In the waning days of 2012, just as the Scene was going to press, the latest debate in the U.S. Senate over one of its unique and controversial parliamentary tactics — the filibuster — was breaking out.
    As the Senate’s parliamentarian, Alan Frumin ’68 was the chief arbiter of its procedural wrangling for nearly two decades. Having scrupulously maintained a nonpartisan stance, he is the only person to have been promoted to the position of chief parliamentarian by both political parties. His job on the front lines was meant to be behind the scenes; in fact, he never once granted an interview to a member of the fourth estate. But Frumin, who retired last February, broke his silence when he gave the inaugural Edgar Shor Lecture at Colgate in October. Not long after, majority leader Harry Reid vowed to reform the filibuster on day one of the new Congress. By early December, Frumin found himself speaking out, defending the filibuster on MSNBC, and being summoned back to Capitol Hill for meetings with senators. What follows is an adaptation of his talk at Colgate, in which he shared insights about the Senate from his singular perspective on the inner workings of the country’s political process.


By Alan Frumin ’68

Illustrations by David Vogin


In the U.S. Senate, any individual or group has a unique power: one can stop virtually everything from being considered or voted upon. The main tool at their disposal is unlimited debate — the practice known as filibustering. But, historically, members exercised restraint because they knew that the Senate couldn’t work unless this tactic was employed with discretion.
    The rights of the majority and the privileges of the minority in the Senate have been in a delicate balance for more than two centuries. Over my 35 years as a Senate parliamentarian, I saw that balance list further and further off kilter; in fact, in 2005, the Senate nearly imploded.
    At that time, the Republicans were in the majority and the Democrats were filibustering judicial nominations of President George W. Bush, claiming that the nominees were too radical. I was concerned, as were many, that the Republicans were planning to use a procedure that would have involved the presiding officer, Vice President Dick Cheney, coming into the Senate and, ignoring the advice of yours truly, declaring the filibuster unconstitutional. While the Republicans referred to that procedure as the “Constitutional Option,” the Democrats called it the “Nuclear Option.”
    Now, the Senate has been without a general limitation of debate since 1806. This is why filibusters are possible, and this simple fact of procedure has been the means by which minorities in the Senate (either individuals or parties) have exerted disproportionate influence. But one rule, the cloture rule, can, in essence, compel action — i.e., force a vote by ending debate — provided that a supermajority of the membership votes to do so.
    As the Senate’s parliamentarian, I was asked by Harry Reid, who at the time was the minority leader, what I thought of the Republicans’ proposal to end the filibuster by a ruling of the vice president. My point was that it should not happen because thousands of precedents and years and years of practice have stood for the proposition that unlimited debate was the means of protecting the minority. Senator Reid went to the press and said, “The Senate parliamentarian said it would be wrong.” But the Republicans continued to threaten their proposal.
    I saw the situation from both sides. A high-ranking Republican senator actually confided in me that he thought some of the candidates were “nut jobs,” so the Democrats were right to dig in their heels. At the same time, one of the nominees who was being blocked was a personal friend of mine who was not a nut job (and I hardly considered him radical). I supported the Democrats’ right to do this, even when my personal knowledge led me to question their judgment, at least in the case of my friend.
    At this point, I should clarify certain language. It is common to talk about the rights of the minority in the Senate, but that really is a misnomer. The minority has privileges. Those privileges could be snuffed out in a heartbeat if there is a willful majority and a presiding officer willing to go along with them. Using the “Nuclear Option” to eliminate the filibuster was a proposal to do just that.
    Ultimately, seven Republicans and seven Democrats got together. Led by John McCain, this Gang of Fourteen said, “We don’t want things to go this far; let’s get together.” The Democrats stated, “We will not filibuster except in the most extreme cases,” and the Republicans responded, “We will not press this.”
    In that moment, the Senate saved itself — at least for the time being.

