The Partisan Senate PDF

1 The Partisan Senate...

1 The Partisan Senate In his first address to Congress on February 24, 2009, President Barack Obama made health care reform the centerpiece of his legislative agenda: “So All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. let there be no doubt: Health care reform cannot wait; it must not wait; and it will not wait another year.”1 At the time most people thought the presi- dent would achieve his goal. He was personally popular, enjoying a 64 percent approval rating.2 Furthermore, Americans expressed general frustration with the increasing costs of health care. Around the time of his address, 79 percent of Americans were “dissatisfied” with the current costs and nearly 90 million Americans lacked health insurance at some point in the preceding two years.3 Such data gave the Democrats confidence that major health care reform was possible because the Republicans had sufficient incentives to compromise or else they would be steamrolled by public opinion and large Democratic majorities in Congress. Although the president’s approval rating dipped to 59 percent in July, the political dynamic between the parties had not significantly changed, espe- cially because the bill that was developing seemed to have the same features as the bill that Governor Mitt Romney (R-Massachusetts) implemented in Massachusetts, which, in turn, was based on Senator Bob Dole’s (R-Kansas) bill from the 1990s. On July 17, 2009, it did. Speaking on a conference call to Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, Senator Jim DeMint (2011, 75) said, “If we are able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him, and we will show that we can, along with the American people, begin to push those freedom solutions that work in every area of our society.” DeMint’s salvo created a firestorm. Three days later, Obama ridiculed the remark while visiting a children’s hospital in Washington, D.C., arguing, “This isn’t about me. This isn’t about Copyright 2013. Oxford University Press. politics. This is about a health care system that is breaking America’s fami- lies, breaking America’s businesses and breaking America’s economy.”4 Several of DeMint’s Republican colleagues sided with the president in this tussle. Senator Kit Bond (R-Missouri) commented, “I think he was way off-base in EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/4/2024 11:35 AM via UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK AN: 578641 ; Sean M. Theriault.; The Gingrich Senators : The Roots of Partisan Warfare in Congress Account: umarylnd.main.ehost  4 a n i n t ro d u c t i o n to t h e gi n gr i c h s enator s his attack on the president.” Senator George Voinovich (R-Ohio) added that he thought that half of the Republican opposition to health care reform—in his words, “probably 50/50”—was a consequence to deny the president a victory, whereas the other half was based on policy grounds.5 Interestingly, both Bond and Voinovich had already announced their retirement from the Senate at the end of 2010. DeMint’s party leaders did not rebuke him, but nei- ther did they endorse his comments.6 DeMint (2011, 74) recounts, “Several of my Republican colleagues chastised me for making all Republicans look like obstructionists. I was, once again, the skunk at the party in Republican Conference meetings.” While Republicans may have thought that DeMint’s remark was inelo- quent or impolitic, it was prophetic as the Republican Party leadership made sure that their members would not compromise to help Obama on his sig- nature issue. Throughout most of the summer, the health care debate cen- tered on a group of six senators—three from each party—who served on the Finance Committee: its chair, Max Baucus (D-Montana), and ranking mem- ber, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), were joined by Republicans Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming) and Democrats Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota) and Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico). At various times during the summer, the group seemed to be close to a deal, and at other times, their efforts were completely stymied. Grassley was always considered the key participant in the talks. Snowe would have been unlikely to sway many of her Republican colleagues, and any bill supported by Enzi would enjoy near-unanimous support from Republicans. The Democrats had reason to believe that Grassley would nego- tiate in good faith. He and Baucus had championed many causes over the years from their seats on the Finance Committee. Most recently, in 2007, Grassley had sided with the Democrats to expand the children’s health insur- ance program, which was vetoed by Bush and sustained by congressional Republicans before Obama and large Democratic majorities wrote the bill into law. In April 2009, Grassley declared, “I am doing everything I can to make the [health care] reform effort in Congress a bipartisan one.”7 On June 12, Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) undercut Grassley’s efforts: “Senator Grassley has been given no authority to negotiate anything by all of us Republicans on [the Finance C]ommittee.”8 Shortly thereafter Grassley became