Congress reclaims oversight role
By Kirstin Ellison
Posted on Wed Apr 25, 2007 at 09:03:04 PM EST
Subpoenas! All over the place! White House aides, Justice Department officials, political appointees, Pentagon bigwigs...you name it, there's a Congressional committee that wants to ask them questions.
Republican leaders call it a "partisan witch hunt." But Democratic lawmakers, and even some Republicans, say it is an overdue return to their constitutional role of executive-branch oversight.
Since Democrats assumed control of Congress in January, they have hired more than 200 investigative staffers for key watchdog committees. They include lawyers, former reporters and congressional staffers who left oversight committees that had all but atrophied during the six years that the GOP controlled Congress and the White House.
In a nod to this return to accountability, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) changed the name of the committee he chairs from Committee on Government Reform to Oversight and Government Reform. And to hear Waxman talk, he's definitely taking it seriously:
"Oversight is just as important, if not more important, than legislation," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The new investigations illustrate just how many questions went unanswered in the six years when Democrats "couldn't hold hearings, we couldn't compel information . . . all we could do was ask for it," he said.
Republicans are screaming partisan politics, and it's not as though they're wrong. After six years of being denied the ability to even ask questions in an official capacity, there are bound to be some hard feelings, not to mention a backlog of items to check off the list. But what's more important here is the return of Congress to its proper role in the system of checks and balances the Founding Fathers designed. Subpoenas are but one tool to use for this function, but they're already getting results.
See also: Appropriations investigative unit gets a makeover
Tags: Government Accountability, oversight (all tags)
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