Why a grey box you ask? Excellent question. This blog series is going to focus on the happenings within the Byrd CLS archive where we work with thousands of, well, grey boxes.

A few grey boxes from the Robert C. Byrd Collection.

So what are all these grey boxes? Another great question. When we receive archival records from various institutions, they usually arrive looking something like this:

This institution clearly lacked an efficient archivist.

Well, maybe not in that exact state, but certainly not ready for permanent archival storage. That’s where the grey boxes come in.

Part of our job here in the archives is to preserve records for the long haul (centuries), and one way to do that is by putting the textual records in acid-free containers. So we take the records out of those manila folders used in offices, place them in acid-free folders, and then place those folders in acid-free boxes which happen to be grey. These boxes are affectionately known as “Hollingers,” named after the main supplier of archival materials, Hollinger Metal Edge (you’re probably getting an inkling that we’re not particularly clever in our naming conventions). The boxes then go on our shelves (known in archival parlance as “stacks”) in a climate-controlled room that manages temperature and humidity as another way of preserving the records.

The other major part of our work is to make these records available to researchers, namely you. So we create an index (called a “Finding Aid”) that you can read and perform keyword searches upon to help you find what you’re looking for. We don’t open the records to researchers until we’ve finished processing them which includes not only putting them in acid-free containers, but creating a database to keep track of where these millions of documents are in our stacks. The finding aid is a summary of all the information in our database about our collections.

A historic item from the Byrd Collection

During the processing of all these records, we often come across very interesting material which we note in the finding aids. But we also would like to bring these discoveries to the attention of a wider audience, so this blog series will feature posts about such gems by the archival staff. (We’ll also include posts when new parts of the collection are open to further your research interests).

So now you know the meaning behind this new blog series title, and we hope we’ll see you back soon to share our discoveries in the archives here at the Byrd CLS.

Finally, for all you Pete Seeger fans, here’s an adaptation of his classic “Little Boxes.”

Ray with the C-SPAN Bus in San Francisco.

I am a C-SPAN junkie and proud of the label even though there is nothing junky about C-SPAN. If “junkie” implies an addiction, C-SPAN is a most positive kind of dependency. My first appearance on the network was close to thirty years ago, when I was Historian of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Senate Historian, Richard Baker, and I sat before the C-SPAN camera for an interview that was shot in the famous “Board of Education,” a small, ornate hideaway room one floor below the House Chamber, where Speaker Sam Rayburn used to take members for a few drinks after hours.

Over the years I made numerous appearances and got to know Brian Lamb and his outstanding staff. C-SPAN has made a unique contribution to the political process in the United States and helped educate Americans about how our government works.

There was no C-SPAN Bus in those early days. C-SPAN’s programing was limited and consisted mostly of following the House and Senate floor debates. Now there is C-SPAN, C-SPAN2, C-SPAN radio, and C-SPAN3, which broadens coverage to a wider variety of educational programing related to American history. There are still many places where it is not easy to find C-SPAN3 and it is a shame that more cable carriers do not include this important educational channel in their basic packages.

This past week the C-SPAN Digital Bus was in San Francisco, where the network was covering the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, where 1,800 historians of U.S. history met. The Bus itself has changed over the years as technology and functions have changed. There were two earlier buses that have been retired after logging a million miles. The new Bus is a great educational tool and a good ambassador to schools and other public venues all across the county.

When I think of how much of television is devoted to mindless pap, commercialism, and propaganda instead of education, C-SPAN stands out as an example of an educational network not driven by ratings or profits. It is truly in the public interest. For this we can thank the cable industry as a whole, and we can be thankful for the vision of Brian Lamb who saw the need and made it happen.

By Ray Smock

In the political posturing and finger-pointing taking place regarding the “Sequester,” the first victim is the United States Constitution. Congress has ignored its responsibility as a co-equal branch of the government. It is the House and Senate that have the power of the purse, not the President. It is the job of Congress to pass appropriations bills which the president can either sign or veto. The president does not have the power to pick and choose those budget items he likes or dislikes. The money has to be spent, by law, the way Congress says it should be spent.

Today, March 1, the first day the sequester kicks in, House and Senate leaders met with the President but nothing was  agreed to that would override the draconian automatic budget cuts that will be felt in the weeks and months ahead. It does seem, however, that another stopgap measure may be forthcoming in a matter of weeks. It was instructive what President Obama and Speaker Boehner said after this meeting.

The President said, “I am not a dictator. I am the President.” He said he could not force Congress “to do the right thing.” His statement is consistent with the Constitution which limits the powers of the President when it comes to matters of the budget. He cannot dictate to Congress. He cannot demand passage of a budget.

If Congress fails to pass regular appropriations bills as part of the normal, regular order of business, then it becomes the President’s job to figure out how to make the executive branch of government, including the military, function as best it can with what money is available. To keep the government from shutting down, Congress has been passing a series of short-term Continuing Resolutions which allow the government to continue to run on appropriations levels that were previously passed. The CR’s are a stopgap measure. They keep things running on a temporary basis while the nation lurches from crisis to crisis.

Speaker Boehner came out of today’s meeting and said that there would be no tax increases in any fix of the budget mess. This too is consistent with the Constitution which gives the power to tax to Congress. It is also a partisan statement reflecting the position of Republicans in Congress to cut government spending as the only way to achieve long-term deficient reduction. The President’s position has been to reduce the deficient through spending cuts and increases in revenue on higher incomes.

