July 1, 1999 marked the twentieth anniversary of the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center. The concept of creating a center at the University of Oklahoma named for the former Speaker of the U.S. House initiated in the University's Western History Collections. Upon his retirement in 1977 Speaker Albert donated his papers to the University, in custody of the Western History Collections. It was proposed to combine Speaker Albert's papers with thirty or forty other sets of congressional papers that OU had obtained over the years to create a special center for congressional studies. In the Spring of 1977 Speaker Albert was on campus to teach a class on the Congress and I asked him if he had any intention of writing a book about the speakership. He told me that he might write a memoir someday, but not at that time. (He did write one, by the way, and it's good - Little Giant, by Carl Albert with Danney Goble.) I recall mentioning in the Political Science Department that someone ought to write a book on the speakership. I figured that with Speaker Albert's support and the availability of his papers here, it would be a real opportunity. When no one took the bait, I decided to look into doing such a book myself. I went to the Western History Collections to find out about the Speaker's papers, learned about the concept of creating a center, and took up the task of writing a proposal. 

At that time one of my students, Finis Smith, was a powerful state senator who served as the chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee. Finis had become bored with the after-hours life of a state senator, and had decided to get a Ph.D. in political science. I sent him a copy of the proposal, mostly for his interest, and two days later received back from him a copy of a bill that he had introduced to create the Center. This was in the early part of 1979, probably in February. By June the bill had cleared the legislature and been signed into law by Governor Nigh. The Oklahoma State Regents passed a resolution creating the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center as of July 1, 1979, assigning it as a special function of the University of Oklahoma.

The Center's mission was to develop the Carl Albert Congressional Archives and to develop academic programs for graduate and undergraduate students through the Department of Political Science. It would also sponsor conferences and lectures and other such events. I was put in place as the director of the Center, with primary responsibility for academic programs; the Western History Collection remained in charge of processing the congressional papers. We hoped to raise private money for an endowment, possibly supplemented by a federal grant from the Congress.

In addition to getting the academic programs up and running, I spent the next six years trying to raise the envisioned endowment. We got a fast start during the Oklahoma oil boom. A fund raising dinner in 1981 featuring Speaker Tip O'Neill and President Gerald Ford netted $350,000. But then the oil crash hit Oklahoma and fund raising screeched to a halt. I turned my attention to the Congress, where we hoped to pass legislation providing for a federal matching grant for private contributions to the Center's endowment fund. The original legislation had been authored by Oklahoma's 4^th District Congressman Tom Steed in 1980. In 1981 his successor, Dave McCurdy, resubmitted the bill. 

Thus began for me a five-year "Dance of Legislation" during which I learned more about the legislative process than in all my academic research put together. This was the 97th Congress, the Congress of the Reagan Revolution. The Republicans controlled the Senate and the Democrats held a narrow 26 seat majority in the House. As the government moved towards a major tax cut and a substantial reallocation of funding from domestic to defense appropriations, the assistant professor from Oklahoma was out to pass a bill to provide $3 million in matching funds for a congressional research center located in the middle of the country and named for a former Democratic House Speaker. 

My partner in this endeavor was Joe Foote, then the administrative assistant to Congressman McCurdy, and now Dean of the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts at Southern Illinois University. Joe had served as press secretary to Speaker Albert and was an OU alumnus. We were advised by former Carl Albert aides Joel Jankowsky and Mike Reed. Together Joe and I "worked" the bill, first obtaining co-sponsorship of the Oklahoma delegation, then winning the key support of House Education and Labor Committee Chairman Carl Perkins, and of Congressman (later Senator) Paul Simon, the chairman of the Postsecondary Education Subcommittee. Simon's assistant, William (Buddy) Blakey was a key ally in our efforts to round up votes on the subcommittee and full committee. 

