Robert Dallek: Can Obama Be a Majority of One?
Perhaps the biggest surprise the Obama administration has faced in its first 100 days has not been the dismal state of the economy or the difficulties abroad with Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, but rather the grudging cooperation of the Democratic Congress.
Lyndon Johnson could have warned Barack Obama that winning the support of the 535 senators and representatives, even if a majority of them share your party affiliation, wouldn’t be easy. This is especially the case after eight years of an administration that tried to reinstate the bad old days of the Imperial Presidency — using executive privilege and signing statements to bypass the legislature.
No president came to office with a greater understanding of Congressional workings than L.B.J. Eleven years in the House and 12 in the Senate, where he became its most effective majority leader ever, gave him a special feel for how to win passage of big reform programs.
One of the greatest landslide victories in presidential history in 1964 and two-thirds majorities in both houses opened the way to the landmark Great Society measures of Johnson’s second hundred days in 1965 — Medicare, federal aid to education and voting rights, to mention just the best known reforms.
Despite his majorities, Johnson took nothing for granted. He predicted “a hard fight every inch of the way.” He told one adviser: “I’ve watched the Congress from either the inside or the outside … for more than 40 years, and I’ve never seen a Congress that didn’t eventually take the measure of the president it was dealing with.”
To fend off the day when the Congress would resist his requests, Johnson launched a campaign of carrots and sticks that won majorities for his reforms. He directed aides to treat every member of Congress as if he or she was the center of the political universe. They were instructed to return a representative’s or senator’s call in “10 minutes or else.” Johnson himself devoted countless hours talking to them on the telephone.
Conservative Democrats and Republicans were not neglected. When Representative Silvio Conte, a Republican from Massachusetts, cast a vote for a Johnson initiative, the president called to thank him “on behalf of the nation for your vote.” “It’s the only time since I have been in Congress that a president called me,” Conte said. “I will never forget it.”
Every bill Johnson sent to the Hill was presented as a collaboration and was identified with a particular representative or senator. And no cooperative legislator would go un-rewarded. The Senate minority leader, Everett Dirksen, was a principal recipient of Johnson’s largesse. Johnson’s closest aide, Jack Valenti, remembered seeing them sitting in the president’s living quarters, “their knees almost touching, sipping refreshments.” Dirksen would describe some deserving constituent he favored for a regulatory agency or commission or judgeship. Johnson would feign outrage at Dirksen’s lobbying, but a deal would be struck for the senator’s support of a Johnson bill in return for an appointment.
Uncooperative legislators paid a price for their independence. When Senator Frank Church, an Idaho Democrat, justified a vote against a Johnson bill by saying that columnist Walter Lippmann shared his view, Johnson scolded him: “Frank, next time you want a dam in Idaho, you call Walter Lippmann and let him put it through.”
Three months into his presidency, it’s apparent that Mr. Obama is not likely to match the 207 significant pieces of Johnson legislation; but not because he’s unmindful of L.B.J.’s methods. Like Johnson, the current president has been showering considerable attention on members of Congress, courting them by traveling to the Hill and asking their input into his big ticket items — the budget, health insurance, educational, and environmental reforms. His acceptance of earmarks in the stimulus bill can be read as concessions to the kinds of requests Johnson satisfied to win votes for his legislative priorities.
But Mr. Obama faces a more difficult challenge than Johnson’s. Unlike L.B.J., he lacks long-time ties to Congressional leaders, which may be one reason his stimulus plan barely made it out of the Senate and many Democrats, including Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, are balking at the president’s proposed budget. In addition, the sort of mutual back-scratching Johnson relied on is out of vogue. Trading pork-barrel grants for Congressional votes is no longer seen as acceptable politics but as unsavory opportunism. Also, Mr. Obama has far thinner majorities than Johnson had and fewer moderate Republicans to woo. Finally, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and deficits running as far into the future as the eye can see are problems that did not burden Johnson’s reach for a Great Society.
Yet all is not lost. President Obama has a degree of popular support that rivals the approval F.D.R., Eisenhower, Kennedy and Reagan enjoyed. And the public’s continuing eagerness for change gives him an advantage over Congress that may yet translate into major economic and social reforms.
If Congress frustrates the president’s reach for promised alterations, it will risk paying a price in 2010. As the elections of 2006 and 2008 demonstrated, voters use the ballot box to make their sentiments known on national questions. Neither Republicans nor Democrats will be immune from popular displeasure if the economy continues to stumble, medical costs stay out of reach for millions of Americans, educational opportunities shrink and environmental problems remain unchecked.
