The Last Great Senate

by Ira Shapiro

  Byrd made it clear, however, that the opponents of labor law reform would have plenty of time to make their case. There would be no justification for claims that the legislation had been “rammed down their throats.” He would not keep the Senate in session, day and night, and he already foresaw multiple cloture votes, of which the majority would lose at least the first two. Furthermore, Byrd promised that there would be no cloture votes until after the Senate returned from its Memorial Day recess. That would give the unions a chance to lobby members directly and personally while they were at home. Of course, the opponents would have the same chance, and they planned to make good use of it as well.

  Hatch, the leader of the opposition to the labor bill, was still a neophyte at Senate procedure. He certainly was not yet a match for Byrd, the ultimate master of the Senate rules. To make up for this deficit, Hatch received regular counsel from Jim Allen, who, despite being in failing health, was the one person who could equal Byrd in thinking up, anticipating, and countering games on the Senate floor.

  Hatch also benefited from having Democrat Fritz Hollings strongly in his camp. He was a strong intellect and a powerful debater and orator whose outspokenness frequently led to outrageous remarks. But in a battle where Democrats troubled about labor law reform were reticent to offend the unions, Hollings’s habit of speaking out fearlessly was very helpful. From the beginning of the debate, Hollings made it clear that he thought “big labor” was engaged in a “power grab.” With Republican Richard Lugar of Indiana, a freshman senator who had made it to the Senate despite the handicap of having been known as “Richard Nixon’s favorite mayor,” serving as his lieutenant, Hatch organized the labor law opponents into rotating teams of five or six senators to man the floor and keep talking and to protect against the possibility of unexpected motions by Byrd to cut off debate.

  For ten days, speeches as long as four hours were commonplace. Substance mattered less than endurance. The debate droned on, with everyone knowing that only a handful of conservative to moderate Democratic senators would decide the eventual outcome: Russell Long, Dale Bumpers, Lawton Chiles, John Sparkman, and Edward Zorinsky of Nebraska. Across their states, and throughout the country, supporters and opponents of labor law reform worked intensively to ratchet up the pressure on the key senators.

  The AFL-CIO had years of experience in lobbying Capitol Hill. But Hatch and the business coalition allies had built a formidable lobbying machine, and they were breaking new ground in lobbying. The very idea of “grassroots lobbying” was still relatively new, and the opponents of labor law reform were developing it with great skill. They launched a letter-writing campaign to help local businesses contact their representatives and senators. They conducted countless meetings with newspaper editorial boards around the country; when local business leaders, armed with the strongest arguments possible, visit their hometown newspaper, the effect can be very powerful.

  When reports emerged of a senator’s indecision, the opponents were able to mobilize the grass roots to flood his office with more than 50,000 letters and telegrams in a day. The senators were not just hearing from Washington organizations; they were hearing from small businessmen and women whom they knew from the “main streets” of every community in their state. Together, the NAM, the Chamber of Commerce, and the construction industry action associations set up a National Action Committee that ran ads and distributed editorials. They also orchestrated eight million letters and telegrams reaching the Senate. In the last week of the debate, 97 percent of the mail that came to the Senate opposed the labor law reform legislation.

  The opponents decided early on that the way to defeat the bill was to energize small business by frightening them about its consequences. The opponents made the survival of small business the key issue even though small business was exempt from the provisions of the bill. Making small businessmen feel that they would be the victims of “big labor” was a key theme of the battle.

  Byrd was an unparalleled master of the inside game, and the Senate had very recently demonstrated its ability to act in the national interest even when the congressional mail and public opinion was running strongly the other way. But labor law reform was different than the Panama Canal treaty. Senators and their staffs knew the difference between post cards ginned up by a few right-wing groups and an authentic grassroots opposition to a piece of legislation. Senators were impressed when small businessmen who seldom lobbied for anything came to Washington to express their concerns. “It’s a different type of lobbying,” said an aide to an uncommitted Senator. “I’m seeing people on this bill that I wouldn’t ordinarily see.”

