But it hurt morale and made people excessively sensitive about internal communications.Ĭongress could conduct oversight seriously if it wanted to. They felt beleaguered, even as they continued to do their jobs. A former Department of Energy official told me that the agency’s staff was amazed at the “intensity of all the investigations” in the first four years of the Obama Administration. It wastes valuable time, leads to minimal improvements, and inhibits good government. Worse, the type of oversight Congress conducts today is often counterproductive. With federal government spending at more than 23 percent of the gross domestic product and employing more than 2.5 million people, who doesn’t think that someone needs to mind the store? “Independent review is always valuable,” said Weich, who guided DOJ through the Fast and Furious hearings. The failure of Congress to conduct comprehensive and effective oversight is shameful. One former high-ranking Department of Justice official said that during his time at the agency 20 percent of the oversight was effective 40 percent was a wash and 40 percent was political nonsense. So much so that another agency chief once turned to one of his aides during an oversight hearing and asked, “Why would anyone take this job again?” Worse, a fair amount of it is “mere harassment,” he noted. “Some hearings are worthwhile and uncover useful information, but others amount to an all-day exercise in congressional preening,” said Ron Weich, a former DOJ official and now dean of the University of Baltimore School of Law. It’s also highly doubtful that much of this forthcoming congressional oversight will be productive.Ĭongress far too often engages in oversight that is “lackadaisical” and caught up in the “gotcha cycle,” the former agency head added. It’s inevitable, as we near a presidential election with a partisan split between the legislative and executive branches. Welcome to 21 st century congressional oversight, an unpredictable blend of partisan hackery, prosaic toil, and rare but extraordinary work (the Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report).Īs a new Congress dawns, it’s time to gear up for two years of “investigatory-pallooza,” as one former agency head appointed by President Obama called it. His Committee, after all, regularly gave its hearings conclusory titles like “How Obama’s Green Energy Agenda is Killing Jobs.” Reserving judgment was not the Committee’s operating procedure. Issa rarely pretended that his energy hearings were open inquiries to uncover the facts. Earlier that month, Issa had threatened unnecessarily to subpoena him to testify. Perhaps Chu should have expected the tail and the personal attack. And it was the car assigned to him for security reasons. Chu’s car was a flex vehicle that also ran on ethanol. Chu, it seemed, was riding in a gas guzzler. Then Issa blasted Chu: “#hypocrisy,” he tweeted. They snapped a picture of him getting into an SUV. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and others finally over, what the Nobel Prize winner did not suspect was that he was being followed stealthily by Republican staffers. He was probably exhausted as he headed for his car. It was an unseasonably warm, overcast March day in 2012, when Energy Secretary Steven Chu exited a House office building after his testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Advance Constitutional Change Show / hide.National Task Force on Democracy Reform & the Rule of Law.Government Targeting of Minority Communities Show / hide.Campaign Finance in the Courts Show / hide.Gerrymandering & Fair Representation Show / hide. Ensure Every American Can Vote Show / hide.
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