DEMOCRATIZING THE SENATE

Democratizing the Senate ON TUESDAY, April 8th, the Senate Democrats in caucus adopted a resolution which it is hoped marks the beginning of an important reform. It provides (1) that a majority of...

...And all these many years the Senate alone succeeded in blocking this amendment...
...It typifies all of the most harmful practices which have led an enlightened and aroused public judgment to decree the destruction of the caucus, convention, and delegate system of party nominations...
...The standing committees of the Senate, so selected, Mr...
...From time to time I have criticised this plan of control upon the floor of the Senate and editorially in LA FOLLETTE'S...
...During this time more than three-fourths of the states have, through memorial and otherwise, petitioned Congress to submit such an amendment...
...It took just one year to secure the ratification of the necessary three-fourths of the states...
...These copies are expected shortly...
...and (3) to name the conferees to be appointed by the presiding officer of the Senate...
...A shipment of these books is now on the way from New York to Madison, but it is delayed on account of the floods...
...Aldrich directed majority committee assignments, and thus controlled legislation...
...All caucus proceedings touching legislation, and the proceedings of sub-committees, committees, and conference committees should be open to the public...
...by a record vote of the members of the committees reporting such bills...
...In a great body like the Congress of the United States, nearly all legislation is controlled by committees...
...and in like manner the minority leader controls the committee assignments of the minority membership...
...It is un-American...
...We spend large sums of money to print the Congressional Record, in order that the public may be made acquainted with the conduct of their business...
...2) that a majority of the majority members of a committee may name sub-committees to consider pending bills and report the same for action by the full committee...
...Small comfort the reactionaries may draw from this...
...The party caucus delegates its authority to a chairman to select a committee on committees...
...I cannot better describe the method through which this mastery of legislation has been centered in the hands of a few Senators than by quoting from my discussion of the Lorimer case May 26th, 1911: "Sir, I believe the time is near at hand when we will change the practice of naming the regular or standing committees of the Senate...
...It required little less than a political avalanche to break down this privilege bolstered barrier...
...And it would undoubtedly have been unanimous if there were not still some states whose legislatures are the creatures of "rotton borough" politics of the most aggravated type...
...It has grown into an abuse...
...The caucus adjourns...
...When the Senate was Republican, Mr...
...And that is the first necessary step toward a Senate that is sensitive to public needs and responsive to public demands...
...Often the Senate is confronted with the problem of accepting bad provisions in order to secure good provisions, or of rejecting good provisions in order to defeat bad ones which have been incorporated in conference...
...They will be mailed to all who have ordered just as soon as they arrive at this office...
...The rules of the House of Representatives and of the Senate should be so changed as to require caucuses and committees to make and keep for public inspection a record of every act of such organizations involving the public business...
...As soon as that citadel was captured, the rest was easy...
...Hence the control of legislation, speaking in a broad sense, has been delegated and re-delegated until responsibility to the public has been so weakened that the public can scarcely be said to be represented at all...
...For years the only obstacle in the way of direct elections was the Senate itself...
...It is undemocratic...
...Many, if not most, of the acts of legislative dishonesty which have made scandalous the proceedings of Congress and state legislatures could never have reached the first stage, had they not been conceived and practically consummated in secret conferences, secret cau- cuses, secret sessions of committees, and then carried through the legislative body with little or no discussion...
...Then, and not until then, will the Senate be truly democratized...
...The mere adoption of resolutions limiting the power of the chairmen of committees can readily be modified or reversed by subsequent caucus action...
...When the Senate was Democratic, Mr...
...Thus the chairman through his power to call or refusal to call meetings of committees, indirectly controls committee action or non-action upon bills...
...2) to appoint sub-committees for the consideration of all bills referred to the committee by the Senate...
...The action of a subcommittee has great weight with the committee...
...By its caucus action the Democratic majority promises a partial reform...
...It proceeds to determine the committee assignments of Senators...
...To make this control of legislation water tight, the trusted lieutenants assigned to the chairmanship of the committees, have always exercised authority (1) to determine when a committee should meet...
...This latter rule is a most vicious one...
...The Will of the People Shall Be the Law of the Land" The shaded portion of this man shows the states that ratified the amendment to the Constitution of the United States providing for direct election of United States Senators...
...It was more than eighty years ago that the first resolution was introduced in Congress for a direct elections amendment...
...It was a great victory for progress...
...Time after time the resolution was passed in the House of Representatives...
...For years these rules have been in existence...
...But this proposed reform by the Democratic majority does not go to the root of the matter...
...It took slightly less than ONE YEAR to secure the approval of the necessary three-fourths of the states...