one of the fiercest critics of the Finance Committee’s bill, leading some to question his motives during the commit- tee’s negotiations, especially when he continuously described Obama’s bill as “pulling the plug on grandma” in town hall meetings during the August EBSCOhost - printed on 12/4/2024 11:35 AM via UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  The Partisan Senate 5 recess.9 Grassley may have had a variety of explanations for his sudden switch in positions: a potential primary opponent in his 2010 reelection effort, a fun- damental breakdown in talks, or even the August town hall meetings where his constituents voiced their opposition. The influence of Jim DeMint’s call to arms and the effect of Kyl’s undercutting of his authority, however, cannot be easily dismissed for two simple reasons. First, Grassley had previously com- plained about the leadership meddling in the Finance Committee’s affairs: “Not as much gets done out of the Finance Committee that would get done if the leadership would leave us to our own pursuits.”10 Second, shortly after Grassley started criticizing the reform effort, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), John McCain (R-Arizona), and Mel Martinez (R-Florida) hosted a fundraiser for him in Miami even though his name did not appear on the initial invitation.11 When Grassley turned against the Finance Committee’s bill, the parti- san script for health care reform was written. It is possible that Republicans would have come around to opposing Obama’s efforts on health care reform anyway, but DeMint surely helped that process along with his early strident opposition. The Republican Conference went from criticizing him to lining up behind him in a matter of months. DeMint’s assault on Obama’s health care proposal went beyond an ideo- logical dispute. In invoking Napoleon’s Waterloo, DeMint purposefully trans- formed the debate from one about policy disagreement to an all-out partisan war. Although the president and DeMint’s fellow Republicans were unwilling to engage initially in the warlike rhetoric, by the time the bill was enacted into law, no one serving in Congress was on the sidelines of the battlefield— all members and senators were fully engaged. This debate over “Obamacare,” though perhaps the largest, was only one of many recent battles that the par- ties have waged. Not surprisingly, most Americans have recoiled at what their Congress has become. After a recent poll showing congressional approval in the single digits, Senator John McCain concluded that the only congressional support- ers these days included “blood relatives and paid staff.”12 In an article titled “Our Broken Senate,” Norman Ornstein, the dean of political pundits, argued that “the Senate had taken the term ‘deliberate’ to a new level.... In many ways, the frustration of modern governance in Washington—the arrogance, independence, parochialism—could be called ‘The Curse of the Senate.’” He concludes that the problem with the Senate is the “the culture” and that “is not going to change anytime soon.”13 Some of the most pointed criticisms come from senators as they are on their way out of the institution. When EBSCOhost - printed on 12/4/2024 11:35 AM via UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  6 a n i n t ro d u c t i o n to t h e gi n gr i c h s enator s Senator Evan Bayh (D-Indiana), whose father was also a senator, announced his retirement in 2010, he complained: For some time, I’ve had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should. There is much too much partisanship and not enough progress; too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving. Even at a time of enormous national challenge, the people’s business is not getting done.... I love working for the people of Indiana. I love helping our citizens make the most of their lives. But I do not love Congress.14 Two years later when Olympia Snowe announced that she would retire at the end of 2012, she commented, “Unfortunately, I do not realistically expect the partisanship of recent years in the Senate to change over the short term.”15 I. The Development of the Senate The Senate, so it would seem from Bayh’s and Snowe’s assessments, has entered a new era. That the Senate has changed and that politicians, pundits, and political scientists have offered their descriptions of it is not new. Even at its inception, the Senate was the subject of attention, scorn, and even admira- tion. While the anti-Federalists were concerned about the aristocratic nature of the Senate’s design, the Federalists proffered a strong defense of the need for both its existence (to offer the citizens an additional level of protecting their liberty) and its institutional design (to offer a degree of insulation from the impulse of the people). As the nascent country was taking its first steps, the Senate was already evolving. Although George Washington thought that the body would sim- ply rubber-stamp his early decisions to get the national government running, the Senate quickly asserted its independence. In August of his first year as president, Washington was doubly rebuked by the Senate. For the first time, the Senate rejected a presidential nomination when Georgia’s