¹ Hearings on Evaluation of the Effects of Laws Enacted to Reorganize the Legislative Branch of the Government before the Senate Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, 82nd Cong., 1st sess.

² Ibid., p. 7. It may be observed that few textbooks more than mention these committees. Galloway, George B. in The Legislative Process in Congress (New York, 1953) gives some attention to the subject (pp. 334–37, 602–5)Google Scholar. Perhaps the aspirations for the policy committees are best expressed in the so-called Heller Report prepared for the National Planning Association under the title Strengthening the Congress (1944), pp. 14–17 Google ScholarPubMed. For Mr. Heller's critical evaluation of the composition and operation of these committees in practice, see Hearings (cited in note 1), pp. 287–90.

³ See “Republican Conference Rules, January 11, 1955” and “Functions of the Senate Republican Policy Committee and Work of Its Staff,” August, 1953.

⁴ Typical of press reports is the story in the Washington Post and Times Herald, March 30, 1955, which reported on a three-hour Democratic Policy Committee meeting in such terms as these: “A Democratic spokesman, who asked not to be identified, said Democrats have no intention of handing Mr. Eisenhower an ultimatum …. What disturbed the Senate Democrats, one of their number said, was the recurrent pattern of so-called ‘leaks’ about which the President knew nothing …. Deeply irritated by the conflicting stories, the Democratic spokesman said ….” The remarkable thing about this report is that Senator Lyndon Johnson, the committee chairman, gave out no statement and his name appeared nowhere in the column-long article.

⁵ An interesting question confronting the “behaviorists” is the amount of information and impression required before an acceptable hypothesis capable of verification can be drafted. The writer resists any temptation to deal with this question except to observe that he has seen no hypothesizing about the policy committees. Whether this is due to lack of information about the committees, a lack of interest in them, or something else, is not known.

⁶ See “The Congressional Committee: A Case Study,” this Review, Vol. 48, pp. 340–65 (June, 1954)Google Scholar.

⁷ The writer gathered this material in 1954–55. Several senators who were on the policy committees and several ex-members were interviewed. Interviews with senators were necessarily brief and unstandardized, and unstructured questions were used in order to elicit information which, in the writer's judgment, the senator was best able to provide. In addition, the writer observed the staffs at work, talked at some length with many staff members of both committees, and sought the views of numerous administrative assistants and other people on the “Hill.” By agreement, none of the senators or staff members are quoted. Evaluations, judgments, and errors of fact are entirely the author's.

⁸ For discussion of recommendations concerning the establishment of the policy committees, see Report of the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress Pursuant to H. Con. Res. 18, 79th Cong., 2d sess. Report No. 1011, March 4, 1946, pp. 12–13.

⁹ 60 Stat. 911, 79th Cong., 2d sess. The committees are charged with “the formulation of over-all legislative policy of the respective parties” and are given a staff “to assist in study, analysis, and research on problems involved in policy determinations.” Appropriations for the committees have been gradually increased and in 1954 each received an annual appropriation of $74,760.

¹⁰ See “Republican Conference Rule?” (cited in note 3). All of the Republican party officers are chosen by the Conference.

¹¹ Senators Alexander Smith and Margaret Chase Smith.

¹² Senator Johnson generally directs the staff work. In the Republican committee, allocation of the staff work is usually handled by the staff director and secretary, Lloyd W. Jones.

¹³ In January, 1949 the House Republicans converted their steering committee into a policy committee of 22 members. Party leaders serve on the committee ex-officio as in the Senate policy committees, and 17 additional persons are chosen on a regional basis. The committee meets only occasionally for discussion of major legislative issues. It is largely an advisory body. For the text of the resolution creating it, see Galloway, op. cit., pp. 334–35. Sam Rayburn has been unenthusiastic about policy bodies; hence the Democrats have never elected to create one. It might be noted that the congressional campaign committees in the House perform several services for representatives which the policy committee members render to the senators.

¹⁴ The Republican Policy Committee has a suite of offices in the Senate Office Building. The Democratic staff is located near the Senate floor in the Capitol, in less spacious quarters. There are only six professionals and four clerks on the Democratic staff. Turn-over has been higher in the Democratic office and no person has been with the staff from its beginning. Only one person has been with the staff since 1949; several of the professionals joined the committee when Lyndon Johnson became its chairman. As a result, there is no staff member who possesses first-hand knowledge of the history of the committee's work. By contrast, two staff members have served the Republican committee since its inception. In taking note of the larger Republican staff, former staff director George H. E. Smith testified quite plausibly in 1951 that the Democrats “do not need a staff as large as ours because they have the executive departments handing down most of the messages that they wish to embody into legislative policy, along with a tremendous amount of data developed by economists, lawyers, statisticians, and so forth, in the executive departments which we ordinarily do not have access to as readily as does the majority.” Hearings (cited in note 1), p. 477.

