Aging Committee, Senate

The Senate Special Committee on Aging has served as an effective platform for advocates of the elderly for many years. Although the panel is barred by congressional rules from handling legislation, its hearings, investigations, and reports give the problems of the elderly increased visibility. As the first of 77 million Baby Boomers approach retirement, the panel is actively publicizing such issues as the quality of nursing home care, Medicare funding issues, and difficulties associated with Social Security.

The Senate Aging Committee was set up as a temporary panel in 1961. In 1977 a proposal to kill the committee received the votes of only four senators after a vigorous campaign by the senior citizens' lobby to keep the panel alive. The Senate instead made it a permanent special committee.

The House had its own Aging Committee from 1975 until 1993. Rep. Claude Pepper, a Florida Democrat, served as chair of the House Select Committee on Aging from 1977 to 1983 and made the panel an influential voice in Congress for the elderly. Even after moving to chair another House committee in 1983, Pepper kept issues concerning the elderly and the Aging committee in high profile. Many ideas he championed, such as curbs on mandatory retirement, eventually became law. But after Pepper's death in 1989, no member of his stature pressed for support for the elderly, and the House committee began to lose influence.

In 1993 pressure to cut costs throughout the federal government, driven by efforts to reduce the federal budget deficit, prompted legislators to kill a number of special committees in the House, including Aging. The Senate, however, rejected proposals to terminate its special committees.