two senators worked to defeat Washington’s choice for the naval officer position in the Port of Savannah. Three weeks later, Washington hand-delivered an Indian treaty to the Senate in hopes of obtaining quick ratification. Instead of rubber-stamping the presidential request, the Senate sent his treaty to com- mittee so it could obtain more information before passing judgment on it. This action was a personal blow to Washington, who, on the way out of the chamber that day, is said to have remarked that he would never again set foot EBSCOhost - printed on 12/4/2024 11:35 AM via UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  The Partisan Senate 7 in the Senate.16 He was true to his word. Since then few sitting presidents have gone to the Senate, and when they have they rarely fared better than Washington.17 Despite suffering President Washington’s rage on these two occasions, the Senate’s reputation for wise and prudent decisions—even if a bit delayed— persisted and developed over time. In the mid-nineteenth century, as the House of Representatives suffered through battles to get itself barely orga- nized and as the executive branch suffered through a series of weak presidents, the Senate time and again forestalled armed conflict between the states by resolving—at least temporarily—the various slavery crises. The Senate was the main stage for the development and enactment of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Its heroes—Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Sam Houston, and Stephen A. Douglas—continue even today to be the models of revered American statesmen. Though the “Gilded Age”—a term coined by Mark Twain to describe the graft and corruption rampant in American politics in the late nineteenth century—tarnished the Senate’s reputation, the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment providing for the popular election of senators was just the cure the progressives wanted. Even as President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the governmental reins in passing his New Deal programs, the Senate thwarted his scheme to pack the Supreme Court. Roosevelt’s subsequent strategy of purging the Democrats who crossed him enjoyed no more success than the legislation that triggered it. Since the New Deal and World War II, the Senate has gone through at least three different phases: the Textbook Senate, the Individualized Senate, and, now, the Partisan Senate. These phases are probably not as distinct as the commas that separate them would suggest. The Individualized Senate, for example, was not a nonpartisan institution, and, from time-to-time, even the Partisan Senate operates in a way that would make Henry Clay, Stephen Douglas, and Robert Taft proud. Nonetheless, a short description of the first two phases provides a context for understanding the third phase, which is the subject of the remainder of this book. A. The Textbook Senate The Textbook Senate operated in the era of the “Textbook Congress,” which was “an institutional bargain that gave prominence to committees and the jurisdictional imperative” (Shepsle 1989, 239). With the New Deal and World EBSCOhost - printed on 12/4/2024 11:35 AM via UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  8 a n i n t ro d u c t i o n to t h e gi n gr i c h s enator s War II operating in the background, the Textbook Senate took form with the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, which reduced the number of Senate committees from 33 to 15 and solidified their jurisdictional boundaries.18 With only minor adjustments along the way, these committees and jurisdic- tions are still in operation today. Senators were said to relate to one another through readily established folkways that encouraged respect not only for one another but, more importantly, for the institution. The six folkways, accord- ing to Matthews (1960), were: 1. Apprenticeship—“New members are expected to serve a proper appren- ticeship” (92). 2. Legislative Work—“Senators should be work horses in lieu of show horses” (94). 3. Specialization—A senator should specialize on “the relatively few matters that come before his committees or that directly and immediately affect his state” (95). 4. Courtesy—“Political disagreements should not influence personal feel- ings” (97). 5. Reciprocity—“A senator should [help out a colleague] and that he should be repaid in kind” (99). 6. Institutional Patriotism—“Senators are expected to believe that they belong to the greatest legislative and deliberative body in the world” (101). This list is similar to the list of House norms that operated during a simi- lar time period (Asher 1973). The one exception is that the House list did not include loyalty to the institution as did the Senate list. It was this institutional patriotism that set the Senate apart. Not only were its members engaged in the craft of legislation, but they were doing so while serving in an institution that they genuinely revered. The Senate folkways were maintained by an “Inner Club,” whose member- ship included those who “express, consciously or unconsciously, the deepest instincts and prejudices of ‘the Senate type.’ The Senate type is, speaking broadly, a man for whom the Institution is a career in itself, a life in itself and an end in itself ” (White 1956, 84). When the folkways were violated, the offending sena- tor would frequently be brought back into the fold through informal sanctions. If the senator persisted in breaking the folkways, they risked being ostracized.19 The Textbook Senate is portrayed as a genteel and well-functioning insti- tution. Senators in this era, while they may have disagreed—and, at times, EBSCOhost - printed on 12/4/2024 11:35 AM via UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  The Partisan Senate 9 they disagreed terrifically—did so with the decorum that one would expect from members of this august institution. It is the Textbook Senate that has provided the benchmark for measuring all future Senates. The encomium that William White, who also studied the U.S. House of Representatives, wrote at the beginning of his 1956 book on the Senate, The Citadel, typifies the Senate and its admirers during this time period: “For a long time I have felt that the one touch of authentic genius in the American political system, apart, of course, from the incomparable majesty and decency and felicity of the Constitution itself, is the Senate of the United States” (White 1956, ix). B. The Individualized Senate The Republican senators who were brought into office on Eisenhower’s coat- tails in 1952 faced a far different electorate in their 1958 reelection efforts. The Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik in 1957 damaged the United States’ reputa- tion abroad; and the economic recession at home soured the mood of the American public even more. Fearing that they would face certain defeat as a team, the Republican senators opted to run as individuals rather than as members of the Republican Party. The strategy, at least as measured by the results on election day, failed as Democrats gained 3 open seats and defeated 10 Republican incumbents. The large class of Democratic freshmen, many of whom had won with little help from their party, were reluctant to abide by the established Senate folkways. They had won their elections by campaigning for progressive change and they were not about to let the Senate’s Inner Club keep them from ful- filling their promises. The members of the Inner Club, too, recognized the power of the new progressive senators and were less willing to reprimand them for fear of bringing down the entire modus operandi of the institution in its wake. As the senators became increasingly responsible for their own elections and reelections to enter into and stay in the Senate, the strong sense of com- munity began to break down (Cain, Ferejohn, and Fiorina 1987). Beginning with the class of 1958, senators were less willing to specialize, less willing to serve apprenticeships, and more willing to use the rules of the Senate to thwart the will of the majority. In the 84th Congress (1955–1956), only 15 senators offered more than two amendments on the Senate floor. By the 99th Congress (1985–1986), 60 senators did (Sinclair 1989, 80). Freshman members in the same two congresses went from offering, on average, 2.5 amendments per member to 12.7 (Smith 1989, 136). While the 84th Congress did not have EBSCOhost - printed on 12/4/2024 11:35 AM via UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  10 a n i n t ro d u c t i o n to t h e gi n gr i c h s enator s a single filibuster, the 99th Congress had 22 (Koger 2010, 107). As the floor became more prominent in shaping legislation, the plum committee assign- ments became less concentrated. While 52 percent of Northern Democrats held positions on the top four Senate committees (Appropriations, Armed Services, Finance, and Foreign Affairs) in the 84th Congress, more than 81 percent did during the 99th Congress (Sinclair 1989, 76). As power decentralized, the Senate became a more equitable place. The distinction between the Inner Club and the rest of the membership became less defined. While senators and would-be senators relied on their party’s assistance in elections, they were no longer dependent upon the party for electoral success. They assumed much more responsibility for their campaigns and were subsequently less tied to the institution or their parties upon their elections. According to Sinclair (1989, 210), the Senate of the 1980s, “com- pared to the Senate of the 1950s, [was] an institution in which influence [was] much more equally distributed and members accorded very wide latitude; it [was] an open, staff-dependent, outward-looking institution in which deci- sion making [took] place in multiple arenas.” C. The Partisan Senate That the Congress has recently become more partisan is one of the most obvi- ous and, subsequently, most noted trends in American politics. While scholars and pundits alike debate the extent to which Congress mirrors (Abramowitz 2010), causes (Hetherington 2001), or simply exacerbates (Fiorina 2010) the polarization in the electorate, no one disputes that Congress is more polarized than it used to be. The Senate has not been immune from this growing parti- sanship. Most analyses show that the Senate has become polarized almost as much as the House (Fleisher and Bond 2004; Theriault 2006, 