A complex mechanism
While I was at Colgate in the 1960s, to the extent that I had a political view of Washington, D.C., it was: Progress Good, Filibuster Bad, Senate Weird. Civil rights legislation was struggling to make its way through Congress in part because of an obstinate, bizarre Senate — the roadblock to what many people considered absolutely necessary legislation.
    As fate would have it, when I graduated, I traveled 365 miles and several centuries south, and found myself in Washington, D.C. After law school at Georgetown University, I worked for a couple of years as an editor of Deschler’s Precedents of the House of Representatives, a multi-volume publication codifying a half-century of unpublished parliamentary precedents, until I was hired to be an assistant parliamentarian for the Senate. I was instructed to stay out of the limelight, never talk to the press, and embrace a passion for anonymity. The Senate was the redoubt of obstructionism — nothing that any of us, at least among my friends, had been educated to believe was a good or sensible institution. But I was attracted to the more exciting job of actually advising members of Congress, as opposed to writing about what advice others had given them. I found myself in unusual company. I traded jokes with people like Strom Thurmond, whose friendship none of us in the era in which I grew up would have cherished. I got into fights with Jesse Helms. I received phone calls at my house at 2 a.m. from Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia — who in his formative years was active in the Ku Klux Klan — to discuss complex matters affecting the Senate as an institution.
    I was out of my element, but developing a comfort zone. It’s an office where politics should not matter, and yet I listened and watched as my predecessors got into trouble and found themselves shown the door. Every one of the thousands of decisions the parliamentarian makes has the potential to anger one or more powerful senators. I vowed that no senator, nor any Senate staffer, would ever have a justification for believing that I had not listened to them and had not considered their positions. So, I made a habit of listening, and withholding judgment until I had heard from all interested parties.
    The Senate is an unusual institution. What the founders wanted was something very different from the House of Representatives. James Madison referred to the Senate as “a necessary fence” that would be a body of “enlightened, contemplative, respectable citizens.” The Senate was designed to check everybody: not only the people and the House, but also the president. From the Federalist papers: “A salutary check on the government” (The Federalist No. 62). “The defense to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions”; “Cool and deliberate sense of community” (The Federalist No. 63).
    The framers gave the country a Senate unique in its structure and composition: two senators from each state protected the small states; in fact, some would say the small states are overrepresented. The minimum age to serve was set at 30 years instead of 25 for the other body. Senators were required to be citizens for nine years instead of seven. And initially, senators were elected by their state legislatures, and not directly by the people. The framers gave the Senate preeminent responsibility for many things. By its advice and consent role, the Senate is a partner with the president in the making of treaties. It is a partner with and a check on the executive branch in the appointment of executive officers. And it is a check on the president in the formation of the judiciary.
    The Senate is not like, and does not want to be like, the House of Representatives. I learned that lesson when I had to make a decision on an arcane matter of procedure and there was no Senate precedent to govern it. When I gave my advice, Warren Rudman (one of the Senate’s most astute members), who was not happy with it, asked me, “Where’s the precedent to support this?” and I said, “Well, I can reason by analogy to several Senate precedents. And, there’s a case directly on point from the House.” He almost went apoplectic: “How dare you cite the House to me?! I will drag your butt across the street to the Supreme Court! No senator wants to hear about the House.” Lesson learned.
    So what was this unusual institution where I was asked to be the custodian of its unique and often controversial way of doing business? From a structural standpoint, the constitution has the vice president of the United States as the presiding officer. It also authorizes the Senate to elect a president pro tempore, who by current practice is the most senior member of the majority party. In addition, the standing rules authorize the president pro tem to appoint someone to fulfill the duties of the chair when the president pro tem cannot.
    The practical effect of that is that junior members of the majority party are cast with the responsibility of presiding over the Senate. They know virtually nothing about Senate procedure. And if they think they do, they don’t.
    Imagine how excited they get at the thought of presiding over the Senate. Not very much. There are any number of things they’d rather do. It is not interesting, it is not fun. They do not develop any expertise. You might be sensing a vacuum.
    That vacuum is filled by the office in which I served for more than 35 years. In essence, the parliamentarian is the de facto presiding officer of the Senate. It is the job of the parliamentarian to answer all questions of procedure. Parliamentarians don’t rule; the presiding officers rule. When people asked me, “How would you rule on something?” I’d say, “I’m just on staff here. I give advice to people who take that advice and rule on it.”
    The Senate rulebook is quite thin. It has 44 standing rules, but that really doesn’t matter, because the rules are almost impossible to make sense out of. What we really have are living, breathing, standing, sitting, walking, talking rules — 100 of them, two from each state. The Senate is personality-driven. Its processes are based on the relations between and among its members. This institution, designed to restrain the passions of the people and the possible abuses of the executive branch and the House of Representatives, has evolved into one where individuals are preeminent.
    The procedural basis for this evolution is something that does not even exist in the Senate rules, and that is a simple motion to limit debate. As I mentioned earlier, there is no general limitation of debate in the U.S. Senate.

