H.R. 12606 places these administrative duties upon the officers where they rightly belong and for which they were elected. 8. Public Law 88-652 sets up an insidious process of deterioration in the services of the House by its radical reduction in rates of pay offered a new employee replacing one with long service. This reduction in the efficient service of the House will continue at an accelerated pace as more and more of the present employees are replaced. H.R. 12606 would permit the officer to classify the employee in accordance with the skills needed for the work to be performed. This in conformity with such authority now granted by law and the Rules of the House to all Members in appointing their clerks; to chairmen of committees, in appointing staff members; to the Speaker, the majority and minority leaders, in making staff appointments; and to the Parliamentarian, in making his appointments. 9. Public Law 88-652 restricts salaries to a level less than the Civil Service Classification Act. H.R. 12606 should be amended to require that the House employees salary table include at least the full range of the scale provided in the Civil Service Classification Act table. 10. Public Law 88-652 has created the deplorable condition that exists in the folding room at this time. H.R. 12606 would enable the Doorkeeper to have met this situation and have performed the service required of him. 11. Public Law 88-652 has brought about the expenditure of excessive amounts of money but at the same time failing to meet the degree of service that should be expected. H.R. 12606 would conserve the expenditure of money for personal services and increase very materially the ability of the officers to secure a higher degree of performance in the service of the House. I am sure that all the officers will be glad to go into detail in regard to this matter when they appear before your committee. Sincerely yours, RALPH R. ROBERTS, Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives. Sergeant at Arms, U.S. House of Representatives. (Representative Thomas B. Curtis requested that the following articles be inserted in the record:) CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CONGRESS, March 1, 1966. Senator A. S. MIKE MONRONEY, Cochairmen, Joint Committee on the Organization of the Congress, DEAR COCHAIRMEN: Among the areas of study committed to the Joint Committee on the Organization of the Congress are "the relationships between the Congress and other branches of the Government." On February 24, 1966, I requested the insertion in our hearings of law review articles by Prof. Raoul Berger, entitled "Executive Privilege v. Congressional Inquiry," which covered one important aspect of relations between the Congress and the executive branch of the Government. It is my opinion that there are three further aspects of relations between Congress and the executive branch on which material should appear in the record of our hearings and I am attaching as appendixes three items which, in my judgment, should be included in the record as follows: 1. A research paper by Gordon Russell Pipe, entitled "Congressional Liaison: The Executive Branch Consolidates Its Relations With Congress.” 2. Executive lobbying-an excerpt from the Congressional Quarterly entitled "Legislators and the Lobbyists." 3. An excerpt from the files of the Government Information and Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the House Government Operations Committee (the Moss committee), consisting of a table showing personnel, salary expenditures, and related costs for public information activities of executive departments and independent agencies for the fiscal year, 1963. As I recall, there is practically nothing in our record on the subject of relations between Congress and the judicial branch of the Government. The committee's associate counsel, George Meader, has personally engaged in a study of judicial decisions affecting the operations of the Congress and has been assisted by Robert L. Tienken of the American Law Division of the Legislative Reference Service, Library of Congress. Mr. Tienken has prepared an outline summary of litigation, including Supreme Court decisions in which the constitutional powers, the intent of Congress or the procedures of the Congress have come under the scrutiny of the courts in which decisions have been made affecting the operations of the Congress. In my view, this might well be an area to which the committee could devote greater attention, but the inclusion in our record of the Legislative Reference Service summary will help to fill this gap in the very important area of committee study of the relations between Congress and the judicial branch of the Government. Sincerely, THOMAS B. CURTIS, CONGRESSIONAL LIAISON: THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH CONSOLIDATES ITS RELATIONS WITH CONGRESS (By G. Russell Pipe) This study, primarily a survey of the congressional liaison offices established within 10 executive departments, attempts to identify the organizational structures of these offices, to describe interrelationships created within the executive branch by these offices, and to provide an insight into the characteristics of congressional liaison activity. It is not designed to be exhaustive but to identify an area of political activity deserving of further scrutiny by students of government. Data have been gathered primarily through written communications and personal interviews with congressional liaison officers. In January 1965, a remark by a freshman Democratic Congressman stimulated the author's interest in this subject. The Congressman said: "I had heard a lot about lobbyists before I came to Washington and expected to be besieged when I arrived. I was. To my amazement the first 10 lobbyists who came in to see me were from the 10 executive departments, offering assistance, literature, and advice on their legislative programs." THE CONGRESSIONAL LIAISON OFFICE AND EXECUTIVE-LEGISLATIVE RELATIONSHIPS Students of the executive-legislative relationships in the Federal Government have commented widely on the ways and means by which Presidents, Cabinet members, and heads