Record of the 79th Congress (Second Session)

Report Outline
Major Legislation by 79th Congress
Government Finances
Modernization of Government
Emergency Legislation
Permanent Legislation
Foreign Relations
National Defense and Veteran Legislation
Constitutional, Political and Electoral Questions
Special Focus

Major Legislation by 79th Congress

The 79th congress, which met for its first session on January 3, 1945, reached a sine die adjournment of its second session on August 2, 1946. The present Congress will not meet again unless called into special session by the President.† It will be succeeded on January 3, 1947, by the new Congress to be chosen in November.

The leading contribution of the 79th Congress to world history was its willing acceptance for the United States of membership in the United Nations. The policy of isolation maintained between World War I and World War II was formally reversed when the Senate ratified the United Nations Charter in July, 1945, and both houses adopted the United Nations Participation Act in December.

The 1945 session was devoted in the main to questions of foreign policy; the 1946 session was given over almost exclusively to domestic concerns. Chief contests of the second session were fought over legislation to continue wartime price controls and to establish new controls for postwar strike emergencies. Relatively little attention was given to social and economic legislation of a permanent character.