A Senate Glossary Cloture – The only procedure by which the Senate can vote to place a time limit on consideration of a bill or other matter, and thereby overcome a filibuster. Under the cloture rule (Rule XXII), the Senate may limit consideration of a pending matter to 30 additional hours, but only by a supermajority vote of three-fifths of the full Senate, normally 60 votes. Invoking cloture on amendments of the standing rules requires a higher standard of two-thirds. Filibuster – Informal term for attempts to block or delay Senate action on a bill or other matter by debating it at length, offering numerous procedural motions, or any other delaying or obstructive actions. Majority compulsion – Procedural actions by which the party in power (the majority) can force a vote. Parliamentarian – The adviser to the Senate on the interpretation of its rules and procedures. Staff members from the parliamentarian’s office sit on the dais and advise the presiding officer on the conduct of Senate business. The office also refers bills to the appropriate committees on behalf of the presiding officer. Reconciliation – A bill containing changes in law being recommended in order to bring spending, revenues, or the debt limit into conformity with a budget resolution. Such a bill is intended for minor changes only. Supermajority – A specified greater level of support than a simple majority is required for certain types of proposals. For example, a three-fifths super-majority is required to bring out a vote of cloture.

    What this means is that the Senate is a place where, even though anything can go, nothing goes very far, nothing goes very fast, and nothing goes without broad consensus. Unlike the House of Representatives, as a general rule, the Senate majority cannot force action on the minority. This means that even for a determined majority it can be very difficult, if not impossible, to force a bill or resolution to the Senate floor for consideration. And it is equally difficult to force a vote on such a measure even after it has been brought to the floor for consideration. It is virtually impossible for an individual senator to achieve either of these procedural goals, with one very notable exception, which I will discuss later.
    Much was made during this past political season of the fact that the president didn’t deserve another term because he had all levels of power at his disposal in the 111th Congress. The Democratic president had a Democratic House, and a Democratic Senate. But, those who understand the Senate know that for much of that Congress, the president did not have the Senate — he did not have a working majority. The minority used their time-honored customs and precedents basically to say “No” and often “Hell, No” to the president’s initiatives as best they could.
    That lack of limitation of debate means that — unlike members of other legislative bodies where the decision is binary (“Yes” or “No”) — senators are permitted to vote “Yes” to adopt a question; they can vote “No” if that question comes to a vote; or, they can vote “Hell, No” by preventing that question from coming to a vote — through the parliamentary tactic of extending debate. This is the infamous abuse (according to some), or the essential protection of minority rights (according to others) known as the filibuster. And senators can vote “Hell, No” pretty much all they want.
    Some say things have gone from “Yes,” “No,” or possibly “Hell, No” to “No,” “Hell, No,” and “Over My Dead Body!” This state of affairs is possible not because of what the rules say, but because of what they don’t say. The rules are silent on a general limitation of debate. That this state of affairs has become more common is due less to what the rules lack than how the political environment has changed.

