United States Senate

06/26/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 06/26/2026 09:31

Lights! Camera! Action! The Senate Televised

Senate Stories | Lights! Camera! Action! The Senate Televised

June 26, 2026
By Senate Historical Office
VIDEO: As televised Senate proceedings commenced on June 2, 1986, Majority Leader Robert Dole expressed his hope that welcoming Americans into the Chamber would improve the Senate's efficiency.
C-SPAN

Forty years ago, on June 2, 1986, President pro tempore Strom Thurmond of South Carolina gaveled in the Senate, just as he did most days. Guest Chaplain Bernard Hawley began the day's session with a prayer, as the Senate began each day of its proceedings. But this was no ordinary day in the Senate. Majority Leader Robert Dole of Kansas declared in his opening remarks, "Today we catch up with the 20th century." In a monumental change to the tradition-bound Senate, Leader Dole was broadcast live from the Senate Chamber to the American people on radio and television.1

Televised Senate proceedings had been a long time coming. In November 1947, the Senate for the first time televised a committee hearing-testimony by Secretary of State George Marshall on his plan to aid war-torn Europe. Households owning a television surged in the years following, growing to five million in 1950. In 1951 Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver's organized crime investigation became a national television event. The Army-McCarthy hearings launched a veritable media circus in 1954, when half of U.S. households owned a television set. In 1960 producers at ABC proposed televising Senate debates. Reporters approached Democratic Whip Mike Mansfield of Montana. Did he agree with the idea? "I sure as hell do not," he snapped. "Television would amount to offering entertainment," Mansfield insisted, "and this is no place for entertainment."2

Party leaders Robert Byrd and Howard Baker supported the idea of televising Senate proceedings.
Senate Historical Office
Robert Byrd and Howard Baker
Senate Historical Office

Party leaders Robert Byrd and Howard Baker supported the idea of televising Senate proceedings.

Senator Jacob Javits of New York raised the idea of television coverage in 1963 and again in 1965, but during Mansfield's 16 years as majority leader, from 1961 to 1977, cameras made it into the Senate Chamber only once. As it became increasingly likely that the Senate would hold an impeachment trial of President Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal, the Senate, in anticipation of massive public interest, made provisions for the first live television coverage from the Chamber. Several months after Nixon's resignation made a trial unnecessary, Majority Whip Robert Byrd of West Virginia, acting as majority leader while Mansfield was out of the country, secured Senate approval to telecast Nelson Rockefeller's December 19 swearing-in as vice president.3

The Senate considered bringing cameras into the Chamber on several additional occasions in the mid-to-late 1970s and early 1980s, but plans failed to materialize. The Joint Committee on Congressional Operations, created in 1970, issued a report in 1974 recommending that the House and Senate conduct a test of the feasibility of cameras in their Chambers. Senators discussed televising floor debate on the contested New Hampshire election between Republican Louis Wyman and Democrat John Durkin in 1975, but disagreements over setting a time limit for debate scuttled the plan. In 1976 the Commission on the Operation of the Senate-popularly known as the Culver Commission-recommended again that the Senate test televising its proceedings. Majority Leader Robert Byrd authorized a camera and lighting test in the Chamber as he considered whether to televise the extended debate on the Panama Canal Treaties in 1978, but the lights proved to be too hot and bright for senators on the floor. Proposals to televise Senate debate on a nuclear arms treaty with the Soviet Union were not acted upon.4

Republican Leader Howard Baker hoped that television coverage would revive floor debate and "help the Senate to become the great deliberative body which it was thought to be when it was created."
U.S. Senate Historical Office
Howard H. Baker, Jr. (R-TN)
U.S. Senate Historical Office

Republican Leader Howard Baker hoped that television coverage would revive floor debate and "help the Senate to become the great deliberative body which it was thought to be when it was created."

In 1981 Republican Leader Howard Baker of Tennessee, now leading the majority, took up the cause of televising Senate proceedings. The House of Representatives in 1979 had begun broadcasting its gavel-to-gavel proceedings on a newly created non-profit cable network dedicated for that purpose, the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, or C-SPAN. Baker worried that the greater public attention to the House threatened to turn the Senate into the invisible half of Congress. C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb hoped to expand its coverage to the Senate. A C-SPAN survey in early 1981 indicated that 57 senators-36 Republicans and 21 Democrats-favored some form of television coverage of Senate proceedings with only 19 against, but there were many questions that had to be answered first. Would the Senate broadcast all its floor proceedings or just a selection of debates? How many cameras would be required? Where should they be mounted and would they detract from the Chamber's historic appearance? In February 1981, the Rules Committee permitted another round of camera and lighting testing in the Chamber, and committee staff issued a report summarizing the results and recommending further consideration.5

