Congressional enforcement

gregh — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 23:23:06 -0500

By way of Concurring Opinions comes this article from the Washington Post putting forth a theory for Congress to take contempt enforcement in its own hands. If you've not been following the administration's exercise of executive privilege, the article gives some quick background and links:

It seems that the House Judiciary Committee is considering seeking help from the Justice Department to enforce contempt citations against Bush administration officials such as Joshua Bolten who refuse to respond to congressional inquiries into alleged White House wrongdoing. That would be a mistake. Such a strategy leaves Congress beholden to hostile executive branch officials to enforce its prerogatives on exactly the type of charges that the administration said this week it would not allow officials to pursue.

What's a Congress to do? "[U]nder historic and undisturbed law, Congress can enforce its own orders against recalcitrant witnesses without involving the executive branch and without leaving open the possibility of presidential pardon."

In short:

Thus, the congressional alternative. Instead of referring a contempt citation to the U.S. attorney, a house of Congress can order the sergeant-at-arms to take recalcitrant witnesses into custody and have them held until they agree to cooperate -- i.e., an order of civil contempt. Technically, the witness could be imprisoned somewhere in the bowels of the Capitol, but historically the sergeant-at-arms has turned defendants over to the custody of the warden of the D.C. jail.

Not only would a Congress with a spine be a nice thing to see, it could also be an entertaining Constitutional exercise.

Sam ranted at length about this issue today.

Otherwise Occupied - contemptenforcement

Congressional enforcement