¹⁵ Illustrative titles include, “The Dixon-Yates Contract,” “The Political, Hypocritical $20 Tax Scheme,” “More Evidence of Communist Influence in Democratic Administrations,” and “Republicans Sell Rubber Plants for Top Prices.” In March, 1955 the staff put out a 51-page analysis of the Yalta papers under the title, “Highlights of the Yalta Papers and Related Data.” This analysis stirred up a considerable amount of Democratic ire.

¹⁶ The rules were worked out by Senator Taft and the first staff director, George H. E. Smith; most of them remain in force today. The writer and many political scientists are indebted to Mr. Smith for his reports on staff operations.

¹⁷ Senator George is sometimes present when foreign policy matters are to be discussed.

¹⁸ The Senate had 22 different calendar calls in 1954, during which it passed 1,381 “un-objected to” bills and resolutions, of which 965 were private bills. See Riddick, Floyd M., “The Eighty-Third Congress: Second Session,” The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 7, p. 643 (Dec., 1954)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹ The committee has usually been composed of three or four persons appointed by the Republican Policy Committee and broadly representative of all sections. In the 84th Congress its membership included Senators Purtell, Barrett, Hruska, and Schoeppel.

²⁰ Senators Erwin and Bible composed the committee in the 84th Congress.

²¹ Op. cit., p. 14.

²² Report of the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress (cited in note 8), p. 13.

²³ Senator Elbert D. Thomas, in his evaluation of policy committees, felt that President Truman should have taken the initiative to convene the Democratic committee with his cabinet and himself. “Had he done so,” writes Thomas, “there would have been no need for various clashes between him and several members of Congress which have occurred.” See “How Congress Functions under Its Reorganization Act,” this Review, Vol. 43, pp. 1179–89 at p. 1183 (Dec., 1949)Google Scholar. Thomas remained a staunch believer in the potentiality of the policy committee as an agent of party responsibility.

²⁴ “National Defense under the Republican Administration—Today and Tomorrow,” Supplement to Vol. 1, No. 9 of Senate Republican Memo. March 10, 1955.

²⁵ Washington Post and Times Herald, April 27, 1955.

²⁶ Ibid., April 28, 1955.

²⁷ Congressional Record, April 28, 1955, p. 4434 Google ScholarPubMed. Debate on the issue is found in this edition, pp. 4434–36, 4463–04, A 2879–80. When President Eisenhower expressed willingness to attend a Big Four “summit” conference a short time later, Senator Bridges again took to the Senate floor to express his skepticism if not disapproval of such a conference. See Congressional Record, May 11, 1955, pp. 5160 ffGoogle ScholarPubMed. See also The New York Times, May 12, 1955.

²⁸ The Republicans, however, appear to have taken more votes in their policy meetings than have the Democrats.

²⁹ The Legislative Process in Congress, p. 336.

³⁰ Johnson seldom makes a speech on the Senate floor and seems to follow the framed motto on his office wall—“You ain't learnin' nothin' when you're talkin'.” In practice Johnson has often taken a position privately and if no one appears to disagree, it then passes as the Democratic policy.

³¹ House Doc. No. 93, 83rd Cong., 1st sess.

³² A role-perception study among nonmembers of the policy committee, if it could be facilitated, would be highly interesting. In the writer's judgment, such a study would show that in general the role is not clearly perceived and that there is comparatively little insight into the committees.

³³ Senator Johnson received unanimous support from the Democratic Policy Committee to bring out this bill as a substitute for Speaker Rayburn's bill, which had passed the House. See The New York Times, March 10, 1955. Toward the end of this same session, Johnson issued a statement that the policy committee members were prodding legislative committee chairmen to complete their work on major bills looking toward a July 30 adjournment. See The New York Times June 29, 1955.

³⁴ William S. White in a pictorial article writes: “The functions of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee … are roughly those of the board of directors of a powerful corporation.” The New York Times Magazine, July 10, 1955, p. 10 Google ScholarPubMed. This analogy suggests powers which neither of the committees possesses.

³⁵ Republican representation in successive Congresses, beginning with the 80th, was 51, 42, 42, 48, and 47.

³⁶ The Democratic Policy Committee has been more restrained in attacking President Eisenhower than has been the Democratic National Committee.

³⁷ Those serving on the Republican Policy Committee in 1954 had served an average of 9½ years in the Senate, while Democratic members averaged over 14 years.