Summary

The Senate Republican Conference is the formal organization of the Republican senators in the United States Senate. Over the last century, the mission of the conference has expanded and been shaped as a means of informing the media of the opinions and activities of Senate Republicans.

The Senate Republican Conference assists Republican senators by providing a full range of communications services including graphics, radio, television, and the Internet. Its chairman is Senator Tom Cotton,[1] and its vice chairman is Senator James Lankford.

OnAir Post: Senate Republicans – 119th Congress

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Republican Senate Leaders

See this slider of posts on the new Senate leaders for  the Republican senators

John Thune – Majority Leader

 Current Position: US Senator since 2005
Affiliation: Republican
Former Position: US Representative from 1997 – 2003
Other Position:Senate Majority Leader

He is known for his defeat of sitting Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle in 2004. Thune was a star athlete in high school, active in basketball, track, and football.

He worked as a legislative aide for U.S. Senator James Abdnor from 1985 to 1987. In 1989, Thune moved to Pierre, where he served as executive director of the state Republican Party for two years. Thune was appointed Railroad Director of South Dakota by Governor George S. Mickelson, serving from 1991 to 1993. From 1993 to 1996, he was executive director of the South Dakota Municipal League.

OnAir Post: John Thune – SD

John Barasso – Minority Whip

 Current: US Senator since 2007
Affiliation: Republican
Leadership: Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference and Chair, Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests
History: Barrasso graduated from Georgetown University, where he received his B.S. and M.D. He conducted his medical residency at Yale University before moving to Wyoming and beginning a private orthopedics practice in Casper. Barrasso was active in various medical societies and associations.

Barasso served in the Wyoming State Senate from 2003 to 2007.

OnAir Post: John Barasso – WY

Tom Cotton – Conference Chair

  Current Position: US Senator since 2017
Affiliation: Republican
Former Position: US Representative

Thomas Bryant Cotton (born May 13, 1977) is an American politician, attorney, and former Army officer serving as the junior United States senator from Arkansas since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2015. As Chair of the Senate Republican Conference since 2025, he is the third-ranking Senate Republican. He is also the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Cotton was elected as the U.S. representative for Arkansas’s 4th congressional district in 2012 and to the Senate at age 37 in 2014, defeating two-term Democratic incumbent Mark Pryor. In 2024, Cotton was selected as chair of the Senate Republican Conference. An ardent conservative, Cotton is known for his hawkish views on foreign affairs, especially toward China and Iran.

OnAir Post: Tom Cotton – AR

Shelley Moore Capito – Policy Committee Chair

 Current: US Senator since 2015
Affiliation: Republican
Leadership: Ranking Member, U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

History:  Capito was educated at  Duke University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in zoology; and the University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development, where she earned her master’s degree. Capito was a career counselor at West Virginia State University and director of the educational information center for the West Virginia Board of Regents.

Capito was elected to Kanawha County’s seat in the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1996, and served two terms, from 1996 to 2000. Capito served seven terms as the U.S. representative from West Virginia’s 2nd congressional district from 2001 to 2015. The daughter of three-term West Virginia governor Arch Alfred Moore Jr.

OnAir Post: Shelley Moore Capito – WV

James Lankford – Vice Conference Chair

   Current Position: US Senator since 2015
Affiliation: Republican
Former Position: US Representative from 2011 – 2016
Other Positions:  
Ranking Member, Government Operations and Border Management subcommittee – Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure – Finance

Lankford was ordained Southern Baptist minister. He was president of the Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center, a youth camp operated by the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, from 1996 to 2009.

OnAir Post: James Lankford – OK

Tim Scott – Senatorial Committee Chair

 Current Position: US Senator since 2013
Affiliation: Republican
Former Positions: US Representative from 2011 – 2013; State Delegate from 2009 – 2011; Charleston County Council from 1995 – 2009

Tim Scott served as a city councilor in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a candidate for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination. Scott worked in financial services before serving on the Charleston County Council from 1995 to 2009.

Upon graduating from college, Scott worked as an insurance agent and financial adviser, a stepping stone toward starting his insurance agency, Tim Scott Allstate. His professional accomplishments enabled him to purchase a home for his mother.

OnAir Post: Tim Scott – SC

Mike Lee – Steering Committee Chair

 Current: US Senator since 2011
Affiliation: Republican
Leadership: Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining (Committee on Energy and Natural Resources) and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights – (Committee on the Judiciary)

History: Mike Lee is the sone of Rex E. Lee, who was solicitor general under President Ronald Reagan. Lee’s older brother Thomas Rex Lee is a former justice of the Utah Supreme Court.

Lee began his career as a clerk for the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah before clerking for Samuel Alito, who was then a judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.  Lee then entered private practice at the Washington, D.C., office of the law firm Sidley Austin, specializing in appellate and Supreme Court litigation.

