Looking for One Senator Willing to Make a Difference

I'm glad to see that Harry Reid will be the next Democratic Senate leader. He is an immensely smart legislator and gifted politician, who understands and appreciates the institution in the way that I always believed George Mitchell did. Let me put it this way: I hope he has the opportunity to be majority leader someday, because he will be one of the greats.

He will also be a perfectly good minority leader. But I don't think it matters so much who the minority leader is. The biggest question in the Senate is this: Who will step into the Metzenbaum role?

If you know what I mean by this, you are showing your age. Howard Metzenbaum, the Democratic Senator from Ohio who retired a decade ago played a very particular role for much of his career. He happily pissed people off. He kept a staffer on the Senate floor at all times, and if there was some bit of outrageousness being pushed through, he would rush to the floor to object, organize speakers to oppose it, or craft some parliamentary device such as "filling the amendment tree" to stop it. Metzenbaum was notably liberal, but he was not a partisan, and was happy to stand in the way of Democratic special interest maneuvering as often as Republican. Senator William Proxmire, who defeated Joseph McCarthy in 1956 and retired 32 years later, played a similar role much of the time. Paul Wellstone did too, though not quite as often as he promised to.

If no Senator adopts the Metzenbaum role, then some horrible things will be rolled through the Senate -- not only ideological extremism but simple corruption. It is hard work to constantly be prepared to do battle on the Senate floor, probably much harder than it used to be. It gets in the way of constituency meetings, travel, speeches, and all the other business that Senators squeeze into the interstices between votes. The Senator who plays this role needs to be unworried about reelection, either because it's in the bag or he's willing to lose. And he needs some experience; even though no seniority is technically required for this improvisitional role, it cannot be a freshman. Candidates for the Metzenbaum role? Russ Feingold would have to be the top pick, now that he has strengthened his hold on the seat. I'm not sure he is well-liked in the same way that Metzenbaum or Wellstone were, which helps them deal with the slings and arrows. Barbara Boxer is another possiblity. It would be an interesting role for John Kerry, returning to the Senate as an angry man, much like Al Gore, but I don't see him sustaining the interest.

Reid's role in all this: He should not have to play the Metzenbaum role himself, but he must protect whoever it is. When he forces votes on things that the Republicans would rather push through unnoticed, there will be endless complaints from Democrats that it interferes with their own travel or speaking plans, but what else is the point of being an opposition party?

It could also turn out that it's a Republican who plays the Metzenbaum role, McCain or Chuck Hagel. But I think that's much less likely.