The Passage of Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #4)

by Robert A. Caro

One of the eight unpassed appropriations bills, for example, was the measure that would fund the operating expenses of three departments—State, Justice and Commerce. Sent to Capitol Hill by the White House, like the other appropriations measures, early in the year, it had been passed by the House on June 18. Then it had been referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee, which referred it in turn to a subcommittee chaired by John McClellan of Arkansas, which referred it in turn to a subcommittee of McClellan’s subcommittee—the “Department of Commerce and Certain Related Agencies Subcommittee of the Subcommittee on Departments of State, Justice and Commerce,” as this final subcommittee was familiarly known—which was chaired by Spessard L. Holland of Florida, but with McClellan as its dominant member. McClellan was a tough, very shrewd, subtle legislator.