by Karl Kurtz
The position of parliamentarian--the arbiter of rules for a legislature--is often overlooked and seldom publicized. Last weekend, however, the New York Times had an interesting story about the parliamentarian for the United States Senate, Alan S. Frumin, who has a difficult role to play in the parliamentary maneuvering in the national health care policy debate. Frumin is an attorney who has served the Senate as parliamentarian since 1987 under both Democratic and Republican majorities.
Technically, Mr. Frumin’s decisions are not binding. But Senate leaders almost never overrule the parliamentarian, so he will effectively have the final word.
“He’s basically the defense, the prosecution, the judge, the jury and the hangman in this scenario,” said Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the senior Republican on the Budget Committee, whose staff has been meeting with Mr. Frumin on reconciliation matters for months. “It all comes down to him.”
The story goes on to provide a job description of sorts:
The parliamentarian’s job requires years of apprenticeship, and the work is so obscure that few people in Washington can do it....
The Senate has few rules but thousands of precedents, and Mr. Frumin is paid $167,000 a year to interpret them, operating something like a cross between Bartleby the Scrivener and a Talmudic scholar. It is a grueling job, but it does come with a choice piece of real estate — a sun-drenched, book-lined suite on the Capitol’s first floor. When the Senate runs all night, Mr. Frumin sleeps there, camping out on a blow-up mattress he brings from home.
Compared to legislative practice in the states, the role of the U.S. Senate parliamentarian in actually making rulings is unusual. In most state legislatures the role of the parliamentarian is to advise the presiding officer, who then makes the ruling. According to a 1999 American Society of Legislative Clerks and Secretaries survey, in 56 legislative chambers the chief clerk or secretary serves as the parliamentarian. Other chambers employ an official parliamentarian separate from the clerk or secretary, rely on legislative counsel for this function or assign the responsibility directly to the presiding officer.
After looking up the plot of Herman Melville's Bartleby, the Scrivener, I'm not sure that most parliamentarians would be complimented by this description of their craft. But the combined images of the sometimes boring life of a scribe and the research, attention to detail and judgment required of a religious scholar helps to define the job of the parliamentarian.
Photo credit: New York Times
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