Pat McCarran
Patrick Anthony McCarran was an American farmer, attorney, judge, and Democratic politician who represented Nevada in the United States Senate from 1933 until 1954. McCarran's career in the Senate was negatively marked by his antisemitism. He was in conflict with the Franklin Roosevelt administration over the New Deal and cooperation with the Soviet Union in World War II.
McCarran was born in Reno, Nevada, attended Nevada State University, and was a farmer and rancher. In 1902, he won election to the Nevada Assembly but left office in 1905 after an unsuccessful campaign for the Nevada State Senate. He studied law privately and was admitted to the bar in 1905, then won election as Nye County District Attorney. He served a two-year term, after which he returned to Reno. From 1913 to 1919, McCarran was a justice of the Supreme Court of Nevada, serving as chief justice from 1917 to 1919. His support for the aviation industry was well known and resulted in Las Vegas's McCarran Field being named in his honor.
In 1932, McCarran unseated incumbent Republican Tasker Oddie and in doing so became the state's first U.S. senator born in Nevada; he was reelected three times and served from 1933 until his death. In his Senate career, McCarran served as chairman of the committees on the District of Columbia, Judiciary, and Joint Foreign Economic Cooperation. As Senator, McCarran is remembered as one of the few Democrats to reject the Second New Deal. He sponsored the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 and was a proponent of establishing the United States Air Force. McCarran was a staunch anti-communist, to the point of supporting the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. He sponsored the McCarran Internal Security Act, restricting the political activities of those supporting "totalitarian dictatorship" in the United States. Other significant legislation McCarran sponsored includes the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, sometimes referred to as the McCarran-Walter Act, and the McCarran–Ferguson Act, a landmark law exempting the insurance industry from federal regulation, and the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act, which McCarran described as "a Bill of Rights for the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose affairs are controlled or regulated" by federal agencies.
Early life and education
McCarran was born in Reno, Nevada, to Irish immigrants Margaret Shay and Patrick McCarran. He was educated in Reno and graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1897 at Reno High School. McCarran's mother was a devout Catholic, and he inherited his mother's faith.He attended Nevada State University but withdrew to work on the family sheep ranch after his father suffered an injury. Instead of returning to college, McCarran studied law with attorney William Woodburn.
Some sources incorrectly state that McCarran received a bachelor's degree in 1901 and a master's degree in 1915. In fact, he never received a bachelor's degree, and he was awarded an honorary Master of Arts from Nevada State University in 1915. He also received an honorary LL.D. from Georgetown University in 1943 and an honorary LL.D. from the University of Nevada in 1945.
Nevada Assembly
McCarran ran for the Nevada Assembly in 1902 as a free silver Democrat with encouragement from his political science professor Anne Henrietta Martin. He was elected and served one term from 1903 to 1905. In 1904, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Nevada State Senate.He was admitted to the bar in 1905. In 1906, he was elected district attorney of Nye County. He served one term, 1907 to 1909, after which he moved to Reno to continue practicing law.
Nevada Supreme Court
In 1912, McCarran was elected to the Supreme Court of Nevada, succeeding John G. Sweeney. He served as a justice from January 1913 to January 1917.In January 1917, he succeeded Frank Herbert Norcross as chief justice. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1918 and left office in January 1919.
State government
Both during his time on the court and afterwards, McCarran continued to play a central role in Nevada's state government, as well as its legal and criminal justice systems. From 1913 to 1918, he served on the state Board of Library Commissioners. In addition, he served as chairman of the Nevada State University Board of Visitors.During his time on the Court from 1913 to 1919, McCarran served on the state Board of Pardons. He was a member of the Board of Parole Commissioners from 1913 to 1918, and he served on the Board of Bar Examiners from 1919 until 1932.
McCarran was president of the Nevada Bar Association from 1920 to 1921 and was a vice president of the American Bar Association from 1922 to 1923.
United States Senate
Electoral history
McCarran's ambition to serve as a U.S. Senator was well known in Nevada, and often the subject of commentary and jokes in the press. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in 1916, and lost to incumbent Key Pittman. McCarran endorsed Pittman in the general election, and Pittman was reelected.In 1926, McCarran was again a candidate for the U.S. Senate. He lost the Democratic nomination to Raymond T. Baker, who was defeated by Republican incumbent Tasker Oddie in the general election.
In 1932, McCarran won the Democratic nomination and defeated Oddie in the general election. He was reelected in 1938, 1944, and 1950. He served from March 4, 1933, until his death in 1954.
In 1944, McCarran was challenged by Vail M. Pittman in the Democratic primary, leading to an especially hard-fought campaign that was finally won by McCarran. Pittman ascribed the result to McCarran's ability to bring federal money to fund infrastructure projects in Nevada: McCarran's biographer Jerome Edwards endorsed this theory, arguing that the narrow margin suggests that a substantial number of registered Democrats in Nevada were dissatisfied with McCarran, but his ability to have the federal government built infrastructure projects that Nevada could not afford on its own explains his enduring appeal in his state.
