This is a shrewd insider's analysis of what has gone wrong--why today's Senate does not work. Reedy shows the human motives--guile, craft, passion--and the intricate behavior of ritual and maneuver that determine what the Senate can and cannot accomplish. What the Senate does par excellence is chart, set, and implement the long-term goals of social policy, responding, slowly and carefully, to change in society. By way of illustration, Reedy focuses on a period "when the Senate really worked"--the Eisenhower years, from 1952 to 1960. It is by contrasting that Senate with the one in recent years that Reedy makes a provocative analysis of how and why the Senate functions--or fails to.