Since Bush’s inauguration, Congress has, by lawmakers’ own admission, given up on any pretense of administrative oversight. Indeed, I was foolish enough to think it couldn’t get any worse. As the DCCC’s Jesse Lee noted, I was wrong.
As President Bush prepares for a second term, his Republican allies on the House Government Reform Committee are considering legislation bolstering executive powers.
Government Reform Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., wants to expedite the process for confirming presidential appointees and reinstate executive reorganization authority, which was granted intermittently to presidents between 1932 and 1984. That would allow the president to propose changes in the structure of government agencies, then submit them to Congress for approval on an up-or-down vote. The authority would minimize the turf wars that inevitably crop up when new agencies such as the Homeland Security Department are created, a Davis spokesman said.
Maybe we don’t even need Congress anymore. The White House has treated the House and Senate as inconvenient afterthoughts anyway and lawmakers are nevertheless anxious to give Bush even more power over the political process. Bush could simply rule by executive fiat — it’s not like Congress would mind.
There was, oddly enough, some talk over the summer from GOP lawmakers about reasserting some congressional authority.
“We Republicans have never quite reached the level of competent oversight that the Democrats developed over their 40 years that they controlled Congress,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the Senate Finance Committee chairman and one of the few Republicans to pepper the administration regularly with inquiries. “We tried to emphasize legislating, and we’ve delegated so much authority to the executive branch of government, and we ought to devote more time to oversight than we do.”
It was nice to hear Grassley admit the GOP is bad at this, but since lawmakers aren’t committed to making any changes, it’s only going to get worse.
Davis, in particular, is at the center of the problem.
When your party controls Congress and the White House, “You get less oversight,” said Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), who chairs the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. “That’s the way it goes.”
Actually, Davis is only half right — it’s “the way it goes” when Republicans run the show. During the Carter presidency, a Dem Congress exerted itself as a co-equal branch, much to the White House’s consternation. During the first two years of Clinton’s presidency, when Dems still had the majority, Congress held hearings to investigate the most vacuous scandal ever (Whitewater) and the White House’s controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
But in 2001, Congress just gave up. It’s not that Republicans have been using their oversight authority poorly; it’s that they don’t believe in oversight at all. Scandals — including the Plame Game, Abu Ghraib, WMD in Iraq, lies to Congress about the costs of Bush’s Medicare scheme — go completely overlooked. Questions surrounding Bush’s education policy, funding for the war(s), and administration energy policy all are summarily dismissed, as if lawmakers don’t even want to know what the White House is up to.
Lawmakers like Davis consider this landscape and believe Bush needs more administrative power. It’s as if we’re moving closer and closer to a parliamentary system all the time.