  The battle was heating up. The labor side sought to convince companies that were unionized to break from the business community coalition. Some issued threats that powerful Democrats would retaliate. But the opponents would brook no dissent. When Hatch heard that one company was prepared to leave the coalition, he called a meeting the next day at the National Association of Manufacturers. Without singling anyone out, Hatch noted that he had heard that companies might be considering leaving the coalition for fear of angering Democrats, particularly the powerful Senator Long. “Senator Long may be chairman now,” Hatch said, “but I’m going to be here for thirty years or more, and whoever does that will be one sorry company.” The coalition held firm. If Hatch could continue to keep the opponents together, Byrd’s mastery would be put to the ultimate test.

  The Senate returned from its Memorial Day recess ready to begin the series of cloture votes that Byrd had promised. On June 1, however, the Senate was stunned by the news that Jim Allen had passed away. The Senate delayed the first cloture vote until June 7, so that senators could attend Allen’s funeral the day before. It was well known that Senator Allen had been ill, but his death was not anticipated. It was the second time a senator had died in six months, and a vivid reminder of the impact that one senator could have on the institution, and the course of history. Hubert Humphrey, passionate advocate of civil rights, had been the single person most responsible for transforming the Senate into a progressive institution. Jim Allen would be remembered as the person who first cracked the code of Senate rules and precedents, inventing the post-cloture filibuster to frustrate the will of the majority and paralyze the institution. In the long run, Allen would not compare to Humphrey in accomplishments or stature. He would be less famous than others who shared his views, such as Jesse Helms or Strom Thurmond. But the tenacious obstructionist would have a powerful, lasting impact on the operation of the Senate.

  WHEN THE TIME CAME to vote, the first cloture motion failed, by a vote of 42–47. Hatch and his colleagues had mastered the procedural lessons taught by Allen well. On this first vote, they had made a surprisingly strong showing, though both sides knew that some of the votes cast against cloture were no more than a courtesy to the minority—the real battle was still to come.

  On June 8, the second cloture vote failed, 49–41. It was commonplace in the Senate when deadlocks arose for key participants to leave the floor, moving to the office of one of the leaders, or Vice President Mondale’s Capitol office, returning with a compromise that could resolve the situation. In this case, although the ideological lines were rigidly drawn, Javits, Williams, and Byrd put forth a compromise that softened several of the most controversial provisions, without changing the basic thrust of the legislation. Hatch and the other leading opponents labeled the changes “cosmetic,” and the fight continued. They would not be satisfied until the legislation was dead.

  On June 12, Russell Long approached Hatch on the Senate floor. From his position as Finance Committee chairman, Long had frequently made Carter’s first year a living hell: slicing, dicing, and generally savaging his economic, tax, and energy proposals. Washington Star columnist Mary McGrory had written just before Christmas, “Russell Long appears to be running the country. It must occur to Carter that the senator from Louisiana has found a way to be president without being elected to the job.” In a relatively rare mom
ent of public humor, Carter had joked that he had arrived in Washington, proud that a southerner would be taking the reins of the federal government, and “found that Russell Long had filled that position for a long time.” But Long had been a decisive vote in support of the Panama Canal treaties, and he was looking for an opportunity to help Carter and Byrd on labor law reform.

  Now, Long repeated an offer he had made to Hatch a week before: in exchange for an end to the filibuster, the Democrats would modify several provisions of the bill. That way, everyone could win. George Meany would get the legislation he needed; President Carter would avoid embarrassment, and Hatch could claim credit for making the legislation more even-handed. Long left unspoken the tacit threat that if there was no compromise, the Democrats could unite behind the bill and invoke cloture, and the opportunity for changes to the bill would be lost. It was a classic Long compromise, but Hatch was not in a compromising mood. He told Long that a few amendments would not change the labor law reform bill from being terrible legislation.

