Attack on Rule XXII

The longest-touted and best-advertised problem facing the 85th Congress was a promised drive in the Senate for civil-rights legislation. Well aware that the Democrats had lost large chunks of their usual big-city vote in civil-rights-conscious areas in the November election, both Democrats and Republicans from the North and the West were ready to combine politics with principle by finding a way to change the Senate's famed Rule XXII and its built-in right of filibuster. Not only did they have the Southern conservative Democrats to contend with; some conservative Republicans and Northern Democrats feared civil rights less than they did a rule change. As the fight readied, Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson and Minority Leader Bill Knowland got together with opposing forces, set up a schedule that provided three hours for each side to make a record for the folks back home. Everybody knew--or thought he knew--how it would all end.

Civil-righters, led by New Mexico's Clinton P. Anderson, decided to try an end run in the debate, based on the idea that the Senate should adopt its rules at the opening of each session--which it has never done. This done, the insurgents could then have a crack at killing the built-in filibuster before the rule could be accepted. But as all Senators knew, such tampering with Senate rules attacks the long-accepted philosophy that the Senate is a continuing body (because it re-elects only one-third of its members at a time).

The Opinion. "If you want to change the rule," Clint Anderson chided his colleagues, "do it now." Bill Knowland, fearing that delays would leave the Senate with no rules to work under, claimed that the upper house might be "plunged into a jungle." Retorted Anderson: "The House [which adopts its rules at each new session] walked through this jungle yesterday and in 30 seconds emerged intact." But, argued New York's Irving Ives, "the point is whether the Senate shall have the power to act if a reasonable number of its members believe that action ... is necessary." Not so, said Georgia's Dick Russell for the Southerners: the real issue was protection of "freedom of debate."

As the debate waned, Minnesota's Democratic Hubert Humphrey put a parliamentary inquiry to Vice President Richard Nixon: "Under what rule," Humphrey asked the chair, "is the Senate presently proceeding?" Then came the clay's floor-shaking surprise. Said Dick Nixon: "It is the opinion of the chair that there can be no question but that the majority . . . under the Constitution has the power to determine the rules . . . The right of a current majority ... to adopt its own rules, stemming as it does from the Constitution itself, cannot be restricted or limited by rules adopted by the Senate in a previous Congress. Any provision . . . which has the express or practical effect of denying the majority . . . the right to adopt the rules under which it desires to proceed is, in the opinion of the chair, unconstitutional."

The Handwriting. The civil-righters beamed and Southerners blanched. But the roll call reversed the expressions. The civil-righters lost, yet not without some extra surprises. The vote, 55-38, was much stronger than that of 1953 (70-21), with 17 Republicans joining 21 Democrats in voting for the rules change.

With such strong bipartisan handwriting so clearly written on the wall, it seemed likely that Lyndon Johnson and his conservative colleagues would settle for some compromise form of civil-rights legislation at this session. Then, to the general surprise, Bill Knowland, who voted against the rules changes, allowed that he would sponsor a rules change this week "in an orderly way."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.