2008; McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal 2006; and Brady, Han, and Pope 2007), despite the fact that the causes of polarization are more easily explained in the House of Representatives. A first explanation, popular especially among political pundits and poli- ticians, is that the purposive creation of safe districts through redistricting has led ideologically purer districts to elect more conservative Republicans and more liberal Democrats (Carson, Finocchiaro, and Rohde 2007; Hirsch 2003; though also see McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal 2006 for the counterar- gument). With fixed state borders, the Senate is immune to the manipulation of constituencies that may cause party polarization in the House. Second, several scholars suggest that voters have geographically segregated themselves EBSCOhost - printed on 12/4/2024 11:35 AM via UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  The Partisan Senate 11 quite independent of district-boundary manipulation (Oppenheimer 2005; Bishop 2008). Voters can more easily move across House district lines than state borders to live by their political soulmates. A third set of scholars think that the evolving legislative process exacerbates the divide between the par- ties (Roberts and Smith 2003; Theriault 2008).20 Unlike in the House of Representatives, where the majority party leaders can more easily manipulate floor proceedings, the more egalitarian Senate requires that much of its work on the Senate floor be accomplished through unanimous consent agreements. Because of these polarization theories and because of the greater access to and variation within them, most party polarization studies focus exclusively on the House (see, e.g., Jacobson 2000; Stonecash, Brewer, and Mariani 2003; Sinclair 2006; and Mann and Ornstein 2006). Despite the greater theoretical underpinning of House polarization, few doubt that the Senate, too, has become hopelessly polarized. When Bayh and Snowe announced their retirement from the Senate, it is my contention that they were criticizing the institution on two different, though related, underlying dimensions. First, the senators serving today are more ideologi- cally polarized than their predecessors. While the Senate has always had extreme conservatives and extreme liberals, today’s Senate seems to have more of both than it did before. As the senators have become more ideolog- ically polarized, the number of senators in the middle has shrunk, which has impeded the compromises necessary for solving public policy problems. Providing evidence for this first criticism is relatively straightforward. Any number of roll-call voting analyses can show the distinct patterns separat- ing Democrats from Republicans. Party votes as calculated by Congressional Quarterly, liberalness scores as determined by Americans for Democratic Action, and ideology as measured by political scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal all show that the parties are as divided as they have been in at least 100 years—perhaps as divided as they have ever been. While some may think that the growing ideological divide between the parties is reason enough to criticize the institution, a second criticism seems to bother Snowe, Bayh, their fellow senators, political pundits, and congres- sional scholars even more. It goes beyond voting differently on the Senate floor. The second criticism is the increasing partisan warfare in the Senate, which taps into the strategies that go beyond defeating your opponents into humiliating them, go beyond questioning your opponents’ judgment into questioning their motives, and go beyond fighting the good legislative fight to destroying the institution and the legislative process in order to serve not only your ideological goals but, more importantly, your electoral goals. EBSCOhost - printed on 12/4/2024 11:35 AM via UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  12 a n i n t ro d u c t i o n to t h e gi n gr i c h s enator s This warfare certainly has party polarization at its roots. Polarization may be necessary for warfare, but it is not a sufficient cause of it. Parties that are divided over policy can have a serious and honest debate, which can even become heated. In the first half of the famous idiom, the opposing sides can “agree to disagree.” Quite apart from the serious policy disagreement, though, the debate between the opposing sides can degenerate into a shouting match where the policy proscriptions are lost in a fight over legislative games and where the combatants question the motives, integrity, and patriotism of their opponents. Under such a situation, the second half of the idiom—“without being disagreeable”—is never realized. This partisan warfare dimension is harder to quantify. Roll-call votes reveal issue positions, but they cannot reveal strategies and motives. What I call “partisan warfare” is what Frances Lee (2009) characterized as “beyond ideology” in her book of the same name. Lee argues that only so much of the divide between the parties can be understood as a difference in ideology. The rest of the divide—by some accounts, the lion’s share of the divide—is moti- vated by some other goal. Lee (2009, 