Political 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 this way very much of the work of the legislature is done by branches of each House, and by selected men whose time and intellects are devoted to special subjects. It is easy to see that much time and useless debate may be thus saved, and I am disposed to believe that this system of committees has worked efficiently and beneficially. The mode of selection of the members has been so contrived as to give to each political party that amount of preponderance in each committee which such party holds in the House. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ During the government of the Committee the business concerns of the city and the vocations of its citizens were carried on with at least as much regularity and success as ever. Since its resignation and the consequent dispersion of its power not a banished man has returned contrary to the terms of his expulsion, and no member of the Committee, nor any one who acted by and within its authority, has been called to account for his acts within the bounds either of the city or of the State to which it belongs. ”

“ It is incredible, and yet it is not impossible. But is it true that a majority of the Republicans in that committee, as is stated, can assent to such propositions? Is it possible that they can trample under foot everything that is dear to their constituents? ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is hard for us, who have this commended constitution under our noses, to perceive wherein we have the advantage. British legislation is for the most part originated and shaped by a single committee, acting in secret, whose proposals, when produced, are eagerly debated and freely judged by the sovereign legislative body. Our legislation is framed and initiated by a great many committees, deliberating in secret, whose proposals are seldom debated and only perfunctorily judged by the sovereign legislative body. ”

“ It must be obvious to every one, even to persons of the most suspicious dispositions, that this institution is perfectly disinterested, and owes its origin entirely to pure benevolence, and an active zeal for the public good, when it is known that a Committee appointed by his Electoral Highness, under the direction of the Presidents of the Council of War, the Supreme Regency, and the Ecclesiastical Council, will have the sole administration and direction of the affairs of the institution, and that the monthly collections of alms will be made by creditable persons properly authorised ”

“ Until the Committee gives us the facts Congress will occupy itself with the ideas. This discussion will go on for months. I do not see how it can be stopped; nor do I think it desirable to stop it. At last the evidence, as reported, will show the necessity of interference by Congress. Now, to my mind the single point to be reached is the assertion of jurisdiction by Congress.
One person will reach this point by one road and another by another road. ”

“ Fiske Warren who is active in a movement to bring Mobini to this country that I did not think our committee should take the lead or identify itself with that matter, but that, if the thing was to be done at all, a separate committee composed of men of comparatively less conspicuous standing in this fight should be formed for that purpose. ”

“ Let our men in the committee offer amendment upon amendment; let them discuss every proposition at length, make speech upon speech, motion upon motion, so as to prevent the committee from making an early report. Then let them get up as many minority reports as possible, and as soon as they are submitted to the House, discuss them at length, every one of them, amend them again, and in this way drag along the discussion so as to prevent the House from coming to a final vote before the 4th of March. Everything is gained if Congress does not close and compromise Mr. ”

“ So I am trying to step away from the partisanship here and just support the ranking member's secondary motion to, before we jump into something, before we jump off a cliff without the ability to see what is there -- because none of us have seen it -- and decide that we are going to hinge our political careers -- there are lots of other equities at stake. But believe me, if it turns out that the majority memo is wrong, there will be hell to pay. If it turns out that the minority memo is wrong, there will be hell to pay. ”

“ The problem is your staff isn't in any position to be able to vet our memo or your own for the equities of the investigation and sources and methods. Neither of our staffs is in that position. That is precisely why we have asked the FBI and the Department of Justice to do that.
We can wait a week. I understand the political stratagem. You want your memo to be out there for a week and the public to have only one version for a week so you can set the narrative. That makes this political exercise all the more transparent. ”

“ You don't know how to investigate whether someone is engaged in corruption or whether they've got a bad business history. And so, you know, you hire someone who specializes in that kind of work. So we specialize in finding records and reading things and digesting large volumes of information.
MR. GOWDY: If I understood your testimony correctly, you don't specialize in political opposition research?
MR. SIMPSON: It's not a major line of business for us. It's, you know, every couple of years, 3, 4, when there's a Presidential campaign we get asked to do stuff. ”

“ MR. SIMPSON: Well, we've only had a very small number of political clients. So I can tell you, I mean, our methodology doesn't really change. We -- my firm is -- all the principals are former journalists, so we don't come out of the political combat industry. We come out of the, you know, journalism industry, which is all about sort of sticking to the facts and not leaping to conclusions and not trying to, you know, come up with a hit piece on anybody. So, generally speaking, you know, what we get compensated for is producing reliable treatments of whatever the subject is. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In England and the United States alike it is supreme. It elects the members of all the Legislatures, since it controls the nominations, without which no candidate can go with a chance of success to the poll. It appoints the executive, which is a committee of its leaders, and the composition of which always depends on the fortunes of the party conflict; it supplies the working organization of the Legislature, a reorganization of which in England or elsewhere will be attempted in vain without a solution of this preliminary question. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The President of the Assembly can, if necessary, of his own initiative or by the desire of ten Members of the Assembly or of a Minister, form a Secret Committee, without the presence of newspaper reporters or spectators, composed of a number of persons chosen from among the Members of the Assembly, at which the other Members of the Assembly will not have the right to attend. ”