71st Congress (1929 - 1931)

House of Representatives

House Majority: Republican

House Majority Seats: 270 out of 435

House Speaker: Rep. Nicholas Longworth (R-OH)

Senate

Senate Majority: Republican

Senate Majority Seats: 56 out of 96

Senate Majority Leader: Sen. James E. Watson (R-IN)

Executive

President: Herbert Hoover (R-CA)

Vice President: Charles Curtis (R-KS)

Member Spotlight

Featured: Sen. Reed Smoot (R-UT), co-sponsor of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, was a long-serving and influential senator with a complex legacy. Born in 1862 in Utah, he became both a successful businessman and a prominent leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Elected to the Senate in 1903, Smoot eventually rose to chair the Senate Finance Committee, through which he helped steer national economic policy. In 1930, he joined with Rep. Willis Hawley to pass a sweeping tariff that raised import duties dramatically—an act now widely blamed for deepening the Great Depression.

Enactments

• Legislative Appropriations Act of 1929
• Agricultural Marketing Act
• Census and Reapportionment Act of 1929
• Revenue Act 1929
• Airmail Act
• NIH established
• Agricultural Appropriations Act of 1930
• War Pensions
• Legislative Appropriations Act of 1930
• Smoot Hawley Tariff
• Federal Power Commission Reorganization
• Rivers and Harbors Act
• WW Vets Act
• Consolidation Act
• Supplemental Appropriations Act
• Employment Stabilization
• Department of the Interior Appropriations Act
• Legislative Appropriations Act of 1932
• Agriculture Appropriations Act of 1932
• Adoption of National Anthem
• Muscle Shoals Dam Act of 1931