The Problem with Ron Paul's Senate Tea Party Caucus Plan

(July 19) -- Kentucky GOP Senate candidate and tea party darling Rand Paul has said that he wants to form a tea party caucus of like-minded senators if he's elected in November.

There's just one potential problem: Caucuses are administered under House of Representatives rules and must have a member of the House as an officer. Only one Senate caucus exists at all -- and it was formerly a Senate commission that became a caucus under a special rule in 1985.

Congressional caucuses, also known as congressional member organizations (CMOs), are groups of like-minded members of Congress united by a legislative goal, ideology or set of interests. They range from groups united by ethnic or racial identity (the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus) to substantive policy (Congressional Biomedical Research Caucus) to less-pressing matters (the Congressional Zoo and Aquarium Caucus and the U.S. House Small Brewers Caucus). Senators may hold membership in House caucuses, but they're nevertheless administered under House rules and regulated by the House Administration Committee. No similar system exists on the Senate side.

Recently, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., filed the paperwork to form an official House tea party caucus. In an interview with the National Review magazine, Paul, who was propelled to victory in the May GOP primary partly through his affiliation and popularity with the grassroots movement (and affinity for his father, Texas Congressman Ron Paul), said he would like to organize a similar group in the Senate.

"I thought it might be interesting to have a tea party caucus," he told the magazine, which provided Paul's full quote to AOL News. "I think I will be part of a nucleus with Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, who are unafraid to stand up."

But forming an official working group of tea party-minded senators independent of the House caucus would probably not be possible. "It would be unprecedented, as far as I know," said congressional expert and American Enterprise Institute scholar Norm Ornstein. "There's no formal caucus system in the Senate."

Ornstein emphasized that Paul could still create an informal working group in the Senate, or form a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization that exists outside the congressional hierarchy.

The one official Senate caucus -- the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control -- was established by law in 1985 to combat drug trafficking and abuse.

Paul's press office did not return AOL News' request for comment. Paul faces Democratic nominee and current Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway in the November election.

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