Committee report

“ A standing committee is either wholly, or partially, elected at each annual meeting in ordinary societies, and immediately thereafter it reorganizes by electing a chairman (unless he has been appointed by the assembly) and a secretary. Therefore, a standing committee must report at the annual meeting, or before, on everything referred to it during the year. The motion to rise is never used in standing committees or boards, nor is it used in other committees except when the committee is ready to report so that it will never meet again. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If other people come there and present facts as a matter of record, the Board can't entirely go outside of those facts and decide a case right out of the clear sky. If this organization wants to be effective, it ought to appoint a committee to present those things before that Board. ”

“ A quorum, that is the number that must be present in order to transact business, is a majority of the committee. A committee has no right to discipline any of its members: if any member obstructs business, its only recourse is to report the facts to the assembly for its action. If a committee finds that its investigations will involve expense that has not been authorized, it must obtain from the assembly such authority before incurring the expense. ”

“ The Executive Committee should be small and the members should live near enough each other to be able to have frequent regular meetings, besides special meetings in emergencies. Where the organization is local, such as a society for sustaining an orphan asylum, the Board of Managers usually divides itself into committees having charge of different branches of the work during the intervals between the monthly or quarterly meetings of the Board, when these committees report on the work done. ”

“ The committee of 1838 was justified in thinking and in stating that their report "presented a combination of facts that cannot fail to arrest the attention of the American people, and to establish the necessity of immediate legislative action." "Legislative action "was taken repeatedly, then and at subsequent times. But so partial and temporary has been the relief afforded, that the committee of 1889 found the condition of affairs to be about the worst in our history. ”

“ The inquiry is proposed to be made by a select committee; the mover of the resolution will of course, according to the mode of proceeding in the House, be chairman of that committee, and the report will in all probability be made at too late a period of the session, to admit of a full discussion, and an effect be produced by the report very different from that which would result from a full investigation of it. May not its effect be, to cover a decision which the gentleman knows is about to be made? To make it appear that those who make that decision have the voice of the people with them? ”

“ 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. ”

“ A special committee to investigate and report upon a subject should consist of representative members on both sides of the question, so that both parties in the assembly may have confidence in the report, or reports in case there is disagreement and a minority report is submitted. By care in selecting committees in ordinary assemblies, debates upon delicate and troublesome questions can be mostly confined to the committees. ”

“ While it is customary in ordinary societies to make and second a motion to accept or adopt a committee's report, yet if the motion is not made and the chair deems it best to have a vote taken on the question, he may state the appropriate question without waiting for a motion, accepting the submission of the report by a committee as equivalent to moving the adoption of the appropriate motion for disposing of it, just as is the case when one offers a resolution. ”

“ During the consideration by committee of the whole no motions are in order except to amend and adopt, or that the committee ‘rise and report.’ Debate may be without limit unless the assembly votes that debate in committee shall cease at a certain time, and until then any member may speak as often as he can get the floor if no one else who has not had an opportunity to speak on the question claims it. When the debate is concluded, a motion is made that ‘the committee rise and report.’ This motion is always in order and is undebatable. ”

“ If it should be thought fit to adopt the suggestions which your Committee have now had the honour of proposing, they beg leave to move, that another Committee be appointed, with directions to frame or to alter the necessary statutes, so that they may be in strict accordance with the charters.
In concluding the Report, your Committee do not wish to disguise the magnitude of some of the measures they have thought it their duty to propose; on the contrary, they would not only urge the fullest discussion of their expediency ”

“ A committee has been appointed to make an investigation of the causes other than feeble-mindedness that are at the root of illegitimacy. This committee has already done valuable work as a by-product of its main purpose in suggesting important points which agencies are apt to omit in their histories, and in aiding in a greater standardization of work. A full report is expected of this committee next year.
Study groups are being organized to take up the questions of legislation, venereal disease, the efficiency and range of existing institutions, public opinion, feeble-mindedness and statistics. ”

“ When the National People's Congress and the National People's Congress Standing Committee deem it necessary, they may organize investigation committees on specific issues and, based on investigation committee reports, adopt appropriate resolutions. ”

“ The people's congress may authorize its standing committee to listen to the investigation report of the investigation committee, and the standing committee may make an appropriate resolution and report it to the next session of the people's congress for the record. ”