  After more than a month of debate and relentless lobbying, exhaustion was setting in among the senators. Hatch could barely speak from the strain that the six-week debate had placed on his voice. Tempers were short. Hollings sat close by John Sparkman, who was still uncommitted, to ensure that no one persuaded the aging Sparkman to vote for cloture. Byrd approached Sparkman on the floor, hoping to convince him to change sides. Before he could even begin, however, Sparkman pushed him away, telling the majority leader to leave him alone.

  Several moderate Republicans—Lowell Weicker, Ted Stevens, and John Heinz of Pennsylvania—announced that they would vote for cloture. These defections were anticipated, but it was the defection of Chuck Percy, a former CEO, that jolted the business coalition. After the vote, Hatch caught Percy on the floor, unable to mask his anger. “I thought you promised to be with us,” Hatch said. “I did promise to be with you,” Percy snapped, “but I didn’t promise to be with you forever.” The fourth cloture motion produced fifty-eight votes, bringing labor’s advocates tantalizingly close to victory. A fifth cloture vote—already the most that had ever been taken on a single piece of legislation—produced fifty-eight votes as well.

  When Byrd announced that there would be a sixth cloture vote on June 22, everyone knew it would be the last. Bumpers, Chiles, and Sparkman had decided to stay on the side of business. Long had not yet disclosed his intentions, but Hatch and Hollings expected him to be the fifty-ninth vote. Zorinsky, an obscure, first-term senator from Nebraska, was the last possible vote to break the filibuster, and the majority leader and other Democrats were working hard to bring him around.

  The Democrats’ efforts seemed to be working. Journalists were already openly predicting a Democratic victory. Hatch came to the Capitol on the morning of the vote only to find Long just emerging from the minority leader’s office. “Orrin, you know you’re going to lose today,” Howard Baker said to him. Long had just revealed that he was going to change sides in exchange for a number of amendments to the bill. Baker, who had stood by Hatch throughout the long battle, plainly hoped that he would go along with the compromise. Hatch again refused, saying it remained a terrible bill. If the Senate passed it, he wanted it clear who was responsible. Baker appeared disappointed, but did not push him further: Hatch was still in charge.

  Hatch had another reason to stand firm: Long may have been influential, but he was still only the fifty-ninth vote. Hollings had been doing some discreet lobbying of his own. He had discovered that the father of one of his friends from Greenville, South Carolina, Freddy Collins, had been in business for years with Zorinsky’s father in Nebraska. Hollings had urged Collins to ask his father to call Zorinsky’s, and he had done so. Still, Zorinsky’s vote remained in doubt.

  As the final cloture vote started, Hollings voted and raced over to Zorinsky’s office in the Russell Senate Office Building. He caught Zorinsky coming down the hall and said, “Ed, I really need your help on this one. This is a big issue back home, and if you can vote my way, then I’ll be your man on something you need.” Zorinsky gave Hollings the high sign.

  The vote was very close when Zorinsky entered the Senate chamber. No one was certain how he would vote. Zorinsky was plainly torn; he disliked the bill, but as a freshman Democrat, he had to be particularly nervous causing a defeat for the president and the majority leader. At the same time, demonstrating independence would add to his stature and certainly strengthen his standing with Nebraska’s small business community. Hatch caught Zorinsky’s eye, and Zorinsky, face expressionless, nodded. Hatch knew that he had his forty-first vote.

  Byrd rose on the Senate floor, to begin the parliamentary theater that would give Long the opportunity to change his vote. He asked unanimous consent to return the bill to committee, with instructions to report it back with a few minor changes. The changes were intended to allow the last few senators to shift their votes. After speaking for a few minutes, Byrd asked for unanimous consent, but Hollings objected. Long leaped to his feet, attacking the opponents for frustrating the will of the Senate. Long said that he was so angered by these tactics that he was going to vote for cloture.

  “Well, the distinguished senator from Louisiana has always been the fifty-ninth vote for cloture, and we have always known it,” Hollings said. His comment left unspoken the question: where was the 60th? Without Zorinsky, the pro-labor forces had fallen short.

