¹ These bills are discussed later.

² See this Review, Vol. 40, p. 257 (Apr., 1946).

³ The three changes in standing committee chairmanships of the Senate were: McKellar to the chairmanship of Appropriations; Chavez, Post Office and Post Roads; and McFarland, acting chairman of Irrigation and Reclamation.

⁴ The five changes in standing committee chairmanships in the House were: Randolph to chairmanship of Civil Service; McMillan of S. C., to District of Columbia; Lesinski, to Immigration and Naturalization; Kelley of Pa., to Invalid Pensions; and O'Brien of Mich., to Post Office and Post Roads.

⁵ See Official List of Members of the House of Representatives for January 10, 1946, 79th Cong., pp. 12, 13, and 15Google Scholar. The party division at the beginning of the first session of the 79th Congress was as follows: Senate: 57 Democrats, 38 Republicans, 1 other; in the House: 243 Democrats, 190 Republicans, and 2 others. This compares with the following figures for the beginning of the second session of the 79th Congress: in the Senate: 56 Democrats, 39 Republicans, 1 other; in the House: 236 Democrats, 190 Republicans, 2 others, and 7 vacancies.

⁶ Speeches and materials never delivered in the House, but incorporated in the Record under “leave to print,” involved 5,260 pages of appendix.

⁷ The issue of extending price control was debated by the two houses for a much longer period of time, H.R. 6042 having been passed by both houses and vetoed before either house began consideration of S. J. Res. 138. The Senate debated H. R. 6042 for 326 pages over a period of seven days, while the House discussed it for 169 pages over a period of six days.

⁸ Senator Chavez obtained recognition on Jan. 17 after the morning business was dispensed with and moved consideration of S. 101; the motion having been made before 2 P.M., it was not debatable and upon a roll-call vote, the motion carried by 49–17. In the vote on clôture, 22 Democrats, 25 Republicans, and 1 other voted for, while 28 Democrats and 8 Republicans voted against. For “FEPC—A Case History in Parliamentary Maneuver,” by Maslow, Will, see Chicago Law Rev., Vol. 13, pp. 407–445.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹ When Senator Barkley endeavored to invoke the clôture rule the first time, Senator Russell made a point of order that a motion to conclude debate on Senate Bill 101 was not in order since the Senate was debating the Journal and not S. 101.

¹⁰ The appeal was never voted on, since at a later date Senator Barkley was given unanimous consent to withdraw the motion taking the appeal. See Congressional Record, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., p. 1089, for Feb. 7, 1946Google Scholar (hereafter cited as C.R. 79–2). See also Governmental Affairs from Jan. 17 through Feb. 9.

¹¹ Petitions were filed to invoke the rule on S. 101, FEPC; H. R. 7, anti-poll tax; and H. R. 4908, Case bill on mediation of labor disputes.

¹² In opposition to limitation on freedom of debate, Senator Russell stated: “The suggestion has been made during the debate that the majority of the Senators could even take a Senator off the floor if they thought that an amendment being discussed was frivolous or that his remarks did not appeal to the majority. If we are to start whittling away the rights of the States and the rights of individual Senators by adopting clôture, and then move on to the time when the majority can silence a Senator if his remarks do not appeal to the majority, we should adjourn the Senate sine die … and go out of that door and place above it a bronze plaque having on it the words, ‘Here fell the last citadel of individual rights in an authoritarian world, betrayed by those selected and sworn to defend it. February 9, 1946’.” C.R., 79–2, Feb. 9, 1946, p. 1246.

Senator Barkley said to the Senate: “Mr. President, in my capacity as a member of the Senate, and in my capacity as majority leader of the Senate, I have always assumed the attitude that any committee of the Senate, after giving careful consideration to any measure, and after reporting the measure to the Senate and placing it upon the Calendar, is entitled to have the measure considered by the Senate and voted upon … to that end I have sought to coöperate … in bringing about the fair and just consideration of every measure reported by a committee.” C.R., 79–2, Jan. 24, 1946, p. 328. Following a defeat of a motion to invoke clôture, Barkley stated: “Much as I regret the result of that vote, I have indicated my willingness to accept that vote as a test of whether the bill could ever be brought to a vote, and I do accept it.” C.R., 79–2, Feb. 9, 1946, p. 1246. For a list of votes to invoke clôture, see C.R., 79–2, Jan. 31, 1946, p. 657.

