Stuck in their seats, senators confront trial tedium

There were no fiery floor speeches, no storming of secure hearing rooms, and no name-calling from the Oval Office via tweet.

The first real day of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial began Tuesday with all 100 senators in assigned seats, silently observing the historic proceedings — and it couldn’t have looked more different from the raucous, partisan battle that had consumed the House since September.

The Senate chamber remained eerily quiet as lawmakers were forced to remain in their rigid, wooden seats as they took in hours of procedural arguments from each side’s designated speakers. No cellphones, no coffee and no staff to sit in their place for a brief reprieve.

Sitting as a juror for only the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history will be one of the weightiest duties of any senator’s tenure. But, as several senators have admitted, it’s also one of the most tedious — a key role in a complex legal and political dispute encapsulating hundreds of hours of arguments against Trump and his circle of advisers.

The result is a rare procedural spectacle that could last a week or more on the Senate floor. In a chamber where the average age is about 60, members will be stretching the limits of their abilities to remain silent, alert and awake for hours on end, day after day.

They are being tested on more than their physical stamina: Senators were also faced with an attention-span challenge, forced to forfeit their cellphones, iPads and other electronics.

During the first recess break — just two hours after the trial got underway — senators were reunited with their phones. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who served in the Senate during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial and has made several cameos in “Batman” movies and TV series, did an impression of Gollum from “Lord of the Rings” to convey what the experience was like.

“Oh, my precious,” Leahy said, stroking his phone.

Senate rules also ban all talking on the floor — a rule flouted by Sens. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who began whispering and chuckling after Sasse slipped his neighbor a handwritten note. Later, Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) worked to stifle laughter as he received a note from Sasse and Scott.

Throughout the day, many senators appeared restless during long, bogged-down debates and rehearsed speeches from both the House’s impeachment managers and Trump’s defense team. Several senators sat hunched with their arms crossed, twiddling pencils or rubbing their eyes.

Others twisted and turned in their seats, gazing up at the public gallery — where political celebrities like actress Alyssa Milano and former Sen. Jeff Flake sat in the front row — to keep boredom from settling in as lawyer after lawyer stood at the lectern to discuss trial rules. A few stifled yawns.

“I don’t think I’d be as apt to say that I could sit through 12 to 14 hours, or whatever it might be,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) told reporters during the day’s second brief break, at 5 p.m. Originally, GOP leaders were considering a rules package that would have each side presenting opening arguments for 12 hours a day, several days in a row.

As Tuesday ticked on, several senators took copious notes, including Susan Collins (R-Maine), one of the chamber’s potential swing votes on Democrats’ push for more witness testimony and documents. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, another question mark for the GOP, sat beside Collins and stared intently at each speaker.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sat toward the front, his desk empty. A few desks away, on the Democratic side, Sen. Bernie Sanders sat with an empty yellow legal pad, fiddling with his hands and shuffling in his chair.

At one point, when a number of senators were coughing at once, Sanders pulled a tin of what looked like lozenges out of his pocket, put one in his mouth and read the back of the tin.

Each senator’s desk was covered with leather-bound a Moleskine notebook, agiant binder with a rainbow of tabs, and a legal pad.

Every few minutes, clerks fetched cups of water, boxes of tissues and wet wipes for members. Food and most beverages — including coffee — are banned in the chamber, limiting what senators can consume while they’re stuck in their seats for hours on end, although Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) is famous for his well-stocked “candy drawer.”

Toomey even sent a basket of Pennsylvania-made goodies to the Capitol press gallery, including Hershey candies, Milky Way bars and Utz potato chips. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) also provided a box of full-size packs of peanut M&Ms for hungry reporters.

“Since we’ll be spending so much time here these next few days, I thought you guys might enjoy munching on some of Pennsylvania’s best snacks,” Toomey wrote in a note accompanying the basket. “These are the same ones I’ll be stocking the candy desk with.”

On the floor, many senators chomped on gum, including Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who pulled out a piece on the floor.

In the front of the room, members of the House impeachment manager’s team were crammed at a "C"-shaped table, where they exchanged papers and whispered to each other, with clerks with notes running in and out of the chamber.

Not every senator, however, completely parted with electronic devices: Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) were spotted wearing Apple Watches, which have can cellular capabilities — an apparent violation of the chamber rules.

Some of the Senate’s youngest members — and most prolific Twitter users — are refusing to stay off the grid for the entire day.

“Every day of the trial, I’m going [to] write a twitter thread and Facebook post giving my read on the day’s events (and some behind-the-scenes vignettes) in order to make sure the trial is as transparent as possible,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) tweeted last week.

Other senators, however, couldn’t wait until the end of the day to share their thoughts.

“Quite frankly, having Adam Schiff lecture the Senate about fairness and due process is like listening to an arsonist talk about fire prevention,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) appeared to tweet during the first recess break.

At one point, senators — only 14 of whom served in the upper chamber during Clinton’s impeachment trial — were scolded by McConnell for not exercising proper decorum.

“I’d like to remind everybody to take their seats, and when the chief justice comes in we really should all stand,” McConnell was overheard saying on a hot mic, as the chamber gaveled back in after the first recess break.

A McConnell spokesman tweeted that the Kentucky Republican “used his microphone on purpose to catch the attention of all Senators.”

The chamber itself remained calm, but outside it was chaotic. Reporters, usually able to roam the halls freely, were adjusting to being penned in with dozens of their colleagues, hoping a senator decided to stop and chat during the few breaks afforded during the day.

In the basement area of the Capitol, where trains wait to whisk senators back to their offices through underground tunnels, confusion reigned. Police were debating whether the unusually harsh restrictions enacted on the upper floors should also be applied in the basement, a move that, if applied, would nearly eliminate all unfettered contact between reporters and senators.

Senators received few breaks in which they were allowed to venture out of the room. During one of the 15-minute recesses, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) tried to make a break for a bathroom in the basement of the Capitol rather than the one near the Senate chamber, which he said was too crowded.

Asked what the mood was like inside the room, Johnson bolted for the men’s room but promised a throng of reporters, “I’ll be back.”

Jesse Naranjo contributed to this report.