Senate 'union rules'
The U.S. Senate's rules make it unreformable
Date published: 11/17/2008
By is White
OH, THE IRONIES of congressional seniority. On Nov. 4, America elected Barack Obama president and, ipso facto, commander in chief of its armed forces. Yet, had he lost, Mr. Obama would, all things being equal, have returned to his No. 7 ranking (of 10 Democratic senators) on the Foreign Relations Committee--where Vice President-elect Joe Biden, an early casualty of Democratic primary winnowing, would have been his "boss."
And it gets richer. As president, Mr. Obama will oversee the Veterans Administration. But on the Veterans Affairs Committee he is merely the fourth-raking of seven Democrats. U.S. voters entrusted him to preside over the federal agencies devoted to Americans' health, education, and working conditions, and safety from terrorists. Yet among Democrats, Mr. Obama is No. 9 of 11 on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and No. 7 of 9 on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
These rankings hardly mean Mr. Obama is a slow study or unloved by his colleagues. They reflect purely the Senate's antiquated seniority system, which pegs, almost perfectly, formal legislative power to longevity. Likewise, a committee's chairman is not necessarily the most sage about the issues it touches. During the recent campaign, for example, Mr. Biden wrote alternative history when he claimed that the United States and its allies had "kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon." No such thing happened. The senator's chief qualification to chair Foreign Relations is that the good folks of Delaware elected him to the Senate seven straight times.
The chief problem with the Senate rules is not that they create a gerontocracy--Mr. Biden's boo-boos aren't age-related--but that they beget a government-within-a-government allowing a handful of senior senators to block any legislation they dislike, including bills that are good for the country but run afoul of their preferences.
Mr. Obama is White House-bound in large part because voters want a shakeup of dysfunctional Washington. Yet the executive branch is just one of the two necessary to change the nation's course. The legislative branch, Congress, "enjoys" a public approval rating below 20 percent and almost 10 points worse than President Bush's. Yet it's hard to get new blood into that branch when the Senate seniority system allows committee chairmen to tie a tourniquet around change.
A freshman senator can accomplish things--witness the success of Sen. Jim Webb's new G.I. Bill--but only if committee barons, who can docket or spike legislation on a whim, play ball. Senators such as the independent Mr. Webb and Sen.-elect Mark Warner--unless he's jiving us, a "radical centrist"--might do much to get Washington working again if they weren't confined to the bottom of the seniority totem pole.
The times are troubled; mortal threats loom; the people cry out for change. If there were ever a time for the Senate to scrap its unionized approach to self-government, it's now. Let's try a little meritocracy. Americans want reform, stem as well as stern.
Date published: 11/17/2008
Most recent reader comments:
The problem is not just the Senate and the House
(posted by
Mandrake
, Nov. 18, 2008 9:07 am)
it is the Federal government as well. None is based on merit. You show up and stick around, you get raises and promotopns. As simple as that.
Union rules make about as much sense here......
(posted by
USMCret
, Nov. 17, 2008 10:32 am)
as it does in other work place. Does it surprise anyone that the auto industry is floundering (to put it mildly)?
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