An example of oversight from the House Judiciary Committee: Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

- Click here for the hearing. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday, July 24, 2024, at 10:00 a.m. ET. The hearing, "Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," will examine the FBI’s investigation into the assassination attempt against President Trump and the ongoing politicization of the nation's preeminent law enforcement agency under the direction of FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland.

WITNESS: The Honorable Christopher Wray, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation - testimony

Key Terms: 

- Congressional Oversight.

- Checks and Balances.

- Standing Committees.

- House Judiciary Committee.

- House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

- Department of Justice.

- Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The Science Committee argues that it's subpoena of New York's climate change investigation material is valid

This related to the story below.

The letter contains an exhaustive explanation about why they believe their subpoena is constitutionally valid and does not violate First or Tenth Amendment rights.

- Click here for the letter.

The letter mentions Wilkinson v Unites States, a Supreme Court case which sets out the three prong test that determines whether a congressional subpoena is legal.

- Click here for the case.

For more there's this law review article:

- Congressional Investigations and the SupremeCourt  

From the Washington Examiner: Hearing a showdown between First Amendment and Congress

The story raises federalism issues as well, and highlights recent activities involving the House Science Committee chaired by Texas Republican Lamar Smith.

- Click here for the article.

Wednesday hearing in the House is shaping up to be a battle between First Amendment rights and Congress' subpoena authority in its own investigations.

The House Science, Space and Technology Committee will hold a hearing assessing subpoenas issued by Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, to two state attorneys general and a number of scientific groups. Smith issued the subpoenas earlier this summer to get documents related to the climate change investigations of Exxon Mobil by New York and Massachusetts attorneys general.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and a number of scientific groups, including the Union of Concerned Scientists, have refused to comply with Smith's subpoenas. The attorneys general cite federalism concerns, while the groups say their First Amendment rights are being infringed upon.

On Wednesday, four law professors will go in front of the committee and assess whether Smith's subpoenas are valid. A committee aide said the goal is to show the subpoenas are valid and to force the groups into complying with them given that some of them have not shown they're willing to work with the committee.

"We're really seeing an obstruction of a congressional investigation," the aide said.

Eight organizations, in addition to the two attorneys general, received subpoenas from Smith in July. None has complied, though negotiations are ongoing.

Smith will hope to show that the subpoenas are valid under the three-pronged test set out by the Supreme Court for congressional investigations. According to that test, the subpoenas need to be issued by a committee with legislative jurisdiction over the subject matter, have a valid legislative purpose and be asking questions pertinent to the investigation.

Smith argued in a letter to the attorneys general this summer that his committee is investigating if Schneiderman and Healey are taking actions that would have a chilling effect on research and development funding. Research and development funding is, with the exception of military and medical funding, under the committee's purview.

- Click here for the hearing.

The title is: Full Committee Hearing - Affirming Congress’ Constitutional Oversight Responsibilities: Subpoena Authority and Recourse for Failure to Comply with Lawfully Issued Subpoenas.

For news coverage:

- House Science Committee Hearing an Attempt to Justify Unconstitutional Investigation.
- Constitutional scholars to House climate deniers: No witch hunt of Exxon critics.
- Congress should ask what Exxon knew about climate change.

Catching up with the House Committee on Energy and Commerce

ACC rep Pete Olson is on it. Here's what it's up to.

- Click here for its website.

Here are links to Olson's subcommittees

- Energy and Power.
- Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade.
- Communications and Technology.

And for random news:

- Bill Blocking Lawsuits for Negative Web Reviews Passes House.
- Rep. Fred Upton wants NHTSA to look at vehicle hacking.
- Moniz to talk fracking, energy security with House panel.
- Seat on Energy & Commerce panel helped determine donations to Whitfield.

For 2305 today

Checks and balances:

- Cruz kicks off Internet oversight countdown with subcommittee hearing.

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz today announced that he’ll hold a Senate subcommittee hearing to explore the “dangers” of an Obama administration plan to turn over technical internet oversight to a nonprofit just weeks before the plan is to take effect.

