Political action committee

“ By the aristocracy and through secret caucuses, candidates were chosen, proceedings were cut and dried, and committees were packed. When committees could not be packed without opposition, the resolutions further read, two sets of committeemen were usually elected, and that set whose political complexion best suited the packed majority of the general committee was always accepted without any regard to the majorities of the people. ”

“ They recognize and support simple, straightforward, inartificial party government, under a standing committee of responsible party leaders, bringing legislature and executive side by side in intimate but open coöperation; whilst we, preferring to keep Congress and the departments at arm's length, permit only a less direct government by party majorities, checking party action by a complex legislative machinery of two score and eight composite, semi-ministerial Committees. The English take their parties straight,—we take ours mixed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are no more than the proposals of a mixed Committee, and may be rejected without political inconvenience to either party or reproof to the Committee; just as they may be passed without compliment to the Committee or political advantage to either side of the House. Neither party has any great stake in the controversy. The only importance that can attach to the vote must hang upon its relation to the next general election. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Or, in the second case,—the community may have made over to a committee composed of a few Individuals, or even to one Individual, the superintendence and direction of the whole;—and in this case they resign their own right of direction and judgment in the administration of Government,—but only so far as outward action is concerned, for in thought and speech they are still at liberty to do what they will,—and unconditionally subject their own practically active will to the will of their authorised committee or individual manager. ”

“ 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. ”

“ By maintaining political resolve, respecting the rule of law, promoting democracy, serving the people, and functioning with high efficiency, we worked hard to improve the quality of our work. We worked to build the NPC and its Standing Committee into political institutions that consciously uphold the Party's leadership, institutions of state power that ensure the running of the country by the people, working institutions that assume functions conferred in the Constitution and the law, and representative institutions that always maintain close ties with the people. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Although this Court has never adopted so strict a standard for reviewing committee reports, floor debates, and other nonstatutory indications of congressional intent, and we explicitly reject that standard today, see also infra, at 455, even if "absurdity" were the test, one would think it was met here. The idea that Members of Congress would vote for a bill subjecting their own political parties to bureaucratic intrusion and public oversight when a President or Cabinet officer consults with party committees concerning political appointments is outlandish. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 the Committee continues in active and constant exercise for nearly three months, [91] when the purification of the city from crime and from criminals being accomplished, the authority of the laws is restored, also the use of the ballot-box which had been desecrated; this restoration is by the order and in pursuance of the authority and power of the Committee which are voluntarily laid down with the approbation and consent of a community consisting of from 25,000 to 30,000 persons. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The argument in favor of the system of committees is the impossibility of a large deliberative body's examining every matter within the scope of its action in detail; the objection to it is the possibility of more easily corrupting or deceiving a small body than a large one; but whatever be the argument against it as a matter of theory, the committee system is fully recognized as a necessity and is too firmly intrenched in parliamentary practice to be successfully argued against. A select committee is one appointed at a special time to consider and report on a given topic ”

“ But, from the standpoint of the professional politician, all this that the voter sees is a mask, the patriotic veneer to hide the machine, that complex hierarchy of committees ranging from Washington to every cross-roads in the Republic. The committee system, described in a former chapter, was perfected by the Republican party during the days of the Civil War, under the stress of national necessity. The great party leaders were then in Congress. When the assassination of Lincoln placed Andrew Johnson in power, the bitter quarrel between Congress and the President firmly united the Republicans ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When, however, the consent of more than one department has to be obtained, before local action can be commenced, the worry to be undergone is immensely increased. If the committee had greater freedom, it would soon acquire the confidence of the public, and become the ordinary channel for the distribution of the many streams of private benevolence, which are now too often wasted for want of effective direction. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus is the parliamentary rule which forbids a person unfriendly to the business of the committee, whatever it may be, whether bill or inquiry, from serving on the committee, one of those inhibitions by which public business is promoted, by which impartiality is secured, [Pg 55] and especially by which a minority is shielded against the wantonness of power. ”

“ The Committee is allowed, in essence, to define its own authority, to choose the direction and focus of its activites. In deciding what to do with the power that has been conferred upon them, members of the Committee may act pursuant to motives that seem to them to be the highest. Their decisions, nevertheless, can lead to ruthless exposure of private lives in order to gather data that is neither desired by the Congress nor useful to it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Indeed it is not usual for the Committees to open their sittings often to those who desire to be heard with regard to pending questions; and no one can demand a hearing as of right. On the contrary, they are privileged and accustomed to hold their sessions in absolute secrecy. It is made a breach of order for any member to allude on the floor of the House to anything that has taken place in committee, "unless by a written report sanctioned by a majority of the Committee;" ”

“ There would then certainly be a compact opposition to face the organized majority. Committee reports would be taken to represent the views of the party in power, and, instead of the scattered, unconcerted opposition, without plan or leaders, which now sometimes subjects the propositions of the Committees to vexatious hindrances and delays, there would spring up debate under skillful masters of opposition, who could drill their partisans for effective warfare and give shape and meaning to the purposes of the minority. ”