The Senate Dress Code
Much ado about nothing?
Earlier this week, the Senate Majority Leader gave up on trying to get the junior Senator from Pennsylvania to dress like, well, a Senator. People are losing their minds.
AP (“Senate ditches dress code as Fetterman and others choose casual clothes“):
The stuffy Senate is now a bit less formal.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Monday that staff for the chamber’s Sergeant-at-Arms — the Senate’s official clothes police — will no longer enforce a dress code on the Senate floor. The change comes after Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman has been unapologetically wearing shorts as he goes about his duties, voting from doorways so he doesn’t get in trouble for his more casual attire.
“There has been an informal dress code that was enforced,” Schumer said in a statement. “Senators are able to choose what they wear on the Senate floor. I will continue to wear a suit.”
Schumer did not mention Fetterman in his statement about the dress code, which will only apply to senators, not staff.
The changes prompted outrage from some of the chamber’s more formal members, eroding a bit of the good will that first-term Fetterman had earned earlier this year when he checked himself into the hospital for clinical depression. He won bipartisan praise for being honest about his diagnosis, which came in the wake of a stroke he suffered on the campaign trail last year. When he returned from treatment, he started donning the more casual clothes, which he says make him more comfortable.
Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, a Republican, said it’s a “sad day in the Senate” and that the people who Fetterman and Schumer represent should be embarrassed.
“I represent the people of Kansas, and much like when I get dressed up to go to a wedding, it’s to honor the bride and groom, you go to a funeral you get dressed up to honor the family of the deceased,” Marshall said. Senators should have a certain level of decorum, he added.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine agreed, arguing that the relaxed rules debase the institution of the Senate. “I plan to wear a bikini tomorrow to the Senate floor,” Collins joked.
Walking to Monday evening’s vote in a short-sleeved button-down shirt and shorts, Fetterman said he wasn’t sure if he’d take advantage of the new rules just yet.
“It’s nice to have the option, but I’m going to plan to be using it sparingly and not really overusing it,” he said.
Asked about the criticism, Fetterman feigned mock outrage.
“They’re freaking out, I don’t understand it,” he said of his critics. “Like, aren’t there more important things we should be working on right now instead of, you know, that I might be dressing like a slob?”
When Fetterman reached the Senate floor, he still voted from the doorway. “Baby steps,” he told reporters as he got on the elevator to go back to his office.
Not all Republicans were upset about the change. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley was wearing jeans, boots and no tie on Monday evening, an outfit he says he normally wears when he flies in from his home state for the first votes of the week.
“Now I can vote from the Senate floor on Mondays,” Hawley said, noting that he usually wears a suit and tie every other day.
Nearby, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy was also tieless. The Democrat said he’s been reprimanded by Sergeant-at-Arms staff in the past for not wearing a tie on the floor.
“They would tell us when we were doing it wrong,” Murphy said.
It’s unclear if the rules for more formal attire were actually written down anywhere, but Schumer’s directive means that staff will no longer scold senators for their choice of clothing or ask them to vote from the doorway.
While, not shockingly, Republicans are expressing more outrage over the decision (see, for example, NPR‘s “Republicans slam Senate dress code changes“), a handful of Democratic Senators (Manchin, Tester, Durbin, Kelly) have spoken out as well. (See: Axios, “Now Dems are saying ‘nay’ to Senate’s relaxed dress code.“)
You will not be shocked that Peggy Noonan (“The Senator’s Shorts and America’s Decline“) is among the naysayers.
We are in a crisis of political comportment. We are witnessing the rise of the classless. Our politicians are becoming degenerate. This has been happening for a while but gets worse as the country coarsens. We are defining deviancy ever downward.
Two examples from the past two weeks. One is the congresswoman who was witnessed sexually groping and being groped by a friend in a theater, seated among what looked like 1,000 people of all ages. The other is the candidate for Virginia’s House of Delegates who performed a series of live sex acts with her husband on a pornographic website, and the videos were then archived on another site that wasn’t password-protected. She requested money for each sexual act, saying she was “raising money for a good cause.” Someone called it a breakthrough in small-donor outreach.
It was within this recent context that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer did something that isn’t in the same league in terms of shock but nonetheless has a deep institutional resonance. He quietly swept away a centuries-old tradition that senators dress as adults on the floor of the Senate. Business attire is no longer formally required. Mr. Schumer apparently doesn’t know—lucky him, life apparently hasn’t taught him—that when you ask less of people they don’t give you less; they give you much, much less. So we must brace ourselves.