193) defines this behavior as “partisan bickering” and offers the following description: If partisanship has roots in members’ political interests, then politi- cal parties actually exacerbate and institutionalize conflict, rather than merely represent and give voice to preexisting policy disagreements in the broader political environment. In their quest to win elections and wield power, partisans impeach one another’s motives, question one another’s ethics and competence, engage in reflexive partisanship, and—when it is politically useful to do so—exploit and deepen divi- sions rather than seeking common ground. I argue that it is this portion of the divide that causes the angst of those who long for the Textbook Senate. Lee restricts her evaluation of the combat that is beyond ideology to an examination of roll-call votes, which is an appropri- ate first step. Partisan warfare, though, can operate in contexts beyond the “yeas” and “nays” on the Senate floor. In fact, it is frequently other actions in the legislative and electoral processes that are better exhibits of partisan war- fare. DeMint’s declaration of the demise of health care reform being Obama’s Waterloo is only the first of many examples of partisan warfare. DeMint did not offer a conservative argument to critique the president’s developing bill; he rejected the entire enterprise, because if Obama was stopped on this one issue his entire presidency could be brought down. In this book, I begin to sketch out what partisan warfare looks like and how we can measure it. EBSCOhost - printed on 12/4/2024 11:35 AM via UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  The Partisan Senate 13 More often than not, congressional scholars have opted to merge these two dimensions for a couple of reasons. First, there is no doubt that they are related. The distinction between party polarization and partisan war- fare can easily be masked as the same or at least similar enough to collapse into one dimension. Second, partisan warfare, especially in comparison to party polarization, is much harder to isolate, operationalize, and analyze. Nonetheless, real analytic leverage can be brought to our understanding of how the current Senate operates and how it is evaluated if these dimensions are pulled apart. This book is my attempt to accomplish that goal. While it may be convenient to collapse these dimensions, real analytic leverage can be gained if they remain distinct. The feeling behind Bayh’s and Snowe’s words makes much more sense in light of warfare than it does if only polarization is considered. II. The Plan of the Book The transition between the Textbook Senate and the Individualized Senate had a clear date and a clear group of champions: the progressives elected in the 1958 election (Sinclair 1989). In this book, I argue that the transition to the Partisan Senate from the Individualized Senate had an equally clear group of champions though the transformation was more gradual. I call the instigators of this transformation the “Gingrich Senators.” By definition, the members of this group share three characteristics: they are Republicans; they served in the House before moving to the Senate; and they were elected to Congress after 1978, which was the year when a suburban Republican from Atlanta, Newt Gingrich, entered the House and began his slow and steady rise to become the Speaker of the U.S. House. Jim DeMint is a Gingrich Senator. Kit Bond, George Voinovich, and Olympia Snowe are not. Both here—and through- out the book—I do not want to put too much emphasis on the causation of Gingrich himself. I refer to these senators as “Gingrich Senators” because it is easier than referring to them by their more proper name: “Republicans who were first elected to the House after 1978 and subsequently served in the Senate.” The 40 Gingrich Senators are listed in table 1.1, which includes not only their names but also their states and the congresses they served in the House and Senate. The table also lists their House and Senate extremism scores, which are based on the roll-call votes that they have cast in the respec- tive chambers.21 While the Gingrich Senators share some characteristics—for example, they are all white men—the table shows some obvious differences. First, the Gingrich Senators have represented 25 different states. They represented not EBSCOhost - printed on 12/4/2024 11:35 AM via UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  14 a n i n t ro d u c t i o n to t h e gi n gr i c h s enator s Table 1.1 The 40 Gingrich Senators Senate House of Representatives Name State Tenure Ideology1 Tenure Ideology1 Allard Colorado 105–110 0.613 102–104 0.597 Allen Virginia 107–109 0.407 102 0.474 Blunt Missouri 112–present * 105–111 0.602 Boozman Arkansas 112–present * 107–111 0.521 Brown Colorado 102–104 0.543 97–101 0.456 Brownback Kansas 105–111 0.459 104 0.546 Bunning Kentucky 106–111 0.630 100–105 0.505 Burr North 109–present 0.579 104–108 0.445 Carolina Chambliss Georgia 108–present 0.518 104–107 0.427 Coats Indiana 101–105, 0.407 97–100 0.297 112–present Coburn Oklahoma 109–present 0.907 104–106 0.815 Craig Idaho 102–110 0.512 97–101 0.487 Crapo Idaho 106–present 0.493 103–105 0.523 DeMint South 109–present 