Battle in the Senate

The Senate launched the 87th Congress with its own version of an ancient liberal-conservative battle, but in contrast with the House's guerrilla war it seemed as pro forma as a Capitol guide's speech. Question at issue: How big a vote should be necessary to restrict Senate debate--and thereby cut off legislation-delaying filibusters?

A wide-ranging, bipartisan force--from Minnesota's Democratic Hubert Humphrey to Massachusetts' Republican Leverett Saltonstall--was drawn up against a solid phalanx of Southern Democrats, who have traditionally used the filibuster to stop civil rights bills. New Mexico's Clint Anderson offered a resolution to change the Senate's notorious Rule 22 to allow three-fifths of the Senators present and voting to cut off debate, instead of the current hard-to-get two-thirds. Fair Dealer Humphrey upped the ante, asked cloture power for a mere majority of Senators. Georgia's Dick Russell objected politely, and the battle was joined.

Privately, the liberals admitted that the Humphrey amendment had no chance of passage. Privately, they also admitted that their hopes for Clint Anderson's three-fifths modification depended on none other than Republican Richard Nixon. In 1957 Nixon delivered a significant opinion that a majority of Senators had the power to adopt new rules at the beginning of each new Congress, and that any rules laid down by previous Congresses were not binding.

Armed with the Nixon opinion, the Senate liberals rounded up their slim majority and prepared to choke off debate on the filibuster battle this week. Hopefully, the perennial battle of Rule 22 then would be fought to a settlement once and for all.

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