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Lyndon B. Johnson is usually remembered as a man who knew how to get his way. But looking at LBJ's reign as party leader in the Senate, it's important to recall how the story ended.

After eight years of iron-fisted rule, Democrats had had enough of Johnson's ways. And when the time came to replace him, they chose a man in Sen. Mike Mansfield who would restore the Senate to a place where consensus, cooperation and mutual respect would be prized.

Unfortunately, Senate Democrats once again have a leader in Sen. Harry Reid who seems to think the right of all states' representatives in the Senate to be heard is optional.

The result has been greater acrimony between the two parties and a tendency of the majority Democrats to push for partisan legislation, such as the Affordable Care Act, that only guarantees greater instability in our laws.

A good example came last week when Sen. Reid refused to consider a single Republican amendment to an unemployment bill.

In this debate, Senate Democrats seem far more interested in providing temporary relief from the pains inflicted by the Obama economy than in working on ways to help people escape it. But Sen. Reid's refusal to even debate common-sense reforms that would help those struggling with long-term joblessness, or sensible proposals to cover the cost of assisting them, only makes sense in the larger context of his tightening hold on the legislative process.

Last week, I decided it was time to say something about these problems in the Senate. It's time everyone understood what has been lost, what that means for our country and what can be done about it.

My main goal has been for senators from both parties to step back from the day-to-day legislative fights and see the Senate as a place where the partisan tensions that have always existed in America can been mediated and resolved.

Some people seem to think that partisanship is a modern invention. It's not. What's different today is that Democrats have chosen to neglect the greatest legislative tool we have to work out those differences.

With six-year terms, equal representation for every state, and rules that more or less require that major legislation be resolved on a bipartisan basis, the Senate has always played a uniquely conciliatory role in our nation's history.

That's why when you look at the vote tallies for some of the more far-reaching legislation over the past century, for example, the Senate was broadly in agreement.

Medicare and Medicaid were both approved with the support of about half the members of the minority.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed with the votes of 30 out of 32 members of the Republican minority.

Only six senators voted against the Social Security Act.

Only eight voted against the Americans With Disabilities Act.

None of this happened by throwing these bills together in a back room, then sending them to the floor with a stopwatch running. It happened through a laborious process of persuasion and coalition-building. It took time and patience and hard work.

Importantly, it also guaranteed that every one of these laws had stability and wouldn't be endlessly relitigated.

Now compare that to the attitude behind Obamacare. When Democrats couldn't convince Republicans that this bill was worth supporting as written, they plowed ahead on their own and passed it on a party-line vote.

That's why the chaos this law has visited on our country is not just tragic, it was entirely predictable. Chaos will always be the result if you approach legislation without regard for the views of the other side.

My point is that the Senate exists precisely to prevent the kind of outcome we saw on Obamacare. When the Senate is allowed to work the way it was designed to work, it arrives at a result that's acceptable to people all along the political spectrum.

Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is the Senate Republican leader.