by Peter Baker
Collins, forty-six, had grown up in the tiny Maine town of Caribou, the daughter of a lumber dealer and a religious educator who had schooled her early on about politics. Both mother and father had served as mayor of her hometown. After working for Cohen in Washington for twelve years, she had returned to Maine and eventually launched her own political career, winning Cohens seat as her first elected position when he retired from the Senate in 1996. Unlike some of her Republican colleagues who had long ago made up their minds on Bill Clinton, Collins felt torn as the trial loomed. She could not get over Clintons recklessnessit was as if he could not stop doing wrong, could not tell the truth, almost like a sociopath who wanted to be caught. She initially thought he would resign and that it would never come to the Senate, but eventually concluded that Clinton had no shame.
As the trial began, Collins resolved to put aside her anger to take a fresh look at the evidence. I look at the faces of my colleagues, wondering could we indeed do impartial justice? she wrote in her diary that night. Could we cast aside partisan labels and hear the evidence, not as Republicans and Democrats, but as American jurors? Could we meet the challenge before us? The oath is intended to be transformational. It transforms the Senate from a body of partisan politicians into an impartial jury sworn to seek the truth.
Yet she was already wondering what would happen if she came to the conclusion that the evidence was not enough. A former aide sent her an article over Christmas by Joseph Isenbergh, a University of Chicago professor who offered the novel idea that the Senate could vote first on conviction and then separately on removalin essence, allowing senators to make the judgment that Clinton did the things he was accused of doing while concluding that it was not enough to merit eviction from office. The article noted that the Senate had taken such a two-stage vote on an impeachment as early as 1804, at a time when the constitutional framers thoughts on such issues were far more current than now. Collins was intrigued and filed the article away for future reference.
At the moment, though, the issue at hand was how to start the trial, not end it. Around the Capitol, small groups of senators convened to advance one idea or another. As the day wore on, Republicans became frustrated that the bipartisan caucus suggested on the floor by Don Nickles had not come together because Daschle had not signed off on it, so Lott decided to go forward with the GOP-drafted procedural plan and simply force it through on the strength of his majority. He scheduled a vote for 5 P.M. and went to the Republican cloakroom to tell his senators, but the noise made it hard to hear and people were confused about what they would be voting for. Connie Mack, the Florida Republican who chaired the partys conference, grabbed Lott by the arm and told him he should call a formal meeting of all the GOP senators.
At 2:30 P.M., the Republicans gathered to hear Lott describe their strategy. Daschle was balking at the joint caucus and pushing the Gorton-Lieberman plan again, the majority leader explained, so they would go to the floor and put the two competing plans to a test, which the GOP would presumably win. Lott explained their version of the proceduresthe House managers would get five days to present their case, the senators would get two days to pose questions, motions to dismiss the case and to subpoena witnesses would be allowed, and the trial would end by February 5.
Some of the moderates began grumbling. Forcing a partisan vote would be a disaster, they said. It would start off the trial in the same way the House impeachment inquiry was started, coloring it permanently with the hue of partisan politics. At the back of the room, Senator Olympia Snowe stood up. Snowe shared the same moderate-to-liberal instincts of Susan Collins, her junior colleague from Maine, but carried more authority because of her longer tenure. Im not voting with you, she declared. I wont do it. This is a mistake. We should not give up this easily. We should have a bipartisan meeting in the morning. She had talked with several Democrats, she said, and they were receptive to the idea.
Lotts majority was beginning to dissolve. Ted Stevens, the crusty Appropriations chairman who had tried to broker a deal with the managers, concurred with Snowe. He was a juror, he said, and so was everyone else in the room. Their role as jurors was not to play legislator as if this were a spending bill. They ought to keep the idea of the bipartisan caucus alive because Lott could not afford to rely entirely on his majority. Im not going to vote with you at some point, Stevens warned.
Collins, Arlen Specter, and John Chafee of Rhode Island were also pushing Lott to give the joint caucus another chance. The arithmetic was not hard; with that many Republicans balking, that meant that Lott did not even have fifty-one votes to force through his procedural plan on the floor. The room was tense. Lotts leadership was on the line. After the budget deal he had brokered with Clinton the previous fall, after his flirtation with the Gorton-Lieberman truncated-trial plan, after his unilateral negotiations with the Democrats, many of the Republican senators did not trust their leader. In turn, Lott was growing aggravated with his splintered caucus. Each of them had his or her own idea about the way things should run and had no appreciation for what he had been trying to do.
Look, Ive stuck my neck out for bipartisanshit, he blurted out in frustration. Ship! he quickly corrected. He meant to say bipartisanship. The room laughed at the Freudian slip. Maybe he had gotten it right the first time? Lott continued undaunted, I stuck my neck out and some of you chopped it off.
The mood remained prickly. Pat Roberts from Kansas got up to make the point that the public did not care what they were doing. Voters were not paying attention. He had asked his staff to record what was happening across the television spectrum at 1:30 P.M., and the senator then gave a rib-tickling rendition of what the country was actually watchingLuke loves Laura, a storm front moving in on North Carolina, that sort of thing. Im sorry, he said, but weve got to quit peeing down each others legs.
