Essay: CONGRESS: THE HEAVY HAND OF SENIORITY

ALL things are changing," Republican Leader Hugh Scott told his Senate colleagues not long ago. "And we are changing with them. Omnia mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis." Right on, Senator Scott! Congress may be changing, but at what a pace. About as often as the planet Pluto swings around the sun, Congress does indeed bestir itself, examines the archaic rules by which it conducts the nation's business and gently blows away some of the accumulated dust of more than 180 years. But never enough to disturb one tradition —the hallowed rule...