His decision is apparently connected to the desires of Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who enjoys parading around in gym shorts and a hoodie. Why would his desires receive such precedence?
Because he has political needs. He must double down on his brand. He imagines that dressing like a slob deepens his perceived identification with the working class. But this kind of thing doesn’t make you “authentic”; it just makes you a different kind of phony. Mr. Fetterman, born into affluence and privilege, reacted to criticism of Mr. Schumer’s decision with an air of snotty entitlement. He mocked critics, making woo-woo monster sounds to reporters and telling a House critic to “get your s— together.” He said Republicans were “losing their minds” and ought to have better things to do.
Here are reasons John Fetterman, and all senators, should dress like an adult.
It shows respect for colleagues. It implies you see them as embarked on the serious business of the nation, in which you wish to join them.
It shows respect for the institution. “Daniel Webster walked there.” And Henry Clay, “Fighting Bob” La Follette, Arthur Vandenberg and Robert Taft. The U.S. Senate is the self-declared world’s greatest deliberative body.
It shows a mature acceptance of your role, suggesting you’ve internalized the idea of service. You are a public servant; servants by definition make sacrifices.
It reflects an inner discipline. It’s not always easy or convenient to dress like a grown-up. You’ve got to get the suit from the cleaners, the shoes from the cobbler. The effort means you bothered, took the time, went to the trouble.
It reflects an inner modesty. You’d like to be in sneaks and shorts but you admit that what you’d like isn’t the most important thing. It shows that thoughts of your own comfort aren’t No. 1 in your hierarchy of concerns. Also, you know you’re only one of 100, and as 1% of the whole you wouldn’t insist on officially lowering standards for the other 99.
It bows to the idea of “standards” itself, which implies you bow to other standards too, such as how you speak and what you say.
Perhaps a bit more surprisingly, the WaPo Editorial Board (“A casual new dress code doesn’t suit the U.S. Senate“) agrees.
We vote nay. Dressing formally conveys respect for the sanctity of the institution and for the real-world impact of the policies it advances. Putting on a suit creates an occasion for lawmakers to reflect, just for a moment, on the special responsibilities with which the people have entrusted them and on a deliberative process that at least aspires to solemnity. Judges are perfectly “able to choose” what they wear while on the bench, but court wouldn’t be court unless they put on black robes.
Ultracasual though it is, Mr. Fetterman’s clothing probably doesn’t represent the bottom of the slippery slope upon which Mr. Schumer has set Senate style. No, we don’t think Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is going to show up in a bikini, as she jokingly suggested. It is, however, all too imaginable that attention-seeking lawmakers will don T-shirts emblazoned with the names and mascots of their hometown sports franchises — or inflammatory partisan messages — hoping to go viral on social media and garner small-dollar donations.
[…]
At the risk of idealizing the place, the Capitol is, or should be, thought of as the temple of the world’s oldest continuous democracy. Within that, the Senate floor is its most sacred space. It was the setting for America’s most consequential debates on war and peace, freedom and slavery. Throughout history, those who participated in its proceedings dressed accordingly. Admittedly, the appropriate level of dignity is subjective; you know it when you see it. And when a senator comes to the floor in pickup softball gear, you don’t.
Culture writer Elena Sheppard at CNN (“Why I changed my mind about the US Senate’s relaxed dress code“):
Initially, I pearl clutched a bit. The thought of no dress code in the Senate sent me into a spiral on the idea of decorum. I imagined a Senate floor littered with people in sweatpants and cut-offs, which I just knew would undermine the seriousness of their work.
I imagined elected officials milling around in cargo shorts and Carhartt sweatshirts — aka what Sen. John Fetterman calls “Western PA business casual” — or wearing their pajamas to a vote. I thought about how this green light to dress down would devalue the importance of this legislative body and their responsibility to American citizens.
And then I realized my worries made no sense. Style is ever-changing, politics are ever-evolving and attire getting more casual is an age-old complaint. When we think about a choice like the change to a dress code it’s important to see it in its larger context.
Over the years, other dress code changes have occurred in the Senate without disaster. In 1993 female senators were—at last—permitted to wear pants on the Senate floor. In 2019 the Senate finally stopped enforcing a rule that prohibited female senators from baring their shoulders.
That dress codes have been used to feminize, and disempower, women throughout history is news to no one. A look at images of the Senate over the years shows the evolving fashion for male senators too — from waistcoats and tails in the early 19th century to suits and ties in the early 21st.
