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HEARING ON PERSPECTIVES ON HOUSE REFORM:

LESSONS FROM THE PAST

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RULES 

OF THE

SELECT COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MAY 19, 2003

Serial No. 108–5

Printed for the use of the Select Committee on Homeland Security

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house

SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

Christopher Cox, California, Chairman 

Jennifer Dunn, Washington 

C.W. Bill Young, Florida 

Don Young, Alaska 

F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., Wisconsin 

W.J. (Billy) Tauzin, Louisiana 

David Dreier, California 

Duncan Hunter, California 

Harold Rogers, Kentucky 

Sherwood Boehlert, New York 

Lamar S. Smith, Texas 

Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania 

Christopher Shays, Connecticut 

Porter J. Goss, Florida 

Dave Camp, Michigan 

Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Florida 

Bob Goodlatte, Virginia 

Ernest J. Istook, Jr., Oklahoma 

Peter T. King, New York 

John Linder, Georgia 

John B. Shadegg, Arizona 

Mark E. Souder, Indiana 

Mac Thornberry, Texas 

Jim Gibbons, Nevada 

Kay Granger, Texas 

Pete Sessions, Texas 

John E. Sweeney, New York 

Jim Turner, Texas, Ranking Member 

Bennie G. Thompson, Mississppi 

Loretta Sanchez, California 

Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts 

Norman D. Dicks, Washington 

Barney Frank, Massachusetts 

Jane Harman, California 

Benjamin L. Cardin, Maryland 

Louise McIntosh Slaughter, New York 

Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon 

Nita M. Lowey, New York 

Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey 

Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Columbia 

Zoe Lofgren, California 

Karen McCarthy, Missouri 

Sheila Jackson–Lee, Texas 

Bill Pascrell, Jr., New Jersey 

Donna M. Christensen, U.S. Virgin Islands 

Bob Etheridge, North Carolina 

Charles Gonzalez, Texas 

Ken Lucas, Kentucky 

James R. Langevin, Rhode Island 

Kendrick B. Meek, Florida 

JOHN GANNON, Chief of Staff 

UTTAM DHILLON, Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff Director 

STEVEN CASH, Democrat Staff Director 

MICHAEL S. TWINCHEK, Chief Clerk

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RULES

Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Florida, Chairman 

Jennifer Dunn, Washington 

F. James Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin 

David Dreier, California 

Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania 

Porter Goss, Florida 

John Linder, Georgia 

Pete Sessions, Texas 

Christopher Cox, California, ex officio 

Louise McIntosh Slaughter, New York 

Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi 

Loretta Sanchez, California 

Zoe Lofgren, California 

Karen McCarthy, Missouri 

Kendrick B. Meek, Florida 

Jim Turner, Texas, ex officio

(II) 

CONTENTS 

MEMBERS STATEMENT 

The Honorable Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Florida, and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Rules ....................... 1

The Honorable Jim Turner, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Texas ................................................................................................................. 5 

WITNESSES 

Mr. Charles W. Johnson, Parliamentarian of the House of Representatives 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 6

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 10

Mr. Thomas E. Mann, W. Averell Harriman Chair and Senior Fellow, The 

Brookings Institution 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 28

Mr. Norman Ornstein, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 30

Mr. Thomas E. Mann and Mr. Norman Ornstein 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 34

MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

Mr. Charles W. Johnson, Parliamentarian of the House of Representatives ..... 49

(III) 

(1)

HEARING ON PERSPECTIVES ON HOUSE 

REFORM: LESSONS FROM THE PAST 

Monday, May 19, 2003

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY, SUBCOMMITTEE ON RULES, Washington, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 5:29 p.m., in Room 340, 

Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Lincoln Diaz-Balart [chairman 

of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Diaz-Balart, Dunn, Dreier, Goss, Linder, Slaughter, Sanchez, Lofgren, McCarthy, and Meek. 

Also Present: Representatives Cox and Turner. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Good afternoon. I would like to begin this 

hearing welcoming Chairman Dreier. And I know other members, 

Louise Slaughter, our ranking member, sent a message that she 

would be just a little late but she intends to be here. 

I would like to welcome not only our distinguished panelists, but 

all of our visitors to the first hearing of the Subcommittee on Rules 

of the Select Committee on Homeland Security. The mission of this 

subcommittee is an extraordinary one and it is difficult, but it is 

one that we do not shy away from. 

Today the subcommittee begins a series of hearings. The overall 

objective for our hearings is to solicit the insights and recommendations of experts on Congress, including scholars, both current and 

former Members of the House and perhaps former administration 

officials. 

The hearing today and the others that will follow are designed 

to help and, in turn help, the select committee fulfill the mandate 

given to it on the opening day of this Congress in H. Res. 5, and 

I will quote the most relevant part of H. Res. 5. ‘‘The select committee is authorized and directed to conduct a thorough and complete study of the operation and implementation of the rules of the 

House, including rule X with respect to the issue of homeland security. The select committee shall submit its recommendations regarding any changes in the Rules of the House to the Committee 

on Rules not later than September 30, 2004.’’ 

More than a decade has passed since the operations and the organization of the House were last subjected to a major review. That 

last thorough study was undertaken precisely in 1993 by the Joint 

Committee on the Organization of Congress on which our own 

Rules chairman, a member of this subcommittee, David Dreier, 

served as vice chairman. The select committee’s vice chairman, 

Jennifer Dunn, also served on the joint committee. Although ConVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:04 Sep 16, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\DOCS\HEARINGS\108-5\95778.TXT DIANE
2

gress was unable to enact a legislative reorganization act in 1994, 

some of the recommendations of the joint committee subsequently 

were adopted by the House. 

As we all know, since the 1993 joint committee much has 

changed in the Congress, in our country and in the world. And like 

other extraordinary events in our history, such as the attack on 

Pearl Harbor or man’s landing on the Moon, we will long remember 

what happened on September 11, 2001, when terrorