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CONTENTS

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EVALUATION OF
LEGISLATIVE REORGANIZATION ACT OF 1946

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1948

UNITED STATES SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON EXPENDITURES

IN THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS,

Washington, D. C.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:15 a. m. in the committee room, Senate Office Building, Senator George D. Aiken (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Senators Aiken, Thye, McClellan, and Hoey.

Also present: E. B. Van Horn, committee staff director.
The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

This is a hearing of the full Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments on the subject of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. The act, Public Law 601 of the Seventy-ninth Congress, provides in section 102 (1) g (2) (C)—

such committee shall have the duty of * * * evaluating the effects of laws enacted to reorganize the legislative and executive branches of the Government. The act is, of course, the reorganization of the legislative branch. A copy will be included in the record of the hearing at the conclusion of my statement.

The act went into effect on the first day of the first session of the Eightieth Congress and many people consider it to be the most thoroughgoing reorganization which Congress has ever attempted. We have now had one full year of operation under the act and it is desirable that we take stock of our position; that we determine wherein the act has been effective; and that we attempt to strengthen it in the places where it may be weak. That is the purpose of these hearings. We wish to develop every side of the questions which will be raised and we shall have testimony from both major political parties, from congressional leaders, from committee chairmen, and from outside experts who have studied the effectiveness of the act without becoming enmeshed in its day-to-day operations. It is anticipated that hearings will be held today, tomorrow, and Wednesday, and that they will then be adjourned to February 17, at which time we hope to hear from Senator La Follette, who was one of the two authors of the act, the President pro tempore of the Senate, and others who cannot appear this week. At the conclusion of the hearings, the committee will consider the recommendations which it will wish to make to the Senate.

This morning we are concerned with the broad aspects of the Legislative Reorganization Act and have invited the leaders of the Senate majority and minority parties to testify, along with Mr.

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