From 2002 to 2005, Lee was an assistant United States attorney for the District of Utah. He joined the administration of Utah governor Jon M. Huntsman Jr., serving as the general counsel in the governor’s office from 2005 to 2006. Lee again clerked for Alito after he was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

OnAir Post: Mike Lee – UT

Mike Crapo – Chief Deputy Whip

 Current Position: US Senator since 1999
Affiliation: Republican
Former Position: US Representative for ID-02 from 1993 – 1999
Other Positions:  
Ranking Member, Committee on Finance

He practiced law in his home city throughout the 1980s, while also maintaining an active role in local Republican politics. His brother Terry Crapo was majority leader in the Idaho House of Representatives from 1968 to 1972 and an influential political figure until his death from leukemia in 1982.

OnAir Post: Mike Crapo – ID

All the Republican Senators

To view all the Republican senators,  go this slider of their posts.

More Information

Senate Republican Conference Wikipedia

The Senate Republican Conference is the formal organization of the Republican senators in the United States Senate. Over the last century, the mission of the conference has expanded and been shaped as a means of informing the media of the opinions and activities of Senate Republicans. The Senate Republican Conference assists Republican senators by providing a full range of communications services including graphics, radio, television, and the Internet. Its chairman is Senator Tom Cotton,[1] and its vice chairman is Senator James Lankford.[2]

Conference hierarchy

Effective as of January 3, 2025, the conference leadership is:

History

The Republican Conference of the United States Senate is a descendant of the early American party caucus that decided party policies, approved appointees, and selected candidates. The meetings were private, and early records of the deliberations do not exist. Senate Republicans began taking formal minutes only in 1911, and they began referring to their organization as the “conference” in 1913. An early outgrowth of the effort to enhance party unity was the creation, in 1874, of a steering committee to prepare a legislative schedule for consideration by the conference. The committee became a permanent part of the Republican organization.

The steering committee, formalized Republican “leadership” in the 19th century was minimal; most legislative guidance came from powerful committee chairmen managing particular bills. The conference began to acquire significance, however, with the election of Senator William B. Allison of Iowa as chairman in 1897, and during the terms of successors such as Senator Orville H. Platt of Connecticut and Senator Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island. The chairman in 1915, Senator Jacob H. Gallinger of New Hampshire, who two years earlier had elected a whip to maintain a quorum to conduct Senate business. Senator James W. Wadsworth, Jr. of New York was elected both conference secretary and whip; a week later the responsibilities were divided between Senator Wadsworth as Secretary and Senator Charles Curtis of Kansas, who was elected whip.

The conference continued to meet in private to assure confidentiality and candor. This practice was suspended only once, on May 27, 1919, when the conference reaffirmed its commitment to the seniority system for choosing committee chairmen by electing Senator Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania as chairman of the finance committee over objections from Progressive Republican insurgents. (This was apparently the only open party conference in the history of the Senate.)

During this period, the chairman also served as informal floor leader. One reason for the lack of a formal post was that committee chairmen usually took responsibility to move to proceed to the consideration of measures reported by their respective committees and managed the legislation on the floor. The first recorded Conference election of a formal floor leader was held March 5, 1925, when the conference chairman, Senator Curtis of Kansas, was unanimously chosen to serve in both posts.

Throughout the 1920s, when Republicans held the Senate majority, the conference met chiefly at the beginning of each session to make committee assignments; for the remainder of the session, Members were notified of the order of business by mail. This slow pace continued through the 1930s, when Republican senators were so few that they dispensed with a permanent whip, and the conference chairman and floor leader, Senator Charles L. McNary of Oregon, appointed senators to serve as whip on particular pieces of legislation.

Senator McNary died in 1944, and the posts of conference chairman and floor leader were separated in 1945. Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg of Michigan became chairman and Senator Wallace H. White, Jr., of Maine became floor leader. This separation has continued to be one of the chief differences between the Republican and Democratic Conferences, since the floor leader of the Democrats has continued to serve as their conference chairman.

In 1944, Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, still in his first term, persuaded Republicans to revive their steering committee, and he became its chairman. In 1946, it became the Republican Policy Committee under legislation appropriating equal funds for majority and minority parties (a separate steering committee was created in 1974 but its operations are funded by member dues, not by Congress[3]). Until the mid-1970s the staffs of the Conference and Policy Committee were housed together under a single staff director who administered their budgets jointly. Staff separation was begun during 1979–1980, while Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon was chairman of the conference, and completed under Senator James McClure of Idaho. Under Senator McClure’s leadership in the 1980s, the conference began providing television, radio and graphics services for Republican senators. Senator Connie Mack, as conference chairman, in 1997 created the first digital Information Technology department to communicate the Republican agenda over the web.

