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analyses of each executive branch agency "to enable Congress to determine whether public funds have been economically and efficiently administered

and expended."

Continuing the legislative investigative function is the 1950 Budget and Accounting Act (64 Stat. 832), which assigned new responsibilities to the Comptroller General including full disclosure to the GAO of the results

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of financial operations of the agencies and the determination by GAO to what extent the accounting and related financial reporting fulfill the purposes specified in legislation.

Another relevant citation is the 1970 Legislative Reorganization Act (P.L. 91-510; 84 Stat. 1140). Section 204 (a) of that act provides that the Comptroller "review and analyze the results of Government programs and activities carried on under existing law...when ordered by either House of Congress, or upon his own initiative..." (Emphasis added)

The contention that the Comptroller General performs neither legislative nor executive functions exclusively is reinforced by the proposition that he is an independent officer of the United States, not an agent or ward of the legislature. The 1921 Budget and Accounting Act (42 Stat. 23) provided that the GAO "shall be independent of the executive departments" (Sec. 301) and that certain duties of the Comptroller General shall "be exercised without direction from any other officer" (Sec. 304). Debate surrounding the 1921

of Investigation, the first such review in the history of either office. Recently, Comptroller General Staats testified before the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the GAO is unable to obtain all the relevant information from the intelligence agencies in order to produce a comprehensive audit or assess the efficiency of operations. In addition to statutory restrictions, Staats cited the lack of legal authority for the GAO to command responses to its inquiries from the agencies. Review of Staats' testimony was provided by Lawrence Meyer. GAO Is Uable to Give Costs of Intelligence. Washington Post. August 1, 1975, P. A2.

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Act also emphasized the independent status of the Comptroller General's office,

as noted by Representative Good, chairman of the House Select Committee on

the Budget:

I think it was under the administration of President Cleveland
that the President desired to use a certain appropriation for a
given purpose, and was told by his Comptroller of the Treasury,
who happened to be a little independent of this system, that he
could not do it. But the President insisted and finally said,
'I must have that fund, and if I can not change the opinion of
my comptroller, I can change my comptroller.' With less inde-
pendence all comptrollers, no matter to which political party
they owe allegiance, have been forced to face the same practical
situation.

Now, we propose to change that. We believe that the Committee
on Appropriations and the committees on expenditures and on revenue
that are investigating matters under their jurisdiction should
have at all times something more than an ex parte statement with
regard to expenditures. .." 61 Cong. Rec. 982 (1921).

It was the intention of the Committee that the comptroller
general should be something more than a bookkeeper or accountant;
that he should be a real critic, and at all time should come
to Congress, no matter what the political complexion of Congress
or the Executive might be, and point out inefficiency, if he
found that money was being misapplied which is another term
for inefficiency that he would bring such facts to the notice
of the committees having jurisdiction of appropriations." 61
Cong. Rec. 1090 (1921).

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When the first proposal for an independent accounting office was offered in 1919, one of its supporters, Congressman Mandell, remarked...

The officers and employees of this department (a general ac-
counting office) will at all times be going into the separate depart-
ments in the examination of their accounts. They will discover the
very facts that Congress ought to be in possession of and can fear-
lessly and without fear of removal present these facts to Congress
and its committees. 18/

18/

58 Cong. Rec. 7219 (1919).

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According to the GAO brief filed on behalf of the Comptroller General,

19/

the 1949 Reorganization Act (63 Stat. 203) referred to the Comptroller General as "a part of the legislative branch of the Government" as a means of exempting the GAO from any executive reorganization plan and, thereby, infringing upon the independence of the office. Finally, the Impoundment Control Act

20/

of 1974 (P.L. 93-344, 31 U.S.C. 1406) recognizes that the Comptroller General "sues in his own right" 21/ and not as an agent of the Congress in challenging

executive impoundments.

Concluding this section, it is contended that the variety of functions performed by the Comptroller General's office, the authorities and statutory protections of the office, and the duties and responsibilities of the office combine to ensure a high degree of independence from executive branch and a lesser but still substantial degree from the legislature.

III. Appointments of Comptrollers General

Following is a list of Comptrollers General since the inception of the office in 1921.

Brief filed on behalf of the plaintiff in Staats v. Lynn.

19/

20/

21/

Ibid.

P. 38.

op. cit.

Statement made by Senator Ervin on behalf of his amendment to prohibit the Comptroller General from serving as a "representative of Con

gress" in this regard.

120 Cong. Rec. S. 4287 (daily ed. March 22, 1974).

61-502 O 759

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The initial appointment of John R. McCarl by President Harding provoked little controversy during the proceedings. It has been contended that Comp

troller of the Treasury Warwick might have received the nomination to the new office. However, delays in passage of the Budget and Accounting Act, the election of a new Administration, and Comptroller Warwick's "reputed unwillingness to take care of the Auditor for the War Department, whose

place was among those the act abolished," 22/ frustrated that ambition.

In

stead, President Harding nominated a man unattached to the previous Administration and, in fact, someone with "little training in administration, law or accounting that would equip him for his tasks." 23 Comptroller McCarl

Ahad previously served as Executive Secretary to the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee (1918 and 1920) and attempted to recruit applicants for the office of Comptroller General from among congressional Republicans. Instead, McCarl was offered the position. Harvey Mansfield's 24/ history of the early period of the GAO concluded that McCarl, as the first Comptroller General, expanded the duties and developed the independence of the office to an extensive degree. The following quotes Mansfield's conclusions:

Three leading features characterized his administration. The first

of these was an expansion of the Comptroller General's working jurisdiction through the assertion to the utmost of all the legal powers the office could claim. Powers of revision and supervision that the Comptrollers had occasionally claimed but seldom exercised, the Comptroller General undertook the exercise

as a matter of routine. Statutes were tortured, and the usual legal pre

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sumptions reversed, in order to support new pretensions.

If this was the meaning of independence, it was abundantly realized. In practice it chiefly meant controversies over the finality of administrative determinations and the continual substitution of the Comptroller General's conclusions on matters of fact and of law for those of the department heads. To a large degree he was successful in these assertions and in consequence he narrowed markedly the previous scope of departmental discretion.

it

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'Second, he concentrated his efforts upon the exercise of administrative controls rather than upon reports to Congress. The confusion of audit and control inherent in the Budget and Accounting Act left continuously open a choice of alternative courses of action whenever the Comptroller General discovered something he disapproved. Either he could try to correct it by administrative action in his own office, or he could tell Congress about act, that is, either in a controlling or in an auditing capacity. Title III of the Act had been sold to Congress largely on the argument that the latter function was being neglected and that Congress would be kept more fully and frankly informed by an independent auditor. But as it turned out, independence increased also the power and temptation to control. The Comptroller General soon tired of reporting to Congress. He preferred to take matters in his own hands, and it was only when departmental opposition or defects of power prevented him from securing results to his own satisfaction that he took his complaints to Congress. In consequence the state of Congressional intelligence was left very much where it had been.

"Third, he insisted upon centralizing the work of his office as completely as possible in Washington and under his thumb. 125/

Ibid. PP. 71-72.