of agencies have sought to see their legislative wishes transformed into statutes by the usually strongminded, sometimes openly hostile group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The congressional liaison activity is not new, in the sense that executive departments have long pressed for enactment of their programs. What is new is the institution of an office in each department, especially assigned to conduct the department's relations with Congress. There are many reasons for the establishment of congressional liaison offices. They include the need for a unified presentation of departmental proposals, and proper coordination of the legislative program with Members of Congress, the desire to enhance the service functions of a department and to develop a cadre of specialists to serve the Executive and to assist legislators with technical problems, and the belief that an avenue of political contact with Congress, for contracts and patronage as well as legislative objectives, must be maintained on a continuing basis. The whys of congressional liaison are not to be explored. but rather the structure which has been created, how it functions, its behavior as a political-administrative institution, and its impact on executive-legislative relations. Emergence of the Congressional Liaison Office Formation of the Bureau of the Budget in 1921 can be considered the first formal attempt to coordinate a vital element of executive activity-that of proposals concerning annual appropriations. In 1939, the Bureau was transferred 1 The newly formed Department of Housing and Urban Development is not considered. to the Executive Office of the President where today it is recognized to be a key factor in formulating the President's legislative program. For many years, department and agency budget and fiscal officers made an annual trek to the Bureau of the Budget, and to the Appropriations Committee of the House and Senate. In addition, Cabinet officers, bureau chiefs, and agency heads often dealt directly with Members of Congress on legislative matters without fiscal or policy clearances at the White House or the Bureau of the Budget. Shortly after World War II, the Department of Defense created an Office of the Secretary of Defense for Congressional Liaison, thereby centralizing congressional relations which earlier were handled by each of the services. The Department of State established the Office of Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations in 1949, in part because of the recommendations of the Hoover Commission which commented on the need for better cooperation between the Department and Congress." By 1955, Congressional Liaison Offices were operating in the Post Office Department and the Departments of Commerce and Health, Education, and Welfare. The last to establish such an office was the Department of Interior which did so in 1963. These departmental-level congressional liaison staffs form an important link between the Cabinet member, Congress, the Bureau of the Budget, White House, and other departments and agencies, as well as internal bureaus and offices. Lobbying and the congressional liaison function Some Members of Congress, students of government, and representatives of interest groups believe that congressional liaison activities by the executive constitutes "lobbying"-i.e., the promotion of a vested interest, which should be prohibited. There are a few careful analyses of the efforts of those whose job classifications are to work at the Capitol on behalf of specific departmentally sponsored legislation. Obviously, informational services are legitimate, and perhaps some other, or even all, of the assignments undertaken by representatives of Cabinet departments (or the White House) should not be considered undesirable. These questions will not be resolved here. They do exist and as congressional liaison offices expand and become more aggressive, they will be discussed with greater frequency. Congressional liaison officers must be advocates of administration policy; they work under directives from the Cabinet member and the White House to use their talents in dealing with Congress to the best of their ability. The statutory definition of a lobbyist, "a person, who *** in any manner whatsoever directly or indirectly * ** receives money *** for the principal purpose to aid *** the passage or defeat of any legislation by the Congress of the United States" does not apply to any public official acting in an official capacity." RESPONSIBILITIES AND PATTERNS OF ORGANIZATION OF DEPARTMENTAL LIAISON Structure, organization, and duties OFFICES The congressional liaison function in each of the 10 executive departments is located in the Office of the Secretary, with an assistant to the Secretary as the chief congressional liaison officer. The Departments of State and Health, Education, and Welfare have an Assistant Secretary who handles congressional relations. Liaison officers have varying formal authority and rely considerably on the confidence and prestige the Secretary gives to their office. Each congressional liaison office is charged with the basic responsibility of coordinating departmental relations with Congress, and serves as a focal point for congressional inquiries and constituent requests. Congressional liaison personnel coordinate the scheduling of testimony, reporting of bills, floor action, and the related mechanics of securing passage of a bill, as a legislative flow chart would illustrate. They are most often on the "Hill" in a day-to-day capacity. Some are troubleshooters for the Secretary and have credentials to speak for them on various policy matters, some gather intelligence and try to sense the pulse of The recommendations of John Peurifoy, then Assistant Secretary of State for Administration, were valuable guidelines at that time and have contemporary significance. They are contained in: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Hearings on H.R. 3559 To Strengthen and Improve the Organization and Administration of the Department of State, 81st Cong., 1st sess., 1949. An exhaustive study of the liaison office in the Department of State is to be found in the unpublished M.A. thesis of Joseph C. Rigert, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., thesis, No. 1806. United States Code 261-270. 