WASHINGTON - On a Monday afternoon in early June a quarter-century ago, Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., - then a youthful-looking83 - gaveled the Senate into session. After the opening prayer,Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole, R-Kan., took the floor and beganto speak.
It was the start of a typical legislative day except for one keyinnovation - people outside the chamber could watch it.
Live televised coverage of the Senate, and thus C-SPAN2, wereborn on that day in 1986, seven years after cameras first came tothe House. The video of that session - now available on C-SPAN'swebsite - shows that lawmakers were well aware of the occasion'simport.
"There's no doubt about it, this day's historic in many ways,"Dole said, later adding: "I think today we in effect sort of catchup with the 20th century. We've been the invisible half of theCongress the last seven years."
Senate Minority Leader Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., followed Dole andbegan his remarks, not surprisingly, by quoting a poet, AlfredTennyson: "The old order changeth, yielding place to new."
Byrd, a legendary guardian of Senate history and traditions,played a key role in bringing cameras into the chamber.
Sen. Howard Baker, R-Tenn., was the first lawmaker to propose, in1981, that the chamber emulate the House by embracing television.Many in the Senate's old guard were staunchly opposed, includingByrd. But he eventually warmed to the idea.
"He called me on the day that he changed his mind," Brian Lamb,the founder of C-SPAN, said Monday.
The turning point, Lamb said, came when Byrd stayed in a hotelthat had cable television - which Byrd did not have at home - andsaw the House in action for the first time. He was impressed thatthe coverage was gavel-to-gavel.
"You guys are going to run the whole speech?" Byrd asked Lamb - akey point, given that Byrd was known for his epic addresses on thefloor.
Byrd also told Lamb of an incident at a political event in WestVirginia where the senator had been erroneously introduced as thespeaker of the House. "That was a warning to me that we'd better goon television," Byrd said, according to Lamb.
After the leaders spoke on that Monday in 1986, Sen. Al Gore, D-Tenn., was the first rank-and-file lawmaker to appear, just as hehad been the first House member to speak when that chamber went onthe air in 1979. (Gore was chided - unfairly, to some observers -for allegedly claiming to have "invented the Internet." Lamb said hehad heard of Gore telling others he "invented C-SPAN.")
From a fashion perspective, the mid-'80s was certainly adifferent era than today's. But the Senate is the Senate - mostlywhite guys in suits - so no one on that day looked like a characterin a John Hughes movie or a Depeche Mode video.
The most visible differences between then and now involved hair,or lack thereof. Sen. Charles Grassley's, R-Iowa, mane was nearlyblack. Dole's was much more brown than gray. Gore's thick locks grewover the top of his ears.
The main camera position - high in the chamber, pointing down -was not flattering to follically challenged lawmakers.
"Those of us with thinning hairlines, or with little hair on thehead, have been advised that you do not lean over like this into thecamera," said Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, demonstrating the improperposition. At one point Glenn gestured for the cameras to zoom in ashe applied makeup to his scalp.
Lamb said he knew of one senator, whom he would not name, whoapplied dark paint to cover a bald spot.
At the time, C-SPAN2 was only available in about 7 million homes.It's not clear how high the ratings were on that first day, althoughit's safe to say "The Cosby Show" and "Family Ties" did not feelthreatened.
Reviews of the chamber's debut performance were mixed.
Tom Shales, The Washington Post's television critic, wrote thenext day that the Senate began to "grapple with this strange, new,one-eyed monster in its midst. In Round 1, the monster won, but thegrappler can be expected to hang in there." A Los Angeles Timescolumnist said: "Monday came and went ... and no bells, no tapdances, no Hula-Hoops, no hats, no circus. Not very much excitement,either."
The Senate's television experiment was dubbed a six-week trial,but Dole predicted on the first day that once cameras came to theSenate, they would be there to stay.
Another of Dole's predictions didn't turn out as well: "TheSenate may change, not as an institution, but may become a moreefficient body because of televised proceedings."
the associated press
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