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Warner knows what seniority means from two standpoints Date published: 3/29/2009
BY CHELYEN DAVIS Former Sen. John Warner remembers being the ranking Republican member of the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1992 when Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina decided he wanted that spot instead. Warner was informed--not asked--in a polite call from Thurmond. "I was given an afternoon to clean out my desk and say goodbye to the staff," remembers Warner. He retired last month after 30 years in the U.S. Senate. Such was the power of seniority in the Senate. Warner had seniority of his own, and had been on Armed Services his whole Senate career, but Thurmond had more seniority, and thus more power. When Republicans won a majority in 1994, it was Thurmond who became Armed Services chairman. Warner didn't get the chairmanship until 1999; he and Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan have traded it back and forth ever since, and Levin holds it now. Warner said he couldn't do much about the fact that Thurmond had pulled rank on him--that was just how seniority worked. "It's like a lot of other things it's neither all good nor all bad," Warner said. Overall, he thinks the seniority system benefits the Senate because it provides a--mostly--predictable framework for leadership. New senators can look at the ages and seniority of those ahead of them and plot out their careers. "I think the seniority system is a very valuable one, for this reason. You kind of figure out where you can go and calculate your career," Warner said. For the most part, senators can march up the ladder to seniority and committee leadership without having to play politics. "If you didn't have the seniority system, you'd still, as a caucus, begin to elect your chairman and ranking member, but people would be politicking from the first day they got on a committee if there wasn't any rule," Warner said. "You'd run around giving everything away to everybody. It's a certain amount of certainty that's connected with the seniority system. You can plot your way and you don't have to be politicking at every turn to get it." Warner achieved his chairmanship about the time that Republicans decided to start limiting their chairmen to six-year terms.
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