Leadership in the Slow Lane

While slightly unconventional, the earnest request of Indiana Republican Sen. Dan Quayle's six-year-old daughter (Conconi, 1985, p. B3) is nothing new to Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R-Kan.). Indeed, Majority Whip Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) has said that the senators Dole must lead are “like children lining up in the elementary school classroom asking when they can go to the bathroom” (Granat, 1983, p. 1429). They are all impatient, and they all want their way. When Quayle was elected in 1980 no one suggested that it would be a 9-to-5 job. And it has not been. Late night sessions, filibusters, endless quorum calls, repeated and repetitive votes numbering in the hundreds, crowded schedules, and yes, even the plaintive request of a six-year-old daughter conspire to make life difficult for a senator. On this particular night, Quayle could make his daughter's performance. Not so much because of the note she had sent to Dole, but because Dole and other Republican senators were scheduled to roast Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and then quickly return to the House to hear President Reagan report on his Geneva summit meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev. As majority leader, Dole must play to at least five closely related constituencies and overcome numerous obstacles to succeed. He must represent Reagan. He must represent his Republican Party colleagues. He must protect the interests of the 22 Republican Senate seats at risk in the 1986 election—including his own. He must represent and to some extent promote the interests of the entire Senate. And, of course, he must represent the people of Kansas. It need hardly be added that the interests of these constituencies frequently conflict.