Scope and Content Note
The records of the House Democratic Caucus span the years 1913-1999, with the bulk of the material dating from 1969 to 1994. The caucus, which first met in 1796, is an arm of the Democratic party comprising party members serving as elected or appointed members of the United States House of Representatives. It promulgates House and caucus rules, determines members' committee assignments, and serves as the means by which the party organizes the House and selects the speaker and committee chairmen when the Democrats are in the majority. The records are organized in a Congresses and a Miscellany series.
The Congresses series documents the 64th through 106th Congresses, spanning the period 1913-1999, though there are gaps and fewer records at the beginning and end of the span. The meetings of the earlier caucuses through the 92d Congress are typically represented by only a journal, a short outline of the proceedings that reported speeches and debates with little detail. Caucus meetings of the 93d through 102d Congresses are usually documented with full transcripts as well as with journals. Correspondents in the Congresses series include caucus chairmen Victor H. Fazio, Richard A. Gephardt, Steny H. Hoyer, and Gillis William Long.
The Miscellany series mainly documents the work of two committees of the caucus, the Committee on Organization, Study, and Review and the Committee on Party Effectiveness. The Committee on Organization, Study and Review promulgates and amends caucus rules and the procedural rules of the House of Representatives when the Democrats are in the majority. The caucus formulates broad party policy on a number of public issues, such as health care reform and the Strategic Defense Initiative, through task forces of the Committee on Party Effectiveness. Included in the history file of the Miscellany series are chronologies and agendas of caucus meetings from the 1960s through the 1990s and brief histories of the caucus and the Committee on Organization, Study and Review and Committee on Party Effectiveness.