Esteemed Colleagues: Civility and Deliberation in the U.S. Senate

Chapter Nine: The Senate and the Executive

194 chapter nine The Senate and the Executive roger h. davidson colton c. campbell the ties between the senate and the executive branch are complex and interdependent. The Constitution itself dictates a special relationship between the two entities. Presidential nominations of individuals to serve in both the federal judiciary and the executive branch must be approved with the “advice and consent” of the Senate. Treaties with other nations are negotiated by the president “provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.” Legislation is debated and approved on the Senate floor, but the president is involved in developing legislation and in devising legislative strategy to rally a winning voting bloc of members (especially in matters of foreign policy and national security policy), or he may veto it. And the participation of the United States in declared wars, formal alliances, strategic arms control accords, and international trade agreements is impossible without explicit Senate sanction. Simply put, it is difficult for one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to ignore the other. Our discussion of this relationship begins with the various ways in which the Constitution fosters congressional-presidential interaction. The Constitution implicitly requires both competition and cooperation between Congress and the presidency. Historical patterns and individual attitudes have oscillated between conflict and compromise. Congress and the executive at times work as “tandem institutions” that need each other’s support or acquiescence to succeed.1 At other times they compete fiercely, as when legislators see the executive as contemptuous and arbitrary, or when executive officials view the Senate as inefficient and intrusive. senate and executive 195 We then explore shifting partisanship and presidential relations in the Senate. The contemporary Senate has become a partisan body, despite the facade erected by norms of courtesy in debate and civility between senators . From the evidence of both voting patterns and the testimony of individual senators, this heightened partisanship has had a profound effect upon the body. A driving force behind the current political state in the Senate is the changing character of its members. Senators known for compromise , moderation, and institutional loyalty seemingly have been replaced with more ideological and partisan members who see the chamber as a place to promote their party’s agendas. As a consequence, life on Capitol Hill has become, at least temporarily, more acrimonious.2 We also examine the politics of executive and judicial appointments. No political appointee to a federal agency can execute federal laws and regulations, no ambassador can represent the United States abroad, and no federal judge can be seated without having been confirmed by a majority vote of the Senate. Although congressional cooperation in appointments is more the rule than the exception, senators are increasingly prepared to exploit their prerogatives.3 Some senators routinely take advantage of their leverage to thwart presidential nominations if they consider the nominees to be out of step with existing congressional majorities.4 Others regard advice and consent not as a mere formality but as an important constitutional weapon guarding the independence of the Senate from the executive branch. Finally, there is the matter of formal and informal communication between presidents and senators. All presidents since Franklin Roosevelt have sought to exercise legislative leadership in Congress, provide Congress with a primary wish list, and establish its legislative priorities.5 Typically, however, such presidential leadership occurs at the margins. Senate leaders routinely provide presidents and other executive officials with informal advice, some of which can prove decisive. Invitation to Struggle In the expectation that the Senate would be a deliberative body, the Founders gave the Senate a set of special policy prerogatives. In foreign policy, senators are granted the power to ratify treaties and to confirm the appointment of ambassadors. A wise and stable Senate, the Founders believed , would guard the nation’s reputation in foreign affairs. Along with other provisions, these powers placed the Senate in a unique position, 196 roger h. davidson and colton c. campbell which was to “exercise an extra increment of influence over the executive and judicial branches.”6 Unlike their House counterparts, however, Senate party leaders have far fewer resources with which to fashion coherent chamber responses to the executive. “Leading the Senate,” reminisced former majority leader Howard H. Baker (R-Tenn.), “is like herding cats.” The chamber’s flexible set of forty-two standing rules provide only a skeletal framework for procedure, conferring no prerogatives upon the presiding officer and including neither a previous question rule...