Metzenbaum

News across the wire that former Ohio senator Howard Metzenbaum has died, at age 90. Metzenbaum had one of the most interesting careers of any postwar Democratic senator: a multimillionaire who made his fortune in the airport parking lot business(!), he was campaign manager for Stephen Young's two upset victories to the Senate, in 1958 and 1964. He ran for Young's seat in 1970, surprised John Glenn in the primary, but lost to Bob Taft, Jr. (whom Young had defeated in 1964) in the general election. Glenn came back to defeat him in a 1974 Senate primary, but Metzenbaum was finally elected to the Senate on his third try, in 1976, and served three terms.

He was a significant figure in Senate history: in the late 1970s and early 1980s, after the decline of the normal filibuster but before the emergence of the contemporary culture of needing cloture votes for all major legislation, Metzenbaum developed a tactic that amounted to a one-man filibuster. On bills he didn't like, he would introduce dozens of amendments and then demand roll-call votes for each. The sponsors could either negotiate with him or see their bill delayed. When he used this tactic at the end of a congressional session, Metzenbaum had the power to unilaterally kill bills he didn't like. (Senate rules were subsequently reformed to limit this sort of dilatory amendments.)

Metzenbaum retired in 1994, and his seat was one of the eight captured by Republicans that year, as they reclaimed control of the Senate.