ABSTRACT
In 1989 Senate Democrats elected George Mitchell of Maine as their majority leader. In just his tenth year of service in the Senate, Mitchell became majority leader with less seniority than any person to hold that office since Lyndon Johnson in the 1950s; yet in the 101st Congress he established himself as perhaps the strongest party leader since Johnson. The Senate that George Mitchell leads is, however, dramatically different from the institution that Lyndon Johnson was able to dominate. In this chapter I examine Mitchell's leadership in the 101st Congress and offer an explanation of the factors that enabled him to succeed, and those that set limits upon him. Among the principal factors are the special character of the Senate, a small and elite institution; the peculiar political milieu of the postreform period, shaped by the attitudes of the new American politicians, many products of the House of Representatives; the circumstance of divided government that has placed upon congressional Democrats an obligation to develop party policy positions; and Senator Mitchell's personality and style, which helped him get elected and facilitated his leadership of the Senate. George Mitchell led the Senate by a combination of personal qualities that are peculiar to him and institutional innovations that are peculiar to modern legislative politics. This combination produced in the Senate a leadership system that was different in fundamental respects from that which emerged in the House of Representatives during the same period, and which also differed from that which had preceded it in the Senate. In order to establish the nature and extent of this change in Senate leadership, I begin by briefly reviewing Senate leadership, beginning with the tenure of Lyndon Johnson.
