Reasonable Disagreement

Two U.S. Senators and the Choices They Make

Karl A. Lamb

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000144222
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book examines the frequent reasonable disagreements of U.S. senators Paul Sarbanes and Dick Lugar, and finds in aspects of their life experiences reasons why they take particular positions and cast specific votes.

CHAPTER 1

Two Senators and Their Disagreements

In the final decade of the twentieth century, how does America go to war? Our eighteenth-century founders decreed that such decisions be made jointly by the president, who is commander-in-chief of the military forces, and Congress, the people’s elected representatives. Thus, in the Constitution, while the president commands the resources to make war, only Congress can “declare” war. In the eighteenth century, wars were the playgrounds of kings, often fought by mercenaries hired in foreign lands. After Napoleon, serious wars engaged entire national populations, and two of them involved most of the world. Congress has declared war five times in U.S. history; American forces have fought in several hundred conflicts—ranging from a raid on the Barbary pirates to the Korean “police action”—without the benefit of a declaration by Congress, which nevertheless continued to pay the bills.

Soon after Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, President Bush declared that the aggression “must not stand.” He assembled a coalition of nations to oppose Saddam Hussein, and he directed an immediate deployment of American forces to the Persian Gulf. But he did not consult Congress, and Congress did not complain. It did not seem right for the 250 million people of the United States to declare war on the 12 million souls of Iraq, no matter how much of the world’s oil Saddam Hussein proposed to control. A Congressional election campaign was going on, and a new, controversial issue might threaten the incumbents’ reelection.

Two days after the election, President Bush announced the doubling of the American troop commitment in the Gulf region from 200,000 to 400,000, signaling the change from a defensive to an offensive posture. Indiana Republican senator Richard G. Lugar and Senate minority leader Robert Dole publicly recommended a special session of Congress to debate the issue. President Bush would not pursue a special session when Senator Dole could not guarantee that a resolution of support would pass in the Senate. “Privately, Lugar was telling Bush it would be better to find out now whether he lacked the congressional support, rather than later.”¹

The Democratic position was dramatized in November hearings of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees. Witnesses deplored the eagerness of the Bush administration to abandon economic sanctions, arguing that the embargo would be effective if left in place for twelve to eighteen months. Maryland senator Paul S. Sarbanes was a determined spokesman for this liberal Democratic position, which was partly based on the presumed lessons of Vietnam.

In early December, at the request of the United States, the United Nations authorized member nations to use force if Iraq did not leave Kuwait by January 15, 1991. Saddam Hussein suddenly agreed to release the foreign nationals he had been holding hostage. Senator Dole claimed that Iraq’s concession vindicated President Bush’s strategy of forcing Hussein’s hand. Senator Sarbanes replied that this objective of American policy had been achieved without bloodshed; sanctions could succeed.²

In a quasi-debate on television with Richard Lugar, Paul Sarbanes argued that the administration had set the nation on a course for war, without giving sanctions a chance. Lugar replied that Saddam Hussein would be unmoved even if sanctions brought starvation to his people, but the dictator would understand force. When Lugar again called for an immediate special session of Congress, Sarbanes questioned the legitimacy of the lame duck Congress. He said that the new Congress, with a 10 percent change in personnel, would be in closer touch with the American people.³

The new Congress convened on schedule. Then President Bush asked Congress to support the use of American ground forces, and the Senate launched three days of debate which climaxed on Saturday, January 12. One by one, senators rose either to express misgivings about the rush to war or to announce regretfully that the alternatives to combat had been exhausted.

Senator Sarbanes charged that the administration’s growing impatience with economic sanctions had made it “the prisoner of its own rhetoric, with American options and [the American] timetable thereby severely constricted.”⁴ Sarbanes first quoted from, then inserted into the Congressional Record, the full testimony of former Joint Chiefs chairman Admiral William J. Crowe and other experts who claimed that economic sanctions would eventually be effective. He concluded,

The question is not between countenancing or tolerating Saddam Hussein’s aggression on the one hand and going to war on the other. There is another alternative, and the other alternative is … to make him and Iraq pay a very high price for what they have done … [W]e cannot, in good conscience and good faith, say now to any family that loses a member in a military conflict that every avenue to achieve a peaceful resolution was explored.