Read entire article at NYT blog
Lyndon Johnson could have warned Barack Obama that winning the support of the 535 senators and representatives, even if a majority of them share your party affiliation, wouldn’t be easy. This is especially the case after eight years of an administration that tried to reinstate the bad old days of the Imperial Presidency — using executive privilege and signing statements to bypass the legislature.
No president came to office with a greater understanding of Congressional workings than L.B.J. Eleven years in the House and 12 in the Senate, where he became its most effective majority leader ever, gave him a special feel for how to win passage of big reform programs.
One of the greatest landslide victories in presidential history in 1964 and two-thirds majorities in both houses opened the way to the landmark Great Society measures of Johnson’s second hundred days in 1965 — Medicare, federal aid to education and voting rights, to mention just the best known reforms.
Despite his majorities, Johnson took nothing for granted. He predicted “a hard fight every inch of the way.” He told one adviser: “I’ve watched the Congress from either the inside or the outside … for more than 40 years, and I’ve never seen a Congress that didn’t eventually take the measure of the president it was dealing with.”
To fend off the day when the Congress would resist his requests, Johnson launched a campaign of carrots and sticks that won majorities for his reforms. He directed aides to treat every member of Congress as if he or she was the center of the political universe. They were instructed to return a representative’s or senator’s call in “10 minutes or else.” Johnson himself devoted countless hours talking to them on the telephone.
Conservative Democrats and Republicans were not neglected. When Representative Silvio Conte, a Republican from Massachusetts, cast a vote for a Johnson initiative, the president called to thank him “on behalf of the nation for your vote.” “It’s the only time since I have been in Congress that a president called me,” Conte said. “I will never forget it.”
Every bill Johnson sent to the Hill was presented as a collaboration and was identified with a particular representative or senator. And no cooperative legislator would go un-rewarded. The Senate minority leader, Everett Dirksen, was a principal recipient of Johnson’s largesse. Johnson’s closest aide, Jack Valenti, remembered seeing them sitting in the president’s living quarters, “their knees almost touching, sipping refreshments.” Dirksen would describe some deserving constituent he favored for a regulatory agency or commission or judgeship. Johnson would feign outrage at Dirksen’s lobbying, but a deal would be struck for the senator’s support of a Johnson bill in return for an appointment.
Uncooperative legislators paid a price for their independence. When Senator Frank Church, an Idaho Democrat, justified a vote against a Johnson bill by saying that columnist Walter Lippmann shared his view, Johnson scolded him: “Frank, next time you want a dam in Idaho, you call Walter Lippmann and let him put it through.”
Three months into his presidency, it’s apparent that Mr. Obama is not likely to match the 207 significant pieces of Johnson legislation; but not because he’s unmindful of L.B.J.’s methods. Like Johnson, the current president has been showering considerable attention on members of Congress, courting them by traveling to the Hill and asking their input into his big ticket items — the budget, health insurance, educational, and environmental reforms. His acceptance of earmarks in the stimulus bill can be read as concessions to the kinds of requests Johnson satisfied to win votes for his legislative priorities.
But Mr. Obama faces a more difficult challenge than Johnson’s. Unlike L.B.J., he lacks long-time ties to Congressional leaders, which may be one reason his stimulus plan barely made it out of the Senate and many Democrats, including Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, are balking at the president’s proposed budget. In addition, the sort of mutual back-scratching Johnson relied on is out of vogue. Trading pork-barrel grants for Congressional votes is no longer seen as acceptable politics but as unsavory opportunism. Also, Mr. Obama has far thinner majorities than Johnson had and fewer moderate Republicans to woo. Finally, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and deficits running as far into the future as the eye can see are problems that did not burden Johnson’s reach for a Great Society.
Yet all is not lost. President Obama has a degree of popular support that rivals the approval F.D.R., Eisenhower, Kennedy and Reagan enjoyed. And the public’s continuing eagerness for change gives him an advantage over Congress that may yet translate into major economic and social reforms.
If Congress frustrates the president’s reach for promised alterations, it will risk paying a price in 2010. As the elections of 2006 and 2008 demonstrated, voters use the ballot box to make their sentiments known on national questions. Neither Republicans nor Democrats will be immune from popular displeasure if the economy continues to stumble, medical costs stay out of reach for millions of Americans, educational opportunities shrink and environmental problems remain unchecked.