CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Tuesday night muzzling of Elizabeth Warren by Republicans on the U.S. Senate floor has brought new interest to an arcane parliamentary procedure meant to prevent senators from insulting — and/or physically attacking — each other.
Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, interrupted Warren, invoking a section of Senate Rule 19, which lays out how and when senators are allowed to debate. Warren had been reading a 1986 letter from Corretta Scott King, the late widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., criticizing Sen. Jeff Sessions, President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Attorney General. The Senate voted along party lines to prevent Warren from speaking anymore as Sessions’ confirmation is debated.
The move made Warren the political left’s cause celebre of the moment. But it also got us wondering — where did this rule come from, and how has it been used before?
What’s the backstory for Rule 19?
The rule’s origins are in a fistfight that erupted in February 1902 on the Senate floor between two Democratic senators from South Carolina, according to the U.S. Senate Historical Office.
Sen. Benjamin Tillman had become angry with Sen. John McLaurin, who had changed his vote and joined Republicans in voting to annex the Philippines.
Tillman said McLaurin had succumbed to “improper influences,” alleging that McLaurin bartered his vote for a promise by Republicans to control government patronage in South Carolina, and for appointments to committee seats.
McLaurin, who was in another hearing, heard what Tillman had said and dashed into the Senate Chamber. He said Tillman’s allegation was a “willful, malicious and deliberate lie.”
In response, Tillman, 54, physically attacked McLaurin, 41, “with a series of stinging blows,” according to the Senate history office. Colleagues who separated them caught a few punches in the process.
After a two-hour debate, both South Carolina senators were “declared in contempt of the Senate” and eventually were censured. About six months later, the Senate approved changes to Rule 19, declaring that “No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.”
The rule update also said “No Senator in debate shall refer offensively to any State of the Union.”
Besides Warren, has the rule ever been used to stop someone from talking?
Although our search only goes back about 50 years, we could only find one other instance.
In 1979, Republican Sen. John Heinz, of Pennsylvania, brought debate to a halt after Republican Sen. Lowell Weicker referred to him as “an idiot” and “devious,” according to an Associated Press account.
During debate of an appropriations bill, Weicker had questioned Heinz’s support of an amendment that would give a Pennsylvania steel company a federally guaranteed $63.5 million loan.
A Colorado senator said he agreed with Weicker, saying Heinz’s bill would give an unfair disadvantage to a Colorado company. Heinz questioned whether that Colorado company was a subsidiary a company in Connecticut, which Weicker represented.
Weicker responded: “When a member substitutes innuendo for fact or the persuasion of logic… he is either an idiot or devious and the senator from Pennsylvania qualifies in both ways.”
Heinz got mad and stormed to the Senate president’s desk with a copy of the Senate rule book. He cited Rule 19, and Weicker was made to sit down until senators figured things out.
After about 10 minutes, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd got both men to shake hands, and debate resumed. The incident was stricken from the Senate record.
Is that it?
As far as we can tell, yes, although it’s possible we’re missing something.
We did find plenty of senators referencing the rule.
– Republican Sen. Arlen Specter didn’t enjoy it in 2007 when Democratic Sen. Harry Reid called Republican senators “puppets” of then-President George W. Bush.
In 2005, Republican Sen. Ted Stevens demanded an apology from Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin for questioning why Stevens didn’t call oil company executives to testify under oath.
– In 1981, Republican Sen. Jesse Helms took exception when Weicker — that guy again — referred to Helms’ support for an anti-forced busing measure as “anti civil-rights” and “demagoguery.” The Senate’s presiding officer, Republican Sen. James McClure, subsequently read Rule 19 out loud without comment.
– In 1992, Byrd called a comment by Republican Sen. Hank Brown “as irresponsible a statement as I have ever heard in my 34 years in the Senate.” After Republican Sen. Al D’Amato referenced Rule 19, Byrd said it was the first time that “any senator tried to call [him] out of order on the basis of Rule 19,” according to the Washington Post.
But it wasn’t the last.
– In 1995, Republican Sen. Bob Dole threatened to invoke Rule 19 when Byrd — that guy again — called Dole “tawdry” and “sleazy” in his pursuit of a federal balanced budget constitutional amendment.
– In 2015, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz McConnell a liar on the Senate floor.
GOP Senate leadership was not impressed. Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch remarkably opened a subsequent Senate session by warning Cruz, sternly reading Rule 19.
None of these senators were forced to stop speaking for violating the rule, though.
Anything else?
There are a couple of instances of rude behavior on the Senate floor that didn’t apparently result in Rule 19 coming up.
The Fix, a Washington Post political blog, said Republican Sen. Tom Cotton described Reid’s leadership as “cancerous” in May 2016.
In 2004, then-Vice President Dick Cheney, a Republican, told Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy to “go [blank] yourself” on the Senate floor. I guess that’s not technically “imputing” Durbin’s “conduct or motive.”
What did Warren do again?
Warren was reading from a 1986 statement from Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which criticized Sessions’ record on civil rights, and said he lacked “the temperament, fairness and judgment to be a federal judge.” (Session’s appointment ended up being withdrawn.)
Republicans said they’d previously warned Warren for reading a letter from the late Sen. Ted Kennedy that called Sessions a “disgrace.”
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