While researching his doctoral dissertation on congressional procedure in 1935, Floyd Riddick spent a year observing the workings of the House of Representatives. Most of the rest of his career he spent on the Senate side of the Capitol, as the first editor of the "Daily Digest" in the Congressional Record and as parliamentarian of the Senate. As parliamentarian, he sat immediately below the presiding officer in the Senate Chamber, providing information on precedents and advising other senators on parliamentary procedure. In his interviews he talks about Senate filibusters and the efforts to change the rules of cloture. He also discusses the censures of Joseph McCarthy and Thomas Dodd, the contested election between John Durkin and Louis Wyman, and the preparations for a planned impeachment trial of Richard Nixon.
Scholarly citation: "Floyd M. Riddick, Senate Parliamentarian," Oral History Interviews, June 26 to December 4, 1978, Senate Historical Office, Washington, D.C.
Disclaimer: The Senate Historical Office has a strong commitment to oral history as an important part of its efforts to document institutional change over time. Oral histories are a natural component to historical research and enhance the archival holdings of the Senate and its members. Oral histories represent the personal recollections and opinions of the interviewees, however, and should not be considered as the official views or opinions of the U.S. Senate, of the Senate Historical Office, or of other senators and/or staff members. The transcripts of these oral histories are made available by the Senate Historical Office as a public service.
