Central Committee

“ Third, we exercised more stringent and effective oversight of the lawful performance of the State Council, the National Commission of Supervision, the Supreme People's Court, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate to ensure the full implementation of the Party Central Committee's major decisions and plans.
An important principle of the people's congress system and a basic requirement of its institutional design is that the power of all state organs and their staff must be subject to oversight and constraints. ”

“ To ensure complete unity of action, we think it desirable that the Whips of the party should sit, ex officio, on the Council, and should have a right to be present at the meetings of all Committees. Such an arrangement would be a security against any unintentional divergencies of policy and would lend weight to the proceedings of the Union. Business relating to candidates should remain entirely with the Central Committee. ”

“ When the National Party Congress is not in session the Central Committee directs the entire work of the Party, carries out the decisions of the National Party Congress, represents the Party in its relations with other parties and organizations, sets up various Party organs and directs their activities, takes charge of and allocates Party cadres. ”

“ The main difference is that whereas the General merely writes an order about which most people hear for the first time only when it is promulgated, the Central Committee prepares the way for its dictation by a most elaborate series of discussions and counter discussions throughout the country, whereby it wins the bulk of the Communist Party to its opinion, after which it proceeds through local and general congresses to do the same with the Trades Unions. ”

“ His ultimate aim is to create similar committees all over the country, persuading people in every new place that the network is ready everywhere else, and that they are all working in complete harmony and in absolute obedience to a central committee, which is somewhere abroad, and which in reality does not exist. This once accomplished, his idea is to create disorder among the peasants or the masses, and in the general upheaval to seize the power. ”

“ Since the beginning of the current NPC's term, the Party Central Committee has entrusted it with new responsibilities and requirements to carry out reform for expanding the focus of budgetary examination and oversight and to conduct oversight of state-owned asset management. ”

“ Morris Rappaport who was the district organizer whom I mentioned earlier, who had, by his adroitness in calling the political moves, established himself in the eyes of the central committee of the Communist Party of the United States as a person capable of directing the political activities in the Northwest without the need of daily supervision on the part of national headquarters of the Communist Party. ”

“ Therefore the central question in the work of every Party Committee is the question of systematically coming to the assistance of the factory cells in the big enterprises. A Party Committee which cannot provide serious daily help to such factory cells, a Party Committee which cannot organize factory cells capable of working in the enterprises, is a bad Party Committee and the leading organs of the Party and the mass of Party members should hasten to draw from this state of affairs the necessary conclusions and as quickly as possible make a change so far as such a Party Committee is concerned. ”

“ The 27-member national committee, which consists of the chairman, secretary, 22 members elected by the national convention, and the chairman of the youth, women's, and press associations, meets at least three times a year. Activities of the executive committee are determined by the national committee, and it names special committees to collaborate on recruitment, organization, and propaganda. ”

“ It is not possible to kill bills in committee, because all of them must be reported out of committee to the Riksdag in plenary session. Only rarely, and reportedly never for political reasons, is a bill held over and referred to the next session. ”

“ Most of the important bills submitted for Folketing consideration are presented by the government, but private member bills are also allowed. After the first reading of a draft bill, a thorough study of the measure is normally undertaken by the appropriate regularly constituted Folketing committee, a specially appointed ad hoc commission, or in some instances, both. To be enacted a bill must survive critical examination in committee, tough debate on the floor, and three parliamentary readings. ”

“ It has been impossible to carry out the programme of the Constitution; and, without careful reform, the national legislature will even more dangerously approach the perilous model of a mass meeting. There are several ways in which Congress can be so integrated as to impart to its proceedings system and party responsibility. That may be done by entrusting the preparation and initiation of legislation to a single committee in each house, composed of the leading men of the majority in that house. ”

“ In a word, we have no supreme executive ministry, like the great “Ministry of the Crown” over sea, in whose hands is the general management of legislation; and we have, consequently, no great prizes of leadership such as are calculated to stimulate men of strong talents to great and conspicuous public services. The Committee system is, as I have already pointed out, the very opposite of this. It makes all the prizes of leadership small, and nowhere gathers power into a few hands. ”

“ The legislation of the country is handled almost entirely in committees. It requires a possible revolution to overcome the hostility of a committee, even if the House and the country are otherwise minded. ”

“ From this moment she exists chiefly as a Member or President of innumerable Committees. No sooner does the shadow of a political idea flit through her brain, than she forms a Committee to promote its development. ”

“ They probably do not understand that it would have been useless for members not of the Committee on Commerce to wait for any opportunity to make their suggestions on the floor of Congress, where the measure to which they wish to make additions would be under the authoritative control of the Committee, and where, consequently, they could gain a hearing only by the courteous sufferance of the committee-man in charge of the report. Whatever is to be done must be done by or through the Committee. ”

“ It provided for the election of a National President, to serve until his successor could be elected at a general election, and for the appointment of a Minister-President and various ministers of state. The constitution created a so-called Committee of State, to be named by the various state governments and to occupy the position of a Second Chamber, and empowered the assembly to enact "such national laws as are urgently necessary," particularly revenue and appropriation measures. ”

