by Ira Shapiro
To begin with, I had no doubt how the presidential election would turn out. My view had been consistent all year. As early as April 1980, in a memorandum to Eagleton, I had written that “the polls show a close race between Carter and Reagan, but it isn’t and it won’t be.” I predicted that Reagan would win in a landslide.
I had resigned myself to a Reagan presidency long ago. I rationalized that the country had survived the Nixon presidency, and we would get through the Reagan years, too, as long as we had a Democratic Senate. I had been Tom Eagleton’s subcommittee staff director on the Governmental Affairs Committee. When I went to work for him in June 1979, Abe Ribicoff had just announced his decision to retire, putting Eagleton in line to become chairman of the full committee if he won his reelection. He asked me to take charge of the subcommittee and to run the full committee when he became chairman. His only caveat was that he had to be reelected. At the time, the possibility that the Senate might not remain Democratic did not cross our minds.
But by October 1980, as the election grew nearer, with the Reagan landslide I had predicted coming into sharper relief, I began, for the first time, to worry about the Senate. The Democrats had a 58–41 seat majority (with one independent)—seemingly insurmountable. But if Reagan won a landslide, his coattails would help Republican Senate candidates all across the country. I began telling friends that we were going to lose the Senate.
Exit polls did not exist in 1980, so insiders were not able to pass around numbers and rumors during the day as they do now. The seemingly endless day finally over, Nancy and I got into the car at 8 p.m. to go to the party hosted by the Democratic National Committee. I switched on the radio news, and right away the reporter said that the polls had just closed in Indiana. Birch Bayh had decisively lost to Dan Quayle.
Clearly it was over for the stalwart Democratic liberals. I turned to Nancy and said, “They’re all going down.”
By the time we got to the DNC party at the Hilton, Reagan had a ten-point lead over Carter, and networks were describing a national landslide. A shocked crowd of Democrats milled around and tried to comfort each other. We left quickly, heading for the Capitol Hill home of our friends Claudia and George Ingram. Both Claudia and George were Hill staffers, and their party was the place where most of our friends would be meeting to spend the election night.
The townhouse was packed, with people on all levels, overwhelmingly Democrats, absorbing one shocking report after another as the polls closed. Across the country, the veteran senators went down one after another.
In Georgia, Herman Talmadge, despite having defeated Zell Miller in the Democratic primary, fell to Mack Mattingly, his undistinguished challenger. Georgia was going strongly Republican; it stayed with Jimmy Carter, its native son, but felt no similar special loyalty to Talmadge, despite his famous name and long service.
Iowans may have appreciated John Culver’s candor about his proud liberalism—nevertheless they preferred Charles Grassley’s homespun conservatism. The Republican won decisively.
In New York, Jacob Javits, the foremost Republican liberal, found out what many third-party candidates have discovered over the years: once the voters decide that the race is between two other candidates, they don’t waste their vote on the third candidate. One of the greatest senators in history, Javits received only 11 percent of the vote, just enough to ensure that Alphonse D’Amato would defeat Elizabeth Holtzman, a nightmare scenario for Democrats in New York and around the country.
In South Dakota, George McGovern delivered the concession speech that he had written two months earlier. He would say later that he knew the race was lost when a South Dakota woman ripped into him for his vote on the Panama Canal, while buying groceries with the food stamps that McGovern had made possible. His state turned on him with a vengeance. James Abdnor defeated McGovern by a 58–39 landslide, the only landslide defeat suffered by an incumbent senator that night. The margin was virtually identical to the national defeat that Nixon had inflicted on McGovern years earlier.
Politically insensitive as ever, Jimmy Carter conceded early, even before the polls closed in the western states, outraging Democrats in close races. They would always believe that thousands of their voters decided to stay home after Carter threw in the towel.
In Washington, Slade Gorton beat Warren Magnuson by a comfortable margin. Gorton’s message had worked: the people of Washington could appreciate Maggie’s great works but retire him just the same. He was still an icon in his state, but he had run one time too many.
