the full Senate. However, the committee could not make a recommendation on whether to convict the impeached official. All senators would then have the opportunity to review the evidence before the chamber voted to convict or acquit. The Senate's use of a committee was controversial and some feared it gave Claiborne a basis on which to criticize the proceedings. Others defended the procedure and argued the Senate was not bound by federal courts traditions and standards. The committee was made up of six Republicans named by Majority Leader Bob Dole and six Democrats named by Minority Leader Robert Byrd. All were lawyers. The Republicans were Orrin Hatch (Utah), Charles Mathias (Maryland), Mitch McConnell (Kentucky), Larry Pressler (South Dakota), Warren Rudman (New Hampshire), and John Warner (Virginia). Senators Hatch, Mathias, and McConnell were members of the Judiciary Committee. Rudman was a former state attorney general. The Democrats were Jeff Bingaman (New Mexico), Dennis DeConcini (Arizona), Al Gore (Tennessee), Howell Heflin (Alabama), David Pryor (Arkansas), and Paul Sarbanes (Maryland). Heflin was a former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Bingaman was a former state attorney general, and Sarbanes had served on the House Judiciary Committee in 1974 when it voted on articles of impeachment against President Nixon. Special senate committee On September 15, 1986, the Senate Impeachment Trial Committee began seven days of hearings before television cameras in the Senate Caucus Room in the Russell Senate Office Building, the same room used by the special Watergate committee in 1973 for the investigation of President Nixon. Although Nixon's Watergate hearings were in the legislative tradition, the Claiborne hearings resembled more of a judicial proceeding. The House managers, acting as prosecutors, were on one side of the room, and on the other side was Claiborne, escorted by federal marshals and his lawyers. Claiborne's primary lawyer was future Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman. The special senate committee was chaired by Sen. Charles Mathias, who tried to follow the rules of evidence and procedures used in a courtroom trial. For the first couple of days senators submitted their questions to Sen. Mathias and he put them to the witnesses. But on September 17, 1986, the full Senate quickly adopted a rule permitting each senator to ask their own questions. After seven days of testimony, on September 23, 1986, the committee finished gathering. Nearly two of the seven days were devoted to questioning Claiborne. On September