Secret Senate

When the impeachment of President Clinton moved from the House to the Senate, the American public was told it now would see some real statesmanship, the majesty of representative democracy gloriously steeped in dignity, honor and tradition.

Maybe it’s there; it’s just kind of hard to see it with those closed doors in the way.

The Senate’s decision to shut the public out of its debate on Sen. Robert Byrd’s motion to dismiss the charges against the president was turned from an unfortunate lapse in judgment to an outright insult by the reasons Byrd himself offered for the secrecy: “It’s important that we be able to let our hair down. We will say things in a closed session that are really what we’re thinking.”

The gentleman from West Virginia, considered the Senate’s leading stickler, can do his hair however he pleases. What senators are thinking while on the job, especially regarding the removal of a twice-elected president, is public property. The truth — the manner in which this matter is resolved — is far too important to be treated as a commodity the Senate can dispense at its convenience. After sitting through more than a year of blather, the public can handle the truth.

Three Republican senators bucked their party and voted to let taxpayers have a look. Maine’s Susan Collins, to her credit, was one. Olympia Snowe, sadly, was not not. Sen. Snowe proposes that a transcript of the debate be made public after the impeachment trial is ended and that the debate on the actual articles of impeachment be conducted in public. That’s fine, but the time to take a stand for openness is before the secrecy starts.

After the disgraceful way in which the lock-step House managers terrorized Monica Lewinsky into giving one more pointless interview last weekend, the Senate vote at least offers hope that there is some independent thinking going on in the upper chamber. Eight senators crossed party lines in the secrecy vote — that three Republicans voted to open the door and five Democrats voted to close it suggests, however, that independent thinking may not be all its cracked up to be if the thought process is flawed.

Sen. Max Baucus of Montana was one of five Democrats who preferred to work in the dark. His reason — to avoid “grandstanding and party wrangling” — shows how ethically empty the desire for secrecy is. Partisanship doesn’t go away just because the public can’t see it. The odor lingers.