Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander’s recent decision to resign from the Republican leadership team in January caught many by surprise—and will leave the GOP hierarchy in the Senate with an even more conservative tilt than it already has.
Alexander, a moderate who prefers bipartisan solutions to confrontation, admits that he has “gradually chafed” within a leadership organization that has largely set as its goal toppling President Obama in next year’s election. Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., twice inquired whether Alexander was content to remain in the leadership. The former governor, university president and two-time presidential candidate who favored plaid shirts and middle-of-the-road policies, now wants to see if he can have more impact as a free-lance consensus builder than as a mid-level GOP leader with dubious prospects for advancement.
As Republican Conference chairman, the 71-year-old Tennessee lawmaker holds the number three post, behind McConnell and Republican Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz, who has announced he was not seeking reelection to the Senate.
Alexander considered trying to move up next year, but that was not a sure bet with the much more conservative Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., who heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, also coveting the number two post. Even simply trying to hold on to his current leadership post might have been a challenge, with other, far more conservative colleagues, looking to move up the ranks of the leadership. Frustrated with brinksmanship, Alexander now wants to try his hand as Senate peacemaker and bridge builder.
Other moderate and conservative Republicans and Democrats have had mixed success in traveling this path, including the Republican and Democratic members of the Senate “Gang of Six” who forged a “Grand Bargain” of deficit reduction and tax and entitlement reform but couldn’t sell it to the Senate. Alexander, a one-time Secretary of Education, thinks he can make a difference in future debates over budget and economic issues, energy policy, the environment and other key issues.
Here are edited excerpts of a recent interview with Alexander:
TFT: How difficult was your decision to step down from the leadership?
Alexander: I have enjoyed my time in the leadership. It gives me a seat at the table and a chance to make my argument there, but I gradually chafed under it. Senator McConnell noticed that and mentioned it to me a couple of times. I wrote out the statement I made [on the Senate floor announcing his decision] on a fishing trip in Canada in August and I put it in the drawer and let it cool for a month and I still felt good about it and feel even better about it today.”
TFT: Given the fact that partisanship is intense and Washington appears dysfunctional, why will you have more influence outside leadership?
Alexander: Going on the leadership team is like going in the football huddle. If the quarterback calls a play around left end and you want to go around right end, you still go around left end. I’ll have a chance to get some of my independence back within the Republican caucus and within the Senate at large. By creating coalitions of senators on important issues I can help the leaders help the Senate succeed.
TFT: These days, lawmakers fight over almost everything. Isn’t it a high hurdle to make the Senate more effective?
Alexander: Sen. Schumer [D-NY] and I worked for several months this year and passed a law that senators have been trying to pass for 15 years, reducing the number of positions subject to Senate confirmation. . . It would be easy for the Senate to be more effective. Number One would be for most bills to come to the floor and for the [Democratic] majority leader to allow most senators to make amendments. [Democratic leader] Sen. Reid [D-Nev.] is reluctant to allow any amendments to come to the floor because he doesn’t want Democratic senators to have to vote on controversial amendments. That’s like joining the Grand Ole Opry and not wanting to sing.
TFT: What makes you think you can do more?
Alexander: I’ll give you an example of leadership that I’d like to see more of: Saxby Chambliss, [R-GA] who is as conservative as they come, and Mark Warner, the Democratic senator from Virginia, started the “Gang of Six.” I have supported them and helped them attract 37 senators of both parties to the idea of working together to reduce the debt by $4 trillion. Neither Senator Reid nor Senator McConnell is very enthusiastic about that effort. I like to be free to support it.
The Senate is an unusual organization that operates by unanimous consent. I can be more effective going forward outside of the leadership than I could be inside of it.
TFT: On what issues might you make a difference outside leadership?
Alexander: One is on the debt. Europe has a debt problem that may not be easy to solve. The United States has a debt problem that we ought to be able to solve reasonably easily if we just work on it.
Second, Senator Feinstein and Bingaman, Democrats, and Murkowski and I, Republicans, are on the Energy Committee. We’d like to work together to find a permanent repository for used nuclear fuel. That is extremely important for our country’s future because our 104 reactors produce about 70 percent of our clean electricity.
Third, I’d like to see my own party have a broader jobs agenda and to do a better job of setting priorities.
TFT: There’s plenty of skepticism that the Super Committee will succeed. What do you think?
Alexander: I am slightly optimistic about it because this will now be the fourth bipartisan effort to try to [address it]. And we have 37 senators almost evenly split between parties who have said, “We want you to go as big as you can.” If they don’t succeed then we will have to turn—you can’t stop working on the debt—back to a group like the coalition of senators who support the “Gang of Six.”
TFT: So this move was not a political calculation that Sen. Cornyn was going to defeat you?
Alexander: Neither Senator Cornyn nor anybody else knows who would have won a race 15 months from now. Sen. Cornyn is doing a good job where he is, but these races are based almost entirely upon relationships. My relationships are pretty good within the Republican caucus. The answer is no. I was deciding whether I could make more of a contribution as part of the leadership team or as an independent senator. I decided as an independent senator.
TFT: Have you endorsed a presidential candidate?
Alexander: I have not. I like the governors. I like [Mitt] Romney and [Rick] Perry and [Jon] Huntsman because I think we need someone who can set an agenda and develop a strategy and persuade half the people he’s right. I think President Obama’s weakness is that he has not had much experience as an executive leader.
