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United States Senate Committee on Civil Service

former committee of the United States Senate

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ7891261 ↗
Source-derived summary

United States Senate Committee on Civil Service is a defunct committee of the United States Senate.

The first standing Senate committee with jurisdiction over the civil service was the United States Senate Committee on Civil Service and Retrenchment, which was established on December 4, 1873, following unanimous approval of a resolution introduced by Henry B. Anthony of Rhode Island. On April 18, 1921, the committee was renamed the United States Senate Committee on Civil Service.

The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 retained the Committee on Civil Service and established the committee's jurisdiction over all the aspects of civil service, the Census Bureau and the government's gathering of statistics, and the National Archives. The act also transferred to the committee jurisdiction over the postal service. On April 17, 1947, as specified by S. 99 of the 80th United States Congress, the committee's name was changed from the Committee on Civil Service to the United States Senate Committee on Post Office and Civil Service.

The committee ceased to exist in February 1977, under S. Res. 4 of the 95th Congress when its functions were transferred to the Committee on Governmental Affairs.

In there were select or special committees pertaining to the Civil Service:

United States Senate Select Committee to Investigate the Operation of the Civil Service, 1888-1889 (50th Congress)

United States Senate Select Committee to Examine the Several Branches in the Civil Service, 1875-1921 (43rd-67th Congresses)

United States Special Committee to Investigate the Administration of the Civil Service System, 1938-1941 (75th-76th Congresses)

Chairmen of the Committee on Civil Service and Retrenchment, 1873-1921

George Wright (R-IA) 1873-1875

Powell Clayton (R-AR) 1875-1877

James G. Blaine (R-ME) 1877

Henry Teller (R-CO) 1877-1879

M. C. Butler (D-SC) 1879-1881

Joseph Hawley (R-CT) 1881-1887

Jonathan Chace (R-RI) 1887-1889

Edward O. Wolcott (R-CO) 1889-1893

Wilkinson Call (D-FL) 1893-1894

Thomas Jarvis (D-NC) 1894-1895

Jeter C. Pritchard (R-NC) 1895-1899

Lucien Baker (R-KS) 1899-1901

George C. Perkins (R-CA) 1901-1909

Albert Cummins (R-IA) 1909-1913

Atlee Pomerene (D-OH) 1913-1917

Kenneth McKellar (D-TN) 1917-1919

Thomas Sterling (R-SD) 1919-1921

Chairmen of the Committee on Civil Service, 1921-1947

Thomas Sterling (R-SD) 1921-1923

Robert Nelson Stanfield (R-OR) 1923-1925

James Couzens (R-MI) 1925-1926

Porter H. Dale (R-VT) 1926-1933

William J. Bulow (D-SD) 1933-1943

Kenneth McKellar (D-TN) 1943-1944

Sheridan Downey (D-CA) 1944-1947

Sources

Chapter 15.

Editorial summary

“United States Senate Committee on Civil Service” enters the record as former committee of the United States Senate. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what United, States and Senate can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1873, 1921, 1946, 1947—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around United, States and Senate.
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“United States Senate Committee on Civil Service” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, United, States and Senate provides the most credible route into that argument.

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This entry incorporates text from “United States Senate Committee on Civil Service” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.