Special Committee to Study Problems of American Small Business
On October 8, 1940, the Senate established the Special Committee to Study and Survey Problems of Small Business Enterprises (also known as the Special Committee to Study Problems of American Small Business).
The committee was chaired by James E. Murray (Montana. [1] : i The other members of the special committee were:
- Francis T. Maloney, Connecticut
- Arthur Capper, Kansas
- James M. Mead, New York
- Tom Stewart, Tennessee
- Claude Pepper, Florida (Chair of the Subcommittee on Research and Education)
- James G. Scrugham, Nevada
- Robert A. Taft, Ohio
- George A. Wilson, Iowa
- Kenneth S. Wherry, Nebraska
- C. Douglass Buck, Delaware
Bertram Myron Gross was the Chief of Research and Hearings. With funding from the Carnegie Foundation of New York, he took responsibility for producing The Fate of Small Business in Nazi Germany, written by A. R. L. Gurland, Otto Kirchheimer and Franz Neumann. [1] : iii
On January 31, 1949, this special committee was terminated.
Select Committee on Small Business
On February 20, 1950, the Select Committee on Small Business was created with approval of Senate Resolution 58 during the 81st Congress. That first committee had just nine members. It was the first select committee created by the Senate that still operates today.
The select committee was terminated on March 25, 1981, when it became the Committee on Small Business, a standing committee. On June 29, 2001, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) changed the name of the committee to the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. [2]
The committee's jurisdiction has been changed several times since it was first created, through additional powers or by changing the manner in which committee members are appointed. While first established as a select committee with limited responsibilities, it now possesses virtually all the characteristics of a standing committee, as outlined under Senate Rule 25.
During the 96th Congress, the committee acted on legislation to reauthorize the Small Business Administration that expanded the agency to include loan programs for employee ownership, Small Business Development Centers, and increased export development assistance for small businesses.
Since its creation, the committee has held hearings on paperwork reduction and elimination (which eventually led to the Paperwork Reduction Act), capital formation, tax and securities law reform for small business, steel plant shutdowns, and the impact of inflation on governmental actions on the housing industry.
The committee was changed from small business to Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship beginning in 1981.