For Howard Baker, however, the questions at hand were not technical ones, but about what kind of institution the Senate ought to be. He believed that the Senate was no longer a deliberative body and lamented that the Chamber floor had lost its importance as a central forum in the legislative process. Baker thought television coverage was the first step in reviving floor debate. In testimony before the Rules Committee, chaired by Charles McCurdy Mathias, Jr., of Maryland-who supported the proposal-Baker asserted that "televised proceedings will allow the people of this country to better understand us, to understand the system, to understand the Senate and the Congress, and will permit us to fulfill better our responsibilities to the Nation." Baker asserted that "the Senate has a special and unique and historic role. But we are not performing it." For Baker, television was "the most important single thing" the Senate could do for it "actually to become the great deliberative body which it was thought to be when it was created." Alongside the introduction of cameras, Baker proposed rules changes that he believed would bring more senators to the Chamber to engage in substantive debate. He predicted that more public attention to the Chamber would motivate senators to adopt further reforms.6

Senator Russell Long opposed televising Senate proceedings, believing that it would lead to senators playing to the cameras and increase the number of long speeches.
U.S. Senate Historical Office
Russell B. Long (D-LA)
U.S. Senate Historical Office

Senator Russell Long opposed televising Senate proceedings, believing that it would lead to senators playing to the cameras and increase the number of long speeches.

Baker faced staunch opposition in the Rules Committee. Republican John Warner of Virginia bristled at Baker's critique of the Senate and the idea that "that machine," television, was the solution. Republican Mark Hatfield of Oregon argued that the most important work in the modern Senate took place in committee rooms and doubted that television cameras would do much to bring deliberation back to the Chamber floor. Democrat Wendell Ford of Kentucky predicted that the public would not like what they see of the Senate floor-speeches to empty seats and long quorum calls. Ford also balked at the cost of installing the system-estimated to be between $2.5 and $3.5 million-at a time when reducing federal spending was a key topic of discussion. Ford preferred to limit Senate broadcasts to radio. Democrat Russell Long of Louisiana believed that television would lead to senators playing to the cameras and increase the number of long speeches. "The greatest surplus commodity we have in the Congress are speeches that need never be made," he said, "speeches that fail to improve on silence."7

Despite the pushback, the Rules Committee reported Baker's resolution favorably to the full Senate in July 1981, but lacking broad support and facing a threatened filibuster by Long, Baker postponed consideration to the following year. In April 1982, the Senate passed a version of the resolution that required the Rules Committee to draft regulations to govern television and radio coverage of the Chamber. But when Rules reported the required regulations in July, consideration once again stalled. Baker did not bring the topic back to the full Senate again until fall 1984, when a cloture vote on his resolution failed to muster even a bare majority. Baker gave up. "It is clear to me this is an idea whose time has not come."8

VIDEO: Senator Howell Heflin ushered in televised Senate proceedings with an original sonnet.
C-SPAN

In 1985 Baker resigned his Senate seat to become chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan. The new majority leader, Robert Dole of Kansas, picked up the torch and joined forces with Democratic Leader Robert Byrd to put television coverage back before the Senate. Byrd had initially been skeptical of televised proceedings, but he changed his mind after being erroneously introduced to a West Virginia audience as the Speaker of the House. "That was a warning to me," Byrd explained, "that we'd better go on television." Byrd was not the only one warming to the idea. C-SPAN conducted another survey of senators and found that 62 supported the proposal, 18 opposed in any form, and only 5 remained uncommitted. After another round of hearings by the Rules Committee, Byrd introduced a resolution providing for an initial trial run of closed-circuit broadcast for senators' offices only, to be followed by a six-week trial of a national broadcast. After weeks of debate and negotiation, the Senate finally approved the trials.9

The closed-circuit trial went smoothly, and on June 2 the Senate was ready for its national radio and television debut. In his opening remarks, Leader Dole expressed his hope that welcoming Americans into the Chamber would improve the Senate's efficiency. He acknowledged the presence of former Senator Howard Baker, on hand to witness the historic occasion. As he often did, Byrd put the milestone into historical context, quoting 19th-century British poet laureate Lord Alfred Tennyson, "The old order changeth, yielding place to new." Senator Alan Cranston of California declared that "for serious Americans who take their country seriously, this is the show to watch."10

Other senators had fun with the moment. Alabama's Howell Heflin recited a sonnet: "Turn the spotlight over here; Focus the camera at my place; Pages, please don't come near; Otherwise you just might block my face." John Glenn of Ohio assured the audience that despite the cameras, "I plan to do nothing different." As he spoke, he pulled out a compact and brush and applied powder to his balding head to dull the shine produced by the bright lights and added a few dabs to cover the bags under his eyes. The first day of broadcasting ended with a 25-minute quorum call, suggesting that Dole's hopes for greater efficiency might not come to pass.11