Earlier in the week Speaker Boehner blamed the President for failure to lead on the budget crisis. In this instance the charge is inconsistent with the Constitution. The President’s role in the budget process is to recommend expenditures for the executive branch and submit those recommendations to Congress. Then it is up to Congress to decide if the amounts in the President’s budget warrant the funds. The White House has the Office of Management and Budget to recommend expenditures and Congress has the Congressional Budget Office as its way of checking the budget proposed by the President.  Usually the President’s budget is declared “dead on arrival” when it reaches Capitol Hill. This has become a standard litany in the dance of legislation no matter which party holds the White House or the Congress.

Speaker Boehner’s statement said the best way to solve the budget crisis was through the regular appropriation process and not with meetings between congressional leaders and the president. It would be a huge step in the right direction if Congress could pass the 13 regular appropriations bills by September or October each year and send them to the President for his signature. But this has not happened for a long time. The budget process has become a form of brinksmanship, going from one crisis to another.  This is not what the framers of the Constitution expected, nor is it what we should expect of government today.

One of the favorite expressions of my former boss, Speaker Tip O’Neill was: “If you want efficient government, get yourself a dictatorship.” It was his way of reminding people that the process of making legislation and the process of determining the annual budget of the United States was not designed to be efficient. The Constitution divides power. And it even divides the power of the purse between two houses of Congress.

But the end result, the final product, no matter how imperfect, should be accomplished through the regular order of business with the 13 major appropriations committees doing their jobs. When this process is subverted, for any reason, Congress is not doing its duty as a co-equal branch of government and Congress undermines its own Constitutional authority when it fails to pass regular appropriations bills. I don’t want the President to have the power of the purse. That would lead to dictatorship. We would not need Congress except as a debating society if the power of the purse was lost to the executive branch. This is all the more reason for Congress to do its Constitutional duty to be co-equal partners in governing this nation. This will be difficult to achieve unless the word Compromise returns in a positive context to the lexicon of legislators.

The death of the iconic advice columnist Dear Abby this week at the age of 94 reminded me that Senator Byrd’s archive contains a copy of a letter she wrote to Senator Byrd in 1978, when he appeared on the cover of TIME magazine as the Majority Leader of the Senate. Abby thought the Senator looked really good on the cover of TIME. Here is her letter:

Click to Enlarge

The thing about a large collection of papers like that of Senator Byrd is that we are always discovering things like this, from personal human interest items to documents related to major issues of national politics or the plight of coal miners in West Virginia. Taken as a whole, Senator Byrd’s personal archive reveals an amazing range of work on behalf of the nation and his beloved home state. They tell his story, but they also help tell the story of thousands of other people too, from ordinary citizens to presidents and kings.

Whether it is a lighthearted item like the one from Pauline Phillips (Abby’s real name), a heartfelt birthday greeting from Ted Kennedy, a letter from a President of the United States, a speech on the floor of the Senate, or a letter from a constituent in West Virginia, it is all a part of American history and we feel honored to help preserve it and to make it available to the public.

This week the Byrd Center achieved a milestone in our ongoing work on the Senator’s voluminous archive. We have completed a finding aid, an index, to his legislative files covering 57 years from the 83^rd to the 111^th Congress. The printed finding aid is 522 pages long. It describes the contents of 1,800 boxes of letters and documents down to the subject matter in each folder. This finding aid makes it possible to say that the Robert C. Byrd archive is now open to researchers. You can use the finding aid online right now.

This project has been directed by the Byrd Center’s archivist Marc Levitt who has done a first class job reigning in a vast amount of information. He led the archival team, with the assistance of Lilly Phipps, the Center’s office manager and assistant archivist. They built on the earlier work of archivists at the Center, Suni Johnson, and Keith Alexander. But we are especially proud of the fact that a number of Shepherd University history students have participated in this project as interns and gained hands-on experience in discovering the excitement and rewards of seeing history up close and personal. Several of our student interns have gone on to get advanced degrees in archival and information science and are now working in these fields. Two are working at historical societies, and Lilly Phipps began as a student intern and is now a full time staff member since her graduation from Shepherd. Current interns Heidi Carbaugh and Jody Brumage have done great work in the archives and have mastered skills and experience that should benefit them later in their chosen careers.

We have not fully completed the work of processing Senator Byrd’s papers but I am pleased to say that under Marc Levitt’s direction we are making great strides. We still need to process thousands of photographs, artifacts, audio tapes, 800 reels of microfilm records, and electronic records, including 1.5 million emails. Work is well along in all these areas.  This rich archive is about Senator Byrd, but mostly it is about the history and politics of his era, and a great deal of what we have is the voices of citizens of West Virginia and other parts of the country who wrote to Senator Byrd and candidly told him their stories.

To make an appointment to use the collections, please contact Marc Levitt, the Director of the Archives, at mlevitt@shepherd.edu or (304) 876-5648.  You can also review the Byrd Center’s policies and procedures to prepare for your visit.

Upcoming  Events:

• We will soon be opening the Project Files which details federal and state-level projects in all 55 counties of West Virginia, and documents Senator Byrd’s efforts in bringing those projects to fruition.  The finding aid for Senator Byrd’s Papers will continue to expand as more of the collection is processed, so keep checking back for updates.
• The Byrd Center will be having a Grand Opening in April, including tours of the Archive, a keynote speaker, and other related events.

Marc Levitt, the Director of Archives at the Byrd Center, is pictured here with Part I of the Robert C. Byrd Congressional Papers finding aid.