The New Right claimed its most coveted victory in Idaho, as Frank Church went down to Steve Symms. Church had gone through probably the ugliest campaign in the country, hit by every weapon in the right wing’s political arsenal. Despite Church’s sometimes erratic course over the previous two years, respect for his courage, independence, and sheer stature plainly remained high in Idaho. Reagan carried Idaho by an astonishing margin, 67–25 percent, the second widest margin in the country, but Church lost by only 4,200 votes, in one of the closest races of the night.
Watching a stunning national blowout unfold, Democrats took some solace from the comfortable victories of Christopher Dodd and Alan Dixon, who won the open seats in Connecticut and Illinois created by the retirements of Ribicoff and Stevenson. The best news for Democrats on a grim night was that Patrick Leahy in Vermont and Gary Hart in Colorado both won reelection, squeaking through by identical 50–49 margins. Hart would always credit his narrow victory to Barry Goldwater’s unexpected endorsement.
At 11 p.m., I called Senator Eagleton in St. Louis. He had won his election, although it had been much closer than expected. I congratulated him, but he focused on the losses of his friends. “Culver, Church, Maggie, Bayh, Talmadge, Javits defeated,” Eagleton said. “I don’t want to go back to the Senate. It’s going to be awful.”
Eagleton cut me off before I could respond. “What are you hearing about Gaylord?” “Too close to call so far,” I answered.
At 2:00 a.m., Nelson’s race in Wisconsin was the only one that had not been decided. The television coverage of the landslide came to an end. I tried to reach someone at the Milwaukee Journal but got no answer. We went home, and I tried to sleep. A few hours later, I called Milwaukee again, and was advised that Nelson had lost narrowly to Kasten.
Democrats’ worst nightmare had been realized. Altogether, nine Democratic senators had been defeated, and twelve seats had changed hands. The Senate would turn Republican, for the first time in twenty-six years, and the Great Senate was all but ended.
ON NOVEMBER 4, RONALD Reagan won a landslide victory over Jimmy Carter. Reagan won 51 percent of the popular vote to Carter’s 41 percent with John Anderson polling 7%. Reagan won 489 electoral votes to Carter’s 49; at the time, it was the third largest landslide in American history, surpassed only by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s victory in 1936 and Richard Nixon’s crushing of George McGovern in 1972. Reagan won 44 states, including every one of the 10 largest states in the nation. It was a rout of stunning proportions.
In the Senate, the Democrats lost twelve seats; their 58–41 majority turned into a 53–46 Republican majority, giving the Republicans control of the Senate for the first time since 1955. The election marked the largest swing in the Senate since 1958, the off-year election in which the foundation of the liberal Senate was poured. In 1972, when Nixon had an unprecedented forty-nine-state sweep against McGovern, his landslide had no effect on the Senate races; indeed, the Democrats picked up two Senate seats. But in 1980, Reagan’s coattails were long and strong and probably had a significant effect in most of the elections.
In political terms, Carter and the Democrats of the Senate had met their perfect storm. Years later, historians and many Americans would give Carter credit for some courageous decisions, particularly with respect to the Camp David accords, the Panama Canal treaties, and a far-sighted policy mix that increased energy production and conservation. Many would praise his restraint in bringing the hostages home from Ir
an without going to war. But in November 1980, most Americans viewed Jimmy Carter as a failed president, a symbol and constant reminder of a troubled period and America’s uncertain and slipping place in a world where events felt out of control. Kennedy’s challenge undoubtedly further weakened Carter’s position, but it strains credulity to think that Carter would have won reelection if Kennedy had not challenged him. Americans judge their presidents as either having succeeded or failed, based, actually, on a version of Reagan’s famous questions “Are you better off?” and “Is the country better off?” than when this president took office? In 1980, most of the voters saw the answer clearly enough, and wanted no more of Jimmy Carter.
But the election represented much more than just a rejection of Carter. The American electorate had taken its time getting comfortable with the idea of Ronald Reagan as president, but ultimately, turned to someone who was a very familiar figure. The former actor, already well known, had burst on to the political scene in 1964, supporting Barry Goldwater’s disastrous bid for the presidency. He won two terms as governor of California and sought the presidency in 1968 and 1976. He stood clearly for certain core principles: smaller government, lower taxes, stronger national defense.
