The Eighty-Second Congress: Second Session

• Date: 01 December 1952
• Published date: 01 December 1952
• Author: Floyd M. Riddick
• DOI: 10.1177/106591295200500405
• Subject Matter: Articles

THE EIGHTY-SECOND CONGRESS: SECOND SESSION
FLOYD M. RIDDICK
Washington, D. C.
HE
EIGHTY-SECOND CONGRESS, Second Session, having con-
vened on January 8, heard the President deliver his State of the
&dquo;
Union message on the following day, giving a review of the Nation’s
foreign and domestic programs for 1951, and outlining his administrative
plans and legislative recommendations for 1952. Before announcing these
proposals to the Congress he said:
This will be a presidential election year - the kind of year in which politics plays a
larger part in our lives than usual. That is perfectly proper. But we have a great
responsibility to conduct our political fights in a manner that does not harm the national
interest.
We can find plenty of things to differ about without destroying our free institutions
and without abandoning our bipartisan foreign policy for peace.
When everything is said and done, all of us - Republicans and Democrats alike - all
of us are Americans; and we are all going to sink or swim together.’
Operating in such an atmosphere and confronted with the coming elec-
tion, the two Houses proceeded to enact their legislative program.
ORGANIZATION
The political and organizational structure of the House and Senate
for the Second Session remained practically unchanged from that of the
First.2 Senator Bridges of New Hampshire was elected Senate Minority
Floor Leader, by his Republican colleagues to fill the vacancy created by
the death of Senator Kenneth Wherry of Nebraska. But there was not
a single change in a chairmanship of a House or Senate standing com-
mittee.
PROCEDURE AND BUSINESS TRANSACTED
The session began on January 8, and continued through July 7, the
Senate sitting 115 days and the House 111. In the previous session, the
Senate sat 172 days and the House 163.3
3
The business transacted is summarized in Table 1.4
4
1 State of the Union Message.
2 See Western Political Quarterly, Vol. V (March, 1952), p. 95.
3
See 82 Cong.Rec. (1952), Daily Digest, p. D719.
4
Of the 1,093 measures passed by the Senate, 364 were Senate bills, 565 House bills, 10 Senate joint
resolutions, 27 House joint resolutions, 21 Senate concurrent resolutions, 15 House concurrent resolu-
tions, and 91 Senate resolutions. During that session, 1,366 bills and resolutions were introduced in
the Senate of which 1,147 were Senate bills, 58 Senate joint resolutions, 37 Senate concurrent resolu-
tions, and 124 Senate resolutions.
Of the 1,239 measures passed by the House, 658 were House bills, 368 Senate bills, 30 House
joint resolutions, 6 Senate joint resolutions, 16 House concurrent resolutions, 21 Senate concurrent
resolutions, and 140 simple House resolutions. During the session, 3,183 bills and resolutions were
introduced in the House, of which 2,700 were House bills, 146 House joint resolutions, 70 House
concurrent resolutions, and 267 House resolutions. See 82 Cong. Rec. (1952), Daily Digest, for
monthly tabulations, published at beginning of each month.
619

---

620
TABLE I
.. Measures include H.R., H.J.Res., H.Con.Res., H.Res., S., S.J.Res., S.Con.Res., and S.Res.
fi Number left on calendar includes those coming over from First Session.
The legislative machine did not get into high gear until March. No
bill was signed into public law during January, and only three private
bills were enacted; by the end of February only 8 bills had become
public law and 60 private. In fact only 176 of the 339 public bills enacted
during the year had been completed and signed by the end of June.5
Of the 4,292 pages of the Congressional Record devoted to the House
proceedings during the Second Session, only 2,174 pages were utilized
for discussion of legislative measures requiring space in excess of three
or more pages each. The other 2,118 pages were devoted to speeches
and miscellaneous remarks, brief comments on bills passed &dquo;without
objection&dquo; procedures, the texts of bills and amendments, and reproduc-
tion of various materials. Likewise, only 2,478 of the 5,558 pages devoted
to the Senate proceedings were utilized for discussion of legislative
proposals necessitating space in excess of three or more pages each. The
other 3,080 pages were used for purposes such as are enumerated above,
and debate and consideration of treaties and nominations.
Of the 1,093 bills and resolutions passed by the Senate, over 1,000 were
passed &dquo;without objection.&dquo; Of the 1,239 approved by the House, ap-
proximately 1,100 were passed under expeditious procedures, with little
or no debate, and in effect &dquo;without objection.&dquo;
The real contests and conflicts were found in the disposition of the
bills and resolutions accounted for in Table lj,6 where a classification is
made of those debated by the House or Senate which required three or
more pages of the Record. In calculating the number of pages in each
case, all proceedings - including reproduction of bills and amendments,
revision of remarks, and the like - were included, provided the actual
debate was in excess of three pages.
5
See 82 Cong. Rec. (1952), Daily Digest, p. D681.
6 As in all previous tabulations, the debate of each special rule in the House is tabulated as a part of
the proposal for which it provides consideration.

