On Sept. 17, 1787, the final draft of the U.S. Constitution was signed. In order to prevent tyranny, the founders of the newly formed government installed a series of checks and balances, creating a set of protections for the people.
On Sept. 19, 2019, the Trump administration began a seemingly endless attack on the basic concept of checks and balances, with the popular vote loser decrying the concept of oversight entirely. The White House has stonewalled repeated attempts at oversight by rejecting subpoenas and refusing to testify, supply records, or even follow federal guidance on whistleblowers.
When convenient, Republicans praise the Founding Fathers of our nation. But when it’s inconvenient, they simply govern as though the Founding Fathers’ ideas simply don’t apply to them. ‘It’s okay if you’re a Republican’ seems to be the motto.
Oversight was baked into the American experiment from the very beginning. Maybe it is time for the administration to brush up on some American history.
From the federal level to the state house, oversight was such an important part of our democracy that the idea of refusing oversight came with real consequences. In the very first Congress, the elected members of the U.S. House of Representatives decided that it would be inappropriate for the president himself, a guy by the name of George Washington, to convene his own investigation into potential impropriety.
From The Constitutional Accountability Center:
Resolved, That a committee be appointed to inquire into the causes of the failure of the late expedition under Major General St. Clair; and that the said committee be empowered to call for such persons, papers, and records, as may be necessary to assist their inquiries.
The measure passed by a 44-10 vote. Who voted for it? Oh, just people like James Madison, that’s who.
In a piece for The Washington Post, Ronald Welch, professor of law, writes:
Oversight is not a game. It is a core constitutional function, a cornerstone of the structural checks and balances on which our federal government is built. Congress cannot carry out its constitutional duties without the power to investigate whether the laws it enacts are being faithfully executed and whether the money it appropriates is being properly spent. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the exercise of congressional oversight, including the power of committees to issue subpoenas, because oversight is “inherent in the legislative process.”
While concerns about the disregard for oversight certainly are amplified under the Trump administration, it is hard to not look back at prior Republican presidents and see where lack of oversight became costly for our country. Think of George W. Bush and Hurricane Katrina, or Ronald Reagan and Iran-Contra.
On the local level, lack of solid oversight has left communities permanently scarred, from Flint, Michigan, to Wichita, Kansas. In short, Republicans have gone out of their way to contend that all oversight is regulation, and well, all regulation is bad.
However, oversight truly is the duty of elected officials. When elected, members of Congress swear to abide by the Constitution and to represent the people. They do not take an oath to represent their party, their donor base, or a president.
For Congress and local leaders, oversight is the means to provide watchful care over the interests of the people. In Watkins v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court made the profound importance of this duty clear.
The power of the Congress to conduct investigations is inherent in the legislative process. That power is broad. It encompasses inquiries concerning the administration of existing laws as well as proposed or possibly needed statutes. It includes surveys of defects in our social, economic or political system for the purpose of enabling the Congress to remedy them. It comprehends probes into departments of the Federal Government to expose corruption, inefficiency or waste
The court held that these powers are broad and important, but Trump would like to put those same court decisions under fire. Trump’s attorneys are trying to argue that now is the time to end oversight, and that congress should not have the authority.
Oversight is not a dirty word. From mayors to governors to the president of the United States, the Trump administration’s arguments that oversight should not exist create an existential threat to the fate of our democracy.