Meetings of Republican Conference
The form and frequency of Conference meetings has depended upon leadership personalities and legislative circumstances. Since the late 1950s, the Conference has met at the beginning of each United States Congress to elect the leadership, approve committee assignments, and attend to other organizational matters. Although other meetings are called from time to time to discuss pending issues, the weekly Policy Committee luncheons afford a regular forum for discussion among Senators. As a former Republican Leader, Senator Everett M. Dirksen of Illinois, said in 1959:
- When the Republican Policy Committee meets weekly, it is actually a meeting of the Republican Conference over the luncheon table, at which time we discuss all matters of pending business. Thus, so far as possible, all the information which is within the possession and the command of the leadership is freely diffused to every member.
At the time Senator Dirksen spoke, the elected party leadership included: Chairman of the Conference, Secretary of the Conference, Floor Leader, Whip (now Assistant Floor Leader), and Chairman of the Policy Committee. On July 31, 1980, Conference rules were amended to make the Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee an elected position, a change which brought the rules into conformity with what had become custom.
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—Josephine Woodward, U.S. author. As quoted in Everyone Was Brave, ch. 3, by William L. O’Neill (1969)
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—Walter Wellesley (Red)