LBJ's Years in the House of Representatives
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While it is a privilege to win a House seat for the first time, this presents an educational opportunity for young office seekers to take in the historical accounts of Lyndon Johnson’s early career in the House of Representatives. That is if they ever want to get a head start within congressional politics. For all the publicity campaign fundraising has developed into a near necessity for success on the Hill, the quiet part hardly anyone talks about is the game of waiting. Indeed as big a personal accomplishment as winning a House seat may be, it also could turn into a personal grudge. As energetic and ingenious as Johnson was representing the 10th district of Texas for eleven years in the House of Representatives, he wanted to leave as quickly as possible once he entered office.
In the political theater that is Congress, seniority for the most part ruled with an iron hand, as told by Robert A. Caro in his first volume The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Path to Power. Once Johnson was able to serve on the Naval Affairs committee, led by a representative from Georgia known for running his committee business like a dictator, Carl Vinson. It was imposed that Johnson and his colleague Magnuson were told by Vinson that new members serving their first year were only allowed to ask one question on the committee, those in their sophomore year would be able to ask two, and so on. Even when it came to independent judgments without permission granted by Vinson, or the capability to rally with other committee colleagues on the Naval committee to take an independent stance, the task was ought to be impossible. In other words, if Johnson wanted to have a voice in that committee he had to become chairman since the only voice that mattered in such a one-man committee was that of Vinson’s Georgian drawl.1
And it wasn’t just the chairmanship of a committee, party leadership too ran in a similar way. The House, which holds 435 members developed, “an oligarchy whose ruling circle consisted of no more than a score of men: the Speaker, the Majority Leader and Whip, the most powerful committee chairmen,” Caro explained. Whereby the qualification to meet such a standard of admission, in the small select circle of power was through seniority.2
“Ability wouldn’t get you into that select circle. Energy wouldn’t get you into it. Only age would get you into it. There was only one way to become one of the rulers of the House: to wait. And, the harshest fact of all about Congress, even waiting was no guarantee,” admits Caro.3
If Johnson waited to become chairman of the Naval committee for instance, not only would he have to wait for Vinson to either retire, lose his seat, or die in office, but there were scores of other men who too wanted that position too, even the young thirty-two-year-old Magnuson stood in his way to that special committee seat. In order to play the waiting game, Johnson had to blunder the possibility of sitting through each term with someone holding the chairman’s post. Yet waiting in itself may not even be enough, after all, such a political party wasn’t to be in majority control for long. If control went the other way, it would be Republicans who had the gavel. Nonetheless, Johnson realized the harsh fact if he were to wait, right before his very eyes.4
As young as Johnson was [at twenty-eight], he could see the most senior of politicians gasping for breath as they paced up the steps of the Capitol building, and being served lunch in trays instead of standing up alongside the counter of the cloakroom. Some even turned senile, refusing to retire their position, hanging on by a mere rope’s strand. When the time finally did come to serve as chairman, a loss of interest may have come down upon them, realizing that the position to serve was no longer useful.5
According to former Rep. Donald Riegle who entered Congress at the age of twenty-eight in 1966, he noted the same concept around him, where chairmen were not able to hear well, couldn’t see or had tremendous difficulty working a full day. As Caro explained Riegle’s account, “A man can come to Congress when he’s thirty-five, serve here twenty years, and emerge, at age fifty-five, as the ablest man on his committee. But because he has to wait for all the members ahead of him to either retire or die, he may have to wait another twenty years… before he becomes chairman. You will climb to the top of the ladder eventually. The only catch is you may be in your seventies when the big moment comes.”6
While some may come into office seeking the opportunity to be given the public spotlight such as making speeches and introducing legislation as a lawmaker ought to be doing, Johnson, Caro was to recall, did not introduce national legislation between the years of 1937 [his first year] through 1940, despite campaigning in his district to elected him to Washington to support FDR’s court-packing plan. When he did introduce a bill circa 1941, two days after Pearl Harbor on December 9th, it was to create a position for himself, merging the National Youth Administration (NYA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps into a single youth-training agency. In his first six years, this proposal of a single piece of legislation was an attempt to increase his personal power.7