His views had looked extreme in 1964, but by 1980, the world had come around to him. Most Americans, including most Democrats, favored smaller government, lower taxes, and a stronger national defense. Carter supporters might believe that he could fashion the best policies to accomplish those goals, using a scalpel rather than a meat axe. But he epitomized a Democratic party struggling to accommodate their longstanding commitments and beliefs with the changing realities facing the country. Most Americans really were not interested in that type of tortured balancing act. They preferred Reagan’s clarity, consistency, and simplicity.
By Election Day, the political community anticipated Reagan’s victory, although not the magnitude of the blowout. House Speaker Tip O’Neill described it as an unforeseen tidal wave. The Senate outcome shocked virtually everyone. One labor leader commented: “The swing in the Senate is probably even greater, in ideological terms, than the shift in the White House.” The reaction of the Senate leaders reflected the political world turned upside down, and the strong right-wing tide. Robert Byrd expressed regret at the defeat of so many Democrats, but said it may turn out to be a “healthy shock” for the party. “I think we need to regroup and unify and come up with a program of our own.” Byrd allowed that the Senate would be more conservative but said “as the world of reality is faced up to . . . perhaps it won’t be as conservative as it might seem.”
Historian Sean Wilentz would later describe the 1980 election as “a major advance in the absorption of the [Republican] party by the new right. The White House would now become firmly attached to the conveyor belts of proposals and personnel built by the conservative counterestablishment. And the Republicans on Capitol Hill would tilt more strongly rightward than ever.” Howard Baker described the election as “not only a landslide, but a political earthquake.” Even while celebrating the Republican triumph, he commented: “If the New Right leaders think Howard Baker is going to roll over and play dead for them, they are mistaken.” He anticipated the political currents that would dominate his party when the new Senate convened in 1981.
Washington Post columnist David Broder captured the moment in an election analysis entitled “A Sharp Right Turn”:Not only did Reagan hand Carter the first defeat an elected president has suffered in a reelection bid since Herbert Hoover went down in 1932 but a host of Senate Democratic invincibles joined him.
A Magnuson of Washington and a Talmadge of Georgia were discarded as if their seniority and committee chairmanships did not count. Alabama elected its first Republican and its first Catholic, Florida its first woman senator. The voters of Idaho and Indiana told Frank Church and Birch Bayh that they would tolerate their deviations from conservative policy through the ’60’s and ’70’s—but not into the’80’s. It certainly had all the appearance of an era ending—and a new one beginning.
chapter 20
THE LAME-DUCK SESSION
EVERY LAME-DUCK SESSION HAS AN EDGY, QUERULOUS FEEL TO IT—THE members would much rather be at home, savoring their victories or licking their wounds. The one that began on November 12 bordered on the full-on surreal. The Democrats were still in the majority, but a dozen of them had been dispatched. Those who had lost had only weeks remaining to organize their papers and the records of their eighteen, twenty-four, or even thirty-six years of Senate service. Their staff members worked long days to help them, while simultaneously circulating their resumes frantically, hoping to find work in a Capitol about to become dominated by Republicans.
At the same time, the Senate office buildings echoed with the laughter and excitement of triumphant Republicans, who seemed to party endlessly. At the end of one day, the elevator opened in front of me to reveal a group of elderly Republicans, men and women, dressed in formal wear. They poured out of the elevator, filled with exuberance and laughter. One woman, quite heavy, and wearing too much purple eye makeup, but still very striking, caught my eye. In an instant, I realized that it was Senator John Warner’s wife—better known as Elizabeth Taylor.
A top Senate Democratic aide said, “[the senators who lost] still don’t know what hit them. It’s sinking in a lot faster on the rest of us. There are several thousand Democratic staffers up here who thought this was a way of life. It’s not an easy time for used and bruised Democratic staffers.” Jackson’s aggressive staff on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations refused to vacate their offices; the Capitol police had to be summoned. Senator Glenn’s subcommittee staff director handed out pink slips at the staff party.
