Joseph C. O'Mahoney - U.S. Senate

U.S. Senate

On December 18, 1933, O'Mahoney was appointed to the U.S. Senate by Governor Leslie A. Miller to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Senator Kendrick. He was elected to a full six-year term in 1934, defeating Republican congressman Vincent Carter by a margin of 57%-43%. He was re-elected to a second term over Milward L. Simpson in 1940, and defeated Harry B. Henderson for a third term in 1946.

During his early tenure in the Senate, O'Mahoney supported most of the New Deal programs, with the notable exception of President Roosevelt's "court-packing plan." He earned a reputation as a strong opponent of big business and monopolies, and was heavily involved with anti-trust legislation. One of his first actions as a Senator was to introduce legislation requiring federal licensing for corporations engaged in interstate commerce. He was a leading supporter of the creation of the Temporary National Economic Committee, which he chaired from 1938 to 1941. He also supported wool, cattle, oil, and conservation legislation, and sponsored of the Casper-Alcova reclamation project. He served as chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs (1943–1947), Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs (1949–1953), and co-chairman of the Joint Committee on the Economic Report (1949–1953).

In 1952, as Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower won the presidential election in a landslide, O'Mahoney was narrowly defeated for re-election by Governor Frank A. Barrett by a margin of 52%-48%. He subsequently returned to the private practice of law in Wyoming. Following the suicide of Senator Lester C. Hunt in June 1954, O'Mahoney was elected the following November both to serve out Hunt's term and to a full term. He defeated Congressman William H. Harrison, the great-great-grandson of William Henry Harrison (9th President of the United States) and grandson of Benjamin Harrison (23rd President of the United States), by a margin of 51%-48%.

Upon his return to the Senate, O'Mahoney became a strong opponent of the Dixon-Yates contract, which provided for a private company to build a plant to provide power to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to replace the power that the TVA sold to the Atomic Energy Commission. He sponsored legislation to require "concentrated industries" to give public notification and justification of price increases, to prohibit automobile manufacturers from operating finance firms, to grant Alaska and Hawaii statehood, and to require nominees for federal judgeships take an oath prior to confirmation that they would not render decisions contrary to the U.S. Constitution. His advocacy of jury trials in civil rights cases helped obtain enough votes to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957, and he opposed the confirmation of Lewis Strauss as U.S. Secretary of Commerce. One of the last bills he introduced was to abolish the insurance rate-making body of the District of Columbia, which he believed was guaranteeing high rates to insurance companies rather than looking out for the public welfare.