The Lieberman Issue: Will It Change Majority? Maybe Not…

I have spent the better part of my evening reading the Rules of the Senate, various portions of Congressional record, quite a few Senate resolutions, and a bit of history. I am far from an expert in the matter, but here is what I think I understand the situation to be if Lieberman bolts the Democratic caucus.

The Senate organizes itself the first week of a new Congress according to majority rules. When there is a special situation, say a tie, the leadership on both sides negotiates the structure the Senate. This Congress, the 110^th, on 12 January 2007 agreed to the Committee assignments for the current Congress in S.Res.27 and S.Res.28. It is clear that the organization of the Senate this time designated (as expected) the Democrats as being the majority party in spite of it truly being a tie – 49 Republicans, 49 Democrats, with 2 Independents. Whether this is because both Independents had decided to caucus with the Democrats, or because it was fairly clear in the November 2006 elections that the citizenry wanted a change in leadership, it’s moot.

Here’s what does matter. The last time there was a party tie in the Senate was in the 107th Congress that took office in January 2001. At the time, Democrat Al Gore was the outgoing Vice President and Dick Cheney, a Republican, was the incoming Vice President, giving the Democrats the majority for roughly two weeks. In deference to the 50-50 party tie – no Independents – and to the fact that Cheney would be the President of the Senate, breaking any tie votes with a vote for the Republicans, then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) struck a deal doling out Committee membership evenly, to represent the evenly divided Senate, but gave the Republicans the Chairmanship of each Committee. The Senate, via S.Res.8 of the 107th Congress, agreed to this organization.

However, there was a provision included in this organizing resolution that if either party were to attain a majority of “whole number of Senators” during the duration of the 107th Congress, that the Committee Chairmanships and membership ratio would change to reflect the majority party and the provisions of S.Res.8 would have “no further effect.” Though not foreseen at the time, it ended up being a pretty brilliant move for Democrats in hindsight, when Senator Jim Jeffords (VT) bolted from the Republican Party to become an Independent, effectively making the Senate party ratio 50 Democrat, 49 Republican, and 1 Independent. Regardless of where Jeffords chose to caucus, a majority of Democrats was still created.

In the current Congress, the 110^th, the Senate, in their organizational resolutions, made no such provision; therefore leaving the assignments and designations in the Democratic majority through the end of the 110^th Congress. This is where it gets a bit confusing, but I have heard some argue that because there was no such provision included in their resolutions, the initial organizing would hold regardless of party membership changes. Sure enough, according to Senate Rule XXV, Section 1, it does seem as though the organizational resolutions decided at the beginning of a Congress stand for the entirety of that Congress, unless, according to Section 4.(c), an agreement is entered into by both the Majority and Minority leaders “temporarily from time to time…as may be required to accord the majority party a majority of the membership” in committees.

Now, this is ambiguous enough for I’m sure a major power brawl to take place, but it does stipulate that both leaders need to agree, which will be interesting to observe at the very least for those of us who enjoy watching the Senate. Also, I don’t think any of this will necessarily apply in the case of wayward Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT for now). If Lieberman chooses to simply change caucus, that still does not make a true Republican majority; the Senate is still tied 49-49-2. It would however possibly become that huge brawl if he were to actually change parties and not just merely change caucus. That would surely put the Senate Rules to the test; so we’ll have to wait and see.

For those wondering about the Cheney “tie effect” of affording the majority to the Republicans because he is President of the Senate, the effect would not apply for two reasons. First, there is not a solid tie; 49-49-2 is not an even party split of the Senate as there was in 2001 - there are three affiliations represented. The second reason is that the Vice President does not serve to be counted as a party member in the Senate; while he is the President of the Senate, in Article 1, Section 3 of the Constitution, it clearly specifies that he has “no vote unless they be equally divided.” This has always been defined as having the tie-breaking vote if a vote in the Senate is deadlocked 50-50; it does not presume to count the Vice President as an extra party member in the count for control of the Senate when the Senate is not equally divided.

In sum, I do not think any majority party change is even questionable if Senator Lieberman were simply to change caucus, but only if he were to change parties. And I would like to leave you with some Senate history, circa 1953. The election of 1952 handed the majority of the Senate to the Republican Party, 48-47, with 1 Independent, Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, who had just left the Republican Party and intended to vote as an Independent. However, in the summer of 1953, Senate Majority Leader Robert Taft (R-OH) died and the Governor of Ohio appointed a Democrat to take his place in the Senate, effectively handing the majority to the Democrats, 48-47-1. With the gentlemanly spirit of the Senate that is so often missing these days, Senator Morse, though having left the Party, stated his intention that to preserve the majority that had previously been established, he would vote with the Republican Party on organizational matters, making those resolutions an even-vote tie, with Republican Vice President Nixon casting the tie-breaking vote. I hope Senator Lieberman can keep this story in mind when he makes his decision.

One last aside; being a Democrat myself, may I state that we’ll trade you Lieberman for Hagel; we’re ok with a certain amount of conservatism, as evidenced by many of our elected Senate members…

Here's the link to Senate Rule XXV:

http://rules.senate.gov/senaterules/rule25.php

If you would like to read the resolutions, you can retrieve them from http://thomas.loc.gov; they are 107^th Congress, S.Res.8, and 110^th Congress, S.Res.27 and S.Res.28.