Joint committee

“ 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. ”

“ Joint Committees and Joint Industrial Councils Once the principle of representation is conceded, it is only a step to the formation of joint committees of employers and employees, the establishment of known, orderly, and expeditious procedure in all matters requiring adjustment, and the determination of industrial policies in a manner which will have regard for the interests of all concerned. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A committee for action should be small and consist only of those heartily in favor of the proposed action. A committee for deliberation or investigation, on the contrary, should be larger and represent all parties in the assembly, so that its opinion will carry with it as great weight as possible. The usefulness of the committee will be greatly impaired, if any important faction of the assembly be unrepresented on the committee. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A special committee is appointed for a specific purpose, and until the duty assigned it by the society is accomplished it continues to exist, unless sooner discharged, which requires a two-thirds vote if done without notice being given. The fact that an annual meeting has intervened does not discharge a special committee appointed by a society. ”

“ While the assembly is acting as a committee of the whole the only action in order is to recommend to the assembly at large the adoption of, or rejection of the matter under discussion, or such other recommendation of action as comes within the authority of ordinary committees, and to move that the committee rise and report. Being a dependent body it cannot make any rule for itself unless authorized by the parent body, and its decision only amounts to an informal vote on the question at issue. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The committee system limits debate. Since most committee business is transacted in secret session, the public is deprived of light upon public affairs. So minutely does the committee system divide legislative labor that even the most important piece of legislation cannot secure the attention of the best men. There is a diffusion of responsibility when various committees work upon related problems without regard for the work being done by one another. Finally, the committee system throws power, unaccompanied by adequate responsibility, into the hands of the committee chairman. ”

“ This is no one-man union, there is no one man they can fix, nor even a small committee. We're a committee of fifty thousand here to make our own laws for ourselves. As you lift up your hands and vote, so it will be decided. ”

“ If any of you ever belonged to an organization, and if you ever do belong to an organization, you will know that when a motion is made for the appointment of a committee, if the man in the chair understands parliamentary rules, he makes the mover for a committee chairman of the committee. Bear that in mind. In this case Captain O'Connor says that Dan Coughlin moved that this secret committee be appointed and that Thomas [Pg 477] Murphy, who did not dare take the stand, seconded that motion. Thomas Murphy, you will remember, gentlemen, is the treasurer of the organization. ”

“ It may also be anticipated that the system that relegates the details of legislative measures to the consideration of Grand Committees may be gradually extended as time goes on, and that thus the committee work of the House of Commons itself may grow less and less by degrees. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is evident, therefore, that after all the careful and thorough-going debate and amendment of Committee of the Whole in the House, and all the grave deliberation of the Senate to which the general appropriations are subjected, they finally pass in a very chaotic state, full of provisions which neither the House nor the Senate likes, and utterly vague and unintelligible to every one save the members of the Conference Committee ”

“ 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. ”

“ Section 241 defines the term, 'political committee,' as including any organization which accepts contributions for the purpose of influencing or attempting to influence the election of presidential and vice presidential electors in two or more states. Every political committee is required to have a chairman and a treasurer before any contribution may be accepted. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ At the public meeting the plan of association was adopted; the committee then became "the Committee of Association," and Fox was again elected chairman. Contact with popular feeling seems to have strengthened the tone of the committee, and enlisted its energies more definitely on behalf of Parliamentary reform; for a sub-committee was appointed, which reported to a meeting on the 27th of June. ”

“ In many societies the presiding officer of the assembly is regarded as ex-officio a member of all communities; there is, however, no good authority for this, since only those persons regularly placed on a committee should be regarded as members thereof, neither does it follows that if he is a member of a committee, as, unless it is so ordered by the assembly, the committee cannot be deprived of its right to elect its own chairman. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Section 8.—The Committee of the United Diet is to deliberate as an undivided assembly. Its resolutions are, as a general rule, to be adopted by a simple majority of votes.
Petitions and complaints are only to be laid before us if they have been voted by at least two-thirds of the members.
If the Committee of the United Diet declares itself, on the deliberation of a law, against the law, or some of the provisions of the same, by a less majority than that above mentioned, the views of the minority are also to be laid before us. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The term ‘individual affiliated with a political committee’ means, with respect to a political committee, an employee of the committee as well as any independent contractor of the committee and any individual who performs services on behalf of the committee, whether paid or unpaid. ”

“ They were previously appointed by the district, and congress has only devolved the duty on them. To say therefore that this act is a statute of the United States, is more than saying that the aforementioned act of the committee or its chairman would be so. That committee holds its authority more directly from Congress and from the people than the corporation does, and is a part at least of those to whom the authority in question has been delegated. ”

“ And to complete the exclusion of the people from all efficient control, in the selection of a presidential candidate, an interlocutory committee is generally appointed out of its members to act from one convention to another—during the whole interval of four years between their periodical assemblages—to guide and conduct the public mind, in the different States, to the support of the person on whom they have secretly agreed. ”