]]> http://www.byrdcenter.org/index.php/2013/01/14/senator-byrds-archive-now-open-for-research/feed/ 0 http://www.byrdcenter.org/index.php/2013/01/02/looking-back-twenty-years-at-the-opening-of-congress/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=looking-back-twenty-years-at-the-opening-of-congress http://www.byrdcenter.org/index.php/2013/01/02/looking-back-twenty-years-at-the-opening-of-congress/#comments Wed, 02 Jan 2013 15:31:35 +0000 Marc Levitt http://184.175.124.16/?p=1113

By Ray Smock

When I was historian of the House of Representatives I kept a journal that described some of my observations of the House and my impressions of the people and events I witnessed. What follows is from my journal entry of January 6, 1993. The 103^rd Congress opened on January 5, the day before, so this entry reflects on that event and on the counting of the Electoral College ballots that took place on the afternoon of Jan. 6. In a few days these two events will be repeated again. It is quite a track record when you think about it. These events mark the renewal of the House every two years since 1789, and every four years since 1789 the counting of Electoral Ballots to complete the constitutional requirement for the election of President of the United States.

The circumstances surrounding the convening of the 113^th Congress in 2013 are dramatically different than the events I witnessed twenty years ago. The nation is in a different place as the current Congress convenes. We are witnessing one of the worst displays of dysfunction—the inability to conduct the regular order of business that good governance depends on. I believe we will survive this crisis just as we have many other crises before this. But the process we are going through right now surely tests the resolve of those of us who firmly believe in the central importance of Congress to the proper functioning of our government.

In 1993 the House was reeling from the effects of several internal scandals, including malfeasance in the House Postmaster’s office and the House “Banking” scandal in the Sergeant at Arms office, which caused a number of members to lose their seats over what was publicly described as a check kiting scheme. And there was the fall of Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (D.-IL), eventually convicted of a felony in relation to the Post Office scandal. Collectively these serious issues in a House run by Democrats would lead to the loss of Democratic control of the House for the first time in 40 years, as Republicans capitalized on the scandals to become the majority party in 1995.

I hope you will enjoy this look at the Opening of the 103^rd Congress as I saw it, twenty years ago.

Opening Day of the 103^rd Congress, January 5, 1993.

Counting the Electoral Ballots, January 6. [Entry 329—Smock’s Journal]

Yesterday the 103rd Congress convened with its large freshman class. There are an incredible number of new faces around Congress this year. Not only are there 110 new members, but a lot of new staff as well. With the big shift of offices, with senior members vying for larger more prestigious space, and the large number of new members drawing for their offices in a lottery, the face of the three office buildings has dramatically changed too. Some of these new members will do just fine and quickly adapt to the national legislature. Others looked lost yesterday, and some of them will remain lost for years. Right now there is a great deal of focus on the freshmen, but it remains to be seen if this class has any cohesiveness and clout that will lead to reforms within the institution or result in a better legislative record than past congresses.

I attended the opening session, which is always fun. The members bring their kids onto the floor while proud spouses and other relatives beam from the gallery. The House rule of not acknowledging the people in the gallery is ignored on opening day as freshmen and senior members alike gestured and waved to those in the galleries.

I went around shaking hands with staff and a few members, wishing them a happy new year. After the swearing in of the new House officers I congratulated them. I had a nice chat with Phil Sharp of Indiana, and urged him to continue his service on the National Historical Records and Publications Commission. The Speaker will have to reappoint him in the next few months. He agreed to stay on but said if there was someone else who could do the job better, he would be glad to step aside. He said his wife, who is a mystery writer, is doing some genealogical work on the Battle of Monmouth. I told him we had some indexes to the Revolutionary War records and invited her to stop by. While we were chatting in the back of the chamber Leon Panetta came by to chat with Phil. I shook his hand and congratulated him on his new appointment as Clinton’s new Director of OMB. He seemed to be pretty happy about his new assignment.

For most of the session I stood at the rail along the Democratic side. Seated in front of me was Congressman Paul McHale [D.-PA], the new member representing the Lehigh Valley, and his three young kids. One of the pages brought over some crayons and paper to entertain them during the session. Young Matt, who must have been about six, drew a colorful little monster. I complimented him on it and said it ought to go in the Archives as an example of Congressional art from the 103rd Congress. Matt’s dad leaned back and said it might be the only art Jesse Helms would approve. Earlier the youngster had asked me if I was a Member of Congress like his dad. I said no, that I was the Historian. I said my job was to see to it that his dad got into the history books. He seemed impressed with the idea that his dad was now a part of history.

This afternoon at 1:00 P.M. the House convened in joint session to count the ballots of the Electoral College. There were just a handful of House members and senators on the floor to witness the opening of the ballots from the fifty states and the official tally. It was a rather sleepy affair compared to the emotion and excitement of opening day. The Speaker [Tom Foley] sat in his chair throughout the ceremony with nothing in particular to do or say while the President of the Senate, Dan Quayle, presided. Joe Stewart, the Secretary of the Senate, and two assistants sliced open the envelopes from each state and passed them to Dan Quayle who distributed them to the senators and representatives serving as tellers. Each teller in turn would rise and say the name of the state and the fact that the ballot seemed to be authentic and in order and then read the results.

I stopped by the Republican cloakroom to see Jim Oliver [assistant manager of the Republican Cloakroom]. About a dozen members were sitting around having a little lunch, some seated in the big leather chairs with a little board across the arms to hold their plates.  Jim had some old photographs he wanted to show me, including a rare photograph taken in the cloakroom itself about seventy years ago. We stood on the very spot the photographer did and compared how the room looked then to its present configuration. It was remarkably the same, except for some missing fireplaces that were removed in the 1940s.