Leadership positions
During his career as a Senator, McCarran served as chairman of the Senate Committees on the District of Columbia and Judiciary. He also served as co-chairman of the Joint Committee on Foreign Economic Cooperation.Opposition to Roosevelt administration
Although both were Democrats, McCarran came into increasing opposition with President Franklin D. Roosevelt over patronage decisions, the Second New Deal, and foreign policy.During his first term, McCarran engaged in a major struggle for the control of patronage appointments relating to federal projects in Nevada with his Democratic colleague Key Pittman. As Nevada was a poor state and badly hit by the Great Depression, there was considerable competition for patronage appointments, and control of patronage was a major political tool. President Roosevelt tended to side with Pittman, the senior senator, in the struggle, thereby earning McCarran's enmity. Pittman's serious alcoholism rendered him less effective in his last years, and McCarran was able to become the dominant force within the Nevada Democratic Party by 1938.
In the late 1930s, McCarran criticized Roosevelt's "Second New Deal" programs as too liberal. Much of McCarran's opposition to the New Deal stemmed from his anger that New Deal programs increased Pittman's capacity for patronage appointments.
McCarran was also critical of Roosevelt's willingness to intervene in Europe, particularly in alliance with the Soviet Union. From 1939 to 1941, McCarran opposed Roosevelt's plans for aid to Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France, accusing the president of trying to involve America in a war that was not its business. In particular, McCarran was outraged by the Roosevelt administration's offer of military and economic aid to the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, arguing that it was immoral to assist "godless communists." In a speech on the Senate floor, McCarran declared that he despised both Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin but regarded the Third Reich as the lesser evil and felt it was therefore profoundly wrong for the United States to aid the Soviet Union. McCarran was greatly influenced by Pope Pius XI's anti-communist Divini Redemptoris encyclical in spring 1937, declaring that "Communism is intrinsically wrong, and no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking."
McCarran supported the war effort after the United States entered the conflict following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
McCarran's positions on several key committees, most notably Appropriations and Judiciary, gave him significant influence that he used to obtain federal funding for Nevada. Outside of Nevada, McCarran had the reputation of a narrow-minded and parochial senator; the same reasons that made him unpopular outside of Nevada made him popular to Nevadans as he developed the reputation of a dogged fighter for Nevada's interests. McCarran repeatedly attempted via filibusters to force the federal government to stockpile silver, a measure that would have benefited Nevada where silver mining was a major industry, but was widely denounced outside of Nevada as a plan for wasteful spending designed only to benefit his state. After Pearl Harbor, McCarran made much in his Senate speeches to the Senate of the fact that most of American industry was concentrated in the Northeast and the Midwest, and argued that the federal government had a duty to ensure that war production was shifted to less industrialized states like Nevada.
When Felix Frankfurter became the second Supreme Court nominee to testify in person before the Judiciary Committee, and the first Jewish one, McCarran "used the occasion to launch a nasty, sneering attack on the nominee, filled with innuendo about Frankfurter's foreign origins and alleged radical associations."
McCarran was well known for his efforts at constituent services, often going to extraordinary lengths on behalf of Nevada residents who requested his aid. For instance, McCarran intervened to shield a teenager from Nevada who stole 150 volumes from the Library of Congress and mutilated hundreds of books. In 1942, McCarran pressured the State Department to engage in a prisoner exchange to return the son of a Reno couple who had been captured by the Japanese at Wake Island. McCarran's reputation as a man who could "get things done" translated into substantial support at the polls.
In the 1940s and 1950s, 40 percent of Senate bills had to first be approved by the Senate Judiciary committee, giving McCarran immense power as he could easily kill these bills in his committee. Other committee chairmen had the same powers over bills related to their fields, but the number of bills that had to be passed by the Judiciary Committee made McCarran far more influential than the other senate committee chairmen. Over time, McCarran used his position as chairman of the Judiciary Committee to engage in much deal-making that allowed him to collect a significant number of political "debts", making him one of the most powerful Senators. McCarran's conservative politics, which pitted him against first Roosevelt and then Harry S. Truman, frequently led to him being asked why he continued as a Democrat instead of defecting to the Republicans. In 1950, when McCarran was asked that question by a reporter, he responded: "I can do more good by staying in the Democratic Party and watching the lunatic fringe--the Roosevelt crowd". McCarran was against the plans of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations for federal health insurance and increased education spending; favored restricting the power of unions; was opposed to increased immigration, saying he did not want "undesirables from abroad" coming to America; and was against the United Nations, which he called "a haven for spies and Communists". As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he appointed his friend, Senator James Eastland, a well known white supremacist and segregationist, as chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Civil Rights. Such was McCarran's power that in July 1952, the liberal Washington Post newspaper declared in an article: "It sums the character of this congress to state an unquestionable fact: that its most important member was Patrick A. McCarran".