CHAPTER II:

COMMITTEE ORGANIZATION, FUNCTIONS, AND RECORDS

This chapter presents information on committee activities together with the kinds of records required to document them. Its purpose is to provide administrative staff with an overview of basic organizational structure and corresponding methods to rationalize office information resources. It should be read by all newly appointed staff charged with overseeing records management and systems administration or by staff who wish to modify existing procedures.

A major part of the chapter is devoted to outlining committee activities and describing the types of file series which can facilitate information retrieval. Committee chief clerks and minority administrative clerks, together with designated individuals in each subcommittee office, should review the accompanying charts to determine which files series to create.

The final decision to set up files should be a joint decision of professional and administrative staff. Specific file series may be established to meet individual needs, but all staff should have a basic understanding of what files exist and where they are located. Remember, many committee legislative and investigative documents have long-term research value. Maintaining them in carefully designated file series contributes immensely towards their continued usefulness.

BACKGROUND AND EVOLUTION OF
COMMITTEES

The Senate of the First Congress began its work on April 6, 1789 with only twelve members. Over the next three decades the body grew slowly, reaching thirty-six members in 1816. The Senate's small size facilitated informal discussion of legislative proposals and made unnecessary the creation of formal standing committees. Normally the full Senate would discuss a legislative matter until some consensus had been reached. At that point, the body would establish a temporary committee to draft a specific proposal that incorporated the points previously agreed upon. As soon as the committee completed its work, it ceased to exist. Occasionally select committees were given the authority to examine broad subject

areas, but they too had limited life spans. Only three standing committees had been appointed before 1816, including Enrolled Bills (1789), Engrossed Bills (1806), and Contingent Expenses (1807). All dealt with "housekeeping" rather than legislative matters. At the end of the War of 1812, the Senate began to consider establishing a system of standing committees to encourage senators to develop expertise in areas of particular interest and to promote stability and continuity in the legislative system. On December 5, 1816 Senator James Barbour of Virginia moved that the Senate create eleven standing committees. Five days later the Senate adopted Barbour's motion and created the following committees: Claims, Commerce and Manufactures, Finance, Foreign Relations, Judiciary, Military Affairs, Militia, Naval Affairs, Pensions, Post Office and Post Roads, and Public Lands.

In addition to regular legislative duties, the employment of standing committees permitted the Senate regularly to assign the task of long-term studies and investigations. As early as the 10th Congress (18071809) the Senate routinely had begun to refer nominations to the select committees. This function was transferred to the newly established standing committees.

The total number of standing committees within a Congress, their names, and respective jurisdictions have changed dramatically over the years. The number reached an all-time high of seventy-four in 1913. In 1921 the Senate consolidated its committee system into thirty-four separate panels and in 1946, through the Legislative Reorganization Act, the number of standing committees was reduced to fifteen. In response to continued growth of committees and especially subcommittees, the Temporary Select Committee to Study the Senate Committee System (Stevenson Committee), in 1976, recommended the merger of several committees. Currently there are sixteen standing committees, three select committees, one special committee, and four joint commit

tees.1 Approximately thirteen hundred individuals are employed by these committees whose staffs range in size from twenty to one hundred forty persons. A proliferation of subcommittees and the resulting increase in schedule conflicts for members has kept alive the issue of committee reform. In its 1984 report, the Temporary Select Committee to Study the Senate Committee System (known as the Quayle Committee) described an ideal committee system in these terms

The Senate Committee System should serve as a legislative filter and refiner. Bills should be referred to the committee of appropriate jurisdiction so that the committee members, a group of experts in their area, may carefully analyze, critique, and alter proposed legislation

.. A bill emerging from a committee would be a refined product, technically sound, thoroughly understood by committee members and ready for consideration by the Senate.2

If this vision of committee operations is to be sustained, staff must come to grips with the ongoing challenges of recordkeeping. Just as the proliferation of assignments and issues has impeded the effectiveness of committee operations, so has the resulting fragmentation of records and information weakened the daily usefulness and ultimate research value of committee files. A management solution cannot be successfully implemented until all staff recognize the value of committee records and strive to maintain them. In terms of time and effort records are expensive to compile and analyze. Intelligently managed, they can prove invaluable to future research. Effective records management is a major factor in improving staff efficiency.

ORGANIZATION AND STAFFING

Diversity of staff organization among standing and select committees is the rule rather than the exception. Likewise, there is little standardization of job titles and related duties, although almost all committees have staff directors and chief clerks who perform certain administrative functions. Just as titles vary, so do the duties associated with these titles. One chief counsel might oversee and coordinate the work of the committee whereas another chief counsel, besides coordinating committee work, will cover a legislative subject area or issue in depth.

