- Pritzker Fellows
- Former Fellows
- Laura Dove
Laura Dove
Former Senate Secretary for the Majority
- Office Hours
Tuesdays
&
Wednesdays
- Seminars
Seminar Series: "View From the Senate Floor: Cooling Saucer or Legislative Graveyard?"
Laura Dove has devoted decades of service to the United States Senate, from her appointment as a Senate page in the 1980s to election as the body’s Secretary for the Majority. An officer of the Senate, Ms. Dove was nominated by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, elected unanimously by Republican Conference and ratified by the full Senate from 2013 until her retirement in 2020.
As party secretary, Ms. Dove was responsible for forging consensus among Republican and Democratic Senators to move legislative and executive matters across the floor of the Senate, confirming Presidential nominations and treaty documents, coordinating activities with the minority, House of Representatives and Executive Branch.
When Ms. Dove retired from Senate service in 2020, she joined Ford Motor Company, where she led federal government relations for the Fortune 50 company. She also served as Chair of the Executive Committee of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation and the Vice Chair of the Highway Users Foundation during that time.
Ms. Dove holds a Master’s degree from the University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and has lectured at Brown University, Stanford, and George Washington on the role and procedures of the Senate.
She lives in Alexandria, Virginia with her husband, Dan Solomon and their two children.
Seminars
"View From the Senate Floor: Cooling Saucer or Legislative Graveyard?"
Type “dysfunctional Senate” into a search box, and you will get thousands of hits. From well-paid pundits to armchair analysts, many Americans believe that the United States Senate is archaic, gridlocked and broken. Recent images of protestors screaming from the galleries to protest the Kavanaugh confirmation vote and surreal footage of violent insurrectionists climbing over the presiding officer’s desk to “stop the steal” on January 6 have underscored the Senate’s central place in the rawest current political conflicts. Those who study the Congressional process (and, frequently, those serving in the Senate who are attempting to slow things down...) tend to quote George Washington’s words on the role of the U.S Senate. When Thomas Jefferson asked Washington why the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had created a Senate, Washington reportedly asked, "Why did you pour that coffee into your saucer?" Jefferson replied, "To cool it.” "Even so," responded Washington, "we pour legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it." How did we get from cooling saucer to a perceived threat to democracy? Is the United States Senate the root of partisan gridlock in Washington? Are its rules an impediment to good government or a needed check on the polarized electorate and the rapid pivots of the House of Representatives?
How does the Senate work? What does a newly-elected Senator need to know? What really happens on the floor and in the Cloakrooms? What is a Cloakroom anyway? Let’s talk about the basic structure of the Senate and how it is supposed to work, including committee structure/assignments, how an office is staffed and run and who really runs the place. Who are the people on the lowest rungs of the ladder (pages, interns, staff assistants), and what do they do? Who are these high school students (up to thirty each semester) zipping around the Chamber – fetching water, making copies and keeping an eye on the coffee maker in the Cloakroom? We will take a virtual tour of the floor and the offices closest to the Chamber and hear from veteran pages who donned a blue suit to perch on the rostrum each day.
Special Guests: former Senate Pages Myra Bajwa, AB '24 & Laresa Lund, Career Development Program Coordinator at the Institute of Politics
The Senate’s rules are routinely circumvented by a magic wand called “unanimous consent.” The two Leaders will work together to craft consent agreements on matters as mundane as allowing committees to meet each day to passing hundreds of bills and confirming scores of nominations each year. Leaders must work together behind the scenes and throughout the day to get anything done. Frosty or warm, the relationships between the Senate’s Majority and Minority Leaders, the Speaker and the House Minority leader are the indispensable catalyst of progress. How have leaders in the Senate and House worked to fix or break critical national issues? Who are the fixers and breakers in the Capitol now? We will discuss the role of the elected Leaders of the House and Senate both in creating gridlock and in the legislative accomplishments of the past 20 years and talk about how bipartisan progress has been made (or not?).
Special Guests (via Zoom): Robert Duncan, Senate Secretary for the Minority & Gary Myrick, Senate Secretary for the Majority
No Senate rule is more polarizing (or less understood) than the filibuster. The Senate’s tolerance for extended (sometimes endless) debate has been glorified in Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.“ This week we will look at the modern filibuster, its quiet cousin the “secret hold,” as well as what happens when the rule is changed. We can look at the legendary filibusters of the past (Strom Thurmond and his iron bladder, Ted Cruz reading Dr. Seuss and the decades in between) and the quiet, tacit filibusters of recent years, with record numbers of cloture votes and the majority’s stranglehold on the amendment process. Questions we will address and debate: How does the filibuster actually work? What do you think might pass if the filibuster were gone and the Democrats were in charge? How about the Republicans? Why didn’t those things pass when President Obama had the House and Senate, and when President Trump and the Republicans ran the table in 2016?
Special Guest: Richard Arenberg, Professor of Political Science at Brown University, Filibuster Expert & Author of "Defending the Filibuster: Soul of the Senate"
The Senate’s rules are special. No other legislative body in the world uses them, and there is no written rule book that contains the governing precedents of the Senate. In this session, we will examine the Senate’s rules and precedents. What is “reconciliation,” and why is it such a powerful tool? How do conference committees work, and why are these committees less common now? What is the Senate’s advise and consent role for nominations and treaties, how does the prohibition on considering Senate-originated revenue and appropriations measures work and what exactly is the incredibly powerful role of the Senate parliamentarian? Let’s talk about what has been passed through reconciliation in the recent past (Obamacare/ACA, student loan reforms, drilling in Alaska, tax reforms) and what has been on the table (green energy, child tax credits, minimum wage, immigration reforms). If you were the Majority Leader, how would you prioritize what makes the cut?
Special Guest: Reema Dodin, White House Deputy Assistant to the President & Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs and former Floor Assistant for Democratic Whip Richard Durbin
The Senate’s role in confirming Presidential appointments has been a flashpoint in recent years, with high-stakes battles over Supreme Court vacancies and endless backlogs for executive appointments, ambassadors and others subject to the grueling and opaque confirmation process. How does the process work, and how does the Senate’s relationship with the White House function (or not)?
Special Guests (via Zoom): Elizabeth McDonough, Senate Parliamentarian & Leigh Hildebrand, Senior Assistant Parliamentarian
Election years are known as “silly season” for a reason. How is the Senate functioning and what is getting done in 2022? What is on the floor agenda, and who has put it there? How have different factions stalled, derailed or succeeded in passing legislation? Has anything beyond the must-pass spending and authorization bills been enacted into law, and what happened behind the scenes? Have the structural limitations of the Senate’s rules and procedures contributed to gridlock and become a flash point for anger and derision? And, now that the midterms are over, what just happened to party control and what will that mean for 2023 and 2024?
Special Guests: Anne Bradbury, former Floor Director for Speakers Boehner & Ryan and Anne Wall, former Floor Director for Democratic Whip Richard Durbin, Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs at the Treasury Department & Deputy Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs for President Barack Obama
Bipartisanship - is it dead? Let’s talk more about what is going to happen in 2023 and 2024. Which issues are ripe for compromise as the country heads into the Presidential election season? What legislation is likely to come to the floor? What has divided government produced in the past?
Special Guest: TBA