It took a
certain percent of senators present to approve a bill, but you were allowed to
argue about it infinitely before it was voted upon, and it took a higher
percent of senators to procedurally get filibusterers off the podium, so the
filibuster was an effective way to stall the procedure and make sure that
whatever bill you disagreed with never reached that vote. It was especially
common when the Senate had a certain but not overwhelming majority of one party
or the other. All this was explained to Peter by William, who was a permanent
worker in the Capitol of some kind, and who took an interest in making sure the
interns were able to feel at home and know their surroundings.
What amazed
Peter most was the way people went about their business as though it was
normal. This guy is going down the D page, and he’s including the address and
the phone number of each person, and reading it aloud as if it’s legitimate
Senate business, and this is going on for maybe two hours on a Thursday
afternoon. The Senate chambers have a lot of room, and they have room for
onlookers and visitors, and interns can come and go as they please, delivering
messages to whomever they work for. Many Senators remained at their seats,
reading mail, or preparing a bill for the following day. Some sent out for
deliveries of food or other things, since, apparently, they didn’t want to
leave, in spite of the speaking being virtually pointless. Outside, it was
raining; inside, the chambers seemed massive, ornate, dignified. Peter, being a
somewhat controlling person, was also struck by the pointlessness of it. He stopped
in his tracks, listening to D’Amato read the D page. It seemed to him that this was a crazy world,
where this kind of thing was normal.
That night
the interns all went out drinking, which was somewhat common, and they ended up
in a bar over on K Street where the topic of the filibuster inevitably came up.
Peter said he couldn’t believe they’d let this guy go on and on listing the
people who lived in the District one by one. One intern joked that, as a book,
the DC phone book didn’t have much of a plot, but it had a great cast of
characters. One intern said that filibusters were just part of the Senate;
sure, they slowed down procedure, but they were common, you got used to them.
Another said that the ability to tack on unrelated amendments was another way
to slow down procedure, and one woman said that you could actually use them in
conjunction: tack on an unrelated amendment to a bill, then filibuster it so
that everybody had to sit and listen to whatever you wanted to talk about. But
then one friend of his said that in fact, he had an aunt who lived in the
District, and he was supposed to get in touch with her for some family reason,
and he’d forgotten all about it until he heard that list of all the District
residents, and realized she was one of them. No, the list was in the D’s, and
she was in the R’s, but his point was, you never know what you’ll hear.
Peter was a
stickler for procedure, and he kept a distaste for that kind of pointless
speaking throughout his career as a lawyer. He married a nice Quaker woman
named Anne, and they raised two twins, Samuel and Samantha, in a southern city.
When the twins got to be a certain age, they each took to the habit of trying
to take advantage of captive audiences, for example on a road trip, and talk
non-stop; he’d accuse them of staging filibusters, and would actually explain a
procedure where if someone would call a vote, the guilty party would have to be
quiet.
He was an
atheist, but his wife took him to Quaker meeting once, and there, people sat in
silence waiting for God to speak through them. One man spoke about his grief at
the loss of a son, and some people spoke to comfort him or to say what they
felt about the situation. Eventually, his wife spoke in the silence, something
about seeing God’s work in the world around you, and becoming sensitive to the
voice of God in the things you hear in daily life.
Peter
didn’t mind this so much, although he didn’t agree with it, but after the
meeting a woman came up to his wife and thanked her for the message, saying, in
essence, that she felt the message was intended for her, and that God was
speaking through his wife, and that she appreciated that and thought it was a
miracle that such a thing would happen in a Meeting.
He thought
about it for weeks afterward, and mostly what he thought about were the times
God wasn’t speaking through the
people around him - reading the phone book, for example, or ordering food at
the local restaurant. He felt that he could be as sensitive as he wanted, and
he probably wouldn’t hear God’s will in that kind of thing. As controlling as
he was, he heard mostly his own will in the things he said.