Despite these variations, it is possible to describe two general organizational models under which most committees can be grouped and to point out related

1Remarks of Senator Robert C. Byrd, "The Early History of Senate Committees," Congressional Record, 97th Congress, 1st Sess., July 31, 1981, S. 8915.

2Senate Report 98-254, p. 4.

variations in recordkeeping.3 Committee staff will need to consider their own committee organizational scheme when they design a records management plan. Specifically, they should

identify administrative units

ascertain subject areas of responsibility determine information needs

designate individuals within each unit to maintain both paper and electronic files

Centralized Staff-Committees organized in this manner will find "centralized" filing schemes most useful. Legislative and oversight files can be "centralized" physically or they can be maintained by individual staff, and "centralized" on paper. The object is to be able to inform staff where they may retrieve information, whether or not it is maintained in one central location. "Intellectual" centralization is achieved by creating a records management plan. The Senate Archivist is available to assist committees with designing such a plan.

Decentralized Staff-Decentrally organized committees include a small number of staff who work for the full committee, but most work for a particular subcommittee chairman.

Certain records such as full committee hearing and business meeting transcripts and official communications are best retained by the full committee. Extensive legislative and oversight files necessarily will be maintained within each subcommittee. With decentralized staffing, each subcommittee should create its own file plan. Subcommittee records managers should coordinate with the full committee to minimize duplication of recordkeeping. For example, the full committee may be designated as the office of record for all full committee hearing and business meeting transcripts thus freeing the subcommittees from maintaining extensive duplicate files.

MAJORITY AND MINORITY STAFF

The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 (79th Congress, P.L. 601) provided the basis for permanent professional committee staff positions. These positions were to be filled on the basis of competence, not party affiliation. The 1970 Legislative Reorganization Act (91st Congress, P.L. 91-51) included provisions permitting committee minority members, usually the ranking minority member, to appoint two professional staff members and one clerical staff member to the permanent staff of the committee. In 1977, Senate Resolution 4, (95th Congress, adopted February 4, 1977; Senate Rule XXVII.3),

3Paul S. Rundquist, "Committee Staff Organization and Management: Working Paper for Briefing Book on Senate Committees," Congressional Research Service, December 3, 1980, describes the three models in pages 13-21

augmented the minority staffing position by specifying that the committee staffs "should reflect the relative number of majority and minority members of the committees." A majority of the minority members of any committee may, by resolution, request that at least one-third of all personnel funds of the committee be allocated to the minority members. As a result, all committees, except the Select Committee on Ethics, which is nonpartisan, have established separate majority and minority staffs.

Just as the majority and minority are separate, so are most committee staff files separately maintained. Senate Rule XXVII.3 states that a majority of the minority members on a committee may request, by resolution, proportionate space, equipment, and facilities. Most minority staff have elected to do so. Because of this, it is especially important for the majority and minority chief counsels and administrative clerks to devise procedures that ensure the preservation of both majority and minority files. To preserve only the majority files is a violation of the Senate Rule which stipulates that "all committee . . records ... shall be the property of the Senate . . .” (Rule XXVI.10(a)). Moreover, to preserve only majority files is to preserve only half of a committee's historical record.

Recommendations for coordinating the disposition of majority and minority records include

Majority and minority administrative clerks may arrange to direct records retention and disposition within their respective offices.

Accordingly each must bring to the attention of their respective staffs the records retention requirements specified in Senate rules and statute. Staff should be reminded again when they resign from the committee.

The majority and minority administrative clerks should process transfers of noncurrent records directly through the Senate Archivist who will provide assistance with identifying permanent records.

Both clerks should retain copies of their respective transfer documents and indexes. Copies of all transfer documents are retained by the Senate Archivist for Senate permanent files.

COMMITTEE FUNCTIONS

The following discussion of major committee activities is intended to help clarify which records and information are most important for staff to retain. It should provide a framework for chief clerks and administrative clerks to implement records management routines tailored to each committee's traditional style and needs.

First and foremost is the legislative function. Committee staff devote a major portion of their time to studying, analyzing, and reporting legislation referred

to the committee for consideration. A good records system must have as its primary goal the arrangement and filing of records associated with this activity. Most offices set up legislative "case" files or "bill" files to document work on major bills. (For a full discussion, see the section on "Committee Activities And Their Records" at the end of this chapter.)

Committee influence extends beyond the initial control over the fate of legislative proposals because the committee of jurisdiction may dominate membership on the conference committee. Through this mechanism, a committee may regain in final legislation what it in its own chamber. Records documenting this aspect of committee work can include staff memoranda, briefing materials, and conference committee working papers. These should be carefully retained for inclusion with the committee's legislative "bill" files.

