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Senator Richard B. Russell of Georgia outside the U.S. Capitol in 1965.

The U.S. Senate Has Three Buildings. Why Is One Still Named for a White Supremacist?

Georgia’s Richard Russell was an unrepentant racist. You’d think a name change would be a no-brainer. And yet...
by Pablo Manríquez via The New Republic on February 23, 2023

Republicans Have Won the Senate Half the Time Since 2000 Despite Winning Fewer Votes than Democrats

How the Senate has become a bastion of Republican minority rule.
by Stephen Wolf via Daily Kos on February 15, 2023
Mitch McConnell

How Did the Senate End Up With Supermajority Gridlock?

The Constitution meant for Congress to pass bills by a simple majority. But the process has changed over the decades.
by Lindsay M. Chervinsky via Governing on October 13, 2021
The Russell Senate Office Building.

The U.S. Senate’s Oldest Office Building Honors a Racist

Richard Russell was a segregationist and a fervent opponent of civil rights. So why does his name still adorn the Russell Senate Office Building?
by Walter Shapiro via The New Republic on April 26, 2021
Civil Rights Act Filibuster, Washington, DC, 1964

The Filibuster, Aaron Burr, and Mitch McConnell

Just because the filibuster wasn't created to promote racial slavery doesn't mean there’s no good argument against it.
by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on March 17, 2021
Senator Chuck Schumer walking to the Senate floor through a room filled with cots in preparation for an all-night debate in an attempt to break a Republican filibuster, July 2007

Can the Senate Restore Majority Rule?

The filibuster, invented to uphold slavery, must be eliminated if Democrats hope to deliver progressive legislation.
by Michael Tomasky via New York Review of Books on March 11, 2021

Which Generation Controls the Senate?

A visual breakdown of the U.S. Senate by age.
by Will Donnell via wcd.fyi on January 18, 2021

This Is Not the Senate the Framers Imagined

The Constitution originally provided for the selection of senators by state legislatures, but the 17th Amendment changed that, and with it, the Senate itself.
by Jane Chong via The Atlantic on January 21, 2020

Why Women Couldn’t Wear Pants on the Senate Floor Until 1993

Two political pioneers staged a "Pantsuit Revolution."
by Jocelyn Sears via Mental Floss on March 22, 2017
Cartoon of congressmen talking in two insular groups. Illustration by Steve Brodner

The Empty Chamber

For many reasons, senators don’t have the time, or the inclination, to get to know one another—least of all members of the other party.
by George Packer via The New Yorker on August 2, 2010

The History of the Filibuster

In testimony before a committee of the U.S. Senate, Sarah Binder counters a number of conventionally held notions about the filibuster.
by Sarah Binder via Brookings on April 22, 2010
US Senator Cory Booker giving a speech.

US Senator Cory Booker Just Spoke for 25 Hours in Congress. What Was He Trying to Achieve?

He set a new record for the longest continuous speech in the Senate, surpassing Strom Thurmond’s 1957 attempt to prevent the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
by Bruce Wolpe via The Conversation on April 2, 2025
John Tower; Pete Hegseth.

In 1989, Senators Faced a Pete Hegseth Situation Very Differently

I covered the 1989 fight over George H.W. Bush's secretary of defense nominee. It feels awfully familiar.
by Fred Kaplan via Slate on January 23, 2025
Drawing of the first five presidents.

When Presidents Sent Handwritten Lists of Their Nominees to the Senate

The U.S. faces the likelihood of a bruising and raucous set of confirmation hearings — a clear break from the cooperative system the founders established.
by Peter J. Kastor via The Conversation on January 13, 2025
Black and white photo of Charles B. Warren from 1924.

The Last Time the Senate Rejected a President's Cabinet Nominee of the Same Party

It hasn't happened for 100 years.
by Simmone Shah via TIME on November 21, 2024
The Executive Board of UCAPAWA in 1937.

Challenging the New Deal’s “Contemptible Neglect”

In the midst of the Great Depression, one CIO union used the new administrative state to influence legislation on behalf of people considered outcasts.
by Jarod Roll via Nonsite on September 21, 2024
Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson.