Some senators supporting Bush’s action claimed that congressional approval would demonstrate the seriousness of the American people to Saddam Hussein, and he would back down. Senator Lugar did not accept this wishful assumption. His statement emphasized the need for American credibility in international relations.

We are a reluctant superpower and many Americans will argue that we should not be involved all over the world in maintaining peace and advancing our ideals … Our votes today express our determination to prevail. The moment of accountability has come. I have supported President Bush as he has sought peace in international law, and I will support his request that he be authorized to use military force.

After debate was concluded, the Senate approved military action by 52 to 47. Only ten Democrats voted for the resolution, but they assured its victory. Republican Lugar voted for the resolution, while Democrat Sarbanes rejected it. The resolution was then approved by the House of Representatives and welcomed by President Bush.

This debate was better attended by Senate members than most discussions on the Senate floor. The gravity of its subject caused emotions to run high and drew more than the usual attention from the media and the public. Yet the discussion remained reasonable. Passionate convictions were expressed verbally, not physically. All senators had their say, and the final votes by both houses of Congress answered the question definitively: by a slender margin, Congress supported President Bush’s determination to launch the attack soon labeled Desert Storm.

Reasonable disagreement that leads to compromise and sometimes raucous, more often meandering, debate that usually concludes decisively are hallmarks of Senate business. But even when disagreements are reasonable, many onlookers are distressed. The inability of democratic institutions to act harmoniously disturbs a public that is attached to an abstract and unrealistic vision of democracy. Careful opinion research shows that voters are upset by features of Congress usually listed as features of democracy—disagreement, long-windedness, the recognition of organized pressure groups, and compromise.⁵

Senators Paul Sarbanes and Richard Lugar were on opposite sides of the Desert Storm debate, as they have been for most major issues decided during the two decades they have served together in the United States Senate. These two men represent the Senate mainstream, the members of the upper chamber who accomplish its business. The Edward Kennedys and the Jesse Helmses of the Senate make news by vehemently expressing opinions contrary to those of many colleagues—and of each other. The echoes of such disputes reach the general public, who complain that the politicians favor extremes and neglect the middle ground.⁶ The public seems to want the best of all worlds: legislators who avoid extreme positions to achieve compromise, while standing firmly on principle; members of Congress who are sensitive to constituent desires but do not bend in the breeze of public opinion.

Senators like Sarbanes and Lugar focus more on achieving legislation than on gaining personal publicity from the process. Sarbanes has carefully chosen to develop influence as an insider and neglects the senatorial games that attract media attention. Taking advantage of the fact that Maryland surrounds the District of Columbia on three sides, Sarbanes has maintained an ordinary private life, along with his family, living in Baltimore. Lugar emerged from involvement in Senate affairs (and frequent appearance to discuss foreign policy on Sunday morning talk shows) to seek the 1996 Republican presidential nomination. The reporters, who are the most important audience in the early primary contests, criticized the Indiana senator for being too reasonable, and hence too dull, to win convention delegates. The qualities that make him an effective senator did not serve him well in the quest for a national following, but he returned to the senatorial life in good spirits.

Paul Sarbanes has been among the most liberal of liberal Democratic senators since entering the Senate in 1977. Richard Lugar was as conservative a Republican as could be found in the Senate of the late 1970s. But his party has changed, taking a conservative stance on social issues that were not even part of public discourse twenty years ago. Some Republicans who entered the Senate long after Lugar consider him a “moderate.” The immoderate connotation of the label is to suggest a person who is essentially an outsider in the new Republican party.

