An insider’s account of how the Senate’s ‘master legislator’ survived and thrived in a red state and a raucous conservative movement.
An insider’s account of how the Senate’s ‘master legislator’ survived and thrived in a red state and a raucous conservative movement.
W ashington, D.C., was on the brink of doing something it never does: Give up power. First, Lamar Alexander had to get through the Obama administration.
Tennessee’s Republican senator was deep in negotiations with Senator Patty Murray (D., Wash.) to fix No Child Left Behind, the sweeping Bush-era education law that had enraged conservatives as President Barack Obama’s administration used its unworkable mandates to press states into yet more mandates, including Common Core. Then came word that would have sent some Republicans into attack mode: The president wanted a meeting. Whispers of a veto threat were in the air.
Alexander just smiled.
“I was glad to have the meeting,” Alexander said of the 2015 summit. “I wanted to pass the bill.”
The episode exemplifies how Alexander, who retired from the Senate in January, approached politics: He was relentlessly focused on getting things done. The soft-spoken Tennessean’s resilience — not only surviving but thriving as a bipartisan dealmaker in a ruby-red home state, a raucous GOP, and a gridlocked government while staying true to his principles — ought to be instructive for anyone trying to improve our politics. The senator’s example is especially relevant for a conservative movement seeking a unified path forward from 2020 and its aftermath.
A close look at Alexander’s career — from hours of conversation with the senator and his inner circle to a review of his archives to my time with his Senate office and campaign — reveals a singular lesson: Even if compromise and civility have gone out of style, getting something done certainly has not.
Like many bipartisan-prone senators, Alexander is sometimes criticized from the right. Unlike others, however, he’s defied “moderate” branding. He is undefeated in six Republican primaries — including in the Tea Party era that claimed so many incumbents — and enjoyed persistent popularity over the years. Archived internal polling from the period between 9/11 and the Trump era shows favorability ratings generally in the high 50s, with majority support from Republicans and independents and strong crossover appeal.
“It’s stunning,” said Alexander’s longtime pollster Whit Ayres. “It’s a testament to his adaptability to completely different political eras.”
Alexander also remained relevant during Donald Trump’s presidency, unlike other politicians whose political capital crumbled. He spoke out when he disagreed with the president, but advisers say he more often opted for private conversation, and often had Trump’s ear on legislation. Alexander was also quite close with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), whom he’s known for more than 50 years; indeed, he often used his bipartisan relationships as a kind of consigliere, even after stepping down from leadership in 2012.
While Alexander insiders and observers cite many reasons for his success, his focus on results — which helped him connect with voters, disarm opponents, and inspire trust with colleagues — is the potent through line. Over the years he’s loosened Washington’s grip on education and health care — a feat acknowledged by ardent Senate conservatives — and helped pass landmark bills such as the Great American Outdoors Act. Under his chairmanship, the Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) produced more than 90 bills that became law.
McConnell, who considers Alexander a “master legislator” and one of the most consequential senators on domestic policy in modern history, recounted to me in a recent interview how Alexander’s uncommon control of his ambition enabled potent coalition building.
“He was the best at doing that, that I ever saw in my 36 years in the Senate,” McConnell said.
Such results-driven politics are crucial to broader conservative success. The Tea Party helped take the House in opposition to government growth, but it wasn’t until 2014 that Republicans took the Senate with a clear vision for what they would do instead. President Trump was elected as an outsider promising reform and was most successful when unifying Republicans and destabilizing Democrats with results: economic growth, military strength, and conservative judges.
There are other “lessons from Lamar.” Consider, again, his No Child Left Behind battle.
Alexander’s fixes had been stuck in the Senate since the Bush years. Rather than abandon the goal, or make a cudgel of it, he waited. When he became HELP committee chairman in early 2015, the moment was just right: The Obama administration had denied Washington State, home to his committee’s ranking member, a waiver from the law’s restrictions. Everyone — including the president — knew the education law was broken, and the administration’s use of waivers to influence states had detonated bipartisan fury.
With his patience rewarded, Alexander struck — not with sudden force, but rather endless input from committee members, spanning Senators Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) to Rand Paul (R., Ky.) to include their priorities. Whenever divisive issues arose, Alexander’s advisers recall him negotiating to get senators floor votes on their issue — rather than blow up the bill in committee — and in turn agreeing to hold his own priorities (like school choice) until the floor debate, too.
The committee vote was unanimous, and kicked off one of the Senate’s more wide-open legislative processes, which Alexander — brimming with political intel from his constant collaboration — helped steer. Nearly 150 amendments to the bill were considered in committee or on the Sente floor. Former chief of staff David Cleary said it showed Alexander’s willingness to debate and vote — rather than grandstand — and share credit with those he’d persuaded.
“Lamar recognized that shared credit is more credit,” Cleary said.
The masterstroke came in conference, when Alexander made a special request: He wanted to adopt three of the president’s modest priorities. Some Republicans wondered why he didn’t demand something in return, but Alexander had already secured a crucial victory: He had diffused Obama’s potential veto threat during his White House meeting in early 2015.
“Somehow a more cooperative environment developed,” McConnell told me of the bill’s journey through Congress. “He was very good at harnessing others’ ambition and getting an outcome.”
When the Every Student Succeeds Act became law that December, the Wall Street Journal editorial board called it the “largest devolution of federal control to the states in a quarter century.” If such accomplishments seem quaint amid today’s divisions, it’s worth noting that Alexander was passing bipartisan legislation until his last days in the Senate — including an end to surprise billing as part of COVID relief.
As conservatives pick themselves up in the Biden era, there is a lot to figure out. Perhaps they’ll observe these lessons from Lamar, on the political value of getting results, and how patience, collaboration, and sharing credit are as important as the dark arts of political warfare. They’re lessons lost on the chatter class, but less so the voters, in Alexander’s experience.
“There’s only one reason to do it,” he said of political life. “It’s hard to get here, hard to stay here, and while you’re here you might as well do your best to accomplish something good for the country.”