Congressional politics 145Activities Committee was the main source of citations for contempt of Con-
gress, many of them for failing to answer questions or produce documents
about supposed communist activities, though few of these contempt citations
actually resulted in convictions in the courts. In 1966 seven leaders of the
Ku Klux Klan were cited for contempt for refusing to give the committee
records of the Klan’s activities, and the Imperial Wizard of the Klan was con-
victed by a federal court and sentenced to a year’s imprisonment.
At its worst the investigatory power of Congress can be used to harass in-
dividuals who offend against the political opinions of committee members, or
to further the political ambitions of members of Congress. At its best it can
be a valuable instrument for investigating the activities of the government in
order to prevent abuses of power, both public and private. Investigations have
been directed at the Ku Klux Klan, interstate criminal activities, racketeer-
ing in labour unions, the invasion of privacy through the use of electronic de-
vices and lie detectors, and the allocation of government defence contracts.
The Senate has special power under the Constitution to confirm or re-
ject the nominations to office of executive and judicial officers made by the
president, including members of the cabinet and federal judges. Many nomi-
nations are made each year, and most of them are quickly confirmed. Very
few nominations are actually rejected, although the president may withdraw
a nomination when opposition is manifested in the Senate. Occasionally, a
nomination can lead to a protracted battle, with a public investigation of
the nominee by a Senate committee and heated debates on the floor of the
Senate about the nominee’s record and qualifications. Sometimes objections
are made to nominees because of the policies they are expected to pursue,
and sometimes on personal grounds. The president usually avoids serious
difficulty by consulting congressional leaders on appointments, and in one
respect must be quite meticulous in this process of consultation. The con-
vention of ‘senatorial courtesy’ ensures that the president will clear every
nomination with the Senator of the president’s party (if any) from the state
from which the nominee comes. If the president fails to do so, the Senator
concerned may state on the floor of the Senate chamber that the nominee is
‘personally obnoxious’, and the Senate will normally reject the nomination.
An exceptional case of the refusal to confirm the nomination of a member of
the cabinet was the rejection of Lewis L. Strauss as Secretary of Commerce
in 1959. President Eisenhower nominated him at a time when there was a
Democratic majority in the Senate. Strauss had formerly been the chairman
of the Atomic Energy Commission, and Senator Clinton P. Anderson, chair-
man of the Joint Atomic Energy Committee, led the fight against his nomi-
nation. The battle lasted nearly six months, with the president throwing all
his weight behind the attempts to secure confirmation of the nomination.
Democratic Senators opposed Strauss because of his conservative attitudes,
because of some of his decisions as AEC chairman and because of his role in
the J. Robert Oppenheimer case in 1954. The final vote in the Senate was