Daschle was sitting in the outer lobby of Lotts office, waiting to talk things over with the majority leader and unaware of the grief his counterpart was taking in the Republican meeting. A television set was carrying live the latest in the endless stream of press availabilities by senators at the media stakeout in the corridor. On the screen at the moment was Republican Jon Kyl of Arizona, who as it turned out was excoriating Daschle for rejecting the proposed bipartisan caucus. Daschle watched in astonishment. That wasnt at all what had happened. What kind of good faith was this? He was being blamed for the breakdown in negotiations after all he had done to find a bipartisan accommodation? Frustration boiled up inside and Daschle stormed out of the office.
Tell Senator Lott weve gone to the floor, he snapped to one of the Republican aides as he left.
As soon as he returned and heard what had happened, Lott rushed out of his office to find Daschle to try to smooth things over. He found him on the floor and the two sat down together to talk. Contrary to what Kyl had said, Daschle told Lott that he was willing to hold the joint caucus meeting. Daschle wanted a deal as much as the other side did. Lott was happy to hear it. Given Olympia Snowes over-my-dead-body speech, he knew he had to find a way of getting out of the scheduled vote.
One more thing, Daschle said. All these misunderstandings are impeding our ability to do this. The only way were going to resolve this is if you and I go to the gallery together. By that, Daschle meant the press gallery so that they could announce the joint caucus together.
At 5:30 P.M., the two appeared side by side in front of the television cameras and expressed a little of the difficulty they were facing. Senator Daschle and I are not dictators, Lott told the reporters. We are leaders that are getting some latitude by our conferences and our caucuses, but we have to bring along ninety-eight other senators. We are struggling very hard to do that.
Still, Lott was flush with the momentary victory. He had headed off a potentially calamitous confrontation with the Democrats, not to mention a possible insurrection within his own ranks, while paving the way for a possible bipartisan consensus on how to proceed with the trial. On day one, at least, the situation had
not blown up. As they prepared to leave the press gallery, a broadly grinning Lott grabbed Daschles hand and thrust it in the air triumphantly, almost as if they were political ticket-mates who had just won an election.
Downstairs in the Republican cloakroom, about a dozen senators were watching the performance on television. Rick Santorum, the Pennsylvania conservative who had moved over from the House in the 1994 election and remained close to the revolutionaries there, exploded in anger and complained loudly about what he had just seen. Lott was caving in to the Democrats! Again! Santorum threw his hands in the air, then threw his whole body around in aggravation and finally stalked out of the room.
So it was that Lott had quelled a storm on one side only to ignite another one on the opposite flank. At 5:45 P.M., he convened the Republican conference again to try to explain what he had done and heard more grousing from his troops. Several of them got up to say that the House team did not want the twenty-four hours of opening arguments Lott was planning to offer them; they wanted witnesses like a real trial. The Senate Republicans were undermining their own compatriots from the House, several complained. But others thought the managers were asking for trouble. They did not understand the dynamics in the Senate. Someone had better go over there and straighten them out.
Lott agreed and decided to talk to the managers himself, on their turf. And he had another ideaSantorum should go with him. Santorum, for all his pique at the way things were unfolding, understood the realities of the situation, and would serve as an emissary the managers could trust. If Santorum told them that there was no assurance of witnesses, they would have to listen.
Across Capitol Hill at the Rayburn Building, the managers were already meeting in the Judiciary Committee conference room and venting their disgust at what was happening.
Im not going to be part of a show trial, growled Chris Cannon, manager from Utah. Cannon reported that he had spoken earlier that day with both of his states Republican senators, Orrin Hatch and Robert F. Bennett. Despite their supportive comments before the television cameras, both told him on the phone to give up the idea of a full trial with witnesses. Cannon was riled up. How could they say one thing in public and then stick the dag ger into the managers backs in private? He thought of Hatch like a brother, and now to have him effectively telling Cannon to roll over?
As the managers were sharing their gripes, Lott and Santorum arrived uninvited and unannounced. The majority leader of the Senate seldom deigned to come over to House turf to meet with anyone less than the Speaker himself. The two senators sat down at the conference table, flanking Hyde, Lott on the left and Santorum on the right. They were there to explain where things stood, they said. Lott laid out his proposal for the managers: Each side would get twenty-four hours over five days to present its case without witnesses. The senators would have two days for a question-and-answer session, and then motions to call witnesses or dismiss the case would be considered. If witnesses were rejected, final votes would take place by February 5. If they were called, the votes would happen by February 12.
To the managers, it was clear what twenty-four hours meant. It meant the Senate would give them a fig-leaf trial designed mostly to cover the senators own posteriors. After twenty-four hours of arguments from each side, the senators could declare that the case was adequately presented and that witnesses were unnecessary.
Some of us have a problem with whats going on, Hyde told Lott, and then turned to Cannon. Chris?
