The Decline of the Senate Armed Services Committee

Charles Stevenson, “a long-time Senate staffer, former professor at the National War College, and author of a standard text on the job of the secretary of defense”:

I despair. I worked on the Senate Armed Services Committee for ten years and have followed it closely ever since. We had big fights - over Vietnam, ending the draft, the B-1 bomber and MX missile - but members always recognized that they needed to compromise in order to pass a defense authorization bill, which the committee has now done for an amazing 51 years in a row.

My bosses sometimes put holds on nominations in order to get more information from the executive branch, and we even threatened filibusters a couple of times. But nobody abused those tactics. Sometimes the committee even voted against a presidential nominee, but still reported the nomination to let the full Senate decide - by simple majority vote. SASC members always put the institution ahead of party or politics.

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The behavior of some of the new members on the Hagel nomination is way over the line - disgraceful! They show no respect for the institution and are likely to poison its ability to work in a collaborative way. They are also hurting the institution of the office of Secretary of Defense and thus undermining our system of civilian control.