Meetings of Republican Conference

The form and frequency of conference meetings has depended upon leadership personalities and legislative circumstances. Since the late 1950s, the conference has met at the beginning of each United States Congress to elect the leadership, approve committee assignments, and attend to other organizational matters. Although other meetings are called from time to time to discuss pending issues, the weekly Policy Committee luncheons afford a regular forum for discussion among senators. As a former Republican Leader, Senator Everett M. Dirksen of Illinois, said in 1959:

When the Republican Policy Committee meets weekly, it is actually a meeting of the Republican Conference over the luncheon table, at which time we discuss all matters of pending business. Thus, so far as possible, all the information which is within the possession and the command of the leadership is freely diffused to every member.

At the time Senator Dirksen spoke, the elected party leadership included: chairman of the conference, secretary of the conference, floor leader, whip (now assistant floor leader), and chairman of the Policy Committee. On July 31, 1980, Conference rules were amended to make the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee an elected position, a change which brought the rules into conformity with what had become custom.

“Conference” versus “caucus”

The Republican Conference has never been a caucus in the dictionary sense, that is, a “partisan legislative group that uses caucus procedures to make decisions binding on its members.” Even during the tense years of Reconstruction, Republican senators were not bound to vote according to conference decisions. In 1867, for example, when Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts refused to follow conference policy on an issue, and Senator William P. Fessenden of Maine charged, “you should not have voted on the subject [in Conference] if you did not mean to be bound by the decision of the majority,” Sumner retorted, “I am a Senator of the United States,” and no attempt was made to discipline him. Such independence was reiterated on March 12, 1925, when a resolution introduced by Senator Wesley L. Jones of Washington passed in the conference without objection:

To make clear and beyond question the long-settled policy of Republicans that our Conferences are not caucuses or of binding effect upon those participating therein but are meetings solely for the purpose of exchanging views to promote harmony and united action so far as possible.
Be It Resolved: That no Senator attending this Conference or any Conference held hereafter shall be deemed to be bound in any way by any action taken by such Conference, but he shall be entirely free to act upon any matter considered by the Conference as his judgment may dictate, and it shall not be necessary for any Senator to give notice of his intention to take action different from any recommended by the Conference.”

Floor leaders

CongressLeaderStateTook officeLeft office
69thCharles Curtis
(1860–1936)
KansasNovember 28, 1924March 3, 1929
70th
71stJames Eli Watson
(1874–1944)
IndianaMarch 4, 1929March 4, 1933
72nd
73rdCharles L. McNary
(1874–1944)
OregonMarch 4, 1933February 25, 1944[a]
74th
75th
76th
77th
78th
79thWallace H. White
(1877–1952)
MaineFebruary 25, 1944January 3, 1949
80th
81stKenneth S. Wherry
(1892–1951)
NebraskaJanuary 3, 1949November 29, 1951
82nd
83rdRobert A. Taft
(1889–1953)
OhioJanuary 3, 1953July 31, 1953
84thWilliam Knowland
(1908–1974)
CaliforniaAugust 3, 1953January 3, 1959
85th
86thEverett Dirksen
(1896–1969)
IllinoisJanuary 3, 1959September 7, 1969
87th
88th
89th
90th
91st
92ndHugh Scott
(1900–1994)
PennsylvaniaSeptember 24, 1969January 3, 1977
93rd
94th
95thHoward Baker
(1925–2014)
TennesseeJanuary 3, 1977January 3, 1985[b]
96th
97th
98th
99thBob Dole
(1923–2021)
KansasJanuary 3, 1985June 11, 1996[c]
100th
101st
102nd
103rd
104th
105thTrent Lott
(born 1941)
MississippiJune 11, 1996January 3, 2003
106th
107th
108thBill Frist
(born 1952)
TennesseeJanuary 3, 2003January 3, 2007
109th
110thMitch McConnell
(born 1942)
KentuckyJanuary 3, 2007January 3, 2025
111th
112th
113th
114th
115th
116th
117th
118th
119thJohn Thune
(born 1961)
South DakotaJanuary 3, 2025Incumbent

List of conference chairmen and chairwomen

The Republican conference of the United States Senate chooses a conference chairperson. The office was created in the mid-19th century with the founding of the Republican party. The office of “party floor leader” was not created until 1925, and for twenty years, the Senate’s Republican conference chairman was also the floor leader.

