Senate Discord Drains Power of Finance Chief - While all the committees have surrendered influence in recent years, the Finance Committee had typically been considered above all others since its creation in the early 1800s.

From The New York Times:

After the Reagan landslide of 1980 swept Bob Dole into the chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee, Mr. Dole was not sure how to break the news to Russell B. Long, the Louisiana Democrat who had presided over the panel with unquestioned authority for 15 years.       

“Who is going to tell Russell?” asked an anxious Mr. Dole.
      

That the incoming chairman of the Finance Committee was nervous about approaching the deposed head speaks volumes about the power vested in that position and the men who have held it.

      

The imminent departure of Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, from both the Senate and the committee has put a new focus on the panel and the chairmanship, which has declined in stature and influence compared with the vital role it played in the Senate almost from the beginning. Without a shift in the power structure of the Senate, it appears likely the next committee leader will have only a fraction of the clout of those in the past.

      

In addition to Mr. Russell, the esteemed chairmanship was the domain of such Senate forces as Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, Mr. Dole of Kansas and Bob Packwood of Oregon (before his fall in a sexual misconduct scandal). Many other prominent Senate figures also held the gavel over the centuries.

      

The committee handles all tax and revenue legislation, trade and tariffs; oversees Social Security and Medicare; and vets crucial nominations like the top jobs at the Departments of Treasury and Health and Human Services.

      

When President Lyndon B. Johnson yearned to cut taxes in 1964, he knew he could not succeed without tirelessly wooing Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia, the Democrat who held the Finance Committee job for a decade before Mr. Long.

      

“As powerful as Lyndon Johnson was, he was powerful because he knew how to play the committee chairs,” said Richard A. Baker, a former Senate historian.

      

Mr. Baker says he sees power ebbing from the Finance Committee because of a consolidation of control in the offices of the floor leaders. That is where most of the main decisions on policy and legislative priorities are made these days — in suites on the second floor of the Capitol rather than in the committee rooms of the Senate office buildings.

      

“It has been a gradual accretion through the ’80s and ’90s in the direction of the floor leader,” said Mr. Baker, a co-author of the book “The American Senate: An Insider’s History.”

      

While all the committees have surrendered influence in recent years, the Finance Committee had typically been considered above all others since its creation in the early 1800s.

      

“The Finance Committee is second to none in the Senate in terms of the legislative responsibilities entrusted to it,” declared a 1981 history of the committee commissioned by Mr. Dole when he became chairman.

      

When a special committee led by Senator John F. Kennedy was formed in 1959 to select five outstanding senators through history, all five — Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Robert M. La Follette Sr. and Robert A. Taft — had served on the committee and Webster, Clay and Calhoun were chairmen.

      

The committee has traditionally been viewed as a microcosm of the Senate, with the notion that a measure that could clear the Finance Committee with a bipartisan majority stood a solid chance of success in the Senate because members of the panel were representative of the whole Senate.

      

The committee also had a deep history of working in a bipartisan fashion to push its major legislation. But with the decline of the spirit of bipartisanship and trust between members of the Senate, some of the power of the Finance Committee and its chairman has dissipated with it.

      

“You have an eclectic mix of people on the committee who have become less and less bipartisan,” said Tom Daschle, the former Democratic Senate leader, who also served on the committee. “The environment is so different regardless of leadership.”

      

As control of the Senate — and of the committee leadership — has shifted between parties, the power of the chairman has diminished. Senate Republicans have put a six-year limit on how long a member can serve as chairman of a single committee.

 

Senator Ron Wyden, the policy-driven Oregon Democrat who is in line to become chairman, has tried the bipartisan route in the past. He first wrote a bipartisan tax overhaul with Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, and then with Senator Dan Coats, Republican of Indiana, after Mr. Gregg left the Senate. The plan has gotten little traction but stands to get more attention now.

 

Mr. Wyden was burned by his reach across the aisle when he joined Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin in promoting a major Medicare overhaul. Republicans, in defending Mr. Ryan’s privatization plan after he became their vice-presidential candidate in 2012, often cited Mr. Wyden’s support, forcing Mr. Wyden to back away from it.

      

Mr. Baucus also drew criticism for working too closely with Republicans on both taxes and social policy. Fellow Democrats thought Mr. Baucus ceded too much and was being used by Republicans to stall health care legislation. The law ended up drawing no Republican support despite Mr. Baucus’s determined overtures even though Republicans had originated some of the central policy ideas.

      

Still, a seat on the Finance Committee remains a sought-after post and the chairmanship a coveted slot even in a Senate environment that limits its reach.

      

“It is the most powerful and most important committee, but it is the most powerful and most important committee in a dysfunctional Senate,” said Lawrence O’Donnell, an MSNBC host and political analyst who served as the committee’s staff director for two years when Mr. Moynihan was chairman.

      

“Every job in the Senate is less enviable,” he said. “The best job you can have in the Senate is chairmanship of the Finance Committee, but it is the worst version of the job that has existed in my life.”

      

At least Mr. Wyden does not have to worry about breaking any news to Mr. Baucus, whose nomination as ambassador to China is likely to cause him to leave before his term expires.

      

Mr. Dole, in a later speech, said he never worked up the nerve to inform Mr. Long. And he recounted that when the committee voted for the first time after his takeover, he steeled himself for his inaugural vote as the man in charge.

      

Instead, when the clerk called, “Mr. Chairman,” Mr. Long voted aye before Mr. Dole could speak. Such was the power of the Finance Committee chairman, even when he was the ex-chairman.