With Paul Simon's support, the bill moved through subcommittee and moved to a full committee markup in the fall of 1981. Here I learned the power of a committee chairman armed with the proxies of his party's members on the committee. Perkins and Simon were the only two Democrats at the markup, and there were probably ten Republicans in attendance. The "debate" went largely along party lines, with only Congresswoman Millicent Fenwick of New Jersey offering any slight hope of a Republican vote. When the role was called though, she voted "no" along with all of the Republicans in attendance. But as the Democrats' names were called one by one Chairman Perkins, in his southern drawl, called out "Aye by proxy," and the bill moved to the House floor.

With the assistance of Speaker O'Neill's staff, we placed the bill on the House suspension calendar, normally reserved for non-controversial legislation, and requiring a 60% majority. The suspension calendar is called on Mondays. We knew that the key to passing the bill was to avoid a recorded vote. One member of the Judiciary Committee, a first-term Republican from a tobacco state, who I will call Congressman Blue, had vowed to kill the bill. It represented for him the sort of extraneous spending that the Reagan Revolution was out to end. To enhance our chances, the bill was set for a vote on the Monday on which one of the early Space Shuttle flights was to take off. Dozens of members were scheduled to be at Cape Canaveral for the launch including, we were told, Congressman Blue.

Then, early that morning, the launch was aborted due to bad weather. The members would be streaming back to Washington. Joe Foote and I had been prowling the halls that morning, making sure that the principals, including Congressman McCurdy, Chairman Perkins, and Congressman Simon, would be on hand and ready to manage the bill. In our efforts to round up support we had left no stone unturned, and had struck up an acquaintance with a Republican assistant to Minority Leader Bob Michel, Hyde Murray. Hyde was a historian who supported anything that would preserve the history of the House. He was in charge of the floor operation that day for the Republicans. Joe and I went by the GOP cloakroom and asked Hyde to come out for a visit. Our bill was scheduled for floor action later in the day, but we were concerned lest Congressman Blue and other potential opponents return in time to take the floor against us. Hyde reported that it was "pretty quiet around here right now. Why don't you see if you can move the bill up?" 

With this advice in hand, Joe and I went to see Ari Weiss, Speaker O'Neill's primary legislative assistant, and asked if he would juggle the schedule to put our bill up next. He agreed, and we ran to round up our members to take the floor. Under suspension, a bill is given twenty minutes of floor consideration, divided equally between the majority and the minority. Paul Simon began making the case for the bill, when in through the Republican Cloakroom stepped none other than our nemesis, Congressman Blue! Sitting in the gallery, my heart sunk. All Blue had to do was to call for a recorded vote and our bill was dead. We later learned that he had intended to do just that, but had not realized that we had shifted the schedule. Either he or a member of his staff had observed that the bill was up via the closed circuit television coverage of the floor, and so he had run over to the floor.

The drama that then ensued lent life to the legislative process for me in my perch in the House gallery. First, I saw Paul Simon and Buddy Blakey looking over at Blue. Then I saw Simon informing Perkins and McCurdy that trouble was on the horizon. Then, I saw Perkins go across to the Republican side, put his arm around Blue, and try to physically drag him from the chamber! Blue shrugged Perkins off, and seemed red-faced and angry. He sat down, obviously girded to do the one thing that he needed to do to terminate this boondoggle: "Mr. Speaker. I ask for a recorded vote!" 

This was Dave McCurdy's first bill, and he did not intend to lose it. Not long before this, the tobacco state members, led by North Carolina Democrat Charlie Rose, had pushed through a compromise tobacco bill that had won McCurdy's reluctant support and the vote of Congressman Blue as well. From the gallery I watched McCurdy walk over and sit down next to him. The two conversed earnestly for a few minutes. I noticed that Blue seemed taken aback. After a few minutes, McCurdy got up and walked back across to the Democratic side. A few minutes after that, Blue stood up and left the chamber. At the end of the twenty minutes the Speaker Pro-tempore called for a voice vote. McCurdy, Perkins, and Simon shouted "Aye." On the Republican side, there were a couple of "Nay's." "The 'Ayes' have it, and the bill is passed." There was no call for a recorded vote.

