Word: mccarranism
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Using his strategic committee positions as patronage levers. McCarran built a personal political organization in both Washington and Nevada. He brought scores of aspiring young Nevada lawyers to Washington, financed them, trained them, got them jobs and finally sent them home as devoted McCarranites. "What the hell," said one recently, "McCarran took me off the street when my belly had wrinkles in it. He fed me and clothed me and put me through law school and helped me get started in practice. What kind of a jerk would I be to turn on him now?" In sparsely populated Nevada...
...Senator Estes Kefauver "Mortimer Snerd"; he once hastily changed his vote when he found himself and New York's New Dealing Herbert Lehman the only Democrats voting in opposition to a bill. Despite these foibles, by the time he took over the Judiciary Committee in 1943, McCarran was recognized both at home and on Capitol Hill as a political titan. He even managed to exude power while sitting in the Senate restaurant eating milk-soaked graham crackers...
...McCarran influence can be measured in terms of the legislation he authored. Items: the first bill (1933) introduced in Congress for a separate Air Force; the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938; the Reorganization Act of 1945, which authorized the consolidation of many of the Government's sprawling independent agencies; the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, which required bureaucracy to make public many activities previously conducted in secret; the Internal Security Act of 1950, which shored up the nation's shaky anti-Communist structure; the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, for which his name will forever be associated with...
Neither in Nevada nor in Washington was Pat McCarran widely or warmly loved. But he made his mark on political history-and he was widely feared. That seemed to be what he wanted...
Within hours after Senator McCarran's death, Nevada politicians were locked in close combat over a successor. Democratic Attorney General William Mathews ruled that the vacancy must be filled at the November 2 election. Republican Governor Charles Russell retaliated by appointing Ernest S. Brown, a lawyer and a Republican, to fill the term, which does not expire until 1956. The argument will probably have to be settled in Nevada courts...