Standing committee

“ The standing committees, and often the select committees also, are appointed by the Committee of Selection, which contains usually six adherents of the party in power, and five from the other side of the House. But they are members of great experience. They know the principles they are expected to apply, and with their discretion in the choice of individuals the ministers make no attempt to interfere. [321:2]
Influence of the Government in Committees.
The mere possession of a majority upon a committee is not always enough, unless the government can bring pressure to bear upon its followers. ”

“ Every deliberative assembly, having the right to purify its own body, must therefore have the right to investigate the character of its members. It can require any of them to testify in the case, under pain of expulsion if they refuse.
When the charge is against the member’s character, it is usually referred to a committee of investigation or discipline, or to some standing committee, to report upon. ”

“ The State Council, the Central Military Commission, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate or a special committee of the National People's Congress may submit a legislative bill to the Standing Committee, and the Council of Chairmen shall decide whether to put it on the agenda of a meeting of the Standing Committee or to refer it first to the relevant special committee for deliberation before deciding whether to put it on the agenda of a meeting of the Standing Committee in light of the report submitted by the relevant special committee. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the standing committee of the people's congress of a province or autonomous region examines the local regulations of a comparatively larger city submitted for approval, it shall make a decision to deal with the matter if it finds that the said regulations contradict the rules of the people's government of the province or autonomous region. ”

“ The local people's governments at or above the county level in the Yangtze River basin shall regularly report to the people's congresses at the corresponding level or their standing committees on their ecological and environmental protection and restoration work in the Yangtze River basin. ”

“ In the British House of Commons the functions and privileges of our Standing Committees are all concentrated in the hands of the Ministry, who have, besides, some prerogatives of leadership which even our Committees do not possess, so that they carry all responsibility as well as great power, and all debate wears an intense personal and party interest. Every important discussion is an arraignment of the Ministry by the Opposition,—an arraignment of the majority by the minority; and every important vote is a party defeat and a party triumph. ”

“ Constituencies can watch and understand a few banded leaders who display plain purposes and act upon them with promptness; but they cannot watch or understand forty odd Standing Committees, each of which goes its own way in doing what it can without any special regard to the pledges of either of the parties from which its membership is drawn. In short, we lack in our political life the conditions most essential for the formation of an active and effective public opinion. ”

“ So long as it continues to be governed by unrelated standing committees, and to take its resolves in accordance with no clear plan, no single, definite purpose, so long as what it does continues to be neither evident nor interesting, so long must all its exertions of power be invidious; so long must its competition with the executive or the judiciary seem merely jealous and always underhand: so long must it remain virtually impossible to control it through public opinion. ”

“ The amendment is adopted, after which he puts the question on the original motion as amended and it is adopted, and he announces the result thus:] The ayes have it and the motion is adopted. The chair appoints Mr. U, Mr. V, and Mr. W as the committee to which the motion is referred.
Mr. F. I move to suspend the standing rule limiting the motions allowed in these meetings. [Seconded.]
Mr. G. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman. For what does the gentleman rise?
Mr. G. I wish to ask the gentleman to withdraw his motion, as its adoption would permit so many motions with which we are unfamiliar. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whenever an improper motion is made, instead of simply ruling it out of order, it is well for the chairman to suggest how the desired object can be accomplished. [See "Hints to Inexperienced Chairman" below.]
The by-laws sometimes state that the president shall appoint all committees. In such case the assembly may authorize committees, but cannot appoint or nominate them. The president, however, cannot appoint any committees except those authorized by the by-laws or by a vote of the assembly. Sometimes the by-laws make the president ex-officio a member of every 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A committee for action should be small, and consist only of those heartily in favor of the proposed action. If one not in sympathy with it is appointed, he should ask to be excused. A committee for deliberation or investigation, on the contrary, should be large, 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 is unrepresented on the committee. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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 a committee of the legislature does not do what the legislature desires, it overturns the reports of the committee on the floor of the house, modifies it or does whatever it pleases with it, so under this resolution, the people will allow the legislature to act upon the measures as a matter of convenience. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As no subject would probably be considered more than once in committee of the whole, in an ordinary society, the enforcement of this rule would practically prevent such a society from putting any limit to debate in the committee. The rule, as given above, allows the society, whenever resolving itself into committee of the whole, to impose upon the debate in the committee such restrictions as are allowed in Congress after the subject has already been considered in committee of the whole. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Article 5 The principle of the rule of law shall be adhered to in preventing, suppressing, and imposing punishment for offences endangering national security. A person who commits an act which constitutes an offence under the law shall be convicted and punished in accordance with the law. No one shall be convicted and punished for an act which does not constitute an offence under the law. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”