Committee Chairmen Quotes

This intransigent position was used against Cellar in the next primary election and he was unseated from Congress and his political career ended by a young woman who "dared" to disregard the gender differences. She made his block her main campaign issue.

In one of the most blatant statements of the arbitrary power of congressional committee chairmen, the chairman of the House Rules Committee blocked an investigation of military procurement even though every other member of the committee wanted to pursue the investigation. The prerogative of the chairman was upheld by the Speaker, and on appeal, by the House as a whole, but by 1924 House rules were amended to diminish the arbitrary power of chairmen.

The Congressman was the chairman of the committee and at the beginning of a hearing he wanted to limit the remarks of other members of the committee to 1 minute each. The ranking Democrat on the committee observed that the Chairman had already spoken of many times that and now that he had his full say was suggesting that all the other committee members should not have equal time.

The committee was discussing gun control legislation. Cruz, in national office for only a few weeks, opposed any form of Gun Control, and proceeded to lecture Senator Feinstein on the meaning of the 2nd and other Amendments to the Constitutions. Cruz had never even had a legislative proposal voted upon and his explanation was sophomoric—especially to Senator Feinstein who was the Chair of the Judiciary Committee with great experience and expertise in Constitutional issues and had passed many pieces of major legislation and countless others that she sponsored. Her rejoinder was a classic put down. See {631720} for a columnist’s characterization of Cruz.

In 1871 the congressman refused to serve as chairman of a committee to investigate the Ku Klux Klan. Such pandering to the South was common for politicians who had national aspirtation. If the politican served on such a committee, he would have to aknowledge the existance of the murders, torture, and other criminal activity of an organzation that was very popular in the South. Or he would have to cover up the KKK crimes and lose the support of Northerners. So refusing to serve on the committee was the prudent solution.

The Chairmen of the Committees then had tremendous, almost unilateral power. The chairman reached seniority by being elected over and over and had little opposition. At the time they were almost all older Democratic Congressmen from the "Solid South", very conservative and still racists despite the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They were outraged when a Freshmen member of Congress who rarely made a public statement, took on the most powerful members of the House and wanted to reform the Seniority. But Ms. Chisholm was a teacher in her professional life, and by challenging the seniority system and attracting the enmity of most of the Chairmen, the media and the public started to cover the dispute and Chisholm explained to America exactly how the system worked and how undemocratic and racist it was. Her effort put the Seniority System on the public agenda, and reforms evolved over the next decades." She was the first Black woman to be elected to Congress and was the first Black woman to actively campaign for the Presidency

The senator had broken with his own party on the issue of slavery in the territories.