There are just 23 days left until the U.S. Commerce Department cedes oversight of the technical functions that make the internet work to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). But the plan is not guaranteed to go through, given that Republicans, led by Cruz, continue to fight it.

Cruz’s latest move is scheduling a Sept. 14 hearing of the Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts, which he chairs, to investigate the “possible dangers” of the transition plan, he announced Sept. 7.

- Click here for the subcommittee's website.


And more checks and balances:

- 5 Texas judge nominees have broad support but won't be confirmed anytime soon.

Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz lavished praise on them. President Barack Obama said they had displayed an “unwavering commitment” to justice and integrity. They are desperately needed in Texas, where 10 long-standing vacancies on the federal bench have created a lengthy backlog of cases.

But when will the five recent nominees to serve as Texas district judges get a confirmation vote in the Senate?

“We’re going to have to work that out,” Cornyn said Wednesday. “If we can’t get it done before the election, then perhaps after the election that’s something we could work on.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings for the five nominees, ostensibly providing hope that the long-open vacancies could soon be addressed.

Texas has more judicial openings than any other state. All 10 have been designated “emergencies” by the federal government, based on the backlog of cases each district faces, and seven have been empty more than a year.

- Click here to see the hearing - if you wish.
- Click here for American Association for Justice - which was mentioned in the article.
- Judicial Confirmation and the Constitution.


A story about federalism:

- Closure of private prisons could hit Texas in pocketbook.

Thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in lucrative government contracts could be in jeopardy in Texas with the Department of Justice's decision to phase out the use of privately run prisons.

Of the 14 private prisons facing the loss of federal contracts, five are in Texas - the most of any state. The impact will be felt not only in prison yards but also in the tax rolls and cash registers of small towns and local communities.

"We are very concerned about what is going to happen," said Howard County Judge Kathryn Wiseman in Big Spring, where the GEO Group employs 480 people at its detention facility.

Wiseman said she fears that nearly all the jobs at the prison will be lost when the company's federal contract expires in March.

"These are our friends and neighbors; these are people who coach Little League baseball and belong to our civic organization," she said. "They will leave a hole not just in our economy because they pay taxes, but in our community."

The Department of Justice recently directed the Bureau of Prisons to phase out its business with private corporations as contracts expire over the next five years. The Department of Homeland Security followed the move by announcing it would also evaluate its partnerships with private companies in running more than two dozen immigrant detention centers.

- Click here for the website of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
- Review of the Federal Bureau ofPrisons’ Monitoring of Contract Prisons.


And one more about federalism.

- In Debate Over ‘Sanctuary Cities,’ a Divide on the Role of the Local Police.

Mr. Trump is coming down on one side of a vigorous partisan debate over the degree to which local law enforcement should be involved in enforcing immigration laws. There is a deep split among law enforcement officials, not to mention elected officials. Just last year, after a young woman was shot by an immigrant here illegally with a criminal record who had been released by the authorities in San Francisco, the Republican-led House voted to withhold some federal funding from jurisdictions that shield undocumented immigrants from federal officials. In the Senate, Democrats this summer blocked a similar bill, which the White House had vowed to veto.

In limiting cooperation with the federal immigration authorities, some local law enforcement officials contend that they are making their jurisdictions safer by encouraging undocumented immigrants to take the risk of coming forward to report crimes. But those who see immigration violations as serious offenses contend that such policies lead to criminality.

The issue has bedeviled the Obama administration for years. In his first term, President Obama expanded nationwide a program allowing the Department of Homeland Security to receive the fingerprints of every person booked by the state and local police. After many immigrant communities rebelled, the administration canceled some of its efforts in 2014, and replaced them with a single, less intrusive one, hoping to court big cities to cooperate rather than to coerce them.

From House.Gov: Origins & Development: From the Constitution to the Modern House

As I'm rewriting my power points I'll incorporate some of this - if not most of this - information in them. The website of the U.S. House of Representatives walks through the development of the U.S. House beginning with the ratification of the Constitution.

