Robert Caro:Master Of The Senate The Johnson Years

Lyndon Johnson was elected to the Senate in 1949 and served there until he became vice president under John F Kennedy in 1960. His tenure in the Senate was nothing short of political brilliance. In a relatively short time Johnson was able to gain immense power and weld it in a way that changed the political landscape and dynamics of American politics forever. Why African Americans are aligned with Democrats and not with the party of Lincoln mostly stems from Johnson time in the Senate.Johnson was driven by frantic ambition. In his third biographical installment of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro "Master of The Senate” the reader is in the position of knowing the outcome from history but as Caro sets the scene, at odds to imagine how it all can possibly be played out.

To demonstrate Johnson’s rise as Senate leader and "Master" Caro points out that there is no one leader of the Senate as such. There are leaders of majority and minority parties and the majority leader can be seen as a de-facto leader of the Senate, but unlike the House, one person does not preside with the kind of power needed to move legislation. Committee chairmen hold that power. Senate rules of seniority prevent new comers from attaining chairman positions or seats on important committees. Johnson’s clever maneuvers enabled him to become minority leader of his party in the senate and once democrats gained seats, become senate majority leader. But senate majority leader could only set the calendar for legislation coming out of committees, Johnson changed certain rules, that to senators seemed small and innocuous but in the end made Johnson in charge of all legislation coming in and out of the chamber as well as filling positions in committee seats and their leaderships regardless of seniority. The responsibilities of the Senate rested with Johnson. Johnson had the power but his ambitions were greater than that, he needed that power to become President and though he overcame great obstacles in first becoming senator by beating a very popular candidate in Texas (actually stole the election, a tale of great drama as told in Caro's second and arguably best installment "Means of Assent") Johnson had to use that power to catapult him to the White House however civil rights stood in his way.

With elections of only a third of the senate up every 6 years the senate had been designed by the nations founders as a check of not only the other branches of government but of democratic revolts that may enact hasty legislation without clear reflection. Most of the senate would not be vulnerable to elections and thus would be impervious to popular uprisings. The Senate could take its time and reflect. But time and reflection in the 1950's was not in the interest of America with incidences of lynching of African Americans in the south, Rosa Parks, the rise of Martin Luther King and the denial of voting rights, civil rights legislation had to be enacted. Johnson’s dilemma was that the south would block all civil rights legislation and if that was thwarted Johnson would lose southern support for President. If civil rights failed then Johnson would lose the rest of the country mainly northern liberals. Since Johnson was responsible for the senate he was accountable to civil rights, America’s social and political upheaval of the century rested on him and if he wanted to fulfill his ambitions he had to reconcile two intractable sides.Johnson was faced with a seemingly insurmountable hurdle. Johnson would meet the challenge and pass the civil rights act of 1957, without it none of the subsequent civil rights bills that were passed in the 60's would ever come to fruition. Johnson was not an ideologue. How he felt about civil rights depended on whom you spoke to. Johnson had blocked civil rights in the past when the time wasn't right. To southerners who wanted one of their own as president Johnson had to convince them to hold off filibuster and to allow a weak bill to pass otherwise a stronger bill may be forced on them, to liberals Johnson was to say that the south would never allow federal control over their states and to allow enforcement in the bill with trial by jury. To each he presented himself as one of them against the other. The Senate had the votes but not enough to end filibuster by the south, there was ample opportunity to change filibuster rules so that civil rights could come to a vote and Johnson had the ability to do it, but that would not suit Johnson because he would lose southern support for president. It is at this junction that we learn of Johnson’s legendary talent. Democrats of various regions of the country had different interests. Northwestern Democrats needed southern votes for Dam projects and Johnson was able to broker their support for a jury trial amendment in the civil rights bill in exchange for support. The civil rights act of 1957 would eventually pass, a bill neither side was particularly happy with, but Johnson averted what more then likely an end of his political ambitions.

Johnson is remembered as a liberal for his actions and he may not have been. Liberalism is what was needed at the time of Johnson and it is what he delivered but only because it got Johnson one step closer in his climb to power. This is not to say that he wasn’t a liberal, as congressmen he was closely associated to New Dealers and Roosevelt, but with such forward thinking he could not be otherwise. Certainly you couldn’t become president or attain popular support as a southern conservative in the 50 or 60’s.Only when we see the intricate details of this thoroughly research book do we understand the difficulties of Johnson’s time and his extraordinary ability as a politician to persevere. Caro's biography of Johnson is filled with high drama. It is necessary to learn not only the rules of the senate but the history of the chamber to understand where it was Johnson was heading when he got there, once there we can’t fathom how Johnson would ever become the power broker we know that he would become in such a short time span but he did and in writing about it Robert Caro shows us just how remarkable a politician Lyndon Johnson was.