Who Was the Meanest Man in Congress? (with Timothy J. McNulty)
Who Was the Meanest Man in Congress? (with Timothy J. McNulty)  
Podcast: Understanding Congress
Published On: Mon Sep 05 2022
Description: The topic of this episode is, “Who was the meanest man in Congress?”My guest is Timothy J. McNulty, who taught journalism at Northwestern University and spent more than thirty years at the Chicago Tribune. During his years as a journalist, Tim was a national and foreign correspondent, and also an editor. He logged untold hours paying attention to Congress and its many characters. And importantly for the purposes of this episode of the podcast, he is the coauthor of a terrific book, The Meanest Man in Congress: Jack Brooks and the Making of an American Century (NewSouth Books, 2019).Kevin Kosar:Welcome to Understanding Congress, a podcast about the first branch of government. Congress is a notoriously complex institution, and few Americans think well of it, but Congress is essential to our republic. It’s a place where our pluralistic society is supposed to work out its differences and come to agreement about what our laws should be. And that is why we are here: to discuss our national legislature and to think about ways to upgrade it so it can better serve our nation.I’m your host, Kevin Kosar, and I’m a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC.Welcome to the podcast.Timothy McNulty:Thanks very much for having me.Kevin Kosar:Thank you for being here. Jack Brooks served in Congress from 1952 to 1994. He was called a number of names: the snake killer, the executioner, and the meanest man in Congress. Why?Timothy McNulty:Well, each one had a very set reason in Congress. “The snake killer” was him using an old Texas term when he went after President Ford's early budget. He said to reporters then, “Well, the best time to kill a snake is when it's young.” So that's what Ford did. “The executioner” is what Nixon told some of his aides, because Brooks had been really a driving force in the Judiciary Committee. Peter Rodino was the head of it, but he was taking it very slow, and Brooks wanted to speed things up. So that's what bothered Nixon. And then “the meanest man” was something that Brooks had a great deal of pride in, because his questioning on the Government Affairs Subcommittee struck fear into a lot of bureaucrats and corporate leaders who were called to testify, because he didn't blanch at any kind of power or anything else, whether it was Marine Corps generals or heads of General Motors or government department heads. He just went after them. So he got that “meanest man” title and wore it proudly.Kevin Kosar:Yes, yes. Brooks himself, as you detail in your book, was a Marine, and he was in World War II. He saw many intense things and he endured a lot, both in his upbringing and before he got to Congress. But the listener might be wondering: if Brooks was so mean, how come voters reelected him every two years for four decades?Timothy McNulty:Well, of course, he looked after his district. No matter what other public pronouncements or other publicity he got, he was never that interested in being anything other than a congressman. And people recognized that. He of course brought home a lot of government money, especially for infrastructure down in Southeast Texas. But he also had his staff be very aware of constituent concerns, whether it was someone who's a mother who wanted her son to be able to come home because of an operation that she was having— He took care of things and made sure that his staff answered every letter, every message. And that's why I think— He also was a populist. This is in a very different era that you alluded to: a populist, a Democrat, in Texas! That was something that was seen as a great achievement: to be that strong and to have both conservative ideas and also very advanced or progressive ideas. He also was able to kind of meld his constituency. It was business leaders, but it was also union leaders. That was important in Southeast Texas, there on the border with Louisiana. So [he had a] fairly unique ability to get together members of the community, no matter what their title or station.Kevin Kosar:Yes. You mentioned his knowledge of his district. One of the particularly interesting aspects of his district is that it was in Texas, but it had a significant number of Black citizens in it.Timothy McNulty:Yeah.Kevin Kosar:And Brooks, unlike so many other Southern representatives, was progressive on racial issues and had a big role in pushing forward civil rights acts. Is that right?Timothy McNulty:That's the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and others. He was very definite about that. He made sure that the Black citizens in his district were equally represented, and he refused to sign on to any pronouncements from other Southern Democrats who were for segregation. He was one of the few that refused to sign those kind of pronouncements. His district was one that encompassed everything from a town where Blacks were not welcome after dark to union leaders in Louisiana and in Southeast Texas and Beaumont, where they were in charge of a lot of the companies and the unions. So he was able to kind of meld all these different groups together by their self-interest.Kevin Kosar:Yes, yes. It's a remarkable thing, considering how intense the backlash towards desegregation was, to be able to keep that balance and fend off any primary challengers who might go after him. That was quite something.Timothy McNulty:He learned a lot in the Marines. He learned a lot in his first decade as a congressman. He was also in the Texas state legislature. Sam Rayburn was a mentor, and Rayburn talked about [how] the first ten years in Congress, you're kind of learning how things work. Then after that you become effective. And Brooks paid attention to his mentor. He also was a friend on the Senate side of Lyndon Johnson, and Johnson also as president. They were very close. So he kind of put together things from his life, both in the Marines and the state legislature, and then in his early days in Congress, to become very effective. And it was also, by the way, across the aisle. It wasn't as if they were saying, “I'm only going to work on Democratic issues.” He had strong friends on both sides. For instance, Bob Dole one time was meeting with the Democratic leaders in the Senate and the House. And they made an agreement—which is the art of compromise that Congress is lacking now—but they made an agreement, and Dole had told the Democratic leaders that he wanted it in writing. And they asked, “Well, you want a letter from Brooks?” And Dole said, “No, I don't need it from Brooks. His word is good.” So that's the way he was considered on the Hill.Kevin Kosar:Yeah. That gets to an interesting insight that your book offers on how to be an effective politician. One thing, certainly, that Brooks had was doggedness. The book relates the story of how he wanted, back when he was a state legislator, a community college to become a full-blown university. He had to fight and fight and bargain, and the bill died at least one time, if not more. And he kept at it until he got it done. Another thing that he seemed to really get was that, yes, politics is about principles, but it is about people, trust, and wants. In his career in the military, you describe how Brooks positioned himself as a guy who was able to procure things that were wanted—like boots or whiskey or socks—and was able to build support amongst those he served with. Is that right?Timothy McNulty:Absolutely. He learned that you appeal to people on what they need. So whether it was—as you said, one time, he traded things that another unit might have needed for fifty pairs of boots that his company needed. Or, a shipment of whiskey came in on a ship, not identified as whiskey, but he was able to figure out how to get that on land and on the islands in the South Pacific, and made good use of it. And it wasn't for himself. He was doing it and learning how to manage things for people's own self-interests. Part of his appeal was that it wasn’t like he was eager to make money or to get higher office. He was able to just say, “Here's what we need,” and figure out how to negotiate it. And the idea of compromise, he recognized—I think what Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson also realized—that in order to be effective, you have to be willing to compromise.Kevin Kosar:That's right. Speaking of Rayburn, who was speaker of the House for a very long time, and Lyndon Johnson, who became majority leader in the Senate before vice president and president: Brooks spent time with them, which had the advantage of not only conferring some of their power upon him—the fact that these two fellow Texans would listen to Brooks about certain things—but also he learned process. That's another key aspect of being an effective legislator: figuring out how the wheels turn on Capitol Hill. Is that right?Timothy McNulty:Absolutely. He realized that when he was— For instance, there was a sign, as simple a thing as a sign on a reservoir in Texas, and he wanted it named after Rayburn with Rayburn's full name. And