“ Committees have become not so much a sphere for the legislative initiative of the private member as a new outlet for Government business. Contentious bills introduced or adopted by the Government are referred to them, and the moment this is the case the Minister in charge who is confronted in Committee with amendments which he does not care to accept may invite the whole House on the Report stage of the Bill to disallow them. ”

“ They were in themselves truly unworthy of the attention of that public body; but lest the silence of Congress should be misunderstood, or furnish the enemy with [Pg 390] new ground for false insinuation, they were referred to a committee, whose judicious and spirited report thereon was unanimously approved in the House on the 22d, then published and circulated through the several States with all possible expedition. ”

“ Give each man due weight in his specialty, but do not let him be absolute. A minority report from a committee should always be welcome as affording more information for the parent body or the appointing power. ”

“ An amendment to the 1998 Act would provide for the Assembly to appoint a standing Institutional Review Committee, to examine the operational aspects of the Strand One institutions. Matters to be reviewed in this way would be agreed among the parties. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now, therefore, sir, I hope that, laying aside all these matters, which are entirely foreign, we shall act upon this resolution simply as a matter of business. No one has a right to complain of it that we raise a committee for certain purposes of our own when we judge it to be necessary. It is an imputation upon nobody; it is an insult to nobody; it is not any thing which any sensible man could ever find fault with, or be disposed to do so. ”

“ The work is parceled out, most of it to the forty-seven Standing Committees which constitute the regular organization of the House, some of it to select committees appointed for special and temporary purposes. Each of the almost numberless bills that come pouring in on Mondays is “read a first and second time,”—simply perfunctorily read, that is, by its title, by the clerk, and passed by silent assent through its first formal courses, for the purpose of bringing it to the proper stage for commitment,—and referred without debate to the appropriate Standing Committee. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We do hereby certify that we have examined the accounts and vouchers of the treasurer, and find them correct; and that the balance in his hands is twenty-four dollars and sixty-three cents. R. V., J. L., Audit Comm.
53. Committees. In small assemblies, especially in those where but little business is done, there is not much need of committees. But in large assemblies, or in those doing a great deal of business, committees are of the utmost importance. When a committee is properly selected, in nine cases out of ten its action decides that of the assembly. ”

“ In modern parliamentary practice, immense importance attaches to the work of standing committees; and so true is this that modern legislation has been by some termed government by committee. Almost every matter brought before such bodies as the United States Congress and the legislatures of the several States is at once referred to a standing committee, which holds meetings by itself, examines the subject closely, summons witnesses, if necessary, and at length reports back to the main body its findings and conclusions, with recommendation to act favorably or adversely. ”

“ The procedure followed in referring bills to committees and in considering them when they are reported back is determined by a complexity of rules that are confusing to the outsider and that cannot be explained in detail here. But their declared purpose is to save time and to enable the legislative business to move smoothly. The small committees can work to better advantage than the large body of men in either chamber. The work is divided up so that the few members of each committee can concentrate their attention upon a few subjects and gain experience in handling special kinds of problems. ”

“ These resolutions, after being reported and confirmed by the House, are then referred to one or more select committees, where they are reduced into the form of bills or joint resolutions. It is found that the sense of the House is better learned in committee, because in all committees everyone speaks as often as he pleases. ”

“ The methods of the committee do not impress an observer as having been the result of much consultation or careful preparation for their work. There is an apparent indifference on the part of some of its members to reaching results, or to remaining steadily in the pursuit of the purposes for which it was organized. ”

“ Committee is the Providence that shapes the ends of Bills, rough hew them how we may in the draughtsman's hands or on the second reading. For all practical purposes second-reading debate might be concluded at to-night's sitting. It extended over seven clear hours. Given twenty minutes per speech, the maximum length for useful purposes, twenty-one members, more than the House cares to hear, might have spoken. The time saved, if necessary, added on to opportunity in Committee.
That, however, not the way we do business here. Disestablishment Bill a measure of first importance ”

“ No select committee can proceed to business in the absence of any of its members, unless a quorum has been fixed, and if I had desired, as had been shamefully alleged, to thwart the Government I had only to hold my tongue, and all the committees appointed would be paralysed until a complete attendance was obtained, but I crossed the floor, and mentioned the difficulty and its remedy to the leader of the House, and to no other person whatever. ”