I walked over to the Republican side of the chamber where Stephen Horn [R.-CA] was seated. I met Steve before he was elected, having had lunch with him about a year ago. Before that I knew of him by reputation as a scholar of Congress. Steve was at the Brookings Institution back in the mid-sixties; about the same time I came to Maryland to start graduate school. I never met him then but I did know some of the books he wrote including Unused Power: The Works of the Senate Committee on Appropriations and his earlier work The Cabinet and Congress (1960). Now he is back looking at Congress from the perspective of a member of the House.

I think it is great to have a man like Steve Horn in the House. He has one of the best private collections of books on Congress of anyone in the country. He has been a close student of American politics for almost forty years. He recognized me and shook my hand vigorously and introduced me to Jim Ramstad [R.-MN] and said “Ray is a real scholar of the House.” I said coming from him that was quite a compliment. I asked him to stop by and see me sometime. He said he had been meaning to do so as soon as he got settled. I think I’ll arrange to go out to lunch with him sometime soon before the legislative schedule presses in on him. I can learn a lot from him. I want to get to know him better. He strikes me as a truly decent, talented, unassuming man.

Ultimately it is men and women of Steve Horn’s ilk that make this institution endure. The democratic process doesn’t mean the House is always populated with the best and the brightest. Nor can it guarantee that crooks and charlatans are not elected. The key is that the institution, while containing corruption, does not succumb to it. None of the scandals of the past few years have shaken my faith in the fundamental importance of Congress to the healthy political life this country enjoys and the overall competence of most of the people who serve here.

Epilogue on Cast of Characters

January 2, 2013

Here is a brief update on the persons mentioned in this journal entry in the order of their appearance.

Phil Sharp [D.-IN] served in the House from 1983 to 1995. Since then he served as director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. In 2005 he became president of Resources for the Future in Washington, DC.

Speaker Tom Foley [D.-WA] served as Speaker from 1989 to 1995. He subsequently served as United States Ambassador to Japan from 1997 to 2001, under President Clinton.

Leon Panetta [D.-CA] served in the House from 1977 to January 1993, when he became Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Clinton until July 1994 when he became White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997. From 2009 to 2011 he served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency under President Obama and since July 2011 he has been Secretary of Defense.

Paul McHale [D.-PA] served in the House from 1993 to 1999. Later he was Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense from 2003 to 2009, which included being recalled to active duty in the Marine Corps for deployment to Afghanistan. He currently is a private consultant on matters of disaster preparedness and homeland security.

Jesse Helms [R.-NC] served for thirty years in the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 2003. He died in 2008. The passing reference to him in this journal relates to his outspoken opposition to the erotic art of Robert Mapplethorpe and his attempts to pressure the National Endowment of the Arts to refrain from funding controversial artists.

Leonard P. Whishart III (Lt.Gen. U.S. Army ret.) served as the first and only director of the  House of Representatives Office of Non- Legislative and Financial Services from October 1992 to January 1994. His office was replaced in 1995 by a new office, the Chief Administrative Officer.

Donnald K. Anderson was Clerk of the House of Representatives from 1987 to 1995. He began his 35 years of service in the House in 1959 as a page. Since his retirement he remains active in charity work and is a prominent Catholic layman. I spent a good deal of time with Donn Anderson, who was always willing to share his extensive knowledge of the House at its bureaucratic and Byzantine best. He also kept a good sideboard of scotch whiskey in his office for after-hours conversations.

Ray Colley was Deputy Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1969 to 1995. He and   Donn Anderson, were among my best mentors in helping me understand the interior world of the House, its officers, members, and folkways. Ray was a leader in Virginia Democratic politics for many years. He died in 2011.

Mike Heny directed the House financial operations for many years and was the person directly responsible for preparing the House budget each year. My office, the Office of the Historian, was the smallest unit of the House that required separate budget figures each year. Mike helped me with the numbers and always had me prepared when I testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch.

Dan Quayle was the 44^th Vice President of the United States from 1989 to 1993, serving with President George H. W. Bush. In his role as President of the Senate, he had a ceremonial role in the counting of the Electoral Ballots.

Walter J. Stewart, was Secretary of the U.S. Senate from 1987 to 1994. Joe began his long service with the Senate as a page in the 1950s. He serves on the board of directors of the Humane Society of the United States. Closer to home, he is chairman of the board of the Congressional Education Foundation, which oversees the work of the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies.

Bernard Raimo, Jr. is a long time House Democratic staff member and attorney.

Jim Molloy was Doorkeeper of the House for twenty years from 1974 to 1994. He was the last person to hold this office which dated back to 1789. The Doorkeeper’s office was abolished when Newt Gingrich became Speaker in 1995. Jim was a friend and neighbor of mine when we lived in Laurel, Maryland. He was another of my mentors and one of the great characters to ever serve the House. He died in 2011.

George H. White was Architect of the U.S. Capitol from 1971 to 1995. He was first appointed to the position by President Nixon. He died in 2011.

Charles Johnson had a long and distinguished career of 40 years in the House Parliamentarian’s Office, and was Parliamentarian from 1994 to 2005. Charlie and his long time boss, William Holmes Brown, were valuable mentors and befriended me when I arrived in the House in 1983.  No office is more important to the daily flow of business in the House than the Parliamentarian. No staff members on the Hill, then and now, are better professionals than those found in the Parliamentarian’s offices of the House and Senate.

Wendell Ford [D.-KY] served in the U.S. Senate from 1974 to 1999.