Weapons of obstruction
So, how does the Senate operate? Does the Senate operate? I’ve seen it work. There were times when I saw it work quite well. Actually, I saw it work very well in the old model.
    When I came to the Senate in 1977, I was amazed at the level of comity exhibited by senators walking across the aisle, Democrat to Republican, senior to junior, and likewise among the Senate staff who would come into our office. They were part of a community where each and every one of their principles could frustrate the designs of every other member, and yet they generally didn’t do it.
    During my first 25 years in that office, restraint, respect, and humility were utilized in the employment of this weapon to obstruct. The Senate had a critical mass of responsible adults who understood that they all were armed with this enormous power to say “Hell, No,” but that — unless they restrained themselves — nothing would ever get accomplished.
    I’ve been asked what I think of the Senate recently. I tell people I’d like to see a sign on the Senate chamber (and possibly an addendum to that portion of the rules that speaks to the qualifications of senators, and possibly somebody could go into the constitution and add this into Article 1):
    “The Senate is a complex organization. Responsible adults only.”
    So, how does the Senate operate? There are three general modes of operation: unanimous consent agreements, cloture, and expedited procedures (so-called fast-track measures).
    First, understanding that anybody could object to anything, the Senate attempts to go forward with its business by what are known as unanimous consent agreements. When these agreements are sought and obtained, you see senators surrendering their rights to obstruct to permit the Senate to get things done for the greater good. It is difficult to get unanimous consent because it requires the entire body to agree; unanimity requires cooperation, consultation, and consensus.
    Cloture is the second mode of operation. The Senate’s cloture rule, Rule XXII, was adopted in 1917. The formal limitation of debate that breaks a filibuster, cloture provides a means to compel action on questions, but requires a supermajority vote of three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn on most questions, and a potentially higher vote of two-thirds of the senators on explicit amendments to the Senate’s Standing Rules. Rule XXII (and its cloture procedures) is mostly misunderstood by people who want it declared unconstitutional (leaving aside the fact that the courts have not and should not meddle in Senate internal affairs). Rule XXII is designed to limit debate, so those who are frustrated by the Senate are wrong in attacking it; what they really want to do is strengthen it. Because a simple majority of the Senate cannot force cloture, they need to work across the aisles (again, the institution is mindful of the rights and prerogatives of the minority). In fact, it’s rare for the Senate to find itself with 60 or more senators from one political party.
    The third mode of operation is the use of what we call “fast-track measures,” which under the rules or pursuant to statutory provisions, are bills or joint resolutions with built-in limitations of debate, i.e., they cannot be filibustered, and therefore require only a simple majority for their passage. Fast-track measures are given such expedited procedures because they generally deal with time-sensitive matters or other matters considered too important to be subject to a filibuster. I’ll share two anecdotes that show how expedited matters have given parliamentarians an interesting moment in the sun over the years.

Unwitting moments in the sun
One measure providing expedited procedures is the War Powers Resolution.
    Congress enacted it in 1973 (over Richard Nixon’s veto at the height of the Vietnam War) to try to re-assert the constitutional authority of Congress to declare war. The War Powers Resolution provides extraordinarily expedited procedures — what my successor refers to as a Rocket Docket — for the consideration of joint resolutions introduced by any senator qualifying the authority of the president to maintain armed forces in areas of hostilities, provided that certain conditions existed. Any such joint resolution could not be bottled up in the Foreign Relations Committee. It could not be filibustered. It would sprint out of committee automatically, be on the floor automatically, and be voted upon within 72 hours. This statute provides not just majority compulsion, but single-senator compulsion to force an issue to a vote in the Senate. This is truly extraordinary.
    The War Powers Resolution gives senators that extraordinary legislative authority to compel Senate action “any time that U.S. armed forces are introduced into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances.”
    Indicated by whom? I don’t think that the people who drafted the War Powers Resolution thought that through.
    Early in my tenure as chief parliamentarian, in 1987, I received a call from a staffer with a sense of humor. He said, “Alan, follow me through the War Powers Resolution, and let’s see who it really authorizes to declare if a state of war exists.” He walked me through it, and said, “Congratulations, sir. They didn’t know it at the time, but they have allowed you to declare war.”
    Lo and behold, his boss, without the knowledge or consent of the Senate leadership, had decided that there was a problem in the Persian Gulf. This was a Democratic senator who had no truck with President Ronald Reagan and didn’t mind embarrassing him. He introduced a joint resolution to place a six-month limit on the president’s authority to order U.S. forces to escort re-flagged Kuwaiti tankers in the Persian Gulf. He argued that this joint resolution was privileged under the War Powers Resolution.
    The last thing in the world I wanted to do was to be put in the position of saying Yes or No, but he left me no choice.
    I was fortunate in that there was a precedent on point that had been established by my predecessor, Robert Dove — who, after being fired by the Democrats at the beginning of 1987, decided that he had enough of 10 years of being my mentor. He was now going to be my tormentor, for he went to work for Bob Dole, who was serving as the minority leader.
    But Dove was kind enough to have — four years earlier when the U.S. Marine Barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, had been bombed — answered the very question being presented to me: What does that language mean? Is the resolution introduced pursuant to that language entitled to this Rocket Docket privilege? He said, “Yes.” Wonderful. I had a precedent.
    And so, when Bob Dole dragged me into the Republican cloakroom, horrified at the fact that this joint resolution that was meant to embarrass Ronald Reagan was not only not bottled up in committee but was on the Senate floor and had to be voted upon within 72 hours, he wanted to know where I had the temerity to put myself into the position of placing this joint resolution on this Rocket Docket, and how could I defend that decision?
    And I said, “Well, Senator Dole, there is precedent for this.”
    “When?” he asked.
    “1983.” At which point his hostile gaze left from me, standing to his right, to my predecessor Bob Dove, who was standing to his left. It was all I needed to say. The Senate thought better of having yours truly declare war, obtained unanimous consent to place the joint resolution on the Senate calendar of business, and then indefinitely postponed its consideration, effectively killing it.

