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Show 194 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER was even worse than it had been in the Senate hearings of the previous Congress. (See Appendix b. ) The Senate Interior Subcommittee on Irrigation was composed of five members, but four of them were authors of S. 500, and the chairman was Senator Anderson, not only an author but one of the most in- fluential men in the Senate.221 The other committee members whose names were on the bill were O'Mahoney of Wyoming, Millikin of Colorado and Watkins of Utah. The fifth member of the subcommittee was Jack- son of Washington, a staunch advocate of more recla- mation projects. In any official body, except the Congress of the United States, such a situation would not have been permitted to endure. Beginning with the United States Supreme Court and continuing down to the lowest police court, the disqualification of a judge with a personal interest in a case before him would have been requested and ordered. An example was Chief Justice Earl Warren in the case of Arizona vs. California. One of Warren's first acts after accepting appointment to the high bench was to remove himself from participation in that liti- gation. He had been governor of California when the suit was taken to the court. Theoretically there is no reason why Congress could not rule that no member may sit on a committee in command of his own bill. A member need not be ex- cluded from appearing before a committee in behalf of a measure of which he is the author. He certainly has the right to appeal for its passage. But he should not be permitted to conduct hearings, make rulings on the admissibility of testimony and evidence, or arbi- trarily exclude material from the record. Such a pro- |