Don Ritter [R.-PA] served in the House from 1979 to 1993.

Jim Oliver was assistant manager of the Republican Cloakroom for more than 20 years. His long service to the House of forty years began when he was a page. Jim appreciated the importance of the history of the House and worked tirelessly to help maintain Congressional Cemetery. He retired in 2007.

John Stephen Horn [R.-CA] was President of California State University, Long Beach, for many years before his election to the House. He served in the House from 1993 to 2003. He died in 2011.

Jim Ramstad [R.-MN] served in the House from 1991 to 2009.

Those of us who follow the work of Congress have known for some time that this vital constitutional institution is not functioning very well, if at all. Many books, articles, reports, blogs, and a chorus of talking heads, from both sides of the political spectrum have offered analysis, explaining what is wrong and in some cases suggesting how to fix it.

Today a new report, “Getting Back to Legislating: Reflections of a Congressional Working Group,” written by  Don Wolfensberger, a long-time top Hill staffer and congressional scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, states the case as clearly and succinctly as anything I have seen. This report is only 29 pages long, including 11 pages of tables.

The Executive Summary of the report is a model of brevity that even a busy member of Congress has time to read. It is one-page long.  I don’t say this to be sarcastic. Anyone who works for top government officials knows that you need to get your message onto a single page so it can be read between floors on the elevator. First you have to grab attention. The details can follow later.

For the past year and a half the Bipartisan Policy Center held a series of meetings on “How to Fix Congress.” The report is a distillation of the ideas of congressional scholars, current and former members of Congress, senior congressional staff members, and others.

Here are a few key observations from the Executive Summary: “The central thread running through the sessions was that the culture of Congress has changed dramatically over the last half century, from a culture of legislating to a culture of campaigning….The regular order of deliberative lawmaking has given way to winning at all costs, and bipartisan compromise is rare….The roundtable members agree that the culture cannot be changed by bold procedural fixes and instead requires a change of will and mindset by party leaders and followers, pressured from the outside by the president, the people, the media, and interest groups desiring a better functioning system.”

The report offers specific things that need to be fixed. You can read these in the Executive Summary. The suggestions are profoundly straightforward and practical. The bottom line is that what is broken about Congress is the will of congressional leaders and rank-and-file members to do their constitutional duty to govern. This means engaging in the art of compromise. It means working across the aisle and seeing members of the opposite party as political opponents, not enemies.

But lest we put all the blame on those who serve in the House and Senate, we have to face the truth of the fact that if Congress is divided to the point of dysfunction then perhaps “We the People” are to blame for electing representatives and senators who do not represent our better angels but only represent our fears and our anger over forces we cannot fully control. We have elected too many demagogues and ideologues, some of whom do not even believe in the federal government or believe that government is too big and the way to make it smaller is to destroy its ability to govern.

With the rise of television campaigning, the arrival of the Internet, the development of the 24 hour, seven days a week news cycles, the creation of cable networks specializing in left or right wing politics, and the incredible increase in the sums of money spent on campaigns in recent elections, we seem to have lost the ability to limit the time we campaign.  As the Wolfensberger report shows, campaigning is endless.  There are no longer times for political wounds to heel and for cooler heads to prevail.

Civility has suffered. Campaigns have always been rough. Mean things have always been said about opponents. But after the elections the work of government usually went on. Now days we just fight all the time and there is no time to build friendships or find common ground. Our elected representatives spend far too much of their time raising money for their next campaign and tested way of raising money is by demonizing your specific opponent or the entire other party.

The Wolfensberger report states that “incivility is not a cause of congressional dysfunction but rather a symptom of the deeper divisions that prevent and discourage Members from getting to know each [other] personally across party lines.”  Since too many members, especially in the House, don’t know or  trust the person they may be debating, they refuse to debate and fall back on prepared talking points that follow a party line or an ideological position. While the Wolfensberger report puts it more gently, the bottom line in too many cases is that the members who refuse to debate, or show a willingness to compromise, may not be capable of it. They may not be smart enough or confident enough in their staked-out positions to risk admitting they may not possess all the answers. They got elected on talking points and they stick with them once in office.  Congress cannot draft legislation or govern the nation from talking points. Talking points work during elections and they work on Fox News or MSNBC. They have no significant place in the give and take of a serious deliberative body which, in theory at least, should be composed of the best and brightest practical, pragmatic citizens from each state or congressional district.

We need to start electing more people to the House and Senate who want government to work and do not subscribe to the idea that government is the problem. It is a matter of our will as citizens to do better at election time. And it is a matter of the will of those we elect to do the job they were elected to do, which is to be legislators and partners in governing this nation.  No change of House or Senate rules, no internal reforms, although some are needed, can have a greater impact on Congress than the pure act of human will to rise above party and ideology in the interests of the whole country.

Maybe we need a million people to march on Capitol Hill, not carrying banners that have slogans on the many single issues that divide us, but all carrying the same banner with the simple message: FIND COMMON GROUND.

During each presidential election the question always arises about whether the Electoral College has outlived its usefulness and that this Constitutional provision should be altered or abolished so that Presidents can be elected by the direct popular vote of the people.

The National Popular Vote organization, founded in 2006, has proposed modifying the Electoral College to reflect the popular vote.  The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the entire United States. The bill preserves the Electoral College, while ensuring that every vote in every state will matter in every presidential election. The National Popular Vote law has been enacted by states possessing 132 electoral votes — 49% of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate it.