Reconciliation, or cloture?
These are responsibilities parliamentarians don’t go looking for. These are not the sorts of things they teach us in parliamentarian’s school. You don’t expect to be asked to decide whether or not the United States is literally or virtually in a state of war.
    This next anecdote is where my life really got turned on its head. First, some background.
    The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 provides expedited procedures for a few types of vehicles, one of which is called a reconciliation bill. The people who wrote the Budget Act had no idea the extent to which this little procedure would be utilized. The key here is that reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered; they are another vehicle of majority compulsion.
    Now, the dynamic in the Senate almost always has been that the Democrats will start a fight and the Republicans will finish it. In their last year of controlling both the House and the Senate during the 96th Congress (1980), the Democrats decided to use budget reconciliation aggressively. Well, the Republicans took this idea and ran with it when they obtained the Senate majority after the 1980 election. Even though reconciliation was designed to make only minor budgetary changes to laws recently enacted or to bills being prepared for presidential signature, the Republicans convinced my predecessor that a reconciliation bill could be used at various times and for a whole host of things, and they used several such bills to enact a great deal of the Reagan Revolution in the early 1980s.
    This dynamic, with each political party using reconciliation bills to advance their agendas, has occurred back and forth, frequently over objections that the process was being abused. In 1986, the Senate adopted the Byrd Rule (named for Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, the Senate’s acknowledged procedural expert) as an amendment to the Budget Act of 1974. The Byrd Rule is meant to prevent language containing extraneous (i.e., non-budgetary) provisions in reconciliation bills, as well as to prevent amendments to that effect to such bills. Decisions by the Senate’s presiding officers interpreting the Byrd Rule (on advice of the parliamentarian) can only be overturned by a vote of three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn. Likewise, waivers of the rule require the same three-fifths supermajority. Therefore, the use of reconciliation bills, how they travel through the legislative process, and what content they may contain are subject to dozens of decisions made by the Senate’s presiding officers, always on the advice of the parliamentarian.
    In 1993, the Clinton administration was most eager to use the reconciliation process. Since most aspects of its economic agenda (taxes and spending) were budgetary in nature, the reconciliation process was suitable. However, in addition to provisions having a budgetary effect, hundreds of non-budgetary provisions were removed from this reconciliation bill based on my interpretation of the Byrd Rule. Further, Bill and Hillary Clinton’s signature policy initiative was to be health care reform (sound familiar?). The Democrats wanted to use another reconciliation bill later in that Congress to avoid a Republican filibuster on the initiative. I was approached by the Democratic leadership to see if I thought that that was either appropriate or viable. My answer was “No” — reconciliation might be appropriate, possibly, around the margins, but not for large policy changes.
    Senator Byrd also came to me. Having been approached by the White House (as was I), he asked me what I thought about budget reconciliation. I told him, “Your rule, the Byrd Rule, will make this either impossible or problematic.” The White House leaned on Senator Byrd, he said, “No.” He passed along the White House’s pressure to me. I said, “No.” It was about this time that a powerful chairman of a House committee was quoted as saying, “They made the Senate parliamentarian more powerful than the Speaker of the House.” I don’t think he meant this as a compliment.

