WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH CONGRESS?
Follette, Sen. Robert M. La Jr.
What's The Matter With Conqress? By Sen. ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE, Jr. (Chairman, Joint Congressional Committee To Modernize Congress) VITAL problems affecting the future welfare of every American...
...Adequate social security on a broad base...
...Its internal structure is antiquated and overlapping...
...Such a Council could be composed of party leaders in Congress and members of the President's Cabinet...
...It would promote better teamwork between the two branches, achieve legislative scrutiny to assure the administration of postwar measures in harmony with the intent of Congress, and assist in preserving coherence and continuity of high governmental policy...
...I have long believed that Congress must reorganize its committee system by abolishing the inactive committees, consolidating those with overlapping jurisdictions, and providing the remaining committees with adequate and able staffs...
...The growth of administrative law, the law of executive regulations, orders, and directives, is a profound change in the American system of government...
...Congress needs to strengthen and develop methods for implementing its scrutiny of executive performance...
...If, then, Congress is to regain its intended position as the policy-making branch of the Federal Government, it must necessarily equip itself to exercise a high-policy supervisory function over the administration of the laws it passes...
...Thus the committee systems of both chambers would correspond with each other and be correlated with the major functional divisions of the Executive Branch...
...In dealing with complex questions of this kind it is impossible to legislate in advance for every conceivable contingency...
...Its supervision of executive performance is superficial...
...Adoption of these or similar reforms would go far, I believe, toward restoring the effectiveness of Congress as a coordinate branch of our national Government, simplifying its operations and improving its relationships with the Executive, and preventing political frustration of policies involving postwar peace and prosperity...
...The tendency to increase the power of the Executive branch of government manifest before the war has been greatly accelerated during the conduct of a global struggle...
...creating a Joint Congressional Committee on Public Accounts and a Joint Committee on the Budget...
...Much of its time is consumed by petty local and private matters...
...It cannot pass a law and then let go of the problem until the executive comes back for an appropriation or for confirmation of some official to administer it...
...An increasing standard of living for agriculture and the preservation of the family-type farm...
...Reconversion of our economy from war to peace...
...But Congress today is neither organized nor equipped to understand and approve such policies or to supervise and review their execution...
...Discretion must be granted the President and his agents to meet developments as they arise, and the way that discretion is exercised in crucial situations, the slant it is given, frequently goes farther in determining policy through the actual shaping of events than the formal legislative process of framing and passing a bill...
...Improved medical and hospital service...
...Equality of educational opportunity...
...Finally, it is widely believed that Congress must divest itself of less essential duties like private claims and acting as a common council for the District of Columbia, which divert its attention from national policy-making, and which it ought not to have to consider...
...In order to overcome these obstacles, Congress should have its own Research Service to furnish it unbiased information essential to an understanding of complex public problems and programs...
...giving the General Accounting Office audit power over all Federal agencies, departments, and corporations...
...The legislative and supervisory committees of Congress should have their own, independent, qualified experts in whom they can have confidence...
...It has been suggested that this might be done by strengthening the staffs of the appropriations committees...
...These are formidable obstacles to legislative understanding, determination, acceptance, and oversight of postwar policies and programs...
...Its contact with the Executive is irregular and spasmodic...
...The determination of policies of our Government rests with Congress under the Constitution...
...After the war this trend must be reversed, and Congress must recover its power to make the policies of government if representative government is to survive the impact of the problems we face in the postwar period...
...Guardian Of Our Liberty We must strive for the greatest possible continuity of postwar policy if a just peace and full employment are to be attained...
...These are a few of the great domestic problems which confront Congress...
...Continuity of policy and unity of governmental action would be advanced if Congress would create a responsible mechanism for liaison between the Congress and the Executive by setting up a Legislative-Executive Council...
...It lacks adequate staff facilities for its committees as well as for the individual members...
...In foreign as well as in domestic fields it has been demonstrated conclusively that policy is often determined not by the passage of laws, but rather by the day-to-day administration of those laws...
...This is a fundamental fact that completely upsets the traditional separation of powers theory, which is based upon the assumption that policy can be determined completely by the passage of laws, that the Chief Executive can clearly be held responsible to such policy since his only function is to "execute" the law...
...Congress will fail unless it seriously sets to work to put its own house in order, equip itself with the necessary expert staff, and streamline its committee organization so that a working and clearly defined liaison can be established between Congress and the President on broad phases of national policy...
...Those controls are only negative checks on the executive...
...Upon a stronger and more effective Congress may well depend the preservation of democracy in the United States...
...Representative government is the heart of the democratic faith, and the chief protector of our political liberties...
...They are not the instrumentalities of constructive leadership by Congress...
...Chairman, Joint Congressional Committee To Modernize Congress) VITAL problems affecting the future welfare of every American citizen confront Congress...
...and experimenting with a question period at which executive officials would appear on the floor of Congress and answer questions...
...Committees Need Overhauling In the field of international relations the Congress will be called on to pass on issues as diverse and complex as those involved in Dumbarton Oaks, Bretton Woods, tariff, foreign credits, commodity agreements on oil, rubber, tin, cotton, and wheat and many other like problems...
...Never before in its history has Congress been faced with national and international issues of such great magnitude and complexity...
...Full employment for those ready, willing, and able to work...
...It must develop ways and means of working with the executive in a cooperative way, continuously, on all major phases of national policy...
Vol. 9 • April 1945 • No. 16
