Talk:List of defunct United States Congressional committees

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	List of defunct United States Congressional committees is part of WikiProject U.S. Congress, an attempt to build a comprehensive guide to the United States Congress.
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[edit] Defunct Committees

For the sake of a broader audience, part or all of the discussion below has been transferred from the User namespace at User talk:Markles#Defunct Committees to this space below. Please continue the discussion here.

User:Markles, as you know, I'm working on updating the list of defunct congressional committees. As I work on the list, I'm using Water Stubbs Congressional Committees 1789-1982: A Checklist, but I'm realizing that his work, while comprehensive, is far from accurate. For several committee records, he overlooks the 1909 resolution that made all Senate select committees de-facto standing committees and continues listing them as select after that date. Also, he took liberties in shortening committee names, particularly those committees whose lengthy names derived from the resolution that created them. To make the list readable, it seems to make sense to me to list committees based on their primary subject matter, rather than any modifiers as examine, study, investigate, and so on. For that, Stubbs provides some abbreviations in his book, many of which work. For other committees eliminating the modifiers alters the purpose of the committee. For the sake of simplicity, I'm leaning toward an abbreviated name for the committee if it makes sense, mainly to make alphabetizing simpler and giving shorter article names. For example the Select Committee on the Banks Expedition is a shortened form of the official name Select Committee to Inquire and Report in Regard to the Chartering of Transport Vessels for the Banks Expedition. I'd include the official title in the notes field to eliminate confusion. Or do you think I should use the official title as the article name and alphabetize accordingly (under "inquire" in this case rather than under "banks")?

Another area I've run into trouble are two related select committees, the Admission of California established January 24, 1849[1] and the "Committee of Thirteen" established April 18-19, 1850[2][3], which ultimately lead to the Compromise of 1850. Stubbs lists the first, but not the second committee. Instead, he lists the California Committee as running until Sept. 30, 1850, overlapping the time of the Committee of Thirteen. My best guess is he is considering them both the same committee, since they both dealt with California. But the Thirteen committee also addressed other issues directly, like the Texas border and slavery[4][5]. Also, the California committee had 7 members, and the Thirteen, obviously had 13 members, and neither committee shared any members. I can't be certain Stubbs means to count both as one committee, since he states in his book that he left out a lot of "minor" committees, such as housekeeping or ceremonial issues. I wouldn't count this Thirteen Committee as minor, though, and I'm reluctant to leave it out because it was a major player in crafting major legislation. Also, the creation of this committee directly lead to Senator Foote's attempted assault on Senator Benton. The committee created to investigate the "disorder of the Senate" is listed as a separate committee in Stubbs, leading me to believe he is counting the California and Thirteen as one and the same.

I'm leaning to counting them as separate committees, with the termination dates as the end of their respective sessions of Congress, and making a notation to the discrepancy in the Stubbs book. What do you think?Dcmacnut 18:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• I thinks the shorter/clearer name should be used for the page title with the longer name used in the introductory sentence.
• Water Stubbs's work is very good & useful for you, but it is not definitive. WP should go by official House/Senate rules but still note other people's contribution. Thus I concur with your idea of counting them as separate and including a notation to Stubbs.—Markles 19:08, 15 August 2007 (UTC)