Angie Craig: “I rise to speak on ``A History of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, 1947-1997.'' Fifty years ago, the Senate…”

“I rise to speak on ``A History of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, 1947-1997.'' Fifty years ago, the Senate established the Republican and Democratic policy committees. At the end of the Second World War and at the beginning of the cold war, U.S. Senators had concluded that this venerable old institution needed modernization to enable it to handle the increasingly complex foreign and domestic issues on its agenda, and to hold its own against an expanding presidential influence. From 1945 to 1946, a joint committee chaired by Senator Robert M. LaFollette, Jr., a Republican from Wisconsin, and Representative Mike Monroney, an Oklahoma Democrat, investigated ways to reform the legislative branch. The joint committee proposed creation of professional staffs for each standing committee and allowing Senators and Representatives to appoint administrative assistants. It also recommended expansion of the Legislative Reference Service, now known as the Congressional Research Service. Those reforms were incorporated into the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. One proposal that was not included in the act was the joint committee's recommendation that the Senate and House establish policy committees to assist the parties in promoting their legislative agenda. House Speaker Sam Rayburn feared that such policy committees might threaten his authority and refused to support them.”