  Stevens, the Republican whip, had voted for cloture, but he had tired of the long debate and the gamesmanship. “If Senator Long is going to cross over, then I’m crossing back,” Stevens announced.

  The battle was over. The sixth cloture vote produced only fifty-three votes as Byrd freed some of the Democrats who had committed to him. The AFL-CIO, the Senate Democrats, and White House had suffered a stunning defeat at the hands of the Republicans and an energized and unified business community.

  Javits considered the outcome a tragedy. He judged the legislation necessary, securing for labor the Wagner Act’s right to organize, which had been undercut by corporate tactics in the previous decade. In Javits’s view, relatively amicable labor relations had been a crucial element of America’s prosperity since World War II, and he feared that the legislative battle was the harbinger of a much more contentious period. Javits undoubtedly shared the frustration expressed by Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall, who observed, “we have the only labor movement in the world that embraces capitalism and [the business community] is trying to kill it.”

  The battle over the Panama Canal treaty had been historic, but the battle over labor law reform showed that the tectonic plates of American politics were shifting. The AFL-CIO would never get the labor law reforms that it sought in 1978—not during the remainder of the Carter administration and not during the eight years of the Clinton administration. In 2009, Barack Obama came to the White House, with strong Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, having committed to push labor’s highest priority, the Employee Fair Choice Act, better known as “card check,” which made it easier for workers to form a union in the plants. The labor movement continues to await a debate and vote.

  chapter 11

  SAVING NEW YORK

  JACK JAVITS’S LOVE FOR THE SENATE WAS MATCHED ONLY BY HIS LOVE of his birthplace, New York City. He saw New York as the most vibrant city in the world: a center of commerce and finance, the media, the arts and culture, and an unsurpassed melting pot that represented America’s commitment to diversity and immigration. To Javits, New York was a place that “always had the luster and magic of a new town, with an adventure around every corner and behind every window, with human energy, ingenuity and inventiveness coursing every street, changing every moment . . . the most exciting city in modern civilization.”

  Javits gave serious thought throughout his career to leaving the Senate to run for mayor of New York. As Javits put it, “the temptation to seek the mayoralty ran like an underground stream throughout my career.” He saw himself as perhaps the only publi
c official who could stand up to the demands of the municipal unions. Although he was a strong supporter of unions, Javits maintained a tough-minded independence. When Walter Mondale was a young senator, Javits warned him: “Fritz, if you start whoring for labor, you’ll never stop.”

  In early 1978, Javits was focused like a laser on the problem that had preoccupied him for the past several years: saving New York City from financial disaster. Beginning in the 1950’s and continuing throughout the 1960’s, the city’s financial situation had spiraled out of control. Its manufacturing base was weakening; its middle class was heading for the suburbs. Successive mayors gave in to the wage demands of strong municipal unions. Tourism suffered from fear of crime. The city’s liberal social programs and generous benefits drew in poor people from within the United States and around the world, causing a demand for public services that the city could not provide.

  In 1975, after an intense and acrimonious debate, Congress had sought to convince President Gerald Ford that New York City, facing bankruptcy with incalculable consequences for the city and the nation’s economy, had to be thrown a financial lifeline. It was a tough sell. Ford, in the White House less than a year, had adamantly opposed federal help for New York City. Even the lobbying of Nelson Rockefeller, Ford’s chosen vice president and the former New York governor, could not convince Ford that New York City—fiscally out of control, dominated by public employee unions—deserved the help. Ford’s initial opposition had yielded an infamous front page headline in the New York Daily News: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”

  Ultimately, the Ford administration went along with a strictly limited three-year program of direct aid to New York City, in the form of seasonal loans to be paid back in full with interest at the end of each year. It was an unprecedented step made necessary by a deep recession sweeping across the country. In such a situation, the collapse of the nation’s largest city could have incalculable consequences. The seasonal loan authority would expire on June 30, 1978—and the Ford administration had intended that it would never be repeated.