McGovern gave the impression of being the calmest of the losers. He said that he was receiving more speaking invitations than he had since his presidential run. Bayh, licking his wounds, gave thought to seeking to become the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, if only to hit back at the right-wingers who had defeated him. Magnuson showed no interest in even coming back for the lame duck.
George Cunningham, McGovern’s administrative assistant, said: “Most of us don’t feel this lame duck should deal with anything very important. The mood of the country has changed so dramatically. It wouldn’t even be proper to do anything other than the housekeeping chores. It’s somebody else’s ballgame now.”
Yet against the odds, the lame-duck session proved to be remarkably productive. The Congress completed action on many of the legislative matters that had been left hanging: a budget resolution and reconciliation bill; five appropriations bills; a three-year extension of revenue sharing; changes in military pay and benefits; a measure making disposal of low-level nuclear waste a state responsibility; and a landmark environmental cleanup bill to deal with toxic waste sites, thereafter to be known, simply, as “Superfund.” The Great Senate may have been felled by Reagan’s landslide, but it still had work to do.
Ted Kennedy had only one real objective for the lame-duck session. In discussions about his endorsement, general election campaign, and fund-raising, Kennedy had asked President Carter to nominate Stephen Breyer to a judgeship on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Despite the bitterness between the two camps after the election, Carter did so, and given Breyer’s stellar credentials, he quickly gained the approval of the judicial selection commission.
Contemporary observers might ask: why would the Republicans permit a Democrat like Breyer a lifetime federal judgeship when they would be in control of the White House and the Senate just weeks later? The answer quickly became clear—and it was characteristic of how the Great Senate had always operated. Personal friendships and mutual respect still trumped ideological differences. Breyer had established a great relationship with Emory Sneeden, Strom Thurmond’s chief counsel on the Judiciary Committee. They had breakfast together every morning and devised a uniquely successful way of processing judicial nominations, despite the fact they agreed on few is
sues. The Judiciary Committee quickly voted to approve Breyer’s nomination by a 17–0 vote, while letting twenty other Carter judicial nominations die.
On December 9, the Senate confirmed Breyer to be a federal judge on the First Circuit Court of Appeals. Fourteen years later, the Senate confirmed Bill Clinton’s nomination of Judge Breyer to the Supreme Court where he continues to serve. Breyer’s colleagues at Harvard Law School, who had once questioned his judgment in taking a job in the Senate, would be reading his judgments for decades to come.
Birch Bayh badly wanted one more legislative accomplishment before leaving the Senate: the legislation reforming patent policy that he had been pushing along with Dole. With the lame-duck session approaching its end, one senator—Russell Long—was preventing Senate passage of the legislation. Long believed that if the taxpayers had paid for the university research, the results belong to the federal government and shouldn’t be shared. But on the last day of the session, Bayh got a call from Long. “Take the patent bill,” Long said. “You’re entitled to it. You earned it.”
Once Long lifted his hold, the Bayh-Dole Act became law. In 2002, an article in the Economist Technology Quarterly entitled “Innovation’s Golden Goose” described Bayh-Dole as “perhaps the most inspired piece of legislation to be enacted in America in the past half century.” The article contended that “together with amendments in 1984 and augmentation in 1986, [Bayh-Dole] unlocked inventions and discoveries that had been made in laboratories throughout the United States with the help of taxpayers’ money. More than anything, this single policy measure helped to reverse America’s precipitous slide into industrial irrelevance.” The president of the NASDAQ would estimate that 30 percent of the value of the companies listed came from university research that was commercialized only because of Bayh-Dole.
The time had come for the Senate to finish its historic effort to resolve the issue of Alaska Lands. When it still remained in doubt whether Carter would hang on to the presidency for a second term, many environmentalists contended that Alaska would be better preserved through executive orders rather than legislation that compromised on their most ambitious objectives. Reagan’s landslide brought a quick end to that line of reasoning. “There’s a lot of feeling that we’d better be realistic and take what we can get,” said a House committee staffer. “We’re at the mercy of the Senate.”