Arm Yourself with Information before Attending the Debate

For background information on the debate topic you can read free online a booklet on the topic prepared by the National Popular Vote organization. To see a draft of a bill on the national popular vote introduced in the West Virginia Senate click here.

For further information contact Dr. Ray Smock, 304-876-5665.

Remarks by Senator Byrd at the Orientation of New Senators

December 3, 1996

Good afternoon and welcome to the United States Senate Chamber. You are presently occupying what I consider to be ‘hallowed ground.’

You will shortly join the ranks of a very select group of individuals who have been honored with the title of United States Senator since 1789 when the Senate first convened. The creator willing, you will be here for at least six years.

Make no mistake about it, the office of United States Senator is the highest political calling in the land. The Senate can remove from office Presidents, members of the Federal judiciary, and other Federal officials but only the Senate itself can expel a Senator.

Let us listen for a moment to the words of James Madison on the role of the Senate.

‘These [reasons for establishing the Senate] were first to protect the people against their rulers: secondly to protect the people against the transient impression into which they themselves might be led. [through their representatives in the lower house] A people deliberating in a temperate moment, and with the experience of other nations before them, on the plan of government most likely to secure their happiness, would first be aware, that those charged with the public happiness, might betray their trust. An obvious precaution against this danger would be to divide the trust between different bodies of men, who might watch and check each other . . . . It would next occur to such a people, that they themselves were liable to temporary errors, through want of information as to their true interest, and that men chosen for a short term, [House members], . . . might err from the same cause. This reflection would naturally suggest that the Government be so constituted, as that one of its branches might have an opportunity of acquiring a competent knowledge of the public interests. Another reflection equally becoming a people on such an occasion, would be that they themselves, as well as a numerous body of Representatives, were liable to err also, from fickleness and passion. A necessary fence against this danger would be to select a portion of enlightened citizens, whose limited number, and firmness might seasonably interpose against impetuous councils, . . . .’

Ladies and gentlemen, you are shortly to become part of that all important, ‘necessary fence,’ which is the United States Senate. Let me give you the words of Vice President Aaron Burr upon his departure from the Senate in 1805. ‘This house,’ said he, ‘is a sanctuary; a citadel of law, of order, and of liberty; and it is here—it is here, in this exalted refuge; here, if anywhere, will resistance be made to the storms of political phrensy and the silent arts of corruption; and if the Constitution be destined ever to perish by the sacrilegious hand of the demagogue or the usurper, which God avert, its expiring agonies will be witnessed on this floor.’ Gladstone referred to the Senate as ‘that remarkable body—the most remarkable of all the inventions of modern politics.’

This is a very large class of new Senators. There are fifteen of you. It has been sixteen years since the Senate welcomed a larger group of new members. Since 1980, the average size class of new members has been approximately ten. Your backgrounds vary. Some of you may have served in the Executive Branch. Some may have been staffers here on the Hill. Some of you have never held federal office before. Over half of you have had some service in the House of Representatives.

Let us clearly understand one thing. The Constitution’s Framers never intended for the Senate to function like the House of Representatives. That fact is immediately apparent when one considers the length of a Senate term and the staggered nature of Senate terms. The Senate was intended to be a continuing body. By subjecting only one-third of the Senate’s membership to reelection every two years, the Constitution’s framers ensured that two-thirds of the membership would always carry over from one Congress to the next to give the Senate an enduring stability.

The Senate and, therefore, Senators were intended to take the long view and to be able to resist, if need be, the passions of the often intemperate House. Few, if any, upper chambers in the history of the western world have possessed the Senate’s absolute right to unlimited debate and to amend or block legislation passed by a lower House.

Looking back over a period of 208 years, it becomes obvious that the Senate was intended to be significantly different from the House in other ways as well. The Constitutional Framers gave the Senate the unique executive powers of providing advice and consent to presidential nominations and to treaties, and the sole power to try and to remove impeached officers of the government. In the case of treaties, the Senate, with its longer terms, and its ability to develop expertise through the device of being a continuing body, has often performed invaluable service.

I have said that as long as the Senate retains the power to amend and the power of unlimited debate, the liberties of the people will remain secure.

The Senate was intended to be a forum for open and free debate and for the protection of political minorities. I have led the majority and I have led the minority, and I can tell you that there is nothing that makes one fully appreciate the Senate’s special role as the protector of minority interests like being in the minority. Since the Republican Party was created in 1854, the Senate has changed hands 14 times, so each party has had the opportunity to appreciate first-hand the Senate’s role as guardian of minority rights. But, almost from its earliest years the Senate has insisted upon its members’ right to virtually unlimited debate.

When the Senate reluctantly adopted a cloture rule in 1917, it made the closing of debate very difficult to achieve by requiring a super majority and by permitting extended post-cloture debate. This deference to minority views sharply distinguishes the Senate from the majoritarian House of Representatives. The Framers recognized that a minority can be right and that a majority can be wrong. They recognized that the Senate should be a true deliberative body—a forum in which to slow the passions of the House, hold them up to the light, examine them, and, thru informed debate, educate the public. The Senate is the proverbial saucer intended to cool the cup of coffee from the House. It is the one place in the whole government where the minority is guaranteed a public airing of its views. Woodrow Wilson observed that the Senate’s informing function was as important as its legislating function, and now, with televised Senate debate, its informing function plays an even larger and more critical role in the life of our nation.

Many a mind has been changed by an impassioned plea from the minority side. Important flaws in otherwise good legislation have been detected by discerning minority members engaged in thorough debate, and important compromise which has worked to the great benefit of our nation has been forged by an intransigent member determined to filibuster until his views were accommodated or at least seriously considered.