Paul Sarbanes and Dick Lugar have known each other since 1954, when they met as members of the Rhodes Scholars’ sailing party, going to take up residence in Oxford. Remarkable similarities in their life stories make the differences stand out sharply. The two future senators were children of the Great Depression who were shielded by their families from its most soul-destroying aspects. They are about the same age (Sarbanes was born almost exactly ten months after Lugar); both were firstborn sons; their educations are comparable; both take religion seriously; and the timing of changes in their careers has been much alike. Their equal Senate seniority has given them neighboring office suites in the marble temple of the Hart Senate Office Building (although the offices are entered from separate corridors). Despite these similarities, they seem destined to oppose one another on public issues. The causes they have championed as senators, like their voting records, have been in striking contrast for two decades. The story of those two decades is a tale of partisanship, political change, and reasonable disagreement. This book examines their frequent disagreements and finds in aspects of their life experiences reasons why they take particular positions and cast specific votes.

Paul Sarbanes and Richard Lugar are reasonable men, able and distinguished. Though they disagree on most major issues, neither loses patience with the other, because both understand the reasons for disagreement. Their concurrent careers in the Senate have included the presidencies of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton. Lugar and Sarbanes have been caught up in the dynamics of the presidential—congressional relationship. Both have been members of the Foreign Relations Committee for most of that time, putting them at the center of the special constitutional role the Senate plays in the conduct of foreign relations.

The Research Task

The combination of political analysis and biographical detail reported here depends on access to the two subjects over an extended period of time. I have imposed my research interests on my two Oxford classmates sporadically for twenty years. I first interviewed them in 1977, in connection with a broader study. The present research was first conceived in 1980. During the campaign period of 1982, when both were running for second terms in the Senate, I visited Indiana and Maryland, recording interviews with them, their political associates, friends, and families. I was a participant-observer at campaign events. Further interviews were conducted in 1983.

In 1985, I left the University of California, Santa Cruz, to undertake administrative responsibilities at the U.S. Naval Academy, becoming a constituent of Paul Sarbanes. This meant laying aside the study of two senators, even as I moved to a city thirty miles from the Capitol building where they work. I took up the project again in 1990 and have recorded interviews with the two senators periodically while keeping in touch with their staffs. This book thus is based on two decades of sporadic research, and it was made possible by the patience of its two subjects, who somehow found time to talk about their activities, even when no book appeared to justify my curiosity.

In the vast explosion of scholarship focused on the Congress in the last three decades, the House of Representatives has received more attention than the Senate. This is probably because the House offers greater numbers, supplying the grist for quantitative studies. It is also because a scholar who wins the confidence of a member of the House is able to promise anonymity in the resulting publication. This is not so easy in the Senate, for each state has but two senators; the reader can too easily penetrate whatever disguise the writer contrives. This book is written in the belief that real senators should be identified by name.

The Determinants of Senatorial Action

Sarbanes and Lugar seem destined to disagree. While fate or destiny may explain causes in literature, it will not suffice in social science. Any explanation of why legislators act as they do must begin with a theory about the causes of, or influences upon, those actions. It necessarily begins by asking, what kind of person is the legislator?

Responding to the critics’ claim that legislators are the passive instruments of their campaign contributors, former senator Warren Rudman of New Hampshire has posed and answered the relevant question.

Who are we when we’re elected to the Senate? … We are men and women. We are not bland, neutral, blank-slate people who never suffered, and never were happy. You tend to be influenced by the sum total of life’s experiences.⁷

While Senator Rudman’s comment bears the ring of truth, the “sum total of life’s experiences” too easily becomes a catchall when discussing causality. The sum total must be broken into its comp...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: Two Senators and Their Disagreements
• Chapter 2: Personality: Becoming the Sons of Their Fathers
• Chapter 3: Ideology and the Growth of Ambition
• Chapter 4: Evolving Constituencies: The Political Cultures of Maryland and Indiana
• Chapter 5: Apprenticeships: Party Support and Political Styles
• Chapter 6: Partisanship, Ideology, and Choice
• Chapter 7: Changing Political Contexts: Policy and Presidential Influence
• Chapter 8: Reelections: Renewing Constituency Ties
• Chapter 9: Reaching for Policy Goals: The Advantages of Leadership Position
• Chapter 10: Sarbanes, Lugar, and the Senate
• Index