“Around the clock sessions penalize the wrong people.”
Charles Ferris describes the anxiety of the Johnson administration over Mike Mansfield’s approach to dealing with the 1964 filibuster of the civil rights bill.
RITCHIE: The Senate was stuck in a filibuster for months in 1964. Did the Johnson White House begin to get nervous that the bill wasn’t going to come to a resolution? He was facing a presidential election that year.
FERRIS: Actually, I don’t recall how it manifested itself. As I said at the beginning, there was all this anxiety that Mansfield might have to pull it down because nothing was happening. If we had around the clock sessions Mansfield would have become more frustrated and impatient and if he saw the Senate’s dignity diminished and Senators’ health threatened, he would have created pressure for a compromise. Those around the clock sessions would have been counterproductive. Around the clock sessions penalize the wrong people. The opponents of legislation need only one Senator on the floor and then at any time any opponent can suggest the absence of a quorum. The proponents of the legislation must then round up fifty one Senators to come to the floor to establish a quorum. Proponents could have been kept up all night answering quorum calls until the Senate was forced to adjourn. But I don’t think Mansfield would have taken any unilateral action without the concurrence of those managing the bill. It was too big an issue to just say no, it’s over. But because Mansfield was so damn inscrutable the anxiety was there, and that was good because that kept people working very hard on the bill and doing the necessary grassroots work. I’m sure they were worried, but the communication was total. They were meeting day-by-day, and Hubert Humphrey, as part of the leadership, attended all the White House meetings. Hubert would give a report to them that everything was moving, so I don’t recall any intervention by any of the White House staff. Of course, the White House was providing great assistance in generating public reaction from the grassroots. The President of course made his personal and private pleas to the Senators as well.