Things They Don’t Teach in Parliamentarian’s School What to do when an earthquake hits just before your first solo pro forma session. Whether a port-a-john is permitted on the floor of the Senate. If not, how about an empty tennis ball can? What to do when the presiding officer of the Senate has turned his back to the proceedings ignoring the parliamentarian as all hell is breaking loose, so he could make a date with a well-known actress (telephone on the dais removed soon thereafter). How to respond when a first senator has demanded that a second senator be taken off his feet (Rule XIX, our favorite “shut up and sit down” rule), and when the two senators approach you at the desk, one says to the other, “How would you like a fist through your face?” What to do when the president pro tempore makes salacious remarks to one of your assistants into an open C-Span microphone. Whether it matters that the presentation for presidential signature of the joint resolution authorizing the use of American Armed Forces is delayed (1) so that a measure can carry a luckier number, or (2) to permit the vice president of the United States to attend a Johnny Depp movie, or (3) to have some staffer (who shall go unnamed) watch an NFL playoff game. How to counsel the vice president of the United States on his role in conducting the joint session of Congress to count the electoral ballots declaring that he had lost his election to be President of the United States. What to do after a terrorist attack on Washington when the Senate leadership wants to convene without authority to do so. Telling the state of New York that if they wanted their electoral votes to count, they would have to correct the spelling of the name of the candidate they thought they had certified as having won in their state. What to do when your wife receives a phone call at home from a reporter telling her that he has it on good authority that you have been receiving death threats but just wants to confirm this with her. What to do when the president pro tempore signs an enrolled bill in such a flamboyant manner that there is no room for the signature of the president of the United States, and the White House is not amused. That the signature tax cuts of a president would have to sunset because, in essence, you said so.

    Fast forward to 2009.
    Once again, we had a president with a health care initiative. And again, the question was, what about avoiding a Republican filibuster by using expedited procedures under reconciliation?
    The Democrats were close to 60 votes for cloture at the outset of President Barack Obama’s term. My assistants and I simply prayed for 60. We didn’t care if it was 40 Republicans and 20 Democrats. All we cared about was for there to be 60 for cloture so that we wouldn’t be called upon to decide the appropriateness of using reconciliation, that tool that is majority compulsion. When Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania decided he was tired of being a Republican, score one more for the Democrats. There were pluses and minuses through this period of time. Ted Kennedy passed away over the summer. The Governor of Massachusetts had appointed Paul Kirk to fill that seat until an election could be held in early 2010. Then we had an unresolved election in Minnesota. When it finally was resolved in
favor of Al Franken, behold, a 60th Democrat.
    The Democrats had the magic number through Christmas Eve. The judgment calls that the parliamentarian would have to answer if the Democrats sought to use expedited procedures under reconciliation were going to be mind-boggling, extremely difficult, and very controversial.
    Give us 60. Keep 60.
    This massive Senate health care amendment to an unrelated House bill passed on Christmas Eve with the Democrats using their 60-vote majority to invoke cloture. Well, as soon as it passed, people began objecting to certain things in the bill. One, which the press called the Cornhusker Kickback, was put in so that Ben Nelson of Nebraska would go along; another called the Louisiana Purchase was for Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. There were a number of things that the press and the political opposition made clear were either inappropriate or an awfully heavy weight to carry.
    It remained for the House to take the Senate’s amendment, and with the House, you have majority compulsion, so there would be no problem as long as Nancy Pelosi could keep her troops together. But Nancy Pelosi was not about to take the Cornhusker Kickback and the Louisiana Purchase, and so it became clear that the House would not simply take the Senate-amended House bill, pass it clean, and send it to the president, but would have to amend the bill.
    Then the bill would have to come back to the Senate, which would have to agree to the House’s amendments to it. Once again, the Democrats would need 60 votes. Over the holidays, the Democrats still had 60 votes.
    We’re now into January. Massachusetts was about to hold a special election to fill the balance of Ted Kennedy’s term. Interim Senator Paul Kirk, who was a reliable 60th vote for the Democrats, was not running. Martha Coakley was running for the Democrats; Scott Brown for the Republicans. A week or so before the election, I got a phone call from my assistant saying, “Alan, did you hear what Martha Coakley said? She referred to Curt Schilling as a Yankee fan!”
    Simultaneously, on both sides of the phone line, we said, “Oh, My God, we are so screwed.” We knew that Martha Coakley, who had insulted Red Sox fans everywhere, would lose that 60th Democratic seat. And well she did. Republican Scott Brown won, and there went the Democrats’ supermajority. With that went the fix for the Cornhusker Kickback and the Louisiana Purchase, which could not survive a Republican filibuster and pass a Senate of 59 Democrats and 41 Republicans. So what would happen?
    Well, there’s always budget reconciliation. And who got to decide about budget reconciliation? Who got to decide whether the process was appropriate? Who got to decide every line of the bill? Who got to decide whether or not the president had to sign the first massive bill before he could sign the reconciliation bill fixing the first bill?
    People who understood how the Senate worked knew that my office in general, and I in particular, might have a role to play in deciding the fate of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obama-
care. And so, I who was hired because I had a passion for anonymity, found the following headlines during that period. Some were all right.

