Senate’s Famous Decorum Is Showing a Few Cracks

During President Clinton’s impeachment over the Monica Lewinsky affair, the Senate prided itself on handling the whole sordid issue with the sort of unflinching decorum befitting this bastion of democracy and free speech.

In contrast to the casual unruliness of the much larger House of Representatives, and certainly the kind of jeering and raucous outbursts not uncommon in Britain’s House of Commons, debates in the 100-member Senate are sedate, civilized affairs where manners are much admired.

But in the acrid aftermath of impeachment and what appears to be a low point in partisan squabbling between congressional Republicans and Democrats, cracks have begun to appear in the Senate’s famous decorum, prompting some members to caution their colleagues of the need to mind their manners.

Mindful of the fact that Senate debates are often televised, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) took up the issue in October just before the Senate rejected ratification of a global nuclear test-ban treaty, gently reminding everyone of the “need for good manners in a place where there are such strong differences.”

His comments struck a chord.

“My friend Senator Biden began with an allusion to the young people listening by television about how we call each other distinguished senators and various other good things, and that is called courtesy,” responded Sen. Jesse Helms, the conservative North Carolina Republican who is often sharply opposed to the far more liberal Biden.

“I call him a distinguished senator and I admire Joe Biden,” continued Helms. “He knows I do.”

The cordial exchange was a far cry from the high-decibel shouting matches seen in the Israeli Knesset or the physical brawls witnessed in parliaments in India and Taiwan. But tension has run high in the Senate over the last few weeks over the defeat of the test-ban treaty and long days of acrimonious wrangling over the federal budget.

At one point during the highly charged test-ban treaty debate, veteran Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the unchallenged guardian of the Senate’s history and traditions, gave Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) a dressing-down for objecting to a request by Byrd to speak during a non-debatable motion.

“This Senate needs to remember that we operate here by courtesy,” Byrd said. “We need to have better comity than we are having in the Senate.”

Few issues are likely to arouse passions among lawmakers more than campaign finance. And the recent statement by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is also a presidential candidate, that special-interest money is corrupting politics predictably stirred up a hornets’ nest.

Several senators immediately ganged up on McCain and took the floor to challenge him to back up his corruption charges by naming names. “Who is corrupt?” demanded Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has vehemently opposed McCain’s plan to overhaul campaign finance laws. “You can’t say the gang is corrupt, but none of the gangsters are.”

All this has recently enlivened the Senate floor, where many debates consist of a single lawmaker droning on for the record to an empty chamber.

It is a scene that all too often recalls the remarks of English constitutional expert Walter Bagehot, who said the best antidote for admiring the British House of Lords was to go and see them in action.