The

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

has operated with more than 1500

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, special, select, or joint committees over the years. ,

United States Senate Historical Office The Historian of the United States Senate heads the United States Senate Historical Office, which was created in 1975 to record and preserve historical information about the United States Senate. The current Historian of the Senate is Betty K. Ko ...

. June 2008. Most of these committees are now defunct. In some cases, their responsibilities were merged with those of other committees. For others, the committee remained in existence, but its name was changed. However, the bulk of committees were eliminated because they served a single purpose or it was deemed that subject matter no longer merited its own committee. These lists contain both select and standing committees. When known, the committee's type, years, reason for elimination, and any successor committees are noted. Some committees, such as the myriad "Committee(s) to Investigate," are included in the list alphabetically by the primary subject matter being studied or investigated. Early select committees were very fluid, serving their established function and then going out of existence. This makes tracking committees difficult, since many committees were known by the date they were created or by a petition or other document that had been referred to them. In a number of instances, the official journal and other congressional publications did not consistently refer to an individual committee by the same title. Though such inconsistencies still appeared during the 20th century, they were less frequent. Therefore, this list does include hundreds of select committees established by Congress during its early years, particularly prior to 1795 and 1816, when a system of permanent standing committees was established in the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

and the Senate respectively. The majority of these committees were assigned specific legislative bills, but many served merely ceremonial functions. In the 1st Congress (1789–1791), the House appointed about 220 select committees over the course of two years. By the 3rd Congress (1793–1795),

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had three permanent standing committees, the House Committee on Elections, the House Committee on Claims, and the Joint Committee on Enrolled Bills, but more than 350 select committees. While the modern committee system is now firmly established in both House and Senate procedure, with the rules of each House establishing a full range of permanent standing committees and assigning jurisdiction of all legislative issues among them, select committees continue to be used to respond to unique and difficult issues as the need arises.

Defunct House committees

Defunct Senate committees

Defunct joint committees

References

Further reading