Lyndon Johnson used control over committee assignments to reward or punish senators: after Estes Kefauver opposed him in 1957, a coveted Foreign Relations Committee seat expected by Kefauver went instead to the more junior John F. Kennedy.

“If you wanted a good seat, you had to do what Johnson wanted. In 1957, Estes Kefauver voted against Johnson on an important motion.”

“That very same week, the highly coveted open seat on the Foreign Relations Committee, which Kefauver was expecting to get, was instead handed over to a far more junior senator named John F.”

“Kennedy. The real political genius of Lyndon Johnson was identifying and then gaining control over every possible source of leverage over his colleagues.”