rules of procedure also turned out to be extremely difficult because facts such as the unlimited right to speak over the 100 years before had assumed the status of an almost sacred institution and could hardly be changed.
First impeachment and controversial laws
The first impeachment proceedings against a president took place in the age of reconstruction . Andrew Johnson had a falling out with the Republican Party and to the adopted 1867 Tenure of Office Act the Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton dismissed, as he believes the relevant law violated the Constitution. Congress indicted Johnson, in 1868 there was a hearing in the Senate, the condemnation of Johnson ultimately failed because of one vote, the young Republican Edmund G. Ross recognized not guilty.
Between 1871 and 1898 the Senate did not approve an international treaty. During this time several international trade agreements expired, which he did not renew. The Senate refused to agree to a compromise solution with the United Kingdom, forced the Panama Canal plans to be renegotiated, and initially stubbornly refused to approve the peace treaty that ended the Spanish-American War .
In terms of domestic politics, the Senate stood up for the interests of its members and those of people with a high social class and substantial income, whom the Constitutional Fathers wanted it to represent. He prevented reform laws from which workers, farmers or minorities could have benefited. The labor movement and dissatisfied farmers began to gather in various other parties that had a wedding around the turn of the century. The journalist and historian Henry Adams went so far as to describe the USA as "of the people, by the people, and for the Senate".
Today's Senate comes into being: 1913–1945
The beginning of the 20th century brought some radical changes to the Senate, which finally culminated in the 17th Amendment to the Constitution. At the turn of the century, it was possible for the first time to organize a party grouping in such a way that it brought considerable power to the then informal chairman. The Republican Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island was able to assemble a group that allowed him to control the Republican faction. Laws go back to Aldrich, the "Boss of America", some of which still shape the financial system of the United States today, including all the important tax and customs laws of the time as well as the structure of the Federal Reserve System today . From 1911 to 1913 the parties elected official parliamentary group leaders, known as majority and minority leaders. Since the office of this chairman was not assigned any formal competencies, it continued to depend primarily on the personal authority of the incumbent whether this position represented a power. In particular in the Democratic Party , which was deeply divided between a liberal northern wing and a conservative southern wing, the parliamentary group chairman could hardly achieve anything.
The 17th Amendment to the Constitution: the direct election of senators
The first motion to directly elect senators came to the plenary in 1826, but this idea only gained momentum at the end of the 19th century. Between 1893 and 1902, someone in the Senate proposed the change every year, but lost the vote. The Populist Party added the item to its manifesto in the mid-1890s. Since the late 19th century, citizens in various states have directly elected the party candidates for the senatorial post. Oregon , followed a little later by Nebraska , even held a referendum on the Senator at the same time as the general election and obliged the legislature to adhere to the result. By 1912, citizens elected their senators in one form or another in 29 of the then 48 states. The newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst took up the idea and carried out a vehement campaign for an official direct election in his publications.
The demand was finally implemented in the 17th Amendment to the Constitution. It was brought in by Senator Joseph L. Bristow of Kansas; it passed both the Senate and the House of Representatives after long debates. The legislatures of the states no longer had any de jure influence on their senators. The direct election gave the senators greater legitimacy and made them more dependent on general public opinion. At the same time, however, their financial need to finance election campaigns increased, so that their dependence on powerful donors also increased.
Modernization of the internal process
The absolute right to free speech was not restricted until 1917 when a group of 16 senators blocked the decision to arm American merchant ships against the President's plan and against overwhelming Senate and House majorities. While the United States was getting ready to enter World War I, the Senators suspended the law, and other major laws, for 23 days. At the initiative of President Woodrow Wilson , who had previously done his doctorate in the Senate, Congress introduced the first regulation on early closing of debates ( cloture ), which was, however, relatively cumbersome and even if it was successful after the decision to end the debate, it would last for several days could let last: 16 senators had to apply for a vote at the end of the debate. Two days later there was a vote in which two thirds of the senators had to approve the motion. Once this goal was achieved, each senator then had one hour to speak on the topic - the debate could therefore be continued for several days if there were a sufficiently large number of filibusters.
In 1920 the Senate began to reform its committee system and to dissolve 42 of the now almost 80 committees. Among them were committees such as the one for the disposal of papers of the executive that had become useless or the one that was still supposed to clarify claims from it 137 years after the end of the revolutionary war.
Public prestige
In the meantime the Senate had clearly become the more prestigious of the two chambers again; Careers now generally went through the House of Representatives to the Senate and no longer in the other direction. This was also shown by the fact that in 1920, Warren G. Harding, the first incumbent senator, won an election for president.
