McCARRAN, Patrick Anthony (Pat), Congress, NV (1876-1954)

Senate Years of Service: 1933-1954
Party: Democrat

McCARRAN, Patrick Anthony (Pat), a Senator from Nevada; born in Reno, Nev., August 8, 1876; attended the public schools and the University of Nevada at Reno; engaged in farming and in stock raising; member, State legislature 1903; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1905 and practiced in Tonopah and Goldfield, Nev.; district attorney of Nye County, Nev., 1907-1909; resumed the practice of law in Reno, Nev., in 1909; associate justice of the supreme court of Nevada 1913-1917 and chief justice 1917-1918; member of Nevada Board of Pardons 1913-1919; member of Nevada State Board of Parole Commissioners 1913-1918; chairman of the Nevada State Board of Bar Examiners 1919-1932; after two unsuccessful bids in 1916 and 1926, was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1932; reelected in 1938, 1944, and 1950 and served from March 4, 1933, until his death in Hawthorne, Nev., September 28, 1954; chairman, Committee on the District of Columbia (Seventy-seventh and Seventy-eighth Congresses), Committee on the Judiciary (Seventy-eighth, Seventy-ninth, Eighty-first and Eighty-second Congresses), co-chairman, Joint Committee on Foreign Economic Cooperation (Eighty-first Congress); interment in Mountain View Cemetery, Reno, Nev.

Bibliography American National Biography ; Dictionary of American Biography ; McCarran, Sister Margaret Patricia. “Patrick Anthony McCarran.” Nevada Historical Society Quarterly 11 (Fall-Winter 1968): 5-66, 12 (Spring 1969): 5-75; Edwards, Jerome E. Pat McCarran: Political Boss of Nevada . Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1982.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present