I later learned the gist of what McCurdy had said to Blue, which I will paraphrase as follows. This was his (McCurdy's) first bill. Blue may not have known much about Carl Albert, but Albert was a political hero in Oklahoma, the highest elected federal officer in the history of the state. The money in the bill was trivial. The money involved in the tobacco bill was vastly greater, and tobacco kills people. McCurdy had given the tobacco states a vote because he realized that the issue was vital to them in their districts. He wanted Blue to know that this bill was critical to him in his district. McCurdy was among a group of moderate Democrats who would cooperate with Republicans on some issues. The Republicans needed this group of Democrats because of the narrow Democratic majority. He, McCurdy, needed this bill. He was not asking Blue to vote for it; only that he refrain from calling for a recorded vote. 

This was politics in its essence, practiced by two neophyte members of the House. One, Dave McCurdy, would go on to establish a strong career in the House before leaving it in 1994 in an unsuccessful bid for a Senate seat. The other, Congressman Blue, was defeated in 1982. 

And the legislation to provide federal funding for the Carl Albert Center kept breathing. The saga had only begun. Over the next two years we encountered opposition in the Senate. This was the sort of bill that was easy for Republican senators, no matter what state they represented, to oppose. At a hearing at which House Rules Committee Chairman Dick Bolling testified, we encountered the opposition of Senate Education Committee Chairman Bob Stafford of Vermont, for whom the Stafford Student Loan program is named. Stafford was a moderate Republican but had a very conservative staff director who was determined to do in our bill. She succeeded, and the bill died in the Senate.

I am confident that the Senate opposition eventually ensured the success of the bill. I learned two valuable lessons about legislative politics. The first lesson is that every defeat can be turned to your advantage because you will pick up new allies. The second lesson was that, in the United States Congress, there is always another way to get things done. We later attached the provisions of our bill to a continuing resolution. In December of 1982, amidst a dense snow storm, the conference on that omnibus continuing resolution was held. Again, I prowled the halls feeling helpless but hopeful. I learned that day a third lesson about Congress: friendship and loyalty run deep. 

Congressman Bill Natcher was a legend. Over a nearly fifty year career he never missed a recorded vote until just two weeks before he died. He was a stickler for the House rules, one of which held that there could be no authorizing language in appropriation bills, nor any unauthorized appropriations. As the chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education, Natcher was famous for refusing requests for riders on his subcommittee's bills. 

In order to "take a ride" on the omnibus continuing resolution, we had to be included in the House appropriations bill. This meant waiving the House rules to permit the inclusion of authorizing language. To do this, we needed Natcher's support. At first, Natcher resisted, standing on principle. Then, Dick Bolling took him to task for not getting this done for Carl Albert, and implied that the Rules Committee might have to add the provision if Appropriations didn't. Naturally, this did not sit well with Natcher, who was not going to be outdone by Dick Bolling either in tending to the business of his subcommittee or in showing his friendship for Carl Albert.

Bill Natcher and Carl Albert were old friends. But more than this, each had the professional respect of the other. Later, Carl Albert told me a story. The House was facing the certainty in 1974 that the Judiciary Committee would vote articles of impeachment against President Nixon. Albert was third in succession to the presidency. Everyone understood that for the House to impeach Nixon would bring the country into a constitutional crisis. It was imperative that the House be perceived to have proceeded fairly. Albert had to decide who would preside during the impeachment proceedings, and he had selected Bill Natcher. Natcher was famous for his stern, yet impartial demeanor in the chair. Albert felt that Natcher, better than any other member, would reassure the public as to the fairness of the proceedings. 

So Carl Albert had placed his trust in Bill Natcher, and Bill Natcher would repay that confidence. He included our provision in the continuing resolution. When the conferees met to iron out differences in the House and Senate versions of the higher education appropriation bill, Natcher reportedly spoke to New Mexico Republican Senator Harrison Schmidt, the former astronaut, as follows: "Now before we do anything else on this bill, we are going to settle up on Carl Albert." Harrison asked Natcher for a million off of the price tag, Natcher agreed, and the Carl Albert Center emerged with a $2 million federal matching appropriation. 

