The Senate Committee on Rules and Administration (also called the Senate Rules Committee) is responsible for the rules of the United States Senate

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

, with 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

United States House Committee on Rules

The Committee on Rules, or Rules Committee, is a committee of the United States House of Representatives. Rather than being responsible for a specific area of policy, as most other committees are, it is in charge of determining under what rule other bills will come to the floor...

: 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

United States Congress Joint Committee on Printing

The Joint Committee on Printing is a joint committee of the United States Congress devoted to overseeing the functions of the Government Printing Office and general printing procedures of the federal government of the United States...

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The Committee was first created as the Select Committee to Revise the Rules of the Senate on December 3, 1867.