The Senate Committee on Rules and Administration (also called the Senate Rules Committee) is responsible for the rules of the United States Senate, administration of congressional buildings, and with credentials and qualifications of members of the Senate, including responsibility for dealing with contested elections.
The committee is not as powerful as its House counterpart, the House Committee on Rules as it does not set the terms of debate for individual legislative proposals, since the Senate has a tradition of open debate.
Some members of the committee are also ex officio members of the Joint Committee on Printing.
The Committee was first created as the Select Committee to Revise the Rules of the Senate on December 3, 1867. On December 9, 1874, it became a standing committee.
On January 2, 1947, its name was changed to the Committee on Rules and Administration, and it took over the functions of the following committees:
Committee to Audit and Control the Contingent Expenses of the Senate
Committee on Education and Labor (functions were later transferred to Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee)
Committee on Enrolled Bills
Committee on Privileges and Elections
Source
Source: 2013 Congressional Record, Vol. 159, Page S296 to 297
1867–1871: Henry B. Anthony (R-RI)
1871–1873: Samuel Pomeroy (R-KS)
1873–1874: Thomas Ferry (R-MI)
Thomas Ferry (R-MI) 1874–1877
James G. Blaine (R-ME) 1877–1879
John T. Morgan (D-AL) 1879–1881
William P. Frye (R-ME) 1881–1887
Nelson W. Aldrich (R-RI) 1887–1893
Joseph C. S. Blackburn (D-KY) 1893–1895
Nelson W. Aldrich (R-RI) 1895–1899
John C. Spooner (R-WI) 1899–1907
Philander C. Knox (R-PA) 1907–1909
W. Murray Crane (R-MA) 1909–1913
Lee S. Overman (D-NC) 1913–1919
Philander C. Knox (R-PA) 1919–1921
Charles Curtis (R-KS) 1921–1929
George H. Moses (R-NH) 1929–1933
Royal S. Copeland (D-NY) 1933–1936
Matthew M. Neely (D-WV) 1936–1941
Harry F. Byrd (D-VA) 1941–1947
Committee on Rules and Administration, 1947–present
C. Wayland Brooks (R-IL) 1947–1949
Carl Hayden (D-AZ) 1949–1953
William E. Jenner (R-IN) 1953–1955
Theodore F. Green (D-RI) 1955–1957
Thomas C. Hennings, Jr. (D-MO) 1957–1960
Mike Mansfield (D-MT) 1960–1963
B. Everett Jordan (D-NC) 1963–1973
Howard W. Cannon (D-NV) 1973–1978
Claiborne Pell (D-RI) 1978–1981
Charles McC. Mathias, Jr. (R-MD) 1981–1987
Wendell H. Ford (D-KY) 1987–1995
Ted Stevens (R-AK) 1995
John W. Warner (R-VA) 1995–1999
Mitch McConnell (R-KY) 1999–2001
Christopher Dodd (D-CT) 2001
Mitch McConnell (R-KY) 2001
Christopher Dodd (D-CT) 2001–2003
Trent Lott (R-MS) 2003–2007
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), 2007–2009
Chuck Schumer (D-NY), 2009–2015
Roy Blunt (R-MO), 2015-2017
Richard Shelby (R-AL), 2017-Present