The story was not over. With the Oklahoma economy in the basket, we could not raise the required matching funds. In 1986 we decided to seek to have the matching provisions lifted. Unfortunately, the Higher Education authorization bill had already been enacted. Turning our attention to the Senate, we asked Senator David Boren to sponsor an amendment to the postsecondary appropriations bill lifting the matching provisions and making the balance of the funding available to us. With the support of Senator Paul Simon, the amendment was passed by unanimous consent and we were on our way to conference once again, this time with a Republican-controlled, Senate-passed provision to fund a center named for a Democratic House Speaker. 

Unbeknownst to me, Carl Albert had himself been busy behind the scenes. Through the entire process since1978, Speaker Albert had played no direct role in our efforts. After our initial legislation was passed in 1982 providing for $2 million in funding, the Congress began to get more generous in honoring former members, including $3 million appropriations to the Carl Vinson Institute at the University of Georgia and the same amount to the John W. McCormack Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Now Carl Albert was too proud to ask for money, but he was not too proud to ask for the same money that others were getting. He called Bill Natcher and asked him to provide an additional $1 million for the Center. Natcher agreed, and so by the end of 1986 the Center had received a total of $3 million in federal grants. 

Thus, I was present near the beginning of the tradition of "academic honorary appropriations." Bob Stafford's assistant had been right; our appropriation set an example that was later to be emulated by future congresses, Republican and Democratic alike. On this topic the only difference between the Republicans and the Democrats that I have been able to discern is that the Republicans tend to think in larger terms. Just this past month the House of Representatives killed $31 million in Senate proposed funding for university-based centers named in honor of former senators, including $5 million for a center at the University of Vermont named for Senator Stafford. I wonder what his staff assistant would say about that! One thing is probable: these proposals will come back and many will be enacted into law. I suppose that it is easy enough to write all of this off as a form of "academic pork." Before reaching that conclusion, however, I would call attention to what has been accomplished due to the support that we received.

The federal funds, along with the private funds that we had initially raised, have grown to create endowment funding of over $4 million. We use the income to support the Center's activities, including the archives, student fellowships, conferences, and lectures. In 1986 responsibility for the congressional collections passed to the Center, unifying it and enabling us to deploy resources to process the collections. Those collections have now grown to over fifty sets of congressional papers. We are often told by visiting scholars that it is the best managed congressional archive in the country. Our archival exhibits have won regional and national awards.

Over the past twenty years the Center has accomplished a great deal. Our close relationship with the Department of Political Science has enabled us to develop a strong graduate fellowship program. Carl Albert Fellows from 20 states have matriculated at OU. They have gone on to careers in academia and government. They have presented scores of conference papers, published dozens of articles, received Fulbright Fellowships and NSF grants, won national dissertation awards, and have published six dissertations. Carl Albert Center faculty and graduate students have taught hundreds of courses for the Department of Political Science, and have been regular contributors to the departmental mission, including my current stint as the department chair. Our undergraduate program has offered research opportunities for hundreds of undergraduate students over the years. Some of these students have made conference presentations, published articles, and gone on to pursue academic or other professional careers.

The Center has reached beyond the campus as well. We have sponsored several conferences, produced national award-winning archival exhibits, collaborated with other programs and centers around the country, and established close links with the American Political Science Association. Currently, we edit the Association's Legislative Studies Section Newsletter, and in September the first Carl Albert Best Dissertation Award was presented by the Section. The Center hosted the award winner, Dan Lipinski of Duke University, to campus to give a talk later that month.

Our Julian J. Rothbaum Distinguished Lectureship in Representative Government is now regarded as among the finest academic lecture series in the country. Seven books have issued from the Rothbaum Lecture Series, published by the University of Oklahoma Press. The authors include distinguished scholars and public servants: John Brademas, Barber Conable, James MacGregor Burns, Theodore Lowi, Samuel Huntington, Richard Fenno, Charles O. Jones, and Seymour Martin Lipset. Two books in the series have been recognized by awards. The Center has also initiated a congressional studies book series with the University of Oklahoma Press, and the first volume, by Robin Kolodny, was published this past year. I am indebted to OU Press Directors George Bauer and John Drayton, and especially to our editor, Kim Wiar, for their efforts on behalf of our shared projects.

