Third Session of the Seventy-First Congress, December 1, 1930, to March 4, 1931.

Abstract

The almost shamed hush that fell in the Senate at noon on March 4 was more fitting than the jubilation in the House. Certainly there was no ground for congratulations in any corner of the Capitol, and least of all among the group in the President's room.Membership and Organization. When the session began, the Republicans in the House numbered 266, the Democrats 165, with one Farmer Labor member and three vacancies. The two party shifts involved in the seating of thirteen new members reflected Democratic victories in by-elections in the 6th Wisconsin and 24th Illinois districts. In the Senate, inter-sessional gains on the minority side were more pronounced; there were 42 Democrats instead of 39, leaving 53 Republicans and 1 Farmer Labor member.The uncertainty that attends the regulation of campaign expenditures by exclusion was illustrated in the seating of James J. Davis, lately Secretary of Labor, as junior senator from Pennsylvania. Mr. Davis stood aside at the opening of the session, in order to permit the chairman of the special committee investigating senatorial campaign expenditures, Gerald Nye, to offer a resolution by which his right to a seat was referred to the select committee. The resolution was rejected on December 2 by a vote of 27 (9 Republicans, 17 Democrats, 1 Farmer Labor) to 58 (39 Republicans, 19 Democrats). The committee on privileges and elections, acting through subcommittees, took up the dusty task of recounts in Alabama and North Carolina.The uncertainties of party control in the next Congress cast a sharp but wavering shadow over the proceedings of the session.