Candy Desk - History

History

George Murphy was elected as the Senator from California in 1964, to take office the following year. Murphy, known as a song-and-dance man from musicals such as Broadway Melody of 1938, Broadway Melody of 1940 and For Me and My Gal, had a taste for sweets. A short time after joining the Senate, he started keeping candy in his desk; then, in 1968, he moved desks and ended up at the spot where the Candy Desk is now situated. Since more senators now passed his desk on a daily basis, he started offering the contents of his desk to his colleagues. Senators who were invited to partake in the sweets started calling Murphy's desk the "candy desk". Murphy was defeated in the 1970 Senate elections, but subsequent senators have carried on the tradition of supplying candy in their desk for the enjoyment of the Senate as a whole.

Paul Fannin, Harrison Schmitt, Roger Jepsen, and Steve Symms all continued the new candy desk tradition, in that order, after Murphy's one term was over. Fannin, Schmitt, and Jepsen supplied only hard candy, but Symms was the first to stock sweets supplied by "candy and chocolate associations." During the tenures of these senators, the candy desk was not fixed to one particular spot. Senate seating charts show Schmitt, during his time with the candy desk, sat one seat to the right of its traditional spot for the 95th Congress, and then sat across the aisle from the traditional spot for the 96th.

None of the above was publicly known until 1985, when Slade Gorton put out a press release stating "He was now the occupant of this desk and would carry on the rich traditions started by Murphy." He also named the past senators who had continued the tradition.

In 1997, the candy desk was referenced by Kit Bond during a debate over the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1998. He compared the sizes of microchips to candy he had taken from the desk.

The high point, in terms of well-known candy, came during the ten years Rick Santorum sat at the candy desk (1997–2007). Being a senator from Pennsylvania, he filled the candy desk with Hershey candy and Just Born products (such as Mike and Ike and Hot Tamales). During this time period, Hershey shipped roughly 100 pounds of chocolate and other candy four times a year for Santorum to fill the desk. When Santorum did not win re-election during the 2006 U.S. Senate elections, Kirk Saville, a spokesman for Hershey, said about the company's no longer being able to supply sweets for the candy desk, "We were pleased to be a small part of sweetening up congressional proceedings."

Issues arose after Santorum was defeated for re-election to the Senate in 2006, and Senator Craig Thomas began his tenure at the candy desk. Wyoming, the state he was representing, has no members of the National Confectioners Association, and therefore no candymakers large enough to donate hundreds of dollars of candy to fill the desk. Senate ethics rules "forbid members accepting gifts worth $100 or more a year from a single source," which can become a problem if a large amount of candy is consumed from the desk each year. An exception to this rule allows larger gifts of objects created or produced in the state the senator is from, as long as the items are primarily not used by the senator and his staff. This is so senators can "offer visitors home-grown snacks, such as Florida orange juice or Georgia peanuts." When asked about Thomas being in charge of the candy desk, Susan Smith, a representative from the National Confectioners Association, stated, "We're happy to provide candy if there are members...It would be difficult for us to do now." These issues were worked around by asking many small, local, Wyoming confectionery businesses and chocolatiers to give small amounts of candy that were rotated in and out of the desk.

After Thomas's death in 2007, it was looked after by George Voinovich and then Mel Martinez. Both had relatively short tenures. In 2009, George LeMieux began sitting at the desk and was there until he left the Senate in 2011.