¹³ P. 4773.

¹⁴ Barkley complained on various occasions during the year that senators were consuming too much time unnecessarily in the debate of various issues. For example, he protested the length of the debate on the British loan, holding that much of the discussion was impertinent and only time-consuming. He complained about the difficulty of invoking the existing clôture rule and said that the regulation as it stood destroyed the Democratic process of majority rule. Senate Republican leaders in conference agreed to seek an amendment to the rule. Senator Taft, after a Republican Steering Committee meeting, said that Senator Saltonstall was delegated to draw up a proposal to amend it “so the various dilatory methods of preventing its application can be eliminated.” See C.R., 79–2, May 21, 1946, p. 5431.

¹⁵ See C.R., 79–2, pp. 10366–10367.

¹⁶ Washington News Service—ticker—May 27, 1946.

¹⁷ This includes business on Consent and Private Calendars.

¹⁸ Two rules were granted on each of five bills, making the total number of bills considered under special rules 54 instead of 59. During the last previous session, the House adopted 64, the largest number ever adopted during a single session of Congress, See this Review, Vol. 40, p. 262, note 23.

¹⁹ These were laid on the table because the legislation for which they provided was brought up under a more expeditious procedure; 14 becoming public law, 4 passing the House only, and the other one being killed by veto.

²⁰ The rule (H. Res. 500) which provided for the consideration of H.R. 4908, the Labor Fact Finding bill, not only waived points of order, but provided that after the first paragraph of H.R. 4908 had been read, it should be in order to move to strike out all after the enacting clause and substitute H.R. 5262 therefor and then read it for amendments, waiving all points of order against it. H.R. 5262 had not been considered by any committee; H.R. 4908 had been reported by the Labor Committee. This rule was criticized on the ground that it took away the jurisdiction of the other standing committees. Another rule (H. Res. 710) not only waived points of order and set the general debate at one hour, but provided: “The bill shall be considered as having been read for amendment. No amendment shall be in order to said bill except amendments offered by direction of the Committee on Ways and Means, and said amendments shall be in order, any rule of the House to the contrary notwithstanding. Amendments offered by direction of the Committee on Ways and Means may be offered to any section of the bill at the conclusion of the general debate, but such amendments shall not be subject to amendment.” C.R., 79–2, July 24, 1946, pp. 9961–2.

²¹ See House proceedings for May 15, June 5, 12, and 19.

²² See procedure on H.R. 6917 and S. 1414.

²³ See C.R., 79–2 for May 25, pp. 5862–71. The President's Industrial Disputes Act (H.R. 6578) was passed under this procedure.

²⁴ These petitions were filed to discharge the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee from further consideration of H.R. 1362 (railroad retirement bill) and the Military Affairs Committee from further consideration of H.R. 4051 (servicemen's accumulated leave bill). See C.R., 79–2, for April 17 and 18, pp. 4018, 4098. Seventeen petitions were filed, but only two received the necessary 218 signatures.

²⁵ After the necessary 218 signatures had been affixed to the petition on H.R. 1362, the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee reported out its version of the bill, blocking operation of the discharge rule. It is interesting to note, however, that the House finally passed the introduced version of the bill instead of the Committee's reported version.

²⁶ See, for example, C.R., 79–2, Feb. 27, pp. 1769–71.

²⁷ Representative Cooley inquired: “If the Committee on Ways and Means exercises their right to change their mind, why does the committee want to prevent the House from exercising the right to change its mind and adopt the first bill that you approved in committee?” Note further comments by Mr. Jenkins: “I will give you my opinion. Of course, I cannot speak for the other 24 members of t he committee. Here was the problem: We went along in the beginning to include within the bill only those matters that were noncontroversial. This variable-grants matter was a controversial matter, and we decided not to include it. Then there was the 1½ per cent matter. When we were giving consideration to increasing this contribution to 1½ per cent, we were considering bringing additional groups under coverage. When we decided not to bring in these additional groups, we decided not to raise the contribution to 1½ per cent. These are some reasons why the committee changed its mind.” See C.R. 79–2, p. 9968, 9976 for July 24.

²⁸ During the first session, 658 laws were enacted, of which 293 were public and 365 private.

