Gag rule

GOP senators have a firm grip on the impeachment process -- but keeping their mouths shut is killing them

National Interests by Gary Griffith

The trial of the president has been rough on members of the US Senate. The hours of sitting in the Senate chamber and listening to long arguments by House managers and White House lawyers have been excruciating. Senators are accustomed to talking, not listening.

During the past two weeks, when the sessions have ended, the senators --
mostly male and mostly old, several with prostate problems -- have not made the usual rush to the restrooms. Instead, they have had to run for the microphones, to relieve themselves of pent-up words.

Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, a Democrat and the majority leader, hurried to the cameras last week to vent his thoughts about his party's opposition to the videotaping of witnesses. "What little dignity Monica Lewinsky has left we hope we can protect," he said earnestly.

Senator Fred Thompson, a Republican from Tennessee and a former film actor, went to the press stakeout in the hallway to release an attack on the Democrats' complaints. "I think they're squealing before they've been stuck," he told reporters.

With no speaking role in the televised floor proceedings, senators have had no official outlet for their explanations, witticisms, attacks, retorts, or regionalisms. But at the microphones outside the chamber, and particularly on the Sunday talk shows, senators have been able to give freedom to their thoughts. In fact, each of the hundred seems to have his or her own private plan for bringing the trial to a swift and fair conclusion.

Trying to organize senators to speak or act in concert has been likened to herding cats or putting bullfrogs in a wheelbarrow. But inside their ornate blue-and-gold chamber, Senate Republicans have managed to hang together.

On every motion, every Republican has voted the same way. There have been no defections among the 55 party members. The White House had hoped to find some support from liberal Republicans, particularly those from New England. Some had even indicated on television that they were opposed to calling witnesses.

But on the Senate floor, the women from Maine -- Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins -- voted just like the men from Mississippi. So did Jim Jeffords of Vermont and John Chafee of Rhode Island.

Lacking the 67 votes they need to convict the president, the Republicans are showing that they can at least control the process. So the patrician Senate has been acting something like the plebeian House, where Republicans march in lock step with their leadership. Senate majority leader Trent Lott does not have the same reputation as House majority whip Tom DeLay, who is known as "The Hammer," but he seems to be getting the same results.

Senators, however, want us to know that the Senate is not the House. They want to avoid, at all costs, the kind of public partisanship that Americans saw during the televised House impeachment hearings and the raucous floor debate that followed. From the Senate perspective, the House is a barbaric place where the Speaker has to bang the gavel every few seconds for order or to shut up members who continue to shout when their time has expired.

The style of the Senate is different. The gavel, for instance, is a small piece of ivory that is meant to be tapped gently and ceremoniously. The Senate prefers to have its disagreements behind closed doors. Senators go to the floor to deliver orations, not to hold arguments. At the beginning of the trial, senators went into private confines to work out their differences and come up with a set of procedures by unanimous consent.

But last week that cooperation broke down, as predicted, over the issue of
deposing witnesses. Real live roll-call votes had to be taken. Republicans held together and won them all.

There will be more of those votes shortly, concerning what to do with the videotaped depositions that were taken this week. If the past is any guide, Republicans will have enough votes to do whatever they want. And that includes allowing senators to view the tapes privately or hear live witnesses in a closed session.

Under the Senate's rules for an impeachment trial, the debates on motions -- the jury deliberations, in effect -- have been held in closed sessions, with the cameras and microphones turned off. But sentiment is now growing to change that rule for next week's final debate on the actual articles of impeachment, so that the senators' historic speeches on the subject can be televised.

We should hope, if only for safety's sake, that this happens. It might prevent several senators from exploding. And it would save a lot of running for the microphones afterward.

Gary Griffith is a long-time Boston journalist now based in Washington.