0.831 106–108 0.704 Carolina DeWine Ohio 104–109 0.192 98–101 0.343 Ensign Nevada 107–112 0.554 104–105 0.635 Graham South 108–present 0.473 104–107 0.477 Carolina Gramm2 Texas 99–107 0.561 98 0.548 Grams Minnesota 104–106 0.526 103 0.530 Gregg New 103–111 0.429 97–100 0.412 Hampshire Heller Nevada 112–present * 110–112 0.646 Hutchinson Arkansas 105–107 0.457 103–104 0.412 Inhofe Oklahoma 104–present 0.689 100–103 0.475 Isakson Georgia 109–present 0.504 106–108 0.500 Kirk Illinois 111–present 0.333 107–111 0.453 Kyl Arizona 104–present 0.616 100–103 0.527 Mack Florida 101–106 0.407 98–100 0.520 McCain Arizona 100–present 0.371 98–99 0.302 Moran Kansas 112–present * 105–111 0.494 Portman Ohio 112–present * 103–109 0.447 EBSCOhost - printed on 12/4/2024 11:35 AM via UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  The Partisan Senate 15 Table 1.1 (Continued) Senate House of Representatives Name State Tenure Ideology1 Tenure Ideology1 Roberts Kansas 105–present 0.399 97–104 0.407 Santorum Pennsylvania 104–109 0.373 102–103 0.294 Smith New 102–107 0.747 99–101 0.545 Hampshire Sununu New 108–110 0.423 105–107 0.634 Hampshire Talent Missouri 108–109 0.305 103–106 0.455 Thomas Wyoming 104–110 0.525 101–103 0.396 Thune South 109–present 0.509 105–107 0.358 Dakota Toomey Pennsylvania 112–present * 106–108 0.795 Vitter Louisiana 109–present 0.623 106–108 0.550 Wicker Mississippi 110–present 0.444 104–110 0.487 * Ideology scores are not computed until the senator completes at least one Congress. 1 Ideology is measured by the average DW-NOMINATE scores. 2 Gramm was first elected as a Democrat to the 96th Congress. In January 1983 he resigned his seat, switched parties, and won reelection as a Republican. The data analysis includes only his service as a Republican. only the most conservative states, like Oklahoma, Kansas, and Idaho, but also some Democratic states such as Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Minnesota. Second, some Gingrich Senators had brief congressional careers, such as George Allen and Rod Grams, while others had long careers like Pat Roberts and Jim Inhofe. Third, while some Gingrich Senators became important sen- ators—such as Jon Kyl, the minority whip, and John McCain, the 2008 presi- dential candidate—others had relatively undistinguished careers (pick any name from table 1.1 that is new to you). Fourth, some, such as Judd Gregg and Lindsey Graham, are known for their personal integrity, while others such as Larry Craig, David Vitter, Tim Hutchinson, and John Ensign have gotten caught, quite literally, with their pants down. Finally, although none could be described as moderates in the tradition of Susan Collins (R-Maine) or Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts), the Gingrich Senators’ extremism scores range from those of Mike DeWine to Tom Coburn. All of this diversity within the ranks of the Gingrich Senators demonstrates that not all of them are cut from the same cloth, neither are they equally extreme nor equally combative. EBSCOhost - printed on 12/4/2024 11:35 AM via UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  16 a n i n t ro d u c t i o n to t h e gi n gr i c h s enator s For example, Rick Santorum had a relatively moderate voting record, but he was a field commander in the partisan war. Others, like Craig Thomas and Saxby Chambliss, had more conservative voting records, but they were not particularly bellicose. Jim DeMint, David Vitter, Sam Brownback, and Phil Gramm typify what it means to be a Gingrich Senator—a party polarizer and a partisan warrior. Despite the differences among them, as a class, they remain distinct from their Senate colleagues. I assert here—and will demonstrate throughout this book—that the Republicans who served in the House before Gingrich’s election and the Democrats who served in the House before, during, and after Gingrich are not any different from their non-House veteran colleagues. The Gingrich Senators, almost single-handedly at first, propelled party polarization and escalated partisan warfare in the Senate. Their behavior, of course, reverber- ated around the institution and affected both their fellow Republicans and their Democratic colleagues. At about the same time that Newt Gingrich entered the House, so did Representative Richard Gephardt (D-Missouri).22 Although no one argues that Gephardt’s style was as confrontational as Gingrich’s,23 the timing of their service, the importance they played in their respective parties, and the hyperpartisan House in which they both served suggest that there could be a similar polarizing phenomenon in the Democratic Party. To test for its existence, I will frequently compare the Gingrich Senators to the Gephardt Senators. As with the Gingrich Senators, I use the term “Gephardt Senators” to mean “Democrats who were first elected to the House after 1978 and subse- quently served in the Senate.” The Gephardt Senators, though at times acting differently than their fellow Democrats, are never as distinct as the Gingrich Senators’ actions compared to their fellow Republicans. From the outset, I want to state clearly two caveats about my Gingrich Senator argument. First, I do not believe that the transformation of the