²⁹ Each chamber played a more important rôle in legislative activity than these figures show. Of the 1,183 measures passed by the House, 720 were House bills, 222 Senate bills, 28 House joint resolutions, 10 Senate joint resolutions, 13 House concurrent resolutions, 15 Senate concurrent resolutions, and 175 House resolutions. (In the first session of the 79th Congress, 1,184 measures were passed.) During the second session of the 79th Congress, 2,566 bills and resolutions were introduced in the House, of which 2,128 were House bills, 97 House joint resolutions, 50 House concurrent resolutions, and 291 House resolutions. (In the first session of the 79th Congress, 5,995 bills and resolutions were introduced in the House.) House committees made 1,258 reports.

Of the 1,098 measures passed by the Senate in the second session of the 79th Congress, 254 were Senate bills, 720 House bills, 16 Senate joint resolutions, 27 House joint resolutions, 15 Senate concurrent resolutions, 13 House concurrent resolutions, and 53 Senate resolutions. (In the first session of the 79th Congress, 1,005 measures were passed.) During the second session of the 79th Congress, 977 bills and resolutions were introduced in the Senate, of which 779 were Senate bills, 60 Senate joint resolutions, 27 Senate concurrent resolutions, and 111 Senate resolutions. (In the first session of the 79th Congress, 2,118 bills and resolutions were introduced in the Senate.) Senate committees made 1,041 reports.

³⁰ Reports were filed on eight additional bills which were sent to conference in the latter part of 1945, but were left pending in conference when the first session adjourned.

³¹ Three of the bills cleared for enactment were vetoed by the President; 16 of the 86 bills sent to conference were private measures.

³² Two of these were sent to conference in the first session (See H. R. 1752 and H. R. 3180); the other three were sent in this session (H. R. 2267, 6578, and 4230).

³³ In congratulating the House committee for curtailing the amount of funds to be appropriated in one bill, Representative Rizley stated: “May I say that perhaps the country got somewhat of a new lease on life when it read the AP dispatches this morning to the effect that the Appropriations Committee had actually commenced to do something about balancing the budget and getting back to a peacetime basis. The thing that disturbs me, however, is not the fine work the gentleman's committee has done in this respect, but so many times I find that we are only doing a lot of shadow-boxing on bills of this kind. We go ahead and do our duty here in the House, as we have on some other appropriation bills; but what is going to happen when the horse-trading starts over on the other side of the Capitol? Is the committee that has brought in this bill today, when the horse-trading is through over there, going to stand pat, if we may use an expression that we use down in Oklahoma, when this thing comes back after conference, or are we just doing some shadow-boxing today for the benefit of the country?” See C.R., 79–2, May 8, 1946, p. 4726.

^33a House Report 1890.

³⁴ A “rider” in a 1944 appropriation bill which required the dismissal of three government employees was held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1946. See this Review, Vol. 38, p. 310, note 35.

³⁵ This was in pursuance of Pub. Law 248 of this Congress to force budgetary accounting for government corporations.

³⁶ For names of these committees, see this Review, Vol. 40, p. 267.

³⁷ The subjects of investigation authorized by the Senate during the session were: Insolvent Railroads (S. Res. 192); Reorganization of the Legislative Branch (S. Res. 260); Senatorial Campaign Contributions and Expenditures in 1946 Election (S. Res. 224), and Social Security (S. Res. 320). The subjects of investigations authorized by the House during the session (in addition of those established in the last session) were: Transportation Situation (H. Res. 318); Surplus Property Disposal (H. Res. 385); Espionage Cases (H. Res. 430); and Congressional Campaign Contributions and Expenditures (H. Res. 645).

³⁸ This was one of the most notable achievements of the session, but, being generally familiar, is not discussed here.

³⁹ See Civilian Nominations, compiled by Bailey, L. W., executive clerk for secretary of the Senate, pp. 1–231Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ In connection with the double taxation treaties with Great Britain, Canada, and Northern Ireland, Senator LaFollette served notice on the Senate that he would oppose similar taxation treaties in the future unless committees of Congress had a part in drafting them. He declared the present practice bad, permitting the Treasury to conclude treaty agreements with a foreign government, and then requiring the Senate to vote them up or down. See Washington News Service—ticker—June 1, 1946.