- Click here for the page.

It contains a variety of sections related to the parts of the Constitution that affect the design of the chamber. These are especially topic given current events:

- Speaker of the House. Since there's a move underway in the House Republican Conference to unseat John Boehner.

- Power of the Purse. Since the fiscal year is almost over and appropriations bills still need to be passed.

- Investigations and Oversight. Since its habitual for Congress to investigate every aspect of the activities of the president when one different parties control each branch.

From the Hill: House GOP plots anti-reg blitz

For our look at the executive branch - and specifically the bureaucracy and how Congress attempts to oversee it.

- Click here for the article.

House Republicans next week will pass a legislative package aimed at making federal regulations more transparent and less costly to the economy.

The legislation is the GOP's latest attempt to reduce the regulatory red tape that they say is stifling job creation. Republicans have said getting Washington out of the way of companies is the best way to turn around an economy that stills struggles to create jobs more than five years after the Great Recession.

Bills to pare back federal regulations have become the GOP's response to Democratic arguments that Congress should be pushing to extend emergency unemployment benefits and raise the minimum wage. But these bills have mostly gone nowhere in the Senate due to opposition from Senate Democrats.

Nonetheless, GOP leaders next week will bring up the Achieving Less Excess in Regulation and Requiring Transparency (ALERRT) Act, H.R. 2804. The legislation combines four measures proposed by Republicans over the last year.

One piece of the bill, from Rep. George Holding (R-N.C.), would require the head of each federal agency to report each month on rules it is expected to issue, including the reason for the rule and when it will be issued. It would also have to estimate the cost of the rule and its economic impact.

Current law requires the administration to issue reports on regulatory actions twice a year, but Republicans have complained that these reports are rarely on time. Holding said when he introduced his bill that his language is needed to ensure the government's regulatory plans are transparent to companies.

From Wonkblog: Whom to blame for HealthCare.gov in one flowchart

A summary of the oversight hearings held in Congress recently.

The Energy Department approves liquid natural gas terminal in Freeport

Fracking has allowed the US to become an energy exporter. Japan - which is relying less on nuclear power due to problems associated with the tsunami - is expected to be a major consumer.

There's an interesting conflict over whether increasing natural gas exports is a good idea. Producers and free trade supporters are in favor of it, and environmentalists oppose it. But some petrochemical companies that use natural gas are concerned that increased exports will increase the cost of natural gas, a cost that will impact their business.

The story refers to the Energy Information Administration (see Wikipedia also) as a source for current gas prices and forecasts for natural gas production based on how many additional terminals are authorized. Wikipedia describes is as a member of the Federal Statistical System of the United States the "decentralized network of federal agencies which produce data about the people, economy, and infrastructure of the United States."

Their specific task of the EIA is the responsibility for " collecting, analyzing, and disseminating energy information to promote sound policymaking, efficient markets, and public understanding of energy and its interaction with the economy and the environment."

- Here's information about the rulemaking process in the DOE.
- And here's the decision by the DOE to authorize the Freeport Terminal. They concluded that arguments that the LNG permit did not violate the public interest.

The story mentions the Senate Committee which oversees the Energy Department and offers this:

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said that the Energy Department “will be making export decisions on a case-by-case basis” in a way that is “consistent with my belief that a measured approach on exports will provide the greatest advantage for the U.S economy.” Wyden said the department should “assess the market impacts of each export decision after it is announced, to ensure American consumers are not harmed by large-scale exports.”

“This decision is a victory for those who believe free trade is good for the American economy,” said the committee’s ranking Republican member, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska).

From the Fiscal Times: Bernanke to Congress: I’m Not the Problem. You Are.

For our continued look at congressional oversight - in this case one not involving the IRS. And this has the added twist of contributing to our discussion of congressional dysfunction.

Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke testified before the Joint Economic Committee today and very subtly blamed Congress for the continuing sluggishness in the economy.