The Border Presidents and Civil Rights

Three US presidents from the South’s borders—Truman, Eisenhower, and Johnson—worked against Southern politicians to support civil and voting rights.
by David Goldfield, Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on March 31, 2024
Indochina Peace Campaign organizers hanging out in Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda's backyard in Santa Monica, California, in 1974.

Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda, Capitol Hill Antiwar Lobbyists

In 1974, after years of grinding war in Vietnam had exhausted most of the antiwar movement, Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda came up with a new strategy.
by Michael Koncewicz via Jacobin on March 11, 2024
Supreme Court justice swearing in FDR at inauguration.

When FDR Took On the Supreme Court

The standard narrative of Roosevelt's court-packing efforts casts them as a failure. But what if they were a success?
by John Fabian Witt via The Nation on June 27, 2023
Neon cowboy on I-80 at Nevada’s border with Utah.

The Senate's Anti-Democratic Nature Is Even More Toxic Than I’d Realized

Whole states of the Union owe their very existence to nothing more nation-building than 19th-Century pols’ wanting to add new senators to one side of the aisle.
by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on January 19, 2023
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), left, and Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho).
partner

The Church Committee Was Nothing Like Republicans’ New Investigation

In practice, aggressive congressional investigations of the intelligence community require consistent levels of public support.
by KC Johnson via Made By History on January 18, 2023
Political Cartoon with various animals (representing different American groups) talking to a Lion (England).

The Curious Affair of the Horsewhipped Senator: A Diplomatic Crisis That Didn’t Happen

The senators, like the grand jurors, knew their man, and probably conceded that Temple had given him the hiding he had been asking for. 
by Neil R. Stout via Commonplace on November 8, 2022
Black and white photo of Charles Sumner

“A Solemn Battle Between Good and Evil.” Charles Sumner’s Radical, Compelling Message of Abolition

The senator from Massachusetts and the birth of the Republican Party.
by Timothy Shenk via Literary Hub on October 24, 2022
A 1939 photo of Sen. Theodore G. Bilbo (D) of Mississippi. (Harris & Ewing Collection/Library of Congress)

The Roots of the ‘Great Replacement Theory’ Believed to Fuel Buffalo Suspect

The white supremacist conspiracy theory that has inspired horrific violence in the past five years dates back to Mississippi Sen. Theodore Bilbo.
by Aaron Wiener, Martha M. Hamilton via Retropolis on May 15, 2022
At the filling station and garage at Pie Town, New Mexico, in October 1940. Photo by Russell Lee, FSA/Library of Congress.

Cowboy Progressives

You likely think of the American West as deeply conservative and rural. Yet history shows this politics is very new indeed.
by Daniel J. Herman via Aeon on April 8, 2022
Chuck Grassley looking at his phone during confirmation hearing

A Brief Guide to Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings, the Silliest Ritual In Washington

Supreme Court confirmation hearings feature senators talking a lot, and nominees nodding politely until they can leave.
by Jay Willis via Balls And Strikes on March 15, 2022
James Madison seated at desk

What Would James Madison Have Thought of the Filibuster?

A leading historian of Madison's political thought explains that the framer "did not believe in minority rule."
by Jack Rakove, Greg Sargent via Washington Post on January 11, 2022

Republicans Are Moving Rapidly to Cement Minority Rule. Blame the Constitution.

Democracy is in trouble, but a lawless coup isn’t the real threat.
by Corey Robin via Politico Magazine on January 5, 2022
Screen capture of Martin Luther King Jr. giving a press conference.

What Martin Luther King Jr. Said About the Filibuster: ‘A Minority of Misguided Senators’

The context in which King shared his views on the filibuster is the same one in which the Senate now finds itself: amid battles over voting rights legislation.
by Gillian Brockell via Retropolis on January 4, 2022
Bob Dole sitting next to Mike Pence at an official event

Bob Dole’s Disability Rights Legacy Marked the End of a Bipartisan Era

The former Republican leader played a key role in the Americans With Disabilities Act but stuck with the GOP as the party turned its back on the law.
by Erica Garcia via The New Republic on December 5, 2021
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