[…]
Historically speaking, dress codes are a way of marking social hierarchy and, with respect to politics, have always been a way of making a statement. When George Washington was inaugurated in 1789 he wore a “plain brown woolen suit of American manufacture” — the choice a clear rebuke of the aristocratic British traditions from which his new nation had successfully revolted. His suit, simply put, was a political choice.
Rhonda Garelick, the D.E. Hughes Jr. Distinguished Chair for English and Professor of Journalism by courtesy at Southern Methodist University, took to the NYT to explain “What We Lose When We Loosen Dress Codes.”
The fact is that how we dress in various settings is inextricable from serious political issues. How we dress telegraphs intricate messages to those around us, as well as to ourselves — messages we receive and interpret constantly, consciously or not. There is no such thing as “total freedom” of dress, only different registers of meaning, which are entirely context dependent. Just as words make sense only relationally — in sentences and paragraphs — garments have meaning only in relation to other garments. A tuxedo’d guest at a wedding is unexceptional, nearly invisible. A tuxedo’d guest at a picnic is a spectacle.
[…]
John Fetterman in a hoodie and shorts or Ted Cruz in a polo shirt might read as athletic or relaxed, conjuring the basketball court or golf course — places associated with youthful male prowess or preppy privilege. Would we think the same of Susan Collins dressed similarly? Leisure wear for women risks depriving them of gravitas, making them look “off duty,” and hence outside the space of authority. (Senator Collins acknowledged as much when she joked about wearing a bikini to work.) Would women in the Senate in sweatshirts, yoga pants or tennis skirts be taken seriously? To put it another way, women’s dignity and authority remain, alas, more socially precarious than men’s — harder to construct sartorially and far easier to lose. Taking away the dress code might exacerbate this inequity. What’s more, formal business attire offers some of the most gender-neutral fashion options, thereby enhancing sartorial equity for nonbinary individuals.
And what about the inequity within the Senate workplace as a whole? The new freedom of dress applies to senators only, not to anyone else who works there. This could lead to a new kind of visual class stratification, wherein a group of older (median age of 65.3), mostly white (88 percent), mostly male people (75 percent) in various states of leisure wear is being served by a cadre of younger, less well paid, more ethnically diverse interns and staff members all in formal business wear. In such a context, the business attire of nonsenators might start looking disturbingly like waiters’ uniforms at a country club. Hardly a liberating or egalitarian message. Context is everything.
Finally, dress codes are a marker of social, national, professional or philosophical commonality. They bespeak shared ideals or training, membership in a group. This is why sports teams and the military wear uniforms. Why medical professionals wear white coats. Business attire may not be a uniform, exactly, but it serves a similar function. It’s true that in recent years, offices have loosened their dress codes, embracing all kinds of workplace attire. But the Senate is more than just a “workplace.” It represents the highest level of our country’s government, whose actions are watched by and hold consequences for the entire world. Such an august body needs to look the part. A sea of 100 adults all dressed in some kind of instantly recognizable, respectful manner — a suit and tie, a skirt and jacket — creates a unified visual entity. A group in which individuals have agreed to subsume their differences into an overarching, sartorial whole.
But as we all know, the Senate has never been more divided. In a body so riven, one of the last symbolic markers of accord is a dress code. Can such a code eliminate the profound differences beneath the surface? Of course not. But it does remind senators and everyone around them (including the general public) of the still-noble goal of consensus. A sum greater than its parts.
In principle and practice, I agree with the naysayers. While the business suit has become something of a costume, seldom worn outside formal occasions these days, there is nonetheless something simultaneously respectful and equalizing in everyone dressing the part. I continue to wear at least a sportcoat when around students, and almost always wear a suit and tie when lecturing or leading a seminar. And students absolutely notice and appreciate the effort.
Further, I absolutely agree that there’s something very undemocratic of allowing Senators to wear what they want while insisting that low-paid staffers and unpaid interns continue to wear business attire.
At the same time, I’m reminded of George Will’s long-ago rationale for coming to support term limits: a realization that his counterargument amounted to, “If we impose term limits, we won’t have the good government we have now.”*
We’ve been making Senators wear suits on the Senate floor since time immemorial and yet here we are, with a dysfunctional body. While the Members are doubtless by and large professional towards one another off camera, there’s too much open disregard for the institution.
Do I think changing the dress code will help? No. But it’s rather clear that it isn’t having the benefits that its advocates claim.
