Conferences & Committees

Wisconsin Republican senator Joseph R. McCarthy rocketed to public attention in 1950 with his allegations that hundreds of Communists had infiltrated the State Department and other federal agencies. McCarthy relentlessly continued his anticommunist campaign into 1953, when he gained a new platform as chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Joseph McCarthy had appeared invincible when investigated by a Senate subcommittee in 1952, but by 1954 he had finally gone too far, convincing his Senate colleagues that his power must be curtailed. The publication, Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations, is a transcript of the hearings that led to the censure of Senator McCarthy by his Senate colleagues.

In 1903, in an attempt to become a more organized group, the Democratic caucus elected its first chairman and secretary. Covering 60 years of caucus and later conference meetings, Minutes of the Senate Democratic Conference: Fifty-eighth through the Eighty-eighth Congresses provides insight into the inner workings of the Senate. The publication is organized by Congress with brief notes from the editor providing historical context. The minutes remain true to form with only minor typographical corrections.

In April 1911 Senator Charles Curtis was elected secretary of the Republican caucus and was tasked with recording the formal minutes of the caucus’ meetings. Two years later Republican senators officially designated their meetings as conferences. Minutes of the Senate Republican Conference: Sixty-second Congress through Eighty-eighth Congress, 1911-1964 covers 53 years of conference meetings beginning with the 62nd Congress. The publication includes a history of the Senate’s party conferences, as well as brief statements by former Republican Conference Chairman Connie Mack (1993-2001) and Secretary of the Senate Gary Sisco (1996-2001).

The Republican Policy Committee's origins go back to 1947 and its founding chairman, Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio. The Committee was created following a bipartisan proposal by the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress in 1946. With an increasingly vulnerable Democrat in the White House, Senate G.O.P. leaders saw their newly established policy committee as a useful vehicle for improving their party's 1948 presidential prospects and as a platform for a serious senatorial contender. Under the direction of that contender, Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft, the nine-member committee functioned as its framers hoped it would, considering policy options, determining party consensus, and establishing the order of business on the Senate floor. A History of the United States Senate Republican Policy Committee, 1947-1997 follows the committee through the second half of the 20th century as Republicans moved from the minority to the majority and back again facing presidential administrations of both parties.