“ That the Secretaries are not in fact the directors of the executive policy of the government, I have shown in pointing out the thorough-going vision of even the details of administration which it is the disposition of the Standing Committees of Congress to exercise. In the actual control of affairs no one can do very much without gaining the ears of the Committees. The heads of the departments could, of course, act much more wisely in many matters than the Committees can, because they have an intimacy with the workings and the wants of those departments which no Committee can possibly possess. ”

“ It is this multiplicity of leaders, this many-headed leadership, which makes the organization of the House too complex to afford uninformed people and unskilled observers any easy clue to its methods of rule. For the chairmen of the Standing Committees do not constitute a cooperative body like a ministry. They do not consult and concur in the adoption of homogeneous and mutually helpful measures; there is no thought of acting in concert. Each Committee goes its own way at its own pace. ”

“ If they are of opinion to name a Committee that shall be authorised in a special manner to defend the rights and interests of the States, and of the public:—to do their utmost by every conciliatory measure in their power, and above all, to agree to an arrangement that shall screen the States from all interruption in the circulation of their Notes, which have been issued for the benefit and advantage of the public, with the design of gradually diminishing the number annually. ”

“ The Executive Committee thinks it's going to do all the work, but it's got to report to the General Committee, and it it'll be a great piece of luck if the General Committee doesn't insist on asserting itself by upsetting all the decisions of the Executive Committee. ”

“ Popular committees are considered here, as with us, in the light of substitutes to constitutional government, and as being only necessary in the interval between the removal of the former and the establishment of the present. ”

“ But he would urge upon the Department and the Government that the real remedy for this strong and wide discontent was the appointment of an independent Committee, because the decision of such a tribunal composed not of officials, but of practical business men, who would perhaps have more sympathy with men in the lower grades of the service, would be loyally accepted, and thus the public would be advantaged and contentment restored to a service which was of great value to the country. ”

“ A commission for the administration of executive business, like the Civil Service Commission, is a very different thing from a committee endowed with discretion to pass upon the interests of free and equal citizens, not being itself either executive, legislative, or judicial. Such a body will inevitably become the engine of either one interest or another against the rest, or sink into nonentity. Such a commission lacks all the guarantees of justice and of correct civil action which we have established around our legislative, judicial, and executive institutions. ”

“ Indeed, the membership of our legislatures has become so large, and the amount of legislative business has increased so rapidly, that it is difficult to see how the committee system could be dispensed with. ”

“ Congress, even those in subordinate stations, as is the practice of every day, and as is indispensable to the prosecution of public business, they might, at less expense of dignity, pursue the same mode with a part of that body itself.
The distinction taken by the Council, in their message to the Assembly, respecting the responsibility of such executive officers, as not applicable to a committee, if it amounts to any thing, proves only this: That such officers ought, in prudence, to take greater precautions for their own justification than a committee of Congress need to do. ”

“ We cannot keep the Civil Service in a sound and healthy condition if we are going to examine into it by a committee every five years. If the House of Commons were to yield to the very natural temptation of granting a committee such as had been asked for, though we might escape an inconvenient division, we should be unworthy, in my opinion, of bearing any longer the great responsibility of being the enormous employer of labor that we are. ”

“ The Power of Committees over Bills.—A committee may exercise the utmost freedom with respect to the bills referred to it. The greater number of bills receive no consideration whatever from the committees; these may never be reported if the committees see fit to ignore them. Other bills are amended by the committees, or new bills are substituted for them. Such is the power intrusted to Congressional committees. However, if a majority of the house wishes, it may take up for discussion a bill which one of its committees has decided not to report back. ”

“ Our Committees fall short of being the best form of commission, not only in being too numerous but also in being integral parts of the body which they lead, having no life apart from it. Probably the best working commission would be one which should make plans for government independently of the representative body, and in immediate contact with the practical affairs of administration, but which should in all cases look to that body for the sanctioning of those plans, and should be immediately responsible to it for their success when put into operation. ”

“ If he can gain the ear of the Committee, or of any influential portion of it, he has practically gained the ear of the House itself; if his plans once get footing in a committee report, they may escape criticism altogether, and it will, in any case, be very difficult to dislodge them. This accessibility of the Committees by outsiders gives to illegitimate influences easy approach at all points of legislation, but no Committees are affected by it so often or so unfortunately as are the Committees which control the public moneys. ”

“ Only the Committees are enlightened. There is a conclusive objection to the publication of the proceedings of the Committees, which is recognized as of course by all parliamentary lawyers, namely, that those proceedings are of no force till confirmed by the House. A Committee is commissioned, not to instruct the public, but to instruct and guide the House. ”

“ When the committee is one for deliberation, or investigation, it should be larger and represent all parties, so that the fullest debate may be had in committee, and its opinion and recommendations, as contained in its report, carry as great weight as possible, because if any important faction is not represented the usefulness of the committee may be greatly impaired, and the chance of unpleasant debate in the assembly increased. In either case it is well to have a committee consist of an uneven number, in order to avoid a tie vote. ”

“ The work of Congress is largely done through committees. The House of Representatives, as constituted to-day, is an unwieldy body. It is obvious that four hundred and thirty-five men is too large a number to work effectively as a whole. Every bill, even a recommendation from the President, is referred to an appropriate committee. It is only because of these many committees that it is possible to transact the very large amount of business that comes before Congress every year. ”