He told the committee that the ability of the Fed to use monetary policy to stimulate the economy is negated by Congressional fiscal policy:

Fiscal policy “has become significantly more restrictive,” he said. “In particular, the expiration of the payroll tax cut, the enactment of tax increases, the effects of the budget caps on discretionary spending, the onset of the sequestration, and the declines in defense spending for overseas military operations are expected, collectively, to exert a substantial drag on the economy this year.”

One of the members of the area congressional delegation - Kevin Brady - is chair of the committee and he among a few others are concerned about the long term debt problem given the degree of spending that occurred after the recent financial crisis. Bernanke argued that focus on debt is premature and is leading to policies that continue to limit economic growth.

Bernanke defended the Fed’s policies and argued that the problem isn’t that the Fed is doing too much but that fiscal policymakers are doing too little. “Mr. Chairman, first of all, the slowness of the recovery can be explained by a number of important headwinds, including the aftereffects of the financial crisis, developments in Europe, the problems with the housing market and, very importantly, the fact that fiscal policy for the last few years has actually been a significant headwind to recovery rather than a supporting tailwind,” Bernanke said. “So I would submit that without monetary policy’s aggressive actions, this recovery would be much weaker than it has been, and indeed if you compare our recovery to that of Europe and other advanced industrial economies, it looks relatively good.”

Bernanke also made clear that he wasn’t looking to downplay the significance of the long-term budget issues. “I fully realize the importance of budgetary responsibility, but I would argue that it’s not responsible to focus all of the restraint on the very near term and do nothing about the long term, which is where most of the problem exists,” Bernanke said in response to questioning from Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. “I do think that we would all be better off, with no loss to fiscal sustainability or market confidence, if we had somewhat less restraint in the very near term – this year and next year, say – and more aggressive action to address these very real long-term issues, which threaten within a decade or so to begin to put our fiscal budget on an unsustainable path.”

What is a joint committee? "Committees including membership from both houses of Congress. Joint committees are usually established with narrow jurisdictions and normally lack authority to report legislation. Chairmanship usually alternates between the House and Senate members from Congress to Congress."

For information about the Joint Economic Committee click here. "The Joint Economic Committee (JEC) is one of four standing joint committees of the U.S. Congress. The committee was established as a part of the Employment Act of 1946, which deemed the committee responsible for reporting the current economic condition of the United States and for making suggestions for improvement to the economy. The JEC is chaired by Representative Kevin Brady of Texas."

Video of the hearing can be found here.

An update on congressional response to IRS scandal

For perusal in class tomorrow:

- The Senate Finance Committee questions the former and current commissioners of the IRS.
- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants Congress to crack down on political groups posing as social welfare organizations.
- The scandal might revive the DISCLOSE Act - (Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections), which could take the decision about what is and is not a social welfare organization from the IRS.
- House Republicans say they will not over reach on investigations.
- House Minority Leader says IRS scandal proves need to reverse Citizens United decision.
- Treasury Secretary testifies before Senate Banking Committee that he knew of the IRS investigation in March.

Could Republicans overplay their hands?

The National Journal argues that Republicans face electoral risks if they focus only on the current scandals - IRS, AP, and Benghazi - to the expense of any policy accomplishments which require working with the president. Future presidential bids may require tangible accomplishments, but the party base - which despises the president - may not allow it: 

. . . in our polarized era, oversight often becomes a partisan cudgel. And that process, which is already infecting the Benghazi inquiry, could bruise not only Obama but the Republicans driving the investigations as well.

These confrontations’ most predictable effect will be to enrage the GOP base, which will strengthen the party factions most dubious about any compromises with Obama. In that way, these storms will likely weaken not only the president but also Republicans who believe the party must reboot to restore its competitiveness for the White House. “The base of the party is going to go ballistic on this, particularly the IRS [issue],” says Tom Davis, the former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “It makes it harder for [GOP legislators] to go along with Obama on things in general.”