47-814-66-pt. 15 Congress, while others essentially are runners to and from the Department to congressional offices or committees. Congressional liaison offices do not extensively engage in appropriation or budget matters as they relate to the funding of a department's regular operations. Nor do the technical legislative drafting duties, preparation of testimony, reports on pending bills and other essentially legal specialties rest in the domain of the congressional liaison officer. They remain the function of the fiscal officer and general counsel, respectively. Greater parallels among congressional liaison offices emerge in the service function to Members of Congress for information on bills, and for problems with district projects or constituent requests than in the more sensitive area of mobilization of a department's entire legislative program. The congressional liaison officers in the Departments of State, Defense, Interior, Agriculture, and Labor are the principal, centralized directors of legislative programing. In the Departments of the Treasury, Post Office, Commerce, and Health, Education, and Welfare, legislative programs are not exclusively in the province of the congressional liaison officer. Nor are they in the Department of Justice, which has a very special situation: "Unlike agencies whose subject matter activity is limited (e.g., Agriculture, Defense, Labor, etc.), legislative requests to the Department of Justice run the gamut of all legislative activity. This is so primarily because the legal implications and questions as to which the Department of Justice views are requested cross subject matter lines, involving matters of substantive concern to all of the other executive departments and agencies." All congressional liaison offices handle inquiries. Some do this through extensive facilities and staffing in a single unit, while others redirect most requests to the office having immediate operational responsibilities. Scope of liaison office activities The volume of requests, number of personnel required to dispose of them, the man-hours involved, and consequent operating costs of congressional liaison operations in the 10 executive departments in one fiscal year heighten understanding of their importance. 1 Data in the files of the chairman, Subcommittee on Foreign Operations and Government Information, House Committee on Government Operations. These figures include all subdepartmental congressional liaison activities and in some cases include selected public information services. All data are for fiscal year 1963. It is probable that these fiscal year 1963 figures represent a plateau of organization upon which President Johnson has constructed additional legislative liaison functions. Recent inquiries to congressional liaison officers on this subject indicate a sharp upward curve in the number of telephone calls, quantities of corre Statement contained in letter to the author by Barefoot Sanders, Assistant Deputy Attorney General, Department of Justice, Dec. 2, 1965. spondence, requests for visits to congressional offices and committees, and the volume of reports and memorandums entailed in responding to congressional inquiries. It should be noted that the Department of Defense and Civil Service Commission have offices in the House Office Building; some departments station one or more congressional liaison officers at the Capitol full time during the session; and there are instances of "staff borrowing" from other offices in a department practiced at peak legislative periods. The institutionalization of the congresisonal liaison office becomes more firmly established each year as staff members become more skilled and experienced, and as Congress has learned to lean more heavily on these offices as sources of information and service. Liaison personnel and operational costs During fiscal year 1963, congressional liaison directly involved the full-time services of 500 Government employees at a cost of $5,432,938.5 CHART NO. 2.-Number of personnel and total costs for congressional activities in fiscal year 1963 Source: Data in the files of the chairman, Subcommittee on Foreign Operations and Government Information, House Committee on Government Operations. These figures include all subdepartmental congressional liaison personnel and costs and in some cases include selected public information service personnel and costs. All data is for fiscal year 1963. These figures would be considerably higher if the and cost for congressional assistance could be tallied. suggests this in the following statement: actual total of personnel The Department of State "In additional to the personnel in the Department directly involved full tme in preparing and providing information to the Congress, many employees throughout the Department spend varying amounts of time preparing informational material for the Congress; nearly all of the responses to congressional inquiries and material for presentation are prepared by the relevant or functional specialists. However, it is impossible to identify these individuals in terms of the hours so spent and their salary cost."* One important factor determining the size of any congressional liaison office is whether a centralized congressional answering service is maintained or whether requests for information on programs, contracts, etc., and legislative inquiries in general are distributed to appropriate bureans and/or respective field offices. It is difficult to determine from these figures the quantity of legislative liaison as distinguished from the routine services a department would be required to undertake if request come directly from constituents. By far the largest congressional liaison force is operating in the Department of Defense. Interviews and correspondence describing the growth in personnel and administrative expenses for legislative liaison in other departments suggest that they, by no means, have become equal to Defense. * See source of data for Chart No. 2. • Ibid. |