In recent years, the conference chair has come to be regarded as the third-ranking Republican in the Senate, behind the floor leader and whip. According to Congressional Quarterly, “The conference chairman manages the private meetings to elect floor leaders, handles distribution of committee assignments and helps set legislative priorities. The modern version drives the conference’s message, with broadcast studios for television and radio.”[3]

DatesNameStateNotes
1859 – December 1862John P. HaleNew Hampshire
December 1862 – September 2, 1884Henry B. AnthonyRhode Island
September 2, 1884 – December 1885John ShermanOhio
December 1885 – November 1, 1891George F. EdmundsVermont
December 1891 – March 4, 1897John ShermanOhio
March 4, 1897 – August 4, 1908William B. AllisonIowa
December 1908 – March 4, 1911Eugene HaleMaine
April 1911 – March 4, 1913Shelby Moore CullomIllinois
March 4, 1913 – August 17, 1918Jacob Harold GallingerNew Hampshire
August 17, 1918 – November 9, 1924Henry Cabot LodgeMassachusetts
November 28, 1924 – March 4, 1929Charles CurtisKansasAlso Republican floor leader from 1925
March 4, 1929 – March 4, 1933James Eli WatsonIndianaAlso Republican floor leader
March 4, 1933 – February 25, 1944Charles L. McNaryOregonAlso Republican floor leader
February 25, 1944 – January 3, 1947
Acting: February 25, 1944 – January 3, 1945
Arthur VandenbergMichigan
January 3, 1947 – January 3, 1957Eugene MillikinColorado
January 3, 1957 – January 3, 1967Leverett SaltonstallMassachusetts
January 3, 1967 – January 3, 1973Margaret Chase SmithMaine
January 3, 1973 – January 3, 1975Norris CottonNew Hampshire
January 3, 1975 – January 3, 1979Carl CurtisNebraska
January 3, 1979 – January 3, 1981Bob PackwoodOregon
January 3, 1981 – January 3, 1985James A. McClureIdaho
January 3, 1985 – January 3, 1991John ChafeeRhode Island
January 3, 1991 – January 3, 1997Thad CochranMississippi
January 3, 1997 – January 3, 2001Connie Mack IIIFlorida
January 3, 2001 – January 3, 2007Rick SantorumPennsylvania
January 3, 2007 – December 19, 2007Jon KylArizona
December 19, 2007 – January 26, 2012Lamar AlexanderTennessee
January 26, 2012 – January 3, 2019John ThuneSouth Dakota
January 3, 2019 – January 3, 2025John BarrassoWyoming
January 3, 2025 – presentTom CottonArkansas

List of secretaries and vice chairmen

The vice chair of the Senate Republican Conference, also known previously as the conference secretary until 2001, is the fifth-ranking leadership position (behind the Policy Committee chair) within the Republican Party conference in the United States Senate. The vice-chair/secretary is responsible for keeping the minutes of the Senate Republican Conference and serves alongside the Senate Republican Conference chairperson. The vice chairwoman is Shelley Moore Capito, serving since 2023.[4]

OfficeholderStateTerm
Charles CurtisKansas1911–1913
William KenyonIowa1913–1915
James WadsworthNew York1915–1927
Frederick HaleMaine1927–1941
Wallace H. White Jr.Maine1941–1944
Harold BurtonOhio1944–1945
Chan GurneySouth Dakota1945–1946
Milton YoungNorth Dakota1946–1971
Norris CottonNew Hampshire1971–1973
Wallace F. BennettUtah1973–1975
Robert StaffordVermont1975–1977
Clifford HansenWyoming1976–1977
Jake GarnUtah1979–1985
Thad CochranMississippi1985–1991
Bob KastenWisconsin1991–1993
Trent LottMississippi1993–1995
Connie MackFlorida1995–1997
Paul CoverdellGeorgia1997–2000
Kay Bailey Hutchison[d]Texas2001–2007
John CornynTexas2007–2009
John ThuneSouth Dakota2009
Lisa MurkowskiAlaska2009–2010
John BarrassoWyoming2010–2012
Roy BluntMissouri2012–2019
Joni ErnstIowa2019–2023
Shelley Moore CapitoWest Virginia2023–2025
James LankfordOklahoma2025–present

Members

Notes

  1. ^ Warren Austin (Vermont) was acting Leader from 1940-1941.
  2. ^ Ted Stevens (Alaska) was acting Leader from 1979-1980
  3. ^ Resigned in order to run for President of the United States
  4. ^ Position known as Vice Chair from here on

References

  1. ^ Shutt, Jennifer (2022-11-16). “McConnell re-elected U.S. Senate GOP leader, fending off bid by Florida’s Rick Scott”. Idaho Capital Sun. Retrieved 2024-09-26.
  2. ^ “Capito elected to GOP Leadership”. Senate.gov. November 16, 2022. Retrieved January 3, 2023.
  3. ^ a b “With Lott’s Exit, Kyl to Assume Republican Whip Position Unopposed”. 30 November 2007. Archived from the original on 2008-11-04. Retrieved 2007-12-03.
  4. ^ “U.S. Senate: Republican Conference Secretaries/Vice Chair”.