[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 75 (Thursday, May 12, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2742-S2743]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO ROSS BAKER
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I have often likened the counsel that
Senators receive from their staff to the confidential advice a lawyer
provides to a client. That is why it is so rare that, over the last 40
or so years, Ross Baker, a Distinguished professor at Rutgers
University, has taken several sabbaticals to research the inner
workings of Capitol Hill. Most recently, as a scholar in residence in
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's office, Professor Baker has been
given the unusual access to the inner workings of one of the Senate's
leading offices. The result? Professor Baker is considered the go-to
academic expert on the Senate, one of the preeminent scholars of
congressional history, the author of six books about Congress and
government, and an insightful resource for the news media about the
often inscrutable goings-on in Congress.
I came to know Professor Baker when he joined my staff as an adviser
in 2000, when he returned to Capitol Hill to gain a better
understanding of Senate seniority. When he returned to my staff in
2004, during a period of fierce debate in the Senate Judiciary
Committee over the direction of our courts and our national security
policy, Professor Baker saw firsthand how lawmakers, including myself,
balance meaningful, large-scale policy debates with the day-to-day
responsibility of representing and advocating for our constituents. It
goes without saying that my relationship with Professor Baker was a
two-way street. It was not uncommon for me to respond to his questions
with some of my own.
In 2008, Ross Baker joined then-Majority Leader Reid's staff at a
pivotal time in both Congress and in the political arena. Long and
diverse primary campaigns, coupled with the winding down of the
tumultuous Bush administration, provided Professor Baker with even more
fodder for his courses at Rutgers. As he concludes his final stint with
Senator Reid's office, one can only wonder how today's political
dialogue both on the campaign trail and on the floor of the Senate will
inform Professor Baker's American Government course when he resumes
teaching this fall.
Vermonters have entrusted me to represent them in Washington several
times. Like Professor Baker, I have spent time studying what works, and
what doesn't. His insights are as important to the chronicle of Senate
history as they are to the students he teaches today.
I ask unanimous consent that a May 5 article in the Washington Post
entitled ``History Professor Landed a Privileged Perch to See How Harry
Reid Works'' be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Washington Post, May 5, 2016]
History Professor Landed a Privileged Perch To See How Harry Reid Works
(By Paul Kane)
Harry Reid almost never says no.
When he gets a new piece of information or a request or
anything, he says--he uses this phrase all the time--he says:
`I'll look at it,' '' says Ross K. Baker, a distinguished
congressional scholar at Rutgers University.
That approach gives the Senate minority leader wiggle room
to make decisions in private, a style of leadership that is
decidedly different from the ``master of the Senate,''
bulldozing approach that Lyndon B. Johnson honed as leader in
the 1950s.
That's just one of the countless insights that Baker, 77,
has drawn in three separate stints as ``scholar in
residence'' on Reid's staff Last week, he finished his final
tour with the retiring Senate leader as an unpaid adviser and
observer, a one-of-a-kind sabbatical for the professor. Over
the past 41 years, Baker has done seven stints on Capitol
Hill, working in the House and Senate.
Rather than teaching undergraduate students his ``American
Government'' course, the professor embedded himself in real
American government at an irregular pace in the past, but
over the past 16 years he's been here every four years.
Nothing can compete with the access he has been given in
Reid's leadership office in the Capitol. He watched the early
stages of the 2008 presidential primary play out on the
Senate floor between then-Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton. He has seen Senate battles over treaties, and,
without fail, has seen countless legislative battles end in
gridlock.
Baker's time on Capitol Hill has provided history the
chance to have an academic get an up-close view of one of
this era's most influential political figures, but also one
of the most difficult to understand.
``The panorama is breathtaking,'' Baker said. ``Here is
somebody who has his [finger on the] pulse [of] all the major
policy areas, has to, and has a staff that is equipped to do
that. So the feelers are out, the sensors are everywhere, the
neurons are firing constantly.''
Reid said he wanted Baker to ``focus on the Senate as an
institution'' for history's sake, and the professor wrote a
2014 book, ``Is Bipartisanship Dead?,'' based largely on his
2012 experience with Reid.
``We all trust him,'' Reid said in a telephone interview
this week from Nevada.
He allowed Baker into every senior staff meeting and let
him watch Reid's senior aides prep the senator every Tuesday
morning for his weekly news conference. ``He doesn't speak up
very often, but when he does, we all listen,'' Reid added.
The low-light came when Republicans filibustered the
ratification of a treaty to elevate global standards for the
disabled, opening Baker's eyes to the ability of conservative
groups to block legislation.
Now, Baker thinks the calls on both sides for ``regular
order''--legislation beginning in committee, involving junior
members, emerging to full and open debates on the House and
Senate floor--are hollow.
``There are just too many forces arrayed against it for it
to work,'' he said. ``I think it's a function of
polarization, that leaders have to get control of the process
and have to use exotic procedures that are basically
incomprehensible.''
Yet Reid was never the dictator in Johnson's 1950s style,
according to Baker. Those senators whom Reid rebuffed after
his initial ``I'll take a look at it'' would soon find him
doing a quick favor. ``He will double back and do something
for that person to make them feel important,'' Baker said.
Baker has long been known as a leading congressional
expert, a go-to resource for news media in need of
translating Washington. These stints on Capitol Hill have
given him a first-hand experience, spanning decades, that few
scholars can match.
Baker's political interests started randomly. In the mid-
1970s, when he was fashioning himself as an Africa expert and
writing occasional op-eds in The Washington Post, Baker
decided to refocus his career on U.S. politics, and on
Congress in particular.
So the 36-year-old professor persuaded Sen. Walter
Mondale's chief of staff, Richard Moe, to give him a break.
Baker read the academic version of Washington in journals on
his bus commute, then lived the real-life version by day,
spending a full academic year among the offices of Mondale
(D-Minn ) and Sens. Birch Bayh (D-Ind.) and Frank Church (D-
Idaho).
Back then, Baker was more like a regular staffer, writing
speeches for Bayh and helping Church in his late-breaking bid
for the 1976 presidential nomination. He almost accepted
Church's offer of a full-time job but returned to Rutgers for
the fall of 1976.
``But I got a serious, you know, a chronic case of Potomac
Fever,'' Baker said.
By 1983, the time of his next full-year sabbatical, he had
landed a gig with the House Democratic Caucus, when the
massive majority included dozens of ``Boll Weevil'' Democrats
who backed Ronald Reagan's tax cuts and strong military
posture.
Baker went another 17 years before he got back to the
Capitol, returning to the Senate
[[Page S2743]]
and to his only Republican boss, then-Sen. Chuck Hagel
(Neb.).
He bounced from there into the office of Sen. Patrick J.
Leahy (Vt.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee,
spending several months there in 2000 and again in 2004.
There, he saw up close how senior senators have to focus on
one significant policy arena at the expense of others.
``There's this sort of policy triage that senators have to
engage in, which is: They can't possibly devote themselves
equally to three major committee assignments,'' Baker said.
Several years later, Baker's Rutgers connection paid off.
Reid's longtime senior aide Susan McCue was a Rutgers
alumna, connecting Baker with Reid, which led to tours with
the majority leader in 2008 and 2012, as well as a brief
stint during the 2014 lame-duck session. These past four
months were Baker's first stint with Reid in the minority.
With his Reid partnership ending, Baker is returning to
another semester of ``American Government'' this fall at
Rutgers.
``I at least come out of it with fresh anecdotes for my
undergraduates,'' Baker said. ``I mean, I just don't want to
ever be in a position of mentioning a name and they look at
me blankly.''
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