Cannon lived up to his name. This deal is designed to screw us! he exploded. They were cutting the managers off at the knees. This was a whitewash. Cannon was steaming mad and held nothing back out of deference to the most powerful senator. Where Lott tried to be gracious, Cannon was pugnacious. Were a coequal house here! The worst thing that could happen here is you could give us rules that we will not follow!
Hyde let the confrontation play out. To some in the room, he seemed testy, almost fatalistic, like an actor who had already read to the end of the script to see that the final scene did not go well for him. But several others joined in Cannons assault on Lott, including Bob Barr and Jim Rogan.
I have a problem calling this a trial, Barr said.
Thats just semantical, Lott retorted.
More than semantical, one of the managers shot back. This was not a trial.
Lott tried to empathize with the managers. I was in the House. I was where you guys are. I sat on the Judiciary Committee during Watergate. Im not against you guys. He enlisted Santorum to reinforce the point. Look, I brought Rick along because I thought youd really respect Ricks judgment.
Santorum backed up Lott. Trents one of us. Hes not here to try to cut anybody off. But hes got to run the Senate. Hes not the Speaker. Hes the majority leader, he has to lead. Santorum tried to reason with the managers. He still spent a lot of time with his former colleagues in the House, still came over to use the House gym three times a week. I want you to have witnesses. I want this to work. But I think this is the best we can do. He tried a baseball analogy. We dont know how were going to get to home plate. This is a way of getting to second base.
The senators were getting nowhere. Finally, the managers asked Lott and Santorum to leave the room so they could speak candidly among themselves. Unaccustomed to being kicked out of meetings, Lott nonetheless politely stepped out. While he cooled his heels for the next fifteen minutes, the managers thrashed about for what to do. Some argued they should just walk out. They should not dignify a sham. Hyde, though, had no interest in such a protest. They had a job to do, no matter how unpleasant the Senate was making it. For now, at least, they decided to hold out for witnesses and take eight hours for opening argumentsno more.
Eight hours? Lott asked incredulously when he was readmitted to the conference room. You need fifty hours!
Youre putting us in a box, Santorum said.
Youre putting us in a box, one of the managers replied.
At this point, Hyde the conciliator tried one last time to find a middle ground. Well, we can go twelve hours. But as he looked around the table, he was met with disapproving glares from his fellow managers and quickly reversed himself. Well, no, well go eight hours.
Lott surrendered for the moment. All right, he sighed. Ill go back and see if I can sell this to Daschle. We just want to look after you. But Lott warned the managers that however many hours they got for opening arguments, Dont use all your time arguing for witnesses. Id make your case.
Heavenly Father, began Senator Daniel K. Akaka, delivering the opening prayer, we are in trouble and we need your help. Weve come to a point where we dont know what to do.
Amid much tension and uncertainty, the senators had gathered at nine-thirty the next morning, Friday, January 8, under the half-dome ceiling of the Old Senate Chamber, located down the hall from their modern home and now used mainly as a museum stop for tourists. Smaller and more intimate than the current chamber, the room, with its massive chandelier, gilt eagle and shield, spittoons, and feathered quills, harkened back to its antebellum heyday, when it hosted the Senate from 1810 to 1859 and witnessed such larger-than-life figures as Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun debate the future of the young nation. In this room, the Missouri Compromise was brokered, abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner was beaten by a cane-wielding Southern congressman, and President Andrew Jackson was censured for refusing to turn over a document related to the Bank of the United States. Within three years of Jacksons reprimand in 1834, his fellow Democrats had recaptured control of the Senate and expunged the censure.
That history was not lost on senators as they found seats in the room now, instinctively arranging themselves along party lines as they did in the regular chamber, Republicans on the right and Democrats on the left, even though seats were not assigned. Folding chairs were brought in to accommodate the growth of the Senate in the last 140 years, but there were no television cameras, no microphones, no sound systems. In fact, some of the senators in the back had a hard time hearing the
soft-spoken Akaka as the Hawaii Democrat led them in a brief prayer at Lotts request.
Fearing that their most partisan members could make a difficult situation even worse, Lott and Daschle had privately collaborated to stack the deck. The night before, they had agreed to steer the meeting into a more productive direction by opening it with statements by three members from each caucus who would command the respect of their peers and were serious about finding accommodation. By agreement of both sides, Robert Byrd was tapped to go first to set the historical and constitutional stage for his younger brethren. At eighty-one, Byrd occupied a unique perch in the firmament of the U.S. Senate. Byrd had served in Congress for forty-six yearsforty of them in the Senateand was one of only three Americans elected to seven consecutive terms in the upper body. Silver-haired, punctilious, and proud, Byrd looked the part of the old-school senator and played it too, seeing himself as the guardian of the bodys prerogatives and principles. He had literally written the history of the Senate in a four-volume set. Byrd had been appalled by everything that had happened regarding Monica Lewinsky, from the original affair to the presidents dissembling to the proceedings in the House. He told colleagues he had watched literally every minute of the House hearings, and did nothing to hide his disgust.
The White House has sullied itself, he told his fellow senators. The House has fallen into the black pit of partisan self-indulgence. The Senate is teetering on the brink of that same black pit.