Senate began and ended with the Gingrich Senators. The Republican Party does not operate in isolation in the Senate. Certainly, the Democrats elected during the Republican Party’s collapse at the end of the Bush administration in 2006 and 2008 were not like their predecessors, though their behavior is not as distinct as that of the Gingrich Senators, nor can their political background so easily characterize them. My argument is sim- ply that the Gingrich Senators, either implicitly or explicitly, were a major source of the transformation. Along the way, their fellow Republicans as well as the Senate Democrats were more than willing to meet them on the battlefield. EBSCOhost - printed on 12/4/2024 11:35 AM via UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  The Partisan Senate 17 Second, I do not intend to put this transformation in a negative light. For years, political scientists lamented the lack of strong political parties. Because of the individual enterprises by which congressional candidates became mem- bers of Congress, party leaders had very little control over their fellow partisans once they showed up in Washington. Reformers bemoaned the irresponsible parties that flourished throughout most of the twentieth century. What political observers called “responsible parties” in the 1950s have become the polarized parties of today. At every step of the transformation, conservatives have encouraged the Gingrich Senators while many liberals have stared in awe at what they have been able to accomplish. A chamber filled with individual members that former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (2005) likened to “herding cats,” has made coordinating strategy for either political or policy reasons exceedingly difficult. Nonetheless, a pack mentality, which will be described later in the book, flourishes among the Gingrich Senators. While Democrats scorn the effect that these senators have had on politics, they have also marveled at the degree of unity among them. In this book, it is the factual record that I document and seek to explain. I leave it to the reader to deter- mine if the transformation was a positive development for, specifically, the U.S. Senate or, more generally, for American politics. I will have fulfilled this goal if both Norman Ornstein and Jim DeMint think that I have faithfully presented the evidence for the Gingrich Senators as both party polarizers and partisan warriors. My investigation of the Gingrich Senators is broken up into four parts. In the next chapter, I describe Newt Gingrich and the strategies that he intro- duced into the House of Representatives. I show how Gingrich transformed not only the Republican Conference but the entire House of Representatives. The second part of the book explores more deeply the first dimension of the Partisan Senate—party polarization. In chapter 3, I outline how much more distinct the roll-call votes of the Gingrich Senators are from their colleagues in the Senate. In chapter 4, I find that part—only about one-quarter—of their voting record can be explained by their more conservative constituen- cies. Most of the analysis shows that the Gingrich Senators remain distinct even after their constituency is factored into the analysis. In chapter 5, I find that very little of their voting record can be explained by the personal charac- teristics that they share or their personal connection to Newt Gingrich. The overall lesson in the chapter is that it was the Gingrich Senators’ service in the House and not their proximity to Gingrich that largely influenced their Senate voting behavior. In the last chapter of part 2, I show how the Gingrich Senators have had longer careers in the Senate than their counterparts despite EBSCOhost - printed on 12/4/2024 11:35 AM via UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  18 a n i n t ro d u c t i o n to t h e gi n gr i c h s enator s their more conservative voting records. It seems as though they have been able to buy a more conservative voting record by raising substantially more money for their reelection campaigns than the other Republicans in the Senate. Part 3 of the book examines the second dimension of the Partisan Senate—partisan warfare. First, I explore the Gingrich Senators’ relationship with their fellow Republicans in the Senate (chapter 7). In the following two chapters, I provide evidence—both from roll-call votes (chapter 8) and other sources (chapter 9)—for their role as partisan warriors. They have had a pro- found effect not only within their own group but also across the American political landscape. Furthermore, their effect goes beyond mere roll-call votes. Negotiations, nominations, and the legislative process in the Senate have all been fundamentally transformed by the Gingrich Senators. Part 4 of the book contains two chapters that examine the future of the U.S. Senate. Chapter 10 examines the 2010 elections, the 112th Congress (2011–2012), and the Tea Party Senators. Chapter 11 examines what the future holds for the U.S. Senate and, for those who fear these prospective develop- ments, how they may be forestalled. EBSCOhost - printed on 12/4/2024 11:35 AM via UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use