___________
*I’m paraphrasing from memory. The Google Machine isn’t returning the exact quotation, which has to be 30 years or more old by now.
If wearing antique business attire indicates respect for colleagues, then no current member of the Senate should ever do it. Baldfaced lies are an ugly thing.
Emotionally, this has very much the same feel to me as the people during the Vietnam war who were fine with war crimes, but lost their minds over flag-burning. The cluelessness regarding what is actually important is breathtaking.
I’ll admit, I winced. I tend to dress a hair more formally than most people. The real issue is that Fetterman is 6’8″. There are no off-the-rack business suits for guys who are 6’8″. A pair of bespoke suits, three or four shirts and a couple ties (also bespoke) are going to cost him thousands of dollars. Now, if he were Bob Menendez or Clarence Thomas he’d be properly-attired.
@Michael Reynolds: I’m always amazed at how few of the defenders of “proper attire” realize that it originated as conscious gatekeeping against infiltration by the lower classes. It’s no more defensible in the office than it was in Regency high society, and the tech world has proven conclusively that quality of work does not suffer when people are comfortable.
@DrDaveT:
Yup, suits are definitely designed to favor people who have white-collar bodies. Fetterman is not a blue-collar guy, but there’s no way he’s ever been comfortable in a normal suit.
When I worked for the Colorado state legislature, members and staff both wore coat and tie. It was costuming to meet the public’s expectations. I learned about business costuming from my father. He was an insurance field auditor and safety engineer. During weeks when he was working outstate Nebraska he wore his suit, string tie, dress boots, and a business Stetson. He said it wasn’t signaling for the business owners that he visited, it was signaling for all the regular people: “I’m here to do money things with the boss, leave me alone.”
I could see relaxing the dress code to something less formal, like allowing polos and business casual instead of requiring ties. But a free-for all is too far — and, as noted, the disparity in code between Senators and staff is pretty gross.
The Senate already accommodated the dress-downed: they’re welcomed in the building, in the cloakoom, and in the doorway of the main chamber. That’s enough. Senators should not (regularly) be found on the senate floor in shorts and sweats.
The problem with George Will’s reasoning highlights again the eternal wisdom Ginsburg’s famous rejoinder to Roberts’s naïvete on racism and voting rights: a gentleman in a rainstorm should not mistake his relative dryness as a go-head to toss his umbrella.
Yes, Congress has always had its dysfunctions. (Rep. Brooks violently assaulted Sen. Schumer on the Senate floor way back in 1856.) But we should not assume things could not get worse if we keep defining deviancy down. I take the “broken windows policing” view: you cannot let the supposed small stuff slip and expect long-term improvement.
Corporate gun lobby shills are fond of arguing against expanded gun safety measures by noting criminals don’t follow gun laws. My response is always, “So rape and murderer should be legal because rapists and murderers will always exist?”
Yes, there’s bigger fish to fry, but Schumer and Fetterman are wrong here. When “Impeach Brandon” and “NO MORE MONEY TO UKRAINE” t-shirts appear in the congressional chambers, maybe more Democrats will reconsider.
@DrDaveT:
I see the point, but to be fair, it requires far for effort and expense to dress like a Jane Austen character than to put on slacks and an Oxford. The Senate is not just any ole office in Silicon Valley, and nobody is calling for corsets, embroidery, and periwigs here.
Also, the stereotypical techbro is a social horror. Not sure that’s the best example to follow lol
I hate suits and ties, but the Senate should have a higher standard than gym attire. For most functions, business casual is, IMO, a good balance between comfort and professionalism.
@DK:
Sorry, it was Sen. Sumner.
A change so the standard business suit is not the only option is fine with me. Probably no one remembers Ron Dellums when he was in the House but he was one of the sharpest dressers around. A classy guy.
@DK:
Suits look good on men of all sorts of shapes — a well fitted suit is a blessing for a man of a mediocre or worse physique — and it suggests power and wealth.
If the popular image of various Republican firebrands is an overweight man with a gaudy messaging t-shirt stretched over their rubenesque belly…I’m ok with that. It warns people away, like bright colors on a poisonous snake. It makes their nature harder to ignore.
And a lot of people do ignore their nature now. Low information voters who think “republicans are good for business, and my guy isn’t one of the crazies.”
It’s a lot less subtle than AR-15 lapel pins.
