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Congressional Oversight

The Bureaucracy…. Congressional Oversight . Forms of Congressional Supervision. Congress creates agencies Influences agency behavior by statutes it enacts Congress authorizes funds for programs Congressional appropriations provides funds for the agency to spend on its programs

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Congressional Oversight

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  1. The Bureaucracy… Congressional Oversight

  2. Forms of Congressional Supervision • Congress creates agencies • Influences agency behavior by statutes it enacts • Congress authorizes funds for programs • Congressional appropriations provides funds for the agency to spend on its programs • Funds can’t be spent unless also appropriated • Appropriations = money formally set aside for specific use

  3. The Appropriations Committee & Legislative Committees • Appropriations Committee may be the most powerful of all the congressional committees • Most expenditure recommendations are approved by House • Tends to recommend n amount lower than the agency requested • Has power to influence an agency’s policies by “marking up” an agency’s budget • But becoming less powerful • Trust funds operate outside the regular government budget and are not controlled by the appropriations committees (Social Security being the largest) • Annual authorizations allow the legislative committees greater oversight • Budget deficits have necessitated cuts

  4. The Appropriations Committee & Legislative Committees • Informal congressional controls over agencies • Individual members of Congress can seek privileges for constituents • Congressional committees may seek committee clearance, the right to pass on certain agency decisions

  5. The Legislative Veto • Definition: a requirement that an executive decision must lie before Congress for a specified period before it takes effect • Usually 30-90 days • Declared unconstitutional by Supreme Court in Chadha (1983) • Congress can’t take action that has force of law w/o executive consent • Debate about the legislative veto continues…

  6. Congressional Investigations • Power inferred from the congressional power to legislate • Means for checking agency discretion and also for authorizing agency actions independent of presidential preferences

  7. Five major complaints about the bureaucracy • Red tape – complex and sometimes conflicting rules • Conflict– agencies work at cross-purposes • Duplication– two or more agencies seem to do the same thing • Imperialism– tendency of agencies to grow, irrespective of programs’ benefits and costs • Waste – spending more than is necessary to buy some product or service *Each complaint has logical origins in the constitutional order and policy-making process *Some exaggerations and unusual circumstances generate difficulties

  8. Reforming the Bureaucracy • Numerous attempts to make the bureaucracy work better for less money • Eleven reform attempts in the 1900s • Prior reforms stressed increasing centralized control on behalf of efficiency, accountability, and consistency • National Performance Review (NPR) in 1993 designed to reinvent government calling for a new kind of organizational culture • Less centralized management • More employee initiatives • Fewer detailed rules, more customer satisfaction

  9. Bureaucratic reform is always difficult to accomplish • Most rules and red tape are due to struggles between president and Congress or to agencies’ efforts to avoid alienating influential voters • Periods of divided government worsen matters, especially in implementing policy • Presidents of one party seek to increase political control (executive micromanagement) • Congresses of another party respond by increasing investigations and rules (legislative micromanagement)

  10. Sunshine Laws All states also have similar laws! • Government in the Sunshine Act (1976) • Required for 1st time all multithreaded federal agencies hold their meetings regularly in public session • Freedom of Information Act (1966) • Required federal govt agencies, with some exceptions, to disclose to individuals at their request any information about them contained in govt files. • Many curbs on the public’s access to information since 9/11 • Thousands of documents removed from internet sites, libraries, etc, in the name of national security.

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