Evening star., 1949-03-12
The Political Mill
Integrity Of Senate Rules
Was Issue Before Body
Vandenbergs Argument Is Citef on
Cloture Controversy
r., EouJJ TsucoIs


Cloture Controversy
By Gould Lincoln
The complexities of Senate voting aave
rarely been more clearly demonstrated than
in the decision, by the Upper House, on Vice
President Barkley's ruling that the cloture
rule may be invoked to end debate on q
motion to take up measure"
The smashing defeat of the Truman and
pro-civil rights forces was due to many
causes.
The Senate split-and not along party
lines-over a number of questions involved
in this single VOTE It split first over the
Presidents civil rights program, which the
Barkley ruling was supposed to advance.
1t split next over the fact that former pre-
siding officers of the Senate had ruled just
opposite to the ruling of Vice President
Barkley. 1t split also because the Vice Pres
ident is Democrat, and no longer ago
than last August Senator Vandenberg of
Michigan, Republican president pro tenn
pore of the Senate, handed down a ruling
the reverse of Mr.. Barkleys. 1t split because
some Of the Senators-notably Republican,
wished to hamString President Truman's
program. of which the civil rights measures
are only part, and because other Senators,
notably the Truman Democrats, were keenly
anxious to advance the program. 1t split
because some Senators believe in cloture
and others do not.
Rule Adopted in 1917.
Yet the real issue before the Senate. as
Mr.. Vandenberg clearly pointed out. was
the integrity of the Senate rules. That is
what the Senators were called upon to vote
up or down. For the cloture rule of the
Senate, as written in 1917 and never
amended specifies that cloture may be in
voked on any pending measure" In the
well understand, the pending measure" Is
any measure which the Senate has agreed
to take up-and not a motion to take up
the measure. The Barkley ruling made a
mere motion to take up pending meas
ure." The Senators who wrote the rule
understood very well what they were doing
and if they left loopholes in the rule which
would make it possible for future flibusters
they probably were fully cognizant of the
fact.
The cloture rule as adopted in 1917 was
the maximum which could be obtained.
There were in the Senate in those days
members who hated the idea of cloture-a
forced closing Of debate-and members who
were just as strongly opposed to antilynch-
ing, anti-poll tax and antisegregation legis-
lation as there are today. Within couple
of years after the cloture rule had been
adopted the Senate, composed in the main
of Senators who had adopted the cloture
rule, by it's own action revealed one Of the
loopholes in the rule. Senator Norris OF
Nebraska, during the League of Nations
fight made a point of order that cloture
could not be invoked to end debate on a
reservation to treaty-since the treaty was
the pending business Of the Senate and not
the reservation. His point of order was
sustained.
Seen Idle Argument
The argument, therefore, that the rule
was written by Senators who intended clo-
ture to apply to anything before the Senate
seems rather idle. Especially so, because
other later rulings held that cloture could
not be applied to motions to amend the
Senate journal, and finally that it could not
be applied to motion to take up measure.
Mr. Vandenberg's argument to the Sem
ate on the Barkley ruling was both able and
convincing. But as Mr. Vandenberg pointed
out Senators were losing sight of the real
issue-the integrity of the Senate rules and
the fact that only the Senate not pre-
siding officer should change its rules AS
he further pointed out, the attitude of many
of the Senators boiled down to the old argu-
ment that "the end justifieS the means"
They wanted to be able to press forward
the civil rights program; they wanted to
be in position to press forward other features
of the Presidents program; they wanted to
make cloture iron-clad in the Senate.
This complexity in the Senate is not un-
usual Indeed many things enter into al
most every roll-call vote in the Upper House,
personal political, partisan, sectional In
volved in the vote on the Barkley ruling
may have been the very life of the Senate
filibuster, and to considerable degree the
right of free and unlimited debate in the
Senate To find the Senate without any Of
these is tantamount to finding Hamlet"
without Hamlet.