The U.S. Senate is a singular institution in American government. It is the only body of elected officials, from local school board on up, that is constitutionally exempt from the Constitution’s precept of one person, one vote. It has, through the wisdom of the Framers and two centuries of tradition, become a place where the majority does not always rule and the minority is at least guaranteed a fair hearing. It remains, despite two centuries of politics, a haven for civil discourse and politeness.

The last point, the Senate’s reputation for good manners, may often seem strained, even feigned, but it came in awfully handy in negotiations between Republican and Democratic leaders over how to accommodate the 50-50 party split. The resultant power-sharing agreement, the Lott-Daschle accord, owes much to the Senate’s natural instinct to seek decorum.

Though the details are elaborate, the two fundamentals of the agreement worked out between Republican Sen. Trent Lott and Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle are that committee memberships will be split evenly between the parties and that both parties will have equal budgets and staffs. Important companion provisions prevent bills or nominations from getting bottled up in committees and will reduce the overuse of filibuster and other cloture-avoidance tactics.

The rank and file of both parties have objections. Some Democrats reason that the 50-50 tie entitles them to half of everything, including committee chairmanships. Some Republicans say the tie-breaking powers of the vice president actually makes it 51-50, thus no tie at all, advantage GOP. Democrats could insist that every detail of organizing a split Senate be put to a vote, but to do so would ensure that, on anything of real importance, they would lose 51-50. Republicans could resist every power-sharing proposal and could count on winning 51-50 every time, but at the price of their new president’s agenda.

Lott-Daschle rightly recognizes the two arguments as either willfully ignoring the vice president’s constitutional role or as recklessly exaggerating it. By giving two senators to each state, the Framers created the potential for ties and anticipated the need to break them. But Dick Cheney is not the 101st senator and forcing the next vice president to settle every minor squabble or office size and staff levels just so the Senate could open for business would guarantee gridlock.

Some Republicans, such as Sen. Phil Gramm, have criticized the accord as making too many concessions, but Sen. Lott correctly reasoned that they were needed to preserve the Senate’s independence and integrity. It no doubt also occurred to Sen. Lott that, with his party about to move into the White House, this might not be the time for the type of stalling tactics that allowed him, as majority leader, to stymie debate and block votes on legislation and nominations proposed by the current administration.