The Center is marking its twentieth anniversary during 1999-2000 with a number of events. In October, Professor Theda Skocpol delivered the 1999 Rothbaum Lectures, as noted elsewhere in this issue. In April, the Center will sponsor a major conference on "Women Transforming Congress." Professor Cindy Rosenthal, the Center's assistant director, will be the conference director. Participants will include scholars, members, and former members of Congress. Former Congresswoman Susan Molinari of New York will be the keynote speaker. In addition to these events, the Center's archival staff is preparing two special exhibits. The first will be a major exhibit on the speakership of the U.S. House. The second will be an exhibit on the role of women in the United States Congress, to be opened in connection with the conference in April.

As I look back over the past twenty years, I think mostly of the people who have been associated with the Carl Albert Center: my faculty colleagues Gary Copeland, Tom Wander, Allen Hertzke, Danney Goble, and Cindy Rosenthal; the staff, especially LaDonna Sullivan, Nita Dotson, Kathy Wade, Kellye Walker, Jan Lester, Debbie Farris, Sandy Logan, Carma Hurst, Linda Pierce, Julie Beila, and most recently Laurie McReynolds; the archival staff, including the late John Caldwell, Judy Day, Betty French, David Robinson, Todd Kosmerick, Janice Mathews, Carolyn Hanneman, Michael Lovegrove, Megan Benson, and the many students; the over two dozen Carl Albert Fellows; the many undergraduate fellows and research assistants, far too numerous to list. The paths of their lives ran through the Carl Albert Center. For some it was a minor diversion; for others, a major choice. From careers to families, the Carl Albert Center has made a difference in a lot of lives, and that will perhaps be its most important legacy.

I also feel a great debt of appreciation to the Department of Political Science. Under the leadership of Chair Hugh MacNiven, the department gave the Carl Albert Center a launching pad. Over its long history the department has been among the most entrepreneurial at OU. It has spawned the Bureau of Government Research, the Science and Public Policy Program, the Advanced Programs in Public Administration, the Carl Albert Center, and the Institute for Public Affairs. Currently it has embarked on the creation of a new survey research facility, the University of Oklahoma Public Opinion Learning Laboratory (OU-POLL), and is playing an important role in the development of the University's International Programs Center, headed by our colleague Ambassador Edward Perkins. The Political Science Department nurtures enterprise. Its faculty welcome innovation rather than feeling threatened by it. And the department rewards creativity and accomplishment. 

The Carl Albert Center would not have been created, and would certainly not have achieved its present level of development, without the support of many people. In addition to those mentioned above I want in particular to thank President Bill Banowsky, the late Vice-president David Burr, and Provost J. R. Morris. They didn't always know what I was doing, but they let me do it and stood behind me when I needed their support. The members of the Oklahoma delegation to the House, and in particular Dave McCurdy, were united across party lines in supporting our efforts for federal funding. Dave's administrative assistant, Joe Foote, was my partner in these efforts and I am forever grateful to him. Joe and I were supported by many friends of Carl Albert, including Joel Jankowsky, Mike Reed, and Julian J. Rothbaum. Current OU President David Boren played a key role in securing federal funding for the Center while serving in the United States Senate, and it is a happy coincidence that he has come to lead our university. The values that he has brought to our campus - the emphasis on excellence, the concern for students, and the welfare of faculty - are those for which the Carl Albert Center has stood over the past twenty years, and for which it will continue to stand in the years ahead. 

Finally, the Center would never have been created were it not for the life and career of Carl Albert. Speaker Albert has been a source of advice and encouragement over the years. He was named the outstanding OU graduate of the University's first century. The Carl Albert Center will perpetuate his legacy through OU's second century, in the millennium ahead.