Gerald R. Ford: An Honorable Life

Chapter 20 - Initiatives

352 Chapter 20 Initiatives As the 41st Vice President of the United States, Nelson Rockefeller’s prime ambition was to rise above the first Vice President’s description of the job. It was, John Adams wrote, “the most insignificant office that ever the Invention of Man or his Imagination conceived.” Rockefeller ’s experience in government, his energy, his upbringing, his pride, his temperament—­ not one of these would permit him to accept insignificance . His accomplishments have been little recognized but one is historic: as President of the Senate, Rockefeller made rulings that resulted in changes to cloture, the process through which filibusters are halted. Instead of requiring two-­ thirds of Senators present to vote to close debate, sixty votes would be necessary. In a Senate that practices and reveres unlimited debate—­ and the more important the issue, the longer they talk—­ reducing potential roadblocks to the nation’s business is significant . Rockefeller did not act alone in making this change. In January 1975 a bipartisan coalition led by Senators Mondale and Pearson mobilized the votes to break from the past. What Rockefeller did as presiding officer was to clear the legislative path so that a well-­ organized Senate majority could make the change. In any history of meaningful advances in Senate procedure, changing Rule 22, the Senate rule governing cloture, will stand as one that made a difference. Until 1917, the Senate had no way to limit debate. By filibustering—­ talking without stopping—­ one Senator could block a majority of the other ninety-­ five Senators from passing a bill or confirming a nomination , and often did. At the urging of President Wilson, the Senate ad- Initiatives 353 opted Rule 22, which provided that debate could be ended by a vote of two-­ thirds of Senators present and voting. Cloture was imposed for the first time in 1919, to end a filibuster against ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. Thereafter, for more than half a century, a faction of senators , primarily from the former Confederate states, needed no more than thirty-­ four votes to block civil-­ rights legislation. In 1963, and again in 1971, a bipartisan majority of Senators organized to amend Rule 22, but both Vice President Lyndon Johnson and Vice President Spiro Agnew refused to make the parliamentary rulings necessary to change. At the opening of the 94th Congress in 1975, Senators Javits, Pearson, and other moderate Republicans convinced Rockefeller of the need to reform Senate rules, and he enthusiastically accepted the opportunity to be the instrument of change. He assigned his counsel, Richard Parsons, to plot his course through the maze of parliamentary rules he must follow as the Senate’s presiding officer. Parsons created an ingenious chart—­ it resembled a railroad switching yard—­ that Rockefeller could follow and keep on track. Out of courtesy, Rockefeller informed President Ford of his plan to initiate the reform in the Senate rules, but he deliberately did not ask for approval. Ford did not object; this, Ford told Rockefeller, is a decision to be made by the President of the Senate and Members. When Senator Tower and other conservative senators threatened retaliation against Ford and Rockefeller, that only fortified Rockefeller’s determination; he had never yielded to his party’s conservatives. As for Tower, the Vice President said: “Nobody threatens Nelson Rockefeller.” For nine weeks the Senate haggled over the issue, with Senator Allen of Alabama using the arcane rules of the Senate to filibuster the effort to change the filibuster. At one point, Rockefeller, fed up with Allen’s repeated interruptions and delaying tactics, refused to recognize him—­ a gross violation of Senatorial courtesy for which Rockefeller later offered a superficial apology. Initially the Senate Democratic leaders, Mike Mansfield and Robert Byrd, used their authority to preserve Rule 22, but their parliamentary maneuvers in defense of the rule were repeatedly defeated. Convinced that change was the will of the Senate, Mansfield and Byrd turned around and supported it. With their backing, it was done. Rockefeller never considered his role in amending the Senate rules to be one of his notable accomplishments. When anyone complimented him for improving Senate procedure, his response was a shrug of dis- 354 gerald r. ford missal. One reason was that he had mixed feelings about the Senate. He was proud that his maternal grandfather, Nelson Aldrich, had dominated the Senate at the turn of the twentieth century, but Rockefeller himself never wanted to...