Hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee - Oversight Committee Organizational Meeting of the 114th Congress

Hearing

Let me join Chairman Chaffetz in extending a warm welcome to all of our returning Members and the new Members joining our Committee for the first time. It is an honor to have you here, and I look forward to working with each and every one of you.

Today is the first meeting of the Oversight Committee in the 114th Congress. It is also an opportunity for a new beginning. The last four years were filled with acrimony, partisanship, and sometimes vulgar displays. They were a stain on this Committee's integrity and an embarrassment to the House of Representatives.

It is my sincere hope that we can leave this tainted legacy behind and work together in a collaborative manner to address the serious challenges our nation faces. Chairman Chaffetz and I have had many productive conversations, both before and after he became Chairman. I want to thank him for visiting Baltimore to see firsthand some of the issues faced by the people in my district, and I want to thank him for inviting me to visit his constituents in Utah last year.

The Chairman has stated publicly that he wants to run the Committee differently than his predecessor, and both Democrats and Republicans welcomed this news. The Chairman has promised a more open and cooperative relationship, and I know our staffs have already held several joint meetings both on--and off--the Hill. I hope those continue.

The Oversight Committee is most effective when we work together and combine forces to pursue joint solutions. Our Committee has great potential to do enormous good on behalf of the American people. Our jurisdiction is the most wide-ranging in Congress, and we have sweeping powers to compel testimony and demand information.

I believe the Chairman and I are off to a good start. However, I am extremely disappointed that Democrats will not be able to support the rules package today, and it is a shame that this will be the first action we take as a Committee.

The simple fact of the matter is that the rules proposed by Chairman Chaffetz are worse than the rules we had under Chairman Issa.

The new rules would eliminate the requirement that the Ranking Member must concur with requests for extended questioning of witnesses--a right every Ranking Member of this Committee has had since this rule was first put in place 20 years ago.

Even more troubling is the Chairman's position on subpoenas. The Oversight Committee has always had unilateral subpoena authority in our rules. Historically, however, our Chairs declined to exercise that power. Instead, they obtained the Ranking Member's concurrence on a subpoena or they put it to a vote. They recognized that the coercive power of subpoenas should be used only as a last resort after careful deliberation, and it should not be used by a single individual without the backing of either the Ranking Member or the Committee.

The only exception to this historical practice had been former Chairman Dan Burton, who issued more than 1,000 unilateral subpoenas that were widely criticized as abusive, including several subpoenas issued to the wrong people.

When Republican Tom Davis became Chairman, there was a correction to these abuses. He returned to the historical practice of obtaining the Ranking Member's concurrence or a Committee vote. And when Democrat Henry Waxman became Chairman, he continued this practice. This system worked well.

Unfortunately, when Chairman Issa took over in 2011, he decided to return to the Burton-era practice of issuing unilateral subpoenas. He promised to consult with Democrats, but he often did not. He also promised to hold votes on controversial subpoenas, but he never held a single vote during his entire four-year tenure as Chairman.

In total, he issued more than 100 unilateral subpoenas with no debate and no votes--including several that were unwarranted, abusive, and probably would have been rejected had they been voted on by the Committee.

For example, on May 2, 2014--the same day Speaker Boehner announced that he was taking the Benghazi investigation away from the Oversight Committee--Chairman Issa issued a unilateral subpoena to compel Secretary of State Kerry to testify. Chairman Issa had never even written or called to request the Secretary's testimony, and he later withdrew the subpoena.

On June 24, 2014, Chairman Issa issued a unilateral subpoena to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen shortly after Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp announced that he would hold the first public hearing on Lois Lerner's computer crash. Commissioner Koskinen made clear repeatedly that he would have testified without a subpoena, as he had done multiple times previously.

After Chairman Issa, there should have been a correction, just like there was after Chairman Burton. But amazingly, House Republican leaders have doubled-down on Chairman Issa's abusive approach. Speaker Boehner has decided to export the Issa model to a host of other committees and give other chairmen the same power to issue subpoenas unilaterally.

Let me be clear: this is not about authority of these committees to issue subpoenas. Republicans on these committees already have that authority, and they also have the numbers to win any vote. This is about the Republicans not wanting a public debate about what they are doing. It's about Republicans eliminating transparency.

This is a mistake. The House of Representatives is a deliberative body. We each represent more than 700,000 Americans, and the most powerful authority Congress possesses should not be used without any debate.

So, at the appropriate time, Democrats will offer an amendment to return to the Committee's historical practice adopted by every previous Chairman of this Committee except two--Dan Burton and Darrell Issa.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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