⁴¹ See Senate proceedings for July 31 and August 1 and 2 in the Daily Cong. Rec., 79th Cong., 2nd Sess.

⁴² The President wanted the USES to remain under the federal government until June 30, 1947, and then to be returned under conditions which would give a federally supervised system.

⁴³ As it finally became law, and in contrast with the Senate-passed version, this legislation nowhere used the term “full employment” nor reflected the philosophy that it is the federal government's responsibility to assure full employment by federal investment and spending. It emphasized, rather, the part that the federal government can play in enabling private enterprise to supply more opportunities for employment. The President, on the other hand, had supported and urged the enactment of the Senate version.

⁴⁴ Some of the powers were eliminated, and the act extended other powers only until March 31, 1947, except for a section authorizing the allocation of building materials, which was extended to June 30, 1947.

⁴⁵ S. J. Res. 9. The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on it.

⁴⁶ S. 181 and H. R. 1296. Extensive hearings were held on these two bills, and S.181 was reported.

⁴⁷ H. R. 4908. As reported to the House by the Committee on Labor, this bill embodied primarily the recommendations of the President, but when the House acted it substituted the language of the Case bill (H. R. 5262) for that of the President's recommendations. The Senate passed a modified version of H. R. 6908, but all traces of “fact-finding legislation” had been eliminated. The President then vetoed the measure (House Doc. 651).

⁴⁸ S. 101 and H. R. 2232. Both bills were reported to the respective houses. By the use of filibuster, the Senate blocked passage of S. 101; the House never reached consideration of H. R. 2232, proponents having vainly employed every means of getting action on it.

⁴⁹ S. 1606 and H. R. 4730. Extensive hearings were held on these bills.

⁵⁰ H. R. 690 and S. 636. The House Foreign Affairs and the Senate Finance Committees studied the respective proposals.

⁵¹ S. 1349 and H.R. 4130, to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The Senate passed S. 1349 with amendments, but the House refused to give it further consideration. H.R. 4130 was reported, but was killed when the Rules Committee refused to grant a rule for its consideration.

⁵² S. 1592. The Senate passed the bill with amendments, and the House Committee on Banking and Currency held hearings on it.

⁵³ H.R. 3587. This bill passed the House, but the Senate refused to give it consideration. S. Con. Res. 50, for studying the problem of presidential succession, passed the Senate, but the House refused consideration of it.

⁵⁴ S. 1850. Passed the Senate amended after Senate committees had worked months to report a compromise version.

⁵⁵ Companion versions were pending in both houses, but neither was ever given consideration. During the latter part of the session, H.R. 7037, primarily to freeze payroll taxes at one per cent through 1947, and to grant veteran's benefits, became law.

⁵⁶ S. 1367. This bill passed the Senate, but died on the House Calendar. There was much talk of additional small business legislation, but nothing ever materialized.

⁵⁷ S.J. Res. 104. The Foreign Relations Committee reported this bill, but it died on the Senate Calendar.

⁵⁸ S. 1274. This bill passed the Senate in the first session, but nothing further was done about it.

⁵⁹ S. 2044. This bill was reported to the Senate without further action. The President was unable to get the Services in complete accord on any bill or program.

⁶⁰ S. 555. Hearings were held on this bill during the first session.

⁶¹ Several bills were introduced and considerable testimony was taken on the subject, but neither house took any action.

⁶² By a vote of 180–37, the House disapproved Plan I, making the wartime established National Housing Agency permanent; by a vote of 166–40, it rejected Plan II, transferring various activities to the Federal Security Agency, abolishing the Federal Security Board, and transferring its functions to the Federal Security Administrator; and by a voice vote it rejected Plan III, to make a large number of minor changes in various departments and establishments, looking to an improvement and simplification of administration.

⁶³ This action was unexpected, since the Senate had approved the principal features of the plan when it approved the National Housing Bill (S. 1592).

⁶⁴ H.R. 4908, Case labor bill; H.R. 6042, price control, and H. J. Res. 225, to quiet state titles to tidewater lands and lands beneath navigable streams. H.R. 4908 was sustained by a vote of 255 yeas, 135 nays; H.R. 6042, by a vote of 173 yeas, 142 nays; and H.J. Res. 225, by a vote of 139 yeas, 95 nays.