Committee Information

The U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is one of twenty Senate committees tasked with conducting Senate business related to specialized areas of legislative interest.  Although the Senate has a longstanding history of writing and passing legislation focusing on our nation’s banks, the Senate Banking Committee was not formally established until 1913, with Senator Robert Owen of Oklahoma, sponsor of the landmark Federal Reserve Act, as its first Chairman; since then, the Committee has undergone various transformations and reorganizations.  Now known as the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs to underscore the diversity of issues under its purview, the Committee plays an integral role in managing legislation that affects the lives of many Americans.  These areas of jurisdiction include, but are not limited to: banking, insurance, financial markets, securities, housing, urban development and mass transit, international trade and finance, and economic policy (an official list of these legislative and policy issues can be found in the “Jurisdiction” section of our website).  Further information about how Senate Committees generally operate can be found here.
Since 2007, when the 110th Congress began, the Committee has been led by Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT) and Ranking Member Richard C. Shelby (R-AL). The Committee is currently made up of 23 Senators; 13 Democrat, and 10 Republican.
 
Chairman Dodd
Senator Dodd is a senior Senator from Connecticut, elected to the Senate in 1980. In addition to being Chairman for the Banking Committee, Dodd serves as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, and Narcotics.  He is a senior member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and is the Chairman of its Children and Families Subcommittee.  He also is a member of the Rules and Administration Committee.
Dodd, who is fluent in Spanish, spent two years in the Peace Corps working in a rural village in the Dominican Republic following his graduation from Providence College. Upon returning to the United States, Dodd enlisted in the Army National Guard and later served in the U.S. Army Reserves. In 1972, he earned a law degree from the University of Louisville School of Law. He practiced law in New London before his election to Congress in 1974, where he served three terms in the House of Representatives on behalf of Connecticut’s Second District.
Dodd was born May 27, 1944, in Willimantic, Connecticut, the fifth of six children. Senator Dodd lives in East Haddam with his wife, Jackie Clegg Dodd, and their daughters Grace and Christina.
 
Ranking Member Shelby
Richard Shelby, Alabama's senior United States Senator, was first elected to the Senate in 1986. 
In addition to serving as Ranking Member of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, Shelby is  also Ranking Member of the Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Subcommittee, and a senior member of the full Appropriations Committee and the Special Committee on Aging.
Prior to Senator Shelby’s election to the United States Senate, he served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and eight years in the Alabama legislature.  He also served as a City Prosecutor in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of Alabama, and Special Assistant to the Attorney General in Alabama.
A fifth generation Alabamian, Senator Shelby is a graduate of the University of Alabama's undergraduate and law programs. He and his wife, Annette Nevin Shelby, have two sons: Richard Jr. and Claude Nevin. Claude and his wife Lisa have one daughter, Anna Elizabeth Shelby, and one son, William Nevin Shelby.