...The action of committees, Continued on page 3 Democratizing the Senate Continued from page 1 sub-committees, and conference committees on all bills, is conducted in executive session,—that is to say, in secret session...
...He can select a "safe" sub-committee to suppress or hamstring measures to which the system is opposed...
...The Committee on Committees largely defer to the Chairman of the Committee on Committees in the final decision as to committee assignments...
...The speedy and decisive ratification of this amendment, when once it was permitted to go before the states, emphasizes nothing more clearly than the pressing need of so changing our method of amending the Constitution that never again will the people find themselves so long denied the fulfillment of their political will...
...3) that a majority of the majority members of any committee may name committees to confer with House conferees on any bill upon which the two houses have disagreed...
...A permanent record should be made of the action of caucuses, standing committees, and conference committees, upon all matters affecting legislation...
...It should make this first step secure by incorporating it as a part of the Senate's code of procedure...
...The conferees on all bills should be elected NOTICE We regret that there has been unavoidable delay in filling all the orders that have come to us for "LaFollette's Autobiography...
...All of which emphasizes the statement, oft repeated in these columns, that the United States Senate in the pa (generation has not been representative of the public will...
...Once a part of the standing rules of the Senate, the record will be made, and this arbitrary power will never again be restored to the chairmen of committees...
...The public believes that the Congressional Record tells the complete story, when it is in reality only the final chapter...
...But without avail...
...Under the present system of choosing the standing committees of the United States Senate, a party caucus is called...
...Members of Congress and the Senate must, in large measure, depend for the details of legislation upon the committees appointed for the purpose of perfecting legislation...
...It provides (1) that a majority of a committee may call the committee together at any time for the consideration of any pending bill...
...Gorman directed the majority committee assignments, and thus controlled legislation...
...This places the selection of the membership of the standing committees completely in the hands of a majority of the Committee on Committees, because in practice the caucus ratifies the action of the committee, and the Senate ratifies the action of the caucus...
...But the system does not stop here...
...The Senate, in effect, has delegated its authority to party caucuses upon either side...
...The sanction of a committee is practically controlling with Congress...
...The standing committees of the Senate are selected under a plan which enables a few men to control the action of the Senate on legislation...
...And finally through his ability to select conferees, he exercises an especially insidious and despotic power over legislation, because the conferees can in conference radically change a measure passed by the Senate...
...As the business of the country grows, and the subjects of legislation multiply, so Committee action upon bills becomes more and more important...
...President, determine the fate of all bills...
...The Committee on Committees is thereafter appointed by the chairman of the caucus...
...Evil and corruption thrive best in the dark...
...The chairmen of the committees should be elected by a record vote of the members of such committees...
...The pigeon-holes of the Senate were the burying ground of these resolutions...
...For nearly a generation persistent efforts have been made to secure its submission by Congress to the states...
...But more than this: The rules of the Senate must be so changed as to provide for the election of members of committees by the Senate, pursuant to a direct primary conducted by each party organization under regulations prescribed by Senate rules...
...Robert M. La Follette * * * Direct Elections THE ADOPTION of the Direct Elections Amendment does not, as the reactionary press and politicians contend, demonstrate that the federal Constitution is sufficiently easy of amending...
...And then, we transact the important part of the business behind the locked doors of committee rooms...
...and when reported back to that body for final action their report, under a rule which still further augments this power, is not subject to amendment by the Senate, but must be accepted or rejected as a whole...
...It should not be forgotten, too, that several states, because their legislatures were not in session, had no opportunity to act, up to the time the necessary three-fourths were obtained...
...As a member of the Senate I have again and again protested against the secret action of congressional committees upon public business, and against the business of Congress being taken into secret party caucuses and there disposed of by party rule...
...It means that, at last, the door has been opened through which will enter a Senate responsible directly to the voters...
...It does prove that this reform was demanded overwhelmingly by the public...
...I have maintained at all times my right as a public servant to discuss in open Senate and elsewhere, publicly, all legislative proceedings, whether originating in the executive sessions of committees or behind the closed doors of caucuses and conferences...
...A chairman is authorized to appoint a committee on committees...
...Under this system the leader of the majority practically controls committee assignments of the majority membership of the Senate...
...Keep this fact in mind, and, then observe how general, in point of area, was the demand for this important political reform...
...It was not a sectional matter at all...
...See now what has happened: The people have delegated us to represent them in the Senate...
...they report, shape, or suppress legislation practically at will...

Vol. 5 • April 1913 • No. 16


 
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