The Thorn in Clinton’s Side Is Institutional : Congress: The power of the Senate to frustrate a President goes back to Washington’s time. Today’s media attention only adds to the ego factor.

If the Clinton Administration over the past several weeks has taken on the appearance of the Iraqi Republican Guard hotfooting it away from the Mother of All Battles, the causes of the unseemly retreat may be more deep-seated than pricey haircuts, slipshod background checks on nominees, or even a presidential backbone that sometimes has the consistency of a chocolate eclair. And while it may be amusing to depict turf-conscious White House staffers as a kind of dysfunctional family more concerned with office space than with the nation’s well-being, they have contributed less to the President’s problems than has another group of bright young white guys who, 202 years ago, invented the United States Senate, a thorn in the side of the executive ever since.

From the Senate’s spiteful rejection of George Washington’s nominee for a minor military post in 1790 to “the little group of willful men” in the upper house of Congress who blocked Woodrow Wilson’s effort to arm U.S. merchant ships in 1917, to that body’s Finance Committee dropping George Bush’s cherished capital-gains tax cut in 1989, it is Senate far more often than the House that has been the source of presidential grief. Bill Clinton’s experience is no exception.

Consider the various snares into which the President has blundered since he was elected and you will find on all of them the names of senators. On gays in the military, it was Sam Nunn. On the failed stimulus package, it was Bob Dole. On the aborted BTU tax, it was David Boren and John Breaux. And if Clinton is to find political salvation, it will be in the hands of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and George Mitchell. Senators all!

Even more worrisome for Clinton is that his effort to propitiate the Senate by dropping provisions of the energy tax agreed to in the House has caused a revolt in the lower chamber. His retreat in the face of Senate opposition to the nomination of Lani Guinier has sent the House Black Caucus to the barricades against him. Yet Clinton’s Capitol Hill operatives continue to spend most of their time stroking the distended egos of senators. Restiveness in the House may give Clinton heartburn, but getting the senators in line is a job for a magnum of Tums.

The House has given the President pretty much what he has wanted. It did overload the energy tax legislation with legions of exemptions, but in general the House has been much more hospitable than the Senate to whatever wanders down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Clinton White House. The most popular explanation for this bicameral warp has been that the Democrats enjoy an 80-seat advantage in the House, while in the Senate they had only a 14-seat edge--which now has shrunk to 13 with the election in Texas of Republican Kay Bailey Hutchinson.

In practical terms, however, Clinton would not be having a much easier time if the Democrats were 20 seats up on the GOP. In the House, raw numbers count: 51% gets you through. In the Senate, on any legislation more important than a proclamation commending the sun for rising in the East, you need 60 votes. Numerically, that should be a snap, but effective political control is always just beyond the reach of the majority leader because personality, not partnership, guides the Senate.

James Madison was profoundly suspicious of “the sudden and violent passions” that can sweep across a nation and felt that a popularly elected legislature would reflect that passion rather than moderate it. The Senate, with its six-year terms, its more stringent age qualifications and its system of being chosen by state legislators--senators became popularly elected only in 1913--would keep the Republic on an even keel. The Senate, moreover, would always be a manageable size, with all states being equal at just two votes apiece.

Although Madison could not have foreseen the development, the very compactness of the Senate was to give rise over the years to a set of rules that accorded great power to individual members, no matter how small or large their states, and a wealth of perquisites that would make a larger institution unworkable.

But even beyond such dramatic expressions of senatorial power as the filibuster, or the custom of courtesy that enables members to bypass committees with vetoes and amendments, it is the modern media that have exalted senators far beyond even Madison’s Roman concept.

One of 100 can command center stage; one of 435 gets, at best, a walk-on role. Uncharismatic figures such as Sam Nunn or David Boren can consistently trump the President not only because they use parliamentary mysteries to thwart him, but also because they command enough media attention to make a public case against his programs. Presidents come and go, but senators--and Washington media stars--can last a lifetime.

So Clinton has been kissing the hem of the Senate’s robe, which may appear pretty craven to a House that has stood by him so loyally, but it is evidence that he is learning. His failure to genuflect before the grandees of the Senate back in April cost him his stimulus package, and he has evidently resolved that he will not lose another big one by such a simple oversight.

It may be some consolation to House members who regard the Senate as a kind of constitutional Jurassic Park that they’re right: Clinton is trying to appease the Senate’s archaic lizards, but it is less a gesture of affection than a belated but obligatory bow to a 200-year-old reality.