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The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro Rating: •••• (Highly Recommended)
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Hands On I waited a dozen years for the third book in Robert Caro’s The Years of Lyndon Johnson. Master of the Senate was well worth waiting for. Unlike some who write about political figures and churn out a book or two a year, Caro has written only four books during the past thirty years. (In addition to the Johnson books, Caro wrote a masterful biography of Robert Moses, The Power Broker, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography). To prepare readers for understanding what Johnson did in the Senate that was so different, Caro spends the first hundred or so pages introducing us to that peculiar and traditional body known as the United States Senate. With that as a foundation, readers can see what a difference Johnson made after his arrival. Caro carefully and deliberately leads us toward understanding how Johnson forged relationships, cajoled, retaliated, respected, or shunned fellow senators. Much of the book is a story about the South and race. Here’s an excerpt from page 350: “Lyndon Johnson’s political genius was creative not merely in the lower, technical aspects of politics, but on much higher levels. And if there was a single aspect of his creativity that had been, throughout his career, most impressive, it was a capacity to look at an institution that possessed only limited political power – an institution that no one else thought of as having the potential for any more than limited political power – and to see in that institution the potential for substantial political power; to transform that institution so that it possessed such power; and, in the process of transforming it, to reap from the transformation substantial personal power for himself. Lyndon Johnson had done that with the White Stars. He had done it with the Little Congress. He had done it with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. And now the eyes of Lyndon Johnson were focused on another institution: the Senate of the United States.” Power is the lens through which Caro evaluates Johnson in all his books. In Master of the Senate, we see Johnson invade what is already a powerful entity, and create power for himself in ways that senators before him had never imagined. Johnson becomes the hands on administrator of all the business of the Senate, and the one whose focus on details sees possibilities that others overlook. Here’s one excerpt from page 572 about how Johnson created power: “And Lyndon Johnson, looking for power over the Senate, had found another instrument with which power could be created. It wasn’t a new instrument. First employed in 1945, it had been formally embodied in the Senate Rules (Rule 12, Paragraph 3) since 1914, and previous Senate Leaders had used it in a number of different ways. Never, however, had it been used as this Leader used it. His use of it was, in fact, perhaps the most striking example of the creativity that Lyndon Johnson brought to the legislative process. The instrument was a ‘unanimous consent agreement,’ a procedural device under which the Senate, by unanimous consent, agrees to limit the amount of time that a particular bill can be debated; to divide that time between the bill’s proponents and opponents according to a prearranged formula incorporated in the agreement, and to place the allocation of that time under the control of one or two specific proponents and opponents of the measure; to limit the number of amendments to the bill that can be introduced, and the amount of time each amendment can be debated, and to place that time, too, under the control of specific senators. Prior to World War II, most unanimous consent agreements had come near the end of a session, when the bill in question had already been debated for days, if not weeks; the Senate would then agree that after a certain number of additional days of debate, a vote would be taken. The mounting impatience after the war with the Senate’s inefficiency had led to increased use of these agreements, but they still had generally been employed only after substantial debate on a measure had already occurred, and they still generally allowed additional time for debate. The 119 bills that had become the subject of agreements between the end of the war and the end of the 1954 Senate session had been debated for an average of six days before the agreements were instituted – and the agreements had allowed an average of three additional days of debate, so that a total of nine days of discussion had been allowed before the vote. Lyndon Johnson wasn’t allowing nine days; sometimes, in fact, he wasn’t allowing even one. Traditionally, says assistant parliamentarian Riddick, who had begun drafting more of the agreements as parliamentarian Charlie Watkins grew older, ‘It was sort of a practice to allow them to consider (debate) the bill a while to see if they anticipated a long debate’; it was only if they saw that one could be expected that they would try to restrict debate. After Mr. Johnson came to the forefront,’ however, the agreements began coming earlier and earlier in the legislative process; ‘you would get an agreement on some (bills) before you even started debate.’ Johnson would decline to call some bills – including some quite major bills – off the Calendar onto the floor until a unanimous consent agreement had been worked out setting a strict time limit; the total debate on a bill might be only six, or four, or in some case, two hours. Nor was that the only difference. Until Johnson became Majority Leader, Riddick explains, most agreements were ‘loose – just general agreements,’ many dealing only with time limits. ‘Often they just set the number of hours, or a set time at which they would vote – that was all many of them contained. You didn’t work out all the details.’ Now the agreements became much stricter, and much more detailed. ‘What Mr. Johnson did was introduce the use of … a detailed agreement as to … how long each amendment would be debated; how long the general debate of the bill would last; whether all amendments had to be germane to the bill, and details of that nature. This was all reduced to unanimous consent agreements, even specifying the hour that you’d proceed to the consideration of said bill; and the hour that you’d vote on it. Among the details now included, moreover, was the identity of the senator who would control the allocation of time to other senators who wanted to speak for or against the bill. In the past, the time given to a bill’s supporters had usually been controlled by the senator who had introduced the measure (the ‘mover’), or by the senator who was managing it on the floor, or by the chairman of the committee from which it had emerged. Now, in more and more unanimous consent agreements, a new figure was named. Ordered by unanimous consent, that … debate shall be limited to four hours, to be equally divided by and controlled by the mover of the bill and the majority leader, an agreement might say. Ordered that on the question of the final passage of such bill debate shall be limited to six hours, to be equally divided and controlled respectively, by the majority and minority leaders, said another. Sometimes, in fact, the time allotted to a bill’s supporters was divided and controlled by the Majority Leader alone.” I spent the summer hauling around the four pounds of Master of the Senate with great pleasure. It was often savored along with a gin and tonic (or a bourbon and branch). I found myself shaking my head with amazement, admiration, or disgust at the ways in which Johnson operated. When coming close to the end of the book, I was disappointed that Caro devoted a mere twenty five pages to Johnson’s last three years in the Senate. After 1,040 pages of text, I was still reluctant to put it down. Caro is a fine writer, and his subjects, the Senate and Lyndon Johnson, are fascinating, especially in such skilled hands. If you’re one who objects to the excessive length of this Johnson saga, wait a while. Caro says that after he completes the next and final volume, he’ll spent time condensing it all into a single book. For those readers who love hearing the stories, and reading about the context, the full version is the best way to go. Steve Hopkins, September 18, 2002
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