VIDEO: Senator John Glenn offered some lightheartedness to the start of Senate television broadcasts.
C-SPAN

By the terms of the resolution, after six weeks of live broadcasts, the Senate pulled the plug on the cameras on July 15 for two weeks of discussion among members about the merits of televised proceedings. Dole was so pleased that he proposed forgoing the break. Senator Al Gore of Tennessee, who had commissioned a study by the Congressional Research Service to compare Senate proceedings before and after the cameras turned on, reported that the Senate had spent more time on legislation and less time in quorum calls. Rules Committee Chair Charles Mathias presented to the Senate a host of suggestions from senators for improving the system, from better camera angles to changing the color of the Chamber walls to eliminating audio during roll-call votes. Finally, after hours of floor debate on July 29, 1986, senators voted 78 to 21 to turn the cameras on-permanently.12

In the years and decades that followed, the Senate expanded its broadcast coverage to encompass all public committee hearings, giving the American public the window into the democratic process that Senator Howard Baker had wished for. Television coverage may have brought the Senate into the 20th century, but the Senate has since embraced the technologies of the 21st century, with live streams of each daily session on C-SPAN and Senate.gov.


Notes

1. "Senate Session (June 2, 1986)," C-SPAN, accessed June 10, 2026, https://www.c-span.org/program/senate-highlight/senate-session-june-2-1986/36237.

2. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Emergency Foreign Aid, 80th Cong., 1st sess., November 10-14, 1947, 2-39; Arthur Vandenberg to Bill Henry, Radio Correspondents Association, December 30, 1947, Senate Historical Office Files; United States Census Bureau, "History and the Census: Philo Farnsworth and the Invention of Television," September 1, 2023, accessed June 10, 2026, https://www.census.gov/about/history/stories/monthly/2023/september-2023.html; "Capital Circus," New York Daily News, August 9, 1960, 4.

3. Congressional Record, 88th Cong., 1st sess., May 14, 1963, 8394; Kenneth Keating, "Not 'Bonanza,' Not 'Peyton Place,' But the US Senate!" New York Times, April 25, 1965, SM67; Resolution to permit radio, television, and photographic coverage of the swearing-in-ceremony of the Vice President of the United States, S. Res. 452, 93rd Cong., 2nd sess., December 14, 1974; "Senate Ceremony," New York Times, December 20, 1974, 1.

4. Spencer Rich, "Test TV Coverage Of Senate Urged," Washington Post, September 7, 1976, A20; Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, Television and Radio Coverage of Proceedings in the Senate Chamber: Hearings on S. Res. 20, 97th Cong., 1st sess., April 8, April 9, May 5, 1981, 16-25.

5. "Lights, Cameras, No Action in Empty Senate," Los Angeles Times, February 9, 1981, A2; "Poll Shows Senators in Favor of TV," Roll Call, March 5, 1981, 1; Television and Radio Coverage, 16-25.

6. Television and Radio Coverage, 3-9; "Senate Television," in CQ Almanac 1981 (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1982), 391.

7. Television and Radio Coverage, 10, 13-16, 73-75.

8. Rich Burkhardt, "Senate Embraces Television," Roll Call, July 29, 1982, 1; "Baker Loses Last Bid for TV in the Senate," New York Times, September 23, 1984, 34; Rich Burkhardt, "TV Blacked Out in Senate," Roll Call, September 27, 1984, 1.

9. C-SPAN, Press Release, "New C-SPAN Poll Shows Senate TV Gaining Ground," August 26, 1985, Senate Historical Office Files; "Senate Debates Rules Changes As Prelude to TV Coverage," CQ Inside Congress, (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly), February 22, 1986, 467; Helen Dewar, "Senators Keep Leeway for Nongermane Riders," Washington Post, February 27, 1986; Helen Dewar, "The Video Senate's Peer Preview," Washington Post, May 2, 1986, A17; "A Quarter Century Ago the Senate Was Ready For Its Close up," Washington Post, June 7, 2011; To Improve Senate Procedures, S. Res. 28, 99th Cong., 2nd sess., February 27, 1986.

10. Congressional Record, 99th Cong., 2nd sess., June 2, 1986, 12042, 12047.

11. "Senate Session (June 2, 1986)" C-SPAN, accessed June 10, 2026, https://www.c-span.org/program/senate-highlight/senate-session-june-2-1986/36237.

12. Congressional Record, 99th Cong., 2nd sess., July 29, 1986, 17879-82; 17905.

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Technology | Senate Firsts
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