With a failure to bring another piece of national legislation in 1942, the following year 1943 he introduced one national bill, zero in 1944, two in 1945, and none again between 1946 to 1947. It wasn’t until 1948 that he brought up one lone bill. In all, after serving eleven years in the House, Johnson had only introduced five bills. Neither of those bills would ever become law. As eerie as it could possibly be, Johnson’s mantra was he did not introduce legislation himself, nor was he to fight for legislation introduced by his colleagues.8
A general lawmaker is usually capable of introducing laws to the legislative body, Johnson on the contrary would not only be able unless they were instead given in his district, which was written by speech writer Hubert Henderson.9
Routinely if a congressman did not want to give a speech on the floor of the House, all they had to do was to insert their speeches into the Congressional Record. What was required was a member to read the opening words of another’s speech, and hand it to the clerk for reprinting in the official Record, whereas House rules allowed members to receive and extend their remarks in the federal publication. Since the Record was on the federal dime, allowing printouts under government expense via congressional franking privileges, this allowed many members to have their statements reprinted and mailed to constituents in their districts, therefore it created not only free publicity for elected officials but also a false sense of their involvement in the issues of the day. Despite the hefty volumes printed en masse, many speeches never made it to the floor.10
It was a rare sighting to see Johnson give a speech in the well of the House. Even if he did, perhaps a mere paragraph was mentioned in his deliverance. But with time, House Speaker Sam Rayburn felt that it was time for Johnson to make his stance known, and on August 8th, 1941 [with the exception of a brief tribute in memoriam to Albert Sydney in November 1937] made a speech advocating for the extension of the Selective Services Act. Johnson would not make another speech for 18 months after that, and when that time did come, he rose to argue for his bill on absenteeism and never made another speech again for three years. Caro issued the reasoning for such weary publicity was that Johnson would not fight on the floor nor the well of the House. Totaling ten speeches in all during his eleven years as a House member, at a mere less than one per year, all tactics changed as he entered his second Senate race in 1948 with an all-or-nothing momentum [context for the latter can be found in volume two, Means of Ascent].11
Not only were introducing legislation and giving speeches in the House a rarity for Johnson, but he also would not even rise to make a point of order, ask a question, support or attack a bill brought to the floor, nor participate in House floor proceedings. And instead of seeking press reporters to comment on issues facing the country or other problems within the DC bubble, he went out of his way to avoid the press pool and did not want to have his opinions revealed.12
A speculative method behind such a course of action taken by Johnson, Caro noted, was he wanted to learn from the very best, and who else to look up to but Rayburn. As Rayburn in his own right gave numerous speeches in his early years as a congressman, Rayburn took advice from the words of President Calvin Coolidge, “If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it.” Rayburn kept his silence, and slowly went up the ranks. However, both men were not on the same path, for power within the House was what Rayburn ever so wanted to achieve since his childhood years in the barn. Johnson on the other hand sought that the Speaker’s triple dais was never high enough for his ambitions. The House itself was, to put it flatly, a staging area located early upon the very long political road ahead.13
As years went by during Johnson’s time serving as a member of the House, not only did he know playing the waiting game would not work in his favor, but he was not to be the youngest congressman from Texas for very long. Whereas in 1939, he was no longer the youthful congressman, for that was soon taken over by Lindley Beckworth of Gladewater, elected into office in 1938 at the age of twenty-five. Johnson not only became a junior congressman, one out of a few hundred but at this moment, became part of a crowd. Why he wanted to escape as quickly as possible once he entered office was because, despite serving eleven years in the People’s House, being part of a crowd was something Lyndon Baines Johnson just could not stand.14
Robert A. Caro, “Mr Johnson Goes to Washington,” in The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Path to Power, (New York, Vintage Books, 1982), 537-538.
Caro, “Mr Johnson Goes to Washington,” in The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Path to Power, 538-539.
Caro, 539.
Ibid., 539.
Ibid., 539-540.
Ibid., 540.
Ibid., 546.
Ibid., 547.
Ibid., 547.
Ibid., 547-548.
Ibid., 548.
Ibid., 549.
Ibid., 551.
Ibid., 555.