He did,
however, have moral questions come up in his law practice, and he found his
wife’s advice to be very helpful in sorting out what was the right way to
proceed. She would listen to the whole story, and always find the thing in it
that was hardest to untangle. But she tended to see things that way, finding
the human essence of law cases, whereas he tended to always think in terms of
procedure. They were good for each other that way, always coming at things from
different directions.
One time,
years later, her Meeting had trouble with a guy who showed up and just wouldn’t
be quiet; he rambled on and on, during the Meeting, about things that nobody
really even understood. This kind of situation tests people, and separates
those who are so polite, they’ll let him do it, from those who cared about the
quality of worship and wanted him to just get packing. Peter, as usual, saw it
in terms of procedure. What does a group do when it needs someone to respect
their group needs? She saw it more like she saw the kids, though. Somebody, she
said, needs to be heard; they just don’t quite know what to say.
They got
along well as a family; Peter was grateful that the twins grew up, went to
college, still got along, and came home holidays still relatively positive and
cheerful. An old dog, Grace, had grown up with them, and was very grateful to
see them when they returned. Both wanted to take a year off in their sophomore
year, and both chose Washington D.C., independently, to do it, sharing,
perhaps, Peter’s childhood fascination with the halls of power and the national
government. Anne’s sister, their aunt, lived there and had plenty of room, and
offered it freely to both. Samuel chose to be a cabdriver, and very carefully
set up his residency, took the test, and spent the year driving people to
places like the Smithsonian, the Washington Monument, etc. Samantha, though,
wanted to be an intern, and they went through the process so that she could do
as Peter did, go and work for a Senator for a year.
They came
home significantly changed that Thanksgiving; they had driven together. It was
raining and they both settled in the living room with Peter while Anne prepared
the dinner, though occasionally all three would help. Samuel was more
purposeful than he had been when he’d left. He said that he liked driving, and at
first he liked seeing all the sights of the city, but that after a while it became
a little routine, and he started paying attention to the customers themselves.
He said that he had made up his mind to become a veterinarian. This had
happened because a woman had brought her dog into the cab, and the dog had died
in traffic. As a driver he didn’t know what to do; he’d been allowed, actually,
to refuse the dog, but hadn’t; but at the same time, he wasn’t sure that
anything he could have done would have made any difference anyway, as far as
saving the dog’s life. But in the short ride across the city, the dog had
expressed great feeling, and it had reached him somehow in the driver’s seat.
He was now looking at ways to finish his education and move on to a veterinary
program. He was quite serious that that was what he wanted to do with his life,
and this was what he intended to do over the break.
While
Samuel told about his cab driving experiences, and his decision to become a
vet, Samantha sat in the chair in the corner twirling her hair and listening.
Finally she said something that made Peter think she had become a Christian;
perhaps it was “Praise God,” spoken quietly and slightly out of their earshot.
When he questioned her, her story came out.
As an
intern, she, too, had gone into the Senate chambers on routine errands and
business involving whatever Senator she was working for. One day, apparently, a
Senator from a southern state was staging a filibuster. Everybody went about
business as usual; some Senators remained at their seats, reading papers;
interns went between the rows delivering messages and doing business.
But the
Senator was actually reading the Bible. Nobody was listening except for
Samantha. Everybody went about their usual business, ignoring everything he
said, but suddenly Samantha started hearing what he said. The verse, from the
book of Matthew, might as well have been just for her. It spoke straight to
her, and converted her. Her new life centered on God and God’s will.
From the
kitchen came sounds of Thanksgiving dinner being prepared, and pretty soon the
turkey came out to the dining room table. The family gathered around for the
big meal. Grace, the family dog, settled down on the floor near the table. They
were pretty sure it would be Grace’s last Thanksgiving; Samuel in particular
was happy to be home and to see her.
Peter watched everyone carefully at dinner, and fell into silence. He
felt himself beginning to let go of his need to control everything. Sometimes,
he thought, you have to just let things run their own course.
(5-16)