A second and equally important committee function is the performance of oversight inquiries. Senate Rule XXVI authorizes committees to review and study, on a continuing basis, the application, administration, and execution of those laws, or parts of laws, the subject matter of which is within the legislative jurisdiction of that committee. Under this rule, committees may carry out the required analysis, appraisal, and evaluation themselves, or by contract, or may require a government agency to do so and report to the Senate. Committees employ various techniques such as pilot testing, analysis of costs in comparison with benefits, or provision for evaluation. after a defined period of time.

Committee oversight can be either legislative or investigative. The former involves examination of programs and agencies for the purpose of deciding whether new legislation is needed. The latter is more exploratory with a view toward uncovering incompetence and wrong-doing in the administration of public policy. Staff involved in legislative oversight will accumulate quantities of correspondence with agency officials and reports on agency programs. A general subject file usually is the most convenient way to file. this type of information.

Records pertaining to investigatory oversight are especially difficult and vital to manage as they may contain primary research data, subpoenaed documents, depositions, staff evaluations and summaries, together with recommendations for proposed solutions. Frequently these unique and permanently valuable records become buried amidst great quantities of reference material such as transcripts of court cases and journal articles. It is important to create one "case" file for all records pertaining to a single

4Quoted in Bill Brock, "Committees in the Senate," The Annals of the American Academy of Political Science, edited by Norman J. Ornstein. Philadelphia, 1974, p. 22

investigation, and for complex investigations it is helpful to devise a system that segregates the unique and valuable documentation reflecting staff analysis from the more general reference material. (For a suggested arrangement of a large investigation file, see Chapter III, Investigative Files.)

Besides legislative and oversight work, committees receive presidential messages, petitions and memorials, and executive communications pertaining to their respective jurisdictional subject areas and have a need to file this information carefully and accurately, usually by the number assigned to the communication. Consideration of presidential nominations and treaties are other important committee activities which frequently result in the collection of significant amounts of documentation that must be deliberately filed and preserved. All committees participate in the congressional budget process and usually create separate files to maintain these records.

Within a given committee, it is not unusual for all of these various activities to proceed simultaneously, resulting in significant quantities of information and records being collected and generated during the course of a single day. Chief clerks and records managers should be able to recognize such information as it is created or received and should have set up rational filing systems to accommodate all such documents and information that must be retained.

IMPLEMENTING RECORDS MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES

The following steps are necessary to implement good committee records management procedures:

1) Circulate a reminder to all staff concerning Senate Rules XI and XVI(10) governing committee records. (May decide to use the Senate Legal Counsel memo reproduced in Appendix A, and sample memo to staff in Appendix D.)

2) Appoint one individual in each administrative unit (i.e. full and subcommittee, majority and minority offices) to be responsible for records management.

3) For current records that have not been appraised and scheduled, consult the Archivist to determine which records have long-term value and which have short-term value. Then:

"Cut off" or break existing file series at the close of the current Congress or year, as appropriate. Identify "pending" files and retain in the office for use in the next session of Congress.

File a cross-reference sheet for the withdrawn files in the appropriate place among inactive records. If the bill is renumbered or a subject

entry is retitled, the new number or title should be listed on the cross-reference sheet.

Store non-current files that will be referred to about twice a month in separate file drawers in the office. For those that are likely to have no immediate further use, contact the Senate Archivist at 224-3351, to arrange for appraisal and appropriate disposition.

Review at regular intervals all permanent documents stored on magnetic media and transfer them to an archival storage medium (paper, microfilm, or 9-track magnetic tape). Label all disks and tapes, and print out indexes to archival tapes.

4) To set up file series for a new Congress: Consult with office staff and with the Archivist (224-3351), if restructuring is desired, to ascertain which files are most efficient and appropriate for the office to create and maintain. For ideas, review the charts in Chapter II.

Decide where physically to locate each file series, either in a central location or at individual legislative or investigative staff desk areas. Label the file cabinet drawers, including the name of the series and the number of the Congress. Coordinate naming of drawers/series with the office automation systems administrator's guidelines for document naming and filing conventions. Require all records management staff with no prior records experience to review the detailed filing techniques outlined in Chapter VI. In addition, the Archivist, upon request, will conduct specially tailored records management seminars for committee administrative staff.

COMMITTEE ACTIVITIES AND THEIR RECORDS

The following charts detail activities common to most committees. They are arranged in seven functional categories including: review and reporting legislation, receiving official communications, performing oversight and investigations, consideration of nominations, consideration of treaties, the congressional budget process, and office management. A description of records resulting from each type of staff activity follows, together with suggestions for filing including when to establish separate file series. 5

5A file series is a group of file units or documents arranged in accordance with a filing system (chronological, alphabetical, numerical) or maintained as a unit because they relate to a particular subject or function, result from the same activity, have a particular form (such as magnetic tape, microfilm, etc.), or because of some other relationship arising out of their creation, receipt, or use. Examples of committee file series include bill files, investigative case files, nomination files, executive session transcripts, etc.