Party leaders seem to want at least a degree of restraint, which the base - many affiliated with the Tea Party - may not allow.

One author suggests a stealth campaign against the president - one where Republican fingerprints cannot be detected: 

Republicans would be much wiser to pursue a third option: Dig up as much damaging information as they can about the Obama administration and leak it to reporters they know will write tough stories that won’t be traced back to the source. That way, the public won’t see the GOP as being obsessed with attacking the other side and playing gotcha at the expense of the big issues facing the country—the ones voters really care about.

Oversight: the Justice Department and the House Judiciary Committee

C-Span covers Holder's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee regarding the investigation of the Associated Press. This is an oversight hearing, so it fits within the context of checks and balances which are designed to keep the branches separated.

Here's a link to the House Judiciary Committee by the way. Two members of the local congressional delegations are on the committee: Republican Ted Poe and Democrat Sheila Jackson-Lee.

Mr. Poe is the Vice-Chair of the committee's Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security - which makes sense considering the importance of this issue to the local community. Here's a description of the subcommittee:

The Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security shall have jurisdiction over the following subject matters: immigration and naturalization, border security, admission of refugees, treaties, conventions and international agreements, claims against the United States, Federal charters of incorporation, private immigration and claims bills, nonborder immigration enforcement, other appropriate matters as referred by the Chairman, and relevant oversight.

Ms. Jackson-Lee is also a member of that subcommittee as well as the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet. Mr Poe is a member of that subcommittee as well. And here is a description of it:

The Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet shall have jurisdiction over the following subject matters: Administration of U.S. Courts, Federal Rules of Evidence, Civil and Appellate Procedure, judicial ethics, copyright, patent, trademark law, information technology, other appropriate matters as referred to by the Chairman, and relevant oversight.

For descriptions of standing committees - which we will be covering soon - click here. And for committees in general, click here. And - finally - click here for a description of subcommittees. All of this will be covered in upcoming lectures.






 

From the Texas Tribune: Report Backs Push for Board to Oversee Prisons

For our look at the criminal justice system in 2306 this week:

Citing potential cost savings to the state and a need to better protect the rights of inmates, a report released Tuesday is bolstering calls for an independent, external oversight board over the state’s prison system.

The Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, which authored the report, is pushing lawmakers to approve several bills that would increase supervision over the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which oversees the state’s prisons and has not been subject to oversight since 2002.

“It should not be a hard sell,” said Ana Yáñez-Correa, the coalition's executive director. “We want to make sure they [the department] have the tools to succeed, but with money comes responsibility.” The report explains that this oversight would help TDCJ identify issues in its facilities "before they lead to expensive litigation, media scandals, or other human and fiscal costs."

The coalition is asking lawmakers to pass House Bill 877 by state Rep. Alma Allen, D-Houston, which would develop an independent body with comprehensive oversight over TDCJ facilities. The group would regularly inspect facilities like prisons and state jails, and issue reports and policy recommendations.

Click here for the report issued by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition. 

Inspector General reports on Fast and Furious

The report can be found here.

The Washington Post reports on it here:

Federal agents and prosecutors in Phoenix ignored risks to the public and were primarily responsible for the botched effort to infiltrate weapons-smuggling rings in the operation dubbed “Fast and Furious,” according to a report released Wednesday by the Justice Department’s inspector general.

The long-awaited report also criticized senior officials at the Justice Department and its Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Washington for lax oversight of the attempt to block the flow of weapons to Mexico’s violent drug cartels. Many of the weapons later turned up at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States, including one where a U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed.

The Hill reports that House Republicans want to see structural changes at the ATF:

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz pleaded with lawmakers on Thursday to make major structural reforms at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in the wake of a botched gun-tracking operation.

“There were a serious lack of controls in place in both the U.S. attorney's office and ATF operation,” Horowitz said at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing.

“There has to be a serious review and vetting of operations like this … and how to prevent that going forward, is watching carefully to make sure, in fact, the reforms we're all talking about aren't lost once the headlines of the report go away — that there is oversight.”

Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) have pledged to work on reforming the ATF and the U.S. attorney’s office to avoid repeating the mistakes that led to Operation Fast and Furious.

File this under congressional oversight and checks and balances.

Texas Senate Committee holds hearings on solitary confinment

This Texas Tribune story builds off a post below - maybe its a trend? In the section on public policy we discuss agenda setting, and how certain events can cause items to come on the public agenda. Perhaps this has happened to whether solitary confinement is appropriate punishment, or is cruel and unusual.

The story highlights hearings held by the Senate Criminal Justice Committee and its chairman John Whitmire, who represents a district in Houston, note the spin he's putting on the issue - how he's defining it:


While solitary confinement in prisons is rising as a national issue because of concerns about its psychological effect on individual inmates, Texas lawmakers are worried in particular that inmates are released with no transition between solitary confinement and the free world.

"The longer you leave someone in there without rehabilitation, there is a possibility they will come out more dangerous,” Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire, D-Houston, said Tuesday at a committee hearing.

Though the U.S. still leads the world in its rate of solitary confinement, Texas has seen a slight decline in its number of inmates held in administrative segregation. There are 8,144 inmates (including roughly 80 women) under the classification in Texas, down from 8,701 in 2010 and 9,752 in 2005. The average stay in administrative segregation is 3.2 years, but some inmates have been there for more than two decades.

So we are less worried about the effect solitary confinement has on the prisoner, but the effect it can have on society once these people finish their terms.

Is solitary confinement cruel and unusual punishment?

A movement is underfoot attempting to make that argument.

From the Opinionator:

There are many ways to destroy a person, but the simplest and most devastating might be solitary confinement. Deprived of meaningful human contact, otherwise healthy prisoners often come unhinged. They experience intense anxiety, paranoia, depression, memory loss, hallucinations and other perceptual distortions. Psychiatrists call this cluster of symptoms SHU syndrome, named after the Security Housing Units of many supermax prisons. Prisoners have more direct ways of naming their experience. They call it “living death,” the “gray box,” or “living in a black hole.”
A recent Senate Subcomittee focused on this issue.

The committee was the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Human Rights, and Civil Rights.

Click here for the testimony before the committee.

This applies to future discussions about both the Constitution (US or Texas) and what it means (and how we figure that out), but the role of legislative committees in highlighting issues by having hearings on issues, and conducting oversight over executive agencies. That last part brings up checks and balances.

Is the oversight function being corrupted?

Jonathan Bernstein thinks scandal mongering has replaced traditional oversight:

By focusing exclusively on scandals, the House inevitably does less of the real, tough oversight that they should be doing.

As many have noted (see for example Mann and Ornstein’s The Broken Branch), Congressional oversight slumped in the 1990s and then collapsed during the stretch of unified Republican control during the George W. Bush years. The problem is that instead of the traditional oversight, two types of partisanship have emerged: Members of Congress stopped taking their institutional role seriously when the White House was in their party’s hands, and when it’s not they focused on discovering huge scandals instead of just making sure that executive branch departments and agencies were doing what they’re supposed to do.

Executive Privilege exerted by Obama over Fast and Furious program

Just in time for our discussion about executive power.

Story in the Washington Post, and the NYT.

The House Oversight Committee is set to vote on contempt citation.

Members of the House Public Education Committee hold hearings on STARR tests

And it doesn't seem to have been a pleasant meeting:


There is a growing frustration among parents and educators — and apparently legislators — with the new State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, known as STAAR. Many say the sheer volume of high-stakes tests and how those tests affect students have become hugely problematic.

"The only people that are being hurt this school year are children," said Wanda Bamberg, the superintendent of the Aldine Independent School District.

Superintendents from across the state testified that the number of high school dropouts could skyrocket in the coming years because almost three-quarters of the students who failed the exams this spring were already considered at risk of dropping out.

File this under oversight, among other things.