Through the Looking Glass, Darkly: What has Become of the Senate?
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Sarah Binder
Some twenty years ago, Richard F. Fenno, Jr. published “The Senate Through the Looking Glass” – a particularly illuminating and trenchant assessment of the state of the Senate. Listening to senators debate whether to allow television cameras into the chamber, Fenno concluded that the Senate was still capable of thoughtful deliberation and consensual decision-making. In this article, I take a Fenno-inspired peek through the looking glass at the contemporary Senate, using a recent parliamentary dispute to probe senators’ views about their institution. The view is unusually dark. Two decades after Fenno’s assessment, rising partisanship has made the Senate nearly ungovernable—leaving a chamber that struggles to fulfill its most basic constitutional duties.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction
- Governing through the Senate
- Article
- On Being Second: The U. S. Senate in the Separated System
- Through the Looking Glass, Darkly: What has Become of the Senate?
- Making Laws and Making Points: Senate Governance in an Era of Uncertain Majorities
- Polarization, Obstruction, and Governing in the Senate
- Legislative Coalitions, Polarization, and the U.S. Senate
- Hanging With the Filibuster Pivot
- Senate Delegation Dynamics in an Age of Party Polarization
- The Electoral Risks of Senate Majority Leadership, or How Tom Daschle Lost and Harry Reid Won
- Obstructing Agenda-Setting: Examining Blue Slip Behavior in the Senate
- The Past and Future of the Supermajority Senate
- What the Filibuster Tells Us About the Senate
- Commentary
- Unified Budget Accounting in the United States Congress: The Persistence of Government Deficits and Debt, 1967-2010
- Review
- Review of The Speaker of the House: A Study of Leadership
- A Response to Joseph Cooper's Review of The Speaker of the House: A Study of Leadership
- Review of The Myth of Presidential Representation
- Review of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction
- Governing through the Senate
- Article
- On Being Second: The U. S. Senate in the Separated System
- Through the Looking Glass, Darkly: What has Become of the Senate?
- Making Laws and Making Points: Senate Governance in an Era of Uncertain Majorities
- Polarization, Obstruction, and Governing in the Senate
- Legislative Coalitions, Polarization, and the U.S. Senate
- Hanging With the Filibuster Pivot
- Senate Delegation Dynamics in an Age of Party Polarization
- The Electoral Risks of Senate Majority Leadership, or How Tom Daschle Lost and Harry Reid Won
- Obstructing Agenda-Setting: Examining Blue Slip Behavior in the Senate
- The Past and Future of the Supermajority Senate
- What the Filibuster Tells Us About the Senate
- Commentary
- Unified Budget Accounting in the United States Congress: The Persistence of Government Deficits and Debt, 1967-2010
- Review
- Review of The Speaker of the House: A Study of Leadership
- A Response to Joseph Cooper's Review of The Speaker of the House: A Study of Leadership
- Review of The Myth of Presidential Representation
- Review of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us