Regarding Fetterman. It’s true that give his size, suits are probably likely expensive and until he’s in the senate for a couple of terms and achieves the mysterious millionaire status, he should be cut some slack. That said, there is dress somewhere between bespoke suits and shorts, hoodies and work boots.
@DK:
Serious question: Why not?
I’m genuinely curious why you think this is important. Would jeans and t-shirts be ok? Sandals? Golf togs? Where is the line, and why?
Kathleen Parker also joined the chorus. I commented, “Changing the dress code is a rather silly thing to do. Objecting to it is even sillier. Get a life, Parker.”
All of these pundits *now* find something objectionable.
They *now* have worries about good governance.
They *now* have worries about a breakdown in collegiality.
@DrDaveT:
I Shakespeare’s time, the actors at the Globe performed historical plays like Julius Caesar wearing what was then contempory British clothing. This was so that the audience could instantly tell from their costumes what their social status was.
(I once attended a performance of one of his plays with the actors dressed the way it was originally performed back then).
I say we turn back the clock. From WikiP:
@Andy:
“Business Casual” is that weird middle space that somehow manages to get 80% of ugliness of bad casual with 80% of the artificiality and discomfort of suits.
Any standard that tacitly encourages a polo shirt is a bad standard. The people who look good in a polo will look good in anything, and everyone else looks terrible.
Suits? Fine. Hoodies? Fine. Full Fursuits (“The chair recognizes the … um … raccoon from Missouri”)? Fine. Whatever horror Sinema comes up with? Fine.
Polos? No.
I would impose a very strict, but very broad dress code.
We can solve the inequities with staffers by requiring that they dress like their Senator.
Also, no pointy shoes. Ample toe boxes for all.
@DrDaveT:
I personally think business casual is okay. And for the same reason most workplaces done allow sandals and bikinis: attire sets a tone of respect and decorum that emerges in behavior.
I understand rebellion for rebellion’s sake + reflexive oppositional defiant disorder are now considered edgy and cool in some circles, but I’m old fashioned in that I believe good manners are still important.
@Gustopher:
Haha. Do you need we strict code for “If you look awful in a polo, don’t wear one”?
@Gustopher:
OMG, I died laughing at the mental image. Team Fetterman. Team Sinema. Team Collins, should she follow through with her threat to wear a bikini. 😛 😛
@Gustopher:
I know this will come as a surprise, but I whole heartedly love this idea. I’m not a Furry, but they are awesome.
@DK:
OK, we’re getting closer. You feel that manners are important and that this is somehow about manners. That’s informative.
“Manners” is a slippery word; “good manners” can mean anything from knowing which fork to use for the oyster course to bowing to the correct depth for every individual to self-regulation in use profanity. It’s so hard to separate the parts of etiquette that are about consideration for others (which is certainly important) from the parts that are about status signaling and class distinctions (which are perhaps less so).
Is adhering to a class-based dress code from generations ago an example of consideration for others? It isn’t obvious to me. I don’t think anyone is insulted or harmed by the absence of powdered wigs in Chambers.
The collar and tie was once the uniform of the respectable white European. I’m so old I witnessed ancient members of my first golf club still wearing them when they played. It always struck me as a sad legacy of European colonialism that the elite in former colonies put on suits and ties to mimic their former rulers. A growing tendency to revert to their traditional clothing has been a welcome development. It’s not an over-statement to say that requiring Black Americans to don the traditional business suit as a condition of entry to elite professions is a form of systemic racism.
Few academics or teachers in Australia wear a suit or a tie these days, but most administrators in school and university management buildings do. Make of that what you will.
@Sleeping Dog: Somehow, lowly Senate staffers manage just fine. Meanwhile, Fetterman is already rich. He started rich. He’s not a working-class stiff; he’s merely signaling to his people in Western Pennsylvania that he’s one of them.
@Barry: In fairness, the WaPo Editorial Board and Peggy Noonan have certainly not held their fire on these issues before now. I can’t comment on Sheppard or Garelick, but they’re niche commentators.
@Ken_L: Black Americans are Americans. Their traditional clothing is American traditional clothing. Which, for business, has been a suit (for men, at least) for a very, very long time.
I dunno. I’m pretty sure it was Sen. Sinema that broke the Senate dress code. (Remember holding the gavel in a jean jacket? That was quite deliberate.) Don’t blame Fetterman, he’s just the messenger.
Would I like Senators to dress in a way that showed that they took their duties seriously? I would. That might not mean suit and tie for men these days, but it also probably isn’t shorts and hoodie.