“Senate Parliamentarian: He’s the Only One Both Parties Trust”
(McClatchy Newspapers) — That was a good one.

“Alan Frumin, Senate Parliamentarian, is a Health Care Rock Star”
(Huffington Post, March 17, 2010)

“Who’s Alan Frumin and Why Might He Shape U.S. Health Reform?”
(Christian Science Monitor, October 14, 2009)

I like this one:
“Romancing the Parliamentarian. If Alan Frumin Can’t be Bullied or Bought, Can He Be Bypassed?”
(Slate Magazine, September 2, 2009)

“One of Washington’s Most Powerful and Least Famous People”
(New Republic, October 12, 2009)

    There were editorials about me in the New York Times. I never answered the phone. I never talked to a reporter. It doesn’t mean they didn’t find my wife at home. That doesn’t mean there weren’t cameras in my face as I walked from my car to my office. Things got so interesting that I had police protection at my house.
    Between 60 votes required for cloture and a simple majority vote under expedited procedures lies years of psychoanalysis, ulcers, sleepless nights, and frustrated spouses and children, for somebody who is simply hired to advise the Senate’s presiding officer.

Alan Frumin joined the U.S. Senate’s Parliamentarian office in 1977. He held the top job from 1987 to 1995 and from 2001 until his retirement in early 2012. As parliamentarian emeritus, Frumin is updating the Senate’s official book of procedures, which he last published in 1992. The newly established Edgar Shor Lecture honors the longtime political science professor who created Colgate’s Washington, D.C., Study Group.

The essence is compromise
As I said earlier, when I first found myself involved in the daily operations of this most unusual body, senators had different agendas, but they respected one another, and they respected the institution and exercised self-restraint in the manner in which they employed the Senate’s procedures. People from both sides of the aisle with strong opinions about public policy issues knew that they had to compromise. There were many times when the votes were hung up, but rarely was it “Over My Dead Body.”
    One person’s obstruction is another person’s brilliant analysis and caution. What troubles me today is not so much what one might think of as obstruction, but of the unwillingness to compromise. One recently elected senator gave his maiden speech at the desk of Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser, and decried the very thought of compromise. That mindset is the death knell of the Senate. Because, if the minority is never willing to compromise, the majority will feel compelled to extinguish their privileges forever.
    Politics is the price that people pay for the privilege of governing. And the price of governing in the Senate, I believe, has gotten much higher than in 1977 when I began working there.
    Has restraint become absolute obstructionism, such that the country cannot do its business? Is the Senate a viable institution in the 21st century? In a political culture that has a 24/7 news cycle where everything a senator does or says is published immediately? That has cell phones and video cameras everywhere, where people can’t speak in confidence? If the press is following you wherever you go, if somebody is Tweeting something you said you might think, God knows, compromise becomes problematic.
    My hope is that the culture will revert to what it has been for the better part of the past 200 years and that senators will understand that compromise is the essence of the political process, before the institution simply implodes upon itself, as it almost did in 2005.
    What the founders envisioned for the Senate was different and unique and worth preserving. But in order for it to be preserved, its members need to respect each other, to recognize that they are a community, to be humble, and exercise self-restraint. This depends on the political process generating people who understand that. I’ve always said that the Senate is an acquired taste, and that it’s a taste worth acquiring. It’s different, it’s nuanced — but in its odd way, it had worked for more than 200 years.