The Senate is often soundly castigated for its inefficiency, but in fact, it was never intended to be efficient. Its purpose was and is to examine, consider, protect, and to be a totally independent source of wisdom and judgment on the actions of the lower house and on the executive. As such, the Senate is the central pillar of our Constitutional system. I hope that you, as new members will study the Senate in its institutional context because that is the best way to understand your personal role as a United States Senator. Your responsibilities are heavy. Understand them, live up to them, and strive to take the long view as you exercise your duties. This will not always be easy.

The pressures on you will, at times, be enormous. You will have to formulate policies, grapple with issues, serve the constituents in your state, and cope with the media. A Senator’s attention today is fractured beyond belief. Committee meetings, breaking news, fund raising, all of these will demand your attention, not to mention personal and family responsibilities. But, somehow, amidst all the noise and confusion, you must find the time to reflect, to study, to read, and, especially, to understand the absolutely critically important institutional role of the Senate.

May I suggest that you start by carefully reading the Constitution and the Federalist papers. In a few weeks, you will stand on the platform behind me and take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; to bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and to well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which you are about to enter: So help you God.’

Note especially the first 22 words, ‘I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic . . .’

In order to live up to that solemn oath, one must clearly understand the deliberately established inherent tensions between the 3 branches, commonly called the checks and balances, and separation of powers which the framers so carefully crafted. I carry a copy of the Constitution in my shirt pocket. I have studied it carefully, read and reread its articles, marveled at its genius, its beauty, its symmetry, and its meticulous balance, and learned something new each time that I partook of its timeless wisdom. Nothing will help you to fully grasp the Senate’s critical role in the balance of powers like a thorough reading of the Constitution and the Federalist papers.

Now I would like to turn for a moment to the human side of the Senate, the relationship among Senators, and the way that even that faced of service here is, to a degree, governed by the constitution and the Senate’s rules.

The requirement for super majority votes in approving treaties, involving cloture, removing impeached federal officers, and overriding vetoes, plus the need for unanimous consent before the Senate can even proceed in many instances, makes bipartisanship and comity necessary if members wish to accomplish much of anything. Realize this. The campaign is over. You are here to be a Senator. Not much happens in this body without cooperation between the two parties.

In this now 208-year-old institution, the positions of majority and minority leaders have existed for less than 80 years. Although the positions have evolved significantly within the past half century, still, the only really substantive prerogative the leaders possess is the right of first recognition before any other member of their respective parties who might wish to speak on the Senate Floor.

Those of you who have served in the House will now have to forget about such things as the Committee of the Whole, closed rules, and germaneness, except when cloture has been invoked, and become well acquainted with the workings of unanimous consent agreements. Those of you who took the trouble to learn Deschler’s Procedure will now need to set that aside and turn in earnest to Riddick’s Senate Procedure.

Senators can lose the Floor for transgressing the rules. Personal attacks on other members or other blatantly injudicious comments are unacceptable in the Senate. Again to encourage a cooling of passions, and to promote a calm examination of substance, Senators address each other through the Presiding Officer and in the third person. Civility is essential here for pragmatic reasons as well as for public consumption. It is difficult to project the image of a statesmanlike, intelligent, public servant, attempting to inform the public and examine issues, if one is behaving and speaking in a manner more appropriate to a pool room brawl than to United States Senate debate. You will also find that overly zealous attacks on other members or on their states are always extremely counterproductive, and that you will usually be repaid in kind.

Let us strive for dignity. When you rise to speak on this Senate Floor, you will be following in the tradition of such men as Calhoun, Clay, and Webster. You will be standing in the place of such Senators as Edmund Ross (Kansas) and Peter Van Winkle (West Virginia), 1868, who voted against their party to save the institution of the presidency during the Andrew Johnson impeachment trial.

Debate on the Senate Floor demands thought, careful preparation and some familiarity with Senate Rules if we are to engage in thoughtful and informed debate. Additionally, informed debate helps the American people have a better understanding of the complicated problems which besiege them in their own lives. Simply put, the Senate cannot inform American citizens without extensive debate on those very issues.

We were not elected to raise money for our own reelections. We were not elected to see how many press releases or TV appearances we could stack up. We were not elected to set up staff empires by serving on every committee in sight. We need to concentrate, focus, debate, inform, and, I hope, engage the public, and thereby forge consensus and direction. Once we engage each other and the public intellectually, the tough choices will be easier.

I thank each of you for your time and attention and I congratulate each of you on your selection to fill a seat in this August body. Service in this body is a supreme honor. It is also a burden and a serious responsibility. Members’ lives become open for inspection sand are used as examples for other citizens to emulate. A Senator must really be much more than hardworking, much more than conscientious, much more than dutiful. A Senator must reach for noble qualities—honor, total dedication, self-discipline, extreme selflessness, exemplary patriotism, sober judgment, and intellectual honesty. The Senate is more important than any one or all of us—more important than I am; more important than the majority and minority leaders; more important than all 100 of us; more important than all of the 1,843 men and women who have served in this body since 1789. Each of us has a solemn responsibility to remember that, and to remember it often.

