- published: 29 Sep 2015
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A congressional caucus is a group of members of the United States Congress that meets to pursue common legislative objectives. Formally, caucuses are formed as congressional member organizations (CMOs) through the United States House of Representatives and governed under the rules of that chamber. They are not always called caucuses, and are sometimes titled coalitions, study groups, task forces, or working groups. In most other countries, the same kind of group is called an all-party parliamentary group.
The largest caucuses are the party conferences, which are the partisan caucuses comprising all members of one house from one party (either the Democrats or the Republicans). These are the House Democratic Caucus and House Republican Conference in the House of Representatives and the Senate Democratic Caucus and Senate Republican Conference in the Senate.
The caucuses meet regularly in private closed sessions to set legislative agendas, select committee members and chairs, and hold elections to choose various floor leaders. They also oversee the four Hill committees, political party committees that work to elect members of their own party to Congress.