by jpitney | Apr 29, 2020 | Congress, Coronavirus, Oversight
Yuval Levin and Yuval Levin and Adam J. White at National Review: [L]egislators should be prepared to take smaller steps by both authorizing and appropriating emergency government actions as required. Rather than assume that the president has the power he needs to...
by jpitney | Apr 11, 2020 | Congress, Foreign Policy, Oversight
Robbie Gramer and Jack Detsch have an article at Foreign Policy titled “Pandemic Stymies Congressional Check on Trump’s Foreign Policy.” An excerpt: Public health guidance has prevented lawmakers in particular from receiving classified briefings—normally...
by jpitney | Jan 4, 2020 | Bureaucracy, Congress, Oversight, Uncategorized
William Yeatman at Cato: Of course, Big Government today is largely coterminous with the administrative state. From 1995 to 2017, the executive branch issued over 92,000 rules, compared to 4,400 laws enacted by Congress. The regulatory agencies behind all this...
by jpitney | Dec 14, 2019 | Congress, Oversight, Uncategorized
Rep. Charles Wiggins (R-CA) served on the House Judiciary Committee. From his 2000 obituary: Judge Charles E. Wiggins, a Republican congressman from California who was influential in the Watergate hearings and switched from defending President Richard M. Nixon to...
by jpitney | Nov 12, 2019 | Congress, Deliberation, Oversight, Uncategorized
Casey Burgat at R Street: The legislative branch simply does not have the levels of staff resources, funding or expertise to conduct effective oversight of the executive branch, including—and perhaps even especially—on matters of foreign affairs, intelligence and...