Let me leave you with the words of the last paragraph of Volume II, of The Senate: 1789-1989: “Originally consisting of only twenty-two members, the Senate had grown to a membership of ninety-eight by the time I was sworn in as a new senator in January 1959. After two hundred years, it is still the anchor of the Republic, the morning and evening star in the American constitutional constellation. It has had its giants and its little men, its Websters and its Bilbos, its Calhouns and its McCarthys. It has been the stage of high drama, of comedy and of tragedy, and its players have been the great and the near-great, those who think they are great, and those who will never be great. It has weathered the storms of adversity withstood the barbs of cynics and the attacks of critics, and provided stability and strength to the nation during periods of civil strife and uncertainty, panics and depressions. In war and in peace, it has been the sure refuge and protector of the rights of the states and of a political minority. And, today, the Senate still stands—the great forum of constitutional American liberty!”

George McGovern died on October 21 at the age of 90. Those of us who remember the presidential election of 1972, forty years ago, recall that McGovern lost that election in the worst defeat in presidential history. He lost the popular vote by 18 million votes and lost to Richard Nixon in the Electoral Vote by 520 to 17.  I voted for him and was in that minority of 29 million of Americans who hoped his election would hasten the end of the long war in Vietnam.

The last time I saw Senator McGovern was in May 2009. He was the featured speaker at a conference on President Harry Truman, held at Truman’s “Little White House,” in Key West, Florida. He had just written a very nice short, interpretive biography of Abraham Lincoln and he spoke to the conference on Lincoln.

In Key West, the dress is casual, and McGovern showed up in Bermuda shorts, but wore a purple dress shirt, open at the collar, and dress shoes and socks. It was about as formal looking as you could get while wearing shorts. Ken Hechler, former Congressman from West Virginia, was at the conference too. Hechler, at age 95, was one of the last living members of President Truman’s staff.  McGovern and Hechler had a grand time reminiscing.

McGovern autographs his biography of Lincoln for Ray Smock.

When I went up to the table to get McGovern’s autograph on his book, I said “Senator McGovern, I was proud to vote for you in 1972 and have never regretted that vote.” He laughed and said “You know, if everyone over the years who told me they voted for me actually did vote for me I would have won in a landslide rather than losing in a landslide.” Then he got serious and actually thanked me for my vote.

Senator McGovern and Senator Byrd started out in support of the Vietnam War, both voting for the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964. But McGovern would be among the first national figures to break with President Lyndon Johnson, saying on the floor of the Senate, “I’m tired of old men dreaming up wars for young men to fight.”  Senator Byrd supported the war longer and more vociferously, calling war protesters like me “hypocritical, self-centered, selfish, long hair, know-it-all students and pseudo-intellectuals.” I was a long-haired graduate student in American history at the time. Byrd’s words seemed to describe me pretty well. Not that I totally agreed with his assessment!

After the Tet Offensive in 1968, Senator Byrd became more critical of the conduct of the war and eventually concluded that we had entered the war under false pretenses and that despite military reports of battlefield successes and body counts of enemy dead, that the United States military and its commander-in-chief were misleading the Senate and the nation regarding the realities in Vietnam. The Viet Cong were much stronger and more resilient than the president and his generals were willing to admit.

In 1971, when President Nixon considered nominating Senator Byrd for a seat on the Supreme Court, presidential candidate George McGovern echoed the sentiment, saying he agreed that Byrd was a “man of enormous industry and personal pride” and that if Byrd got the nomination he would “bend every effort to become a great justice.”  Days later McGovern changed his mind and said that Byrd’s nomination to the high court would be “highly divisive.”

Among Senator Byrd’s prized possessions, which he framed and hung on the wall of his Senate office, was a letter he received from George McGovern in 1994. It is a one-page, handwritten letter that McGovern wrote on Best Western hotel stationery while he was visiting his daughter in Wisconsin. McGovern praised Senator Byrd for his fight against the line-item veto and his “statesmanlike speech against the Clarence Thomas nomination” to the Supreme Court. The final paragraph of the letter, dated March 6, 1994, reads:

I once suggested on national television in 1972 that you would be one of the people I would be thinking about, if I were elected President, as a nominee for the Supreme Court. Some of my liberal friends jumped all over me at the time, but with the passage of time, I’m all the more certain that was a perceptive idea. You are a man of strong character and a wise student of constitutional government. It was my good fortune to have served with you for 18 years in the U.S. Senate.

I remember another time, in 1997, when, by mere coincidence, I was standing in line at a White House security check-point next to George McGovern and former Senator Charles “Mac” Mathias.  We were all headed to the Indian Treaty Room, where there was a reception for former Congresswoman Lindy Boggs, who President Clinton had just named as Ambassador to the Vatican. The two former senators were in animated conversation about the politics of the day, and they graciously included me and my wife Phyllis in their conversation.

When it came time for George McGovern to have his name checked off the guest list and pass through the magnetometer, a young woman on the White House staff looked up at him, asked him his name so she could check it off the list, and then asked, “how do you spell that?”  Senator McGovern was very polite and in a clear voice said, McGovern, M-c-G-O-V-E-R-N.”

I was aghast. Here was a former U.S. Senator, a candidate for President of the United States seeking entrance to a White House reception, and the White House protocol people did not have anyone on duty that could screen these two senators through security. I looked around at the uniformed guards and at the woman checking the guest list. They were so young that they were probably not even born, or were in diapers, when George McGovern ran for president. They did not know who he was.

While I was appalled by the White House staff’s lack of protocol and etiquette in the handling of both senators, the lesson I came away with was how graciously McGovern and Mathias took this. The guards and the social staff at the White House did not know enough history to act differently—and the senators did not expect them to act differently.  Nobody in the line that evening knew this better than former World War II bomber pilot, U.S. Senator, presidential candidate, and just plain good citizen, George McGovern.

McGovern and Ken Hechler (right) pose with cut-out of Harry Truman.