The Senate made extensive use of its powers. For example, he prevented the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and thus the entry of the United States into the League of Nations . In the crucial years of this period, however, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Kentucky Democratic Majority Leader Alben W. Barkley worked closely together so that the Senate implemented the President's policies with relative ease. It was not until 1944 that Roosevelt and Barkley fell out over war spending. Barkley resigned, the dispute likely cost him his nomination as vice president in the 1944 election and, through Roosevelt's subsequent death, also the presidency.
The first radio broadcast from the Senate took place on March 4, 1929. The Republican Robert B. Howell from Nebraska, who had served in the Navy in the First World War and therefore knew the radio, pushed through the decision after several years of fighting. However, it was not until 1971 that the Senate installed a microphone system that could compensate for the chronically poor acoustics of the conference room in a radio-friendly manner.
The personnel composition also slowly changed. After Jeannette Rankin was the first woman (unsuccessful) to be the Senate candidate for one of the two major parties in 1918 and Rebecca Latimer Felton had already been briefly appointed as successor to the late Thomas E. Watson on November 21, 1922 , the Democrat Hattie Caraway from Arkansas succeeded in 1932 as first woman to win the Senate election held on January 12, 1932. She was originally named to succeed her late husband Thaddeus H. Caraway , but to the surprise of the Senate, she ran for the next regular election. She won and was subsequently the first woman to chair a session of the Senate on October 17, 1943, and also the first woman to chair a committee from 1933 to 1945. It was not until Nancy Landon Kassebaum in 1995 that a woman should take over the chairmanship of one of the important and recognized committees .
The post-war senate: since 1945
The rise of the Senate to the chamber of greater prestige continued after the Second World War. On the one hand, this was due to the fact that the United States had now become a world power and the exclusive rights of the Senate also extended to foreign policy, which was becoming much more important. And only since 1947 have individual senators and the committees had paid employees, which significantly increased the professionalism and effectiveness of the body. In the 1950s, the Senate allowed television cameras in committee meetings for the first time.
The increase in prestige was supported by the spread of television. Television requires individuals who could associate it with stories and themes, and the 100-member Senate lent itself more to a TV personality with brand recognition to create, as the 435 members of the House. In addition, the significantly longer term of office of a senator (6 years compared to 2 years in the House of Representatives) also ensured that they promised television professionals more personal continuity. Money also began to play an increasingly important role, making it mostly impossible for congressmen to finance an election campaign even with their own wealth. The donors, in turn, often have the impression that influencing one in a hundred MPs helps them more than one in 435, so that they are more likely to donate to senators and they are thus financially better equipped than representatives.
Conflicts: McCarthy, Civil Rights, Watergate
In the post-war period the crusade of the 1950 Senate-elected Republican Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin falls ; in his anti-communist actions one of the most controversial, most prominent senators of his time. He succeeded in securing the chairmanship of the Senate Committee of Inquiry and bringing it under his control by appointing staff without questioning other Senators and having frequent meetings outside of Washington with short notice. McCarthy used television, a new medium in the Senate, to increase his national profile. Only an official reprimand by the Senate ended his influence. In the words of Democrat Robert Byrd - Senator with longest tenure in the panel's history and recognized historian on the panel - this was the most painful period in Senate history.
Another high point of intense Senate debates and a continuation of the conflicts between Northern and Southern states were the debates over civil rights laws in the 1950s and 1960s. During this time, Strom Thurmond gave the longest filibuster speech in Senate history at over 24 hours to prevent the Senate from passing the Civil Rights Act of 1958. The entire filibuster against another civil rights law, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 , lasted 57 days from March 26 to Robert Byrd's 14-hour speech on June 19, 1964, in which the Senate had no other resolution. The filibuster was ended by the second Cloture resolution since 1927; the subject was so controversial that even Clair Engle from California, dying with a brain tumor, attended the meeting and voted to close the debate.
In 1972 the United States Senate Watergate Committee conducted significant investigations into the Watergate affair that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon to forestall his impeachment.
Since 1974
In 1974, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act introduced the reconciliation process . According to this, there is a speaking time limit for certain bills, filibusters are impossible here.
1975 saw changes in the internal procedures again. The quorum to be able to end a filibuster dropped to three-fifths, i.e. 60 senators. The speaking time after a cloture decision was limited to a total of 30 hours, whereby a further vote with a three-fifths majority can also end this remaining speaking time. After the plenary debates had been public since 1795, so have all committee meetings since 1976. As a result of the Stevenson Commission (named after Senator Adlai Stevenson ), the Senate significantly reduced the number of temporary and joint committees with the House of Representatives.
