Since the defeat of the Obamacare repeal effort in the Senate, President Donald Trump has seemed to be on the warpath against the upper chamber. He has made negative comments about a number of Republican senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Some reports suggest he may strike out on an independent course—which might include promoting primary challengers against senators he does not like. His nice comments about Kelli Ward—who is going after Arizona Republican Jeff Flake in next year’s primary—may be a harbinger of intra-party conflicts.
Yet any presidential effort to improve the stock of Republican senators will be incredibly difficult. Trump is not alone in complaining about the Senate, but a number of institutional and personal factors cut heavily against his chances of success.
James Madison extolled the virtues of the Senate in Federalist 62 and 63, where he argued that it would be a check “to the impulse of sudden and violent passions” that may arise in the House, by empowering legislators with a “due acquaintance with the objects and principles of legislation” who can bring stability, esteem, and a sense of “national character” to the government. The Senate, Madison proclaimed, would enable the “cool and deliberate sense of the community” to prevail.
That was the public side of the argument, at any rate. Behind closed doors at the Constitutional Convention, Madison fought tooth and nail against the Senate as it was eventually agreed upon. By giving each state two members and allowing the state legislatures to appoint them, the delegates had basically imported the Congress of the Confederation into the new Constitution. Madison and his nationalist allies were deeply concerned that the state governments—which had proven themselves incapable of supplying national leadership in the 1780s—would use the new Senate to hamstring the government. But the small states insisted, and so the actual Senate represents a compromise between the high principles of Federalist 62 and 63 and the parochial demands of Delaware and New Jersey.
This is key to understanding the history of the United States Senate. As Madison predicted, it does cool the often hot-tempered initiatives of the House. But it has also proven itself a regular and formidable opponent of proposals that would clearly advance the general welfare. Senators have demonstrated a unique talent for leveraging the esteem of the “upper” chamber of Congress for the small-minded interests of their state patrons.
The most colorful critique of the Senate remains Henry Adams’s lament in The Education of Henry Adams. He reported a conversation with a cabinet secretary, who told him a member of the House “is a hog! You must take a stick and hit him on the snout!” But senators “petrified any executive officer that ever sat a week in his office.” The “comic side of their egotism” was beyond belief. Senators like Charles Sumner and Roscoe Conkling “could not be burlesqued; they were more grotesque than ridicule could make them.” This description still hits the mark. Sumner and Conkling are long gone, but it is not hard to think of a dozen (or more!) senators whose vanity is comically outsized.
Adams believed that “the most troublesome task of a reform president was that of bringing the Senate back to decency.” Troublesome indeed, for the Senate has proven itself time and again resistant to presidential influence. No president had more political capital than Franklin Roosevelt after his smashing reelection in 1936. He chose to spend it, in part, by endeavoring to replace conservative Democrats who had opposed the New Deal and his Court-packing plan. It did not go well. He managed to replace a few House members, but the conservatives in the Senate held firm, and FDR’s clout was thereafter diminished.
Ultimately, Barack Obama and Harry Reid were able to get Obamacare through the Senate only by promising a handful of goodies to recalcitrant members—the “Cornhusker Kickback” for Ben Nelson, the “Louisiana Purchase” for Mary Landrieu, etc. On the Republican side, Lisa Murkowski and John McCain voted to repeal Obamacare when Obama was still president and the vote was merely symbolic, but voted against the very narrow repeal bill this summer. In so doing, they halted a repeal effort their party had won multiple elections promising to carry out.
But what can Trump do about it? He faces the same challenges that his predecessors faced in bringing the Senate “back to decency.” It is truly an independent branch. Only a handful of Republican senators were on the ballot with Trump in 2016. Most of them would have won regardless of Trump’s performance, so what kind of sway does the president have over them? Few Republican senators are on the ballot in 2018, so Trump’s options are limited. There will be more in 2020, but Trump then will have to reckon with the challenge of his own reelection.
Another problem is the ancient compromise hammered out at the Constitutional Convention. By giving each state two senators, the Constitution established permanent political fiefdoms. Those who rise to the rank of senator usually have become masters of their states’ politics and can use their position in the upper chamber to sustain that elevated rank. Political elites—be they in the party, the press, the business community, or interest groups—are thus naturally deferential to senators. Presidents, on the other hand, are outsiders to these closed communities, and their interference is often taken as meddling.
Party politics also works to the advantage of senators. A presidential effort to oust an incumbent senator is a high-risk endeavor. The upside is getting rid of a less-than-enthusiastic supporter of the presidential agenda. The downside is the danger of electing an unflappable opponent from the other party.
These challenges confront any president in bringing about Senate reform, and Trump faces two unique problems of his own. First, he is not very popular. The Gallup poll has his approval rating among Republicans at 78 percent. That may seem high, but George W. Bush had greater than 90 percent support from the GOP at the same point in his presidency. It’s an easy bet that a portion of that 78 percent support is soft, so many Republicans will not reflexively side with Trump against their senators.
Moreover, Trump is inexperienced in politics and generally has exhibited a lack of follow-through in many initiatives. A sustained effort to oust obstinate members of Congress requires a lot of hard, careful work. Is Trump capable of this? If history is any guide, probably not. He will more likely continue to tweet caustic remarks about this or that senator when the mood strikes.
The Senate is bound to be nettlesome for just about any president. Take the inherent conservatism of the branch, toss in the parochial interests and powers of its members, separate them from the direct influence of the president—and it adds up to an institution that stubbornly makes its own way in our government. Frustrating, no doubt. But it has ever been thus, since the first Senate was gaveled into session back in 1789. There is little Trump can do about this.
Jay Cost is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.
