Steering the Senate

The Senate majority and minority leaders stand at the pinnacle of American national government - as important to Congress as the speaker of the House. However the invention of Senate floor leadership has until now been entirely unknown. Providing a sweeping account of the emergence of party organization and leadership in the US Senate Steering the Senate is the first-ever study to examine the development of the Senate's main governing institutions. It argues that three forces - party competition intraparty factionalism and entrepreneurship - have driven innovation in the Senate. The book details how the position of floor leader was invented in 1890 and then strengthened through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Drawing on the full history of the Senate this book immediately becomes the authoritative source for understanding the institutional development of the Senate - uncovering the origins of the Senate party caucuses steering committees and floor leadership.