In 1974 there were television cameras in the Senate plenary for the first time, broadcasting an event live: the inauguration of then Vice-President Nelson A. Rockefeller . On 7 November 1983, undertook Armed Resistance Unit of the Weather Underground one stop in response to the US military operations in Lebanon and Grenada .
Parliamentary television, C-SPAN, has been broadcasting the plenary debates live regularly since February 27, 1986 . The first classic filibuster to be televised kept Al D'Amato from New York to prevent a typewriter factory with 875 employees from moving from New York to Mexico. D'Amato talked - and sang - for 15 hours.
The Senate moved into the public eye when it negotiated the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton . This was the first major impeachment trial, most of which was televised live, and sparked much debate about the rights and duties of the Senate in such a situation.
The longest filibuster of the television age was held by various Democrats in November 2003 with almost 40 hours when they prevented President George W. Bush from appointing three female judges to the Federal Court of Appeals. In 2005 the Democratic Senators decided, after these candidates were nominated again, to oppose at least two of the five candidacies by filibuster.
While the Senate was often dominated by one party for several decades in the past, this has changed in recent years. It was particularly noticeable after the 2000 elections. When the Senate met for the first session on January 5, 50 Democrats were seated against 50 Republicans, and the vote of Democratic Vice President Al Gore was the decisive factor for a Democratic majority. However, this only lasted until 15 days later George W. Bush took office as President and with it the Republican Dick Cheney took office as Vice President, which reversed the majority. In June of that year, Vermont's Jim Jeffords left his Republicans, giving the Democrats a majority again. It was not until the congressional elections in 2002 and 2004 that the Republicans were finally able to win a stable majority, which they lost in the 2006 Senate elections .
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Richard N. Rosenfeld: What Democracy? (Essay) In: Harper's Magazine , May 2004, accessed February 7, 2017.
- ↑ Bruce Oppenheimer and Frances Lee: Sizing Up the Senate - The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation , University of Chicago Press 1999. ISBN 0226470067 , p. 33
- ^ Robert L. Beisner: From the Old Diplomacy to the New: 1865-1900 . Harlan Davidson 1986 (2nd edition). ISBN 088295833X , p. 4.
- ^ Charlie Daniels: The Historical Report of the Arkansas Secretary of State 2008 , University of Arkansas Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-615-23214-0 , p. 50 (English), preview in Google Book Search, accessed on 12 January 2012
Web links
literature
- Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-1989, (2104 pp.) (Stock number 052-071-00699-1) This directory is online version
- Robert L. Beisner: From the Old Diplomacy to the New: 1865-1900. Harlan Davidson 1986 (2nd edition). ISBN 088295833X
- Robert Byrd : The Senate, 1789-1989: Historical Statistics, 1789-1992, Vol. 4 . ISBN 0160632560
- Robert Byrd: The Senate, 1789–1989: Classic Speeches, 1830–1993, Vol. 3 . ISBN 0160632579
- Robert Byrd: The Senate, 1789-1989, Vol. 2: Addresses on the History of the United States Senate . ISBN 0160064058
- Robert Byrd: The Senate, 1789-1989, Vol. 1: Addresses on the History of the United States Senate . ISBN 0160063914
- Louis Fisher: Constitutional Conflicts Between Congress and The President. University Press of Kansas 1997 (4th edition). About the position of the Senate in the political system. ISBN 070060815X
- Lewis L. Gould: The Most Exclusive Club: A History Of The Modern United States Senate , Basic Books 2005; Comprehensive presentation from a historical perspective. ISBN 0465027784
- John F. Kennedy : Civil courage : Chapter "Time and Place" (about the institutional ideas in the early years of the US Senate), Econ, Düsseldorf / Vienna 1964 (licensed book club edition, p. 54 ff)
- Bruce Oppenheimer and Frances Lee: Sizing Up the Senate - The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation , University of Chicago Press 1999. ISBN 0226470067
- Samuel C. Patterson and Anthony Mughan: Senates. Bicameralism in the Contemporary World Ohio State University Press 1999. The Senate in Comparative Perspective. ISBN 0814250106
- Donald A. Ritchie: The Congress of the United States: A Student Companion Oxford University Press, 2001 (2nd edition). Introductory textbook ISBN 0195150074
- Swift, Elaine K. The Making of an American Senate: Reconstitutive Change in Congress, 1787–1841 . U. of Michigan Press, 1996. 248 pp. ISBN 0472088718
- Julian E. Zelizer (Ed.): The American Congress: The Building of Democracy Houghton Muffin 2004, Collected Essays by Various Scholars ISBN 0618179062 .