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622
The two Houses actually sat fewer days than in any session since
the latter part of the 1930’s, with one exception - Eightieth Congress,
Second Session (1949). Likewise, as shown in Table II, the number
of bills and resolutions involving debate covering three or more printed
pages of the Record was smaller than in any session since 1939,7 and
perhaps since the adoption of the Twentieth Amendment.8 The Senate
debated several bills for longer periods than the House. For example,
in the case of bills debated requiring 150 pages or more, the House
had one, and the Senate four, found in three different categories.9
Debated at greatest length was the bill providing for extension of the
Defense Production Act of 1950 and the Housing and Rent Act of 1947,
as amended (S. 2594 and H.R. 8210) .1° This discussion occupied the
House for six days, and the Senate for seven, involving over 449 pages of
the Record.11 The so-called tidelands bill (S. J. Res. 20), which was
vetoed, was the second longest debated measure, involving 314 pages of
the Record; 12 and the bill to revise and codify the immigration and
naturalization laws (H.R. 5678 and S. 2550), which was vetoed but enacted
,
over the veto, placed third.13
Both houses changed the names of their Committees on Expenditures
in the Executive Departments to Committees on Government Operations. 14
The attendance in the two Houses was not as good as the leadership
had desired; in fact, this matter was complained about at various times
in the congressional debates. The roll-call votes, however, disclose better
attendance than was evidenced during the debates. According to the
Congressional Quarterly, Weekly Report, 15 the 1952 Record gave House
members an average percentage of 83.7 on 72 roll calls, compared to a
non-election year high of 88.8 percent in 1951; Senators had an average
percentage of 86.8 on 129 roll calls as compared to 87.5 in 1951. Twenty-
five representatives and one senator scored 100 percent. Six senators
had percentages of 99, while thirteen more had 98 percent.
7
In the Second Session of the 78th Congress, the Senate debated only 47 bills covering three or more
pages, but the number in the House was 86.
8
The author has made such a tabulation for each year since the 76th Congress, Third Session, which has
been published in the American Political Science Review through the 80th Congress, Second Session,
and since then in the Western Political Quarterly. Prior to these tabulations, he has not com-
piled any comparable statistics, but doubts if there have been fewer in any regular session since the
20th Amendment was adopted, when short sessions were eliminated.
9
See
Table II.
10
S. 1717, of the previous session, to extend the same law, was the bill debated at greatest length during
that session.
11
The House debate printed out over 208 pages, and the Senate, 241.
12
Senate debate involved 308 pages over a period of 16 days and that of the House only 6 pages (the
House had passed a companion bill the previous year—H.R. 4484—which it substituted for the
Senate-passed bill. The six pages of debate in the House were devoted to conference report on the
bill).
13
The debate printed out 232 pages of Senate proceedings and 72 of the House.
14

See Senate proceedings for March 3, 1952 (S.Res. 280); and House proceedings for July 3, 1952 (H.Res.
647).
15
Vol. X, No. 31, pp. 803-04.

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623
SENATE PROCEDURE
The Senate passed 1,093 bills and resolutions, of which over 1,000
were disposed of under the call of the Calendar, or out of the regular
order, without objection. The Calendar was called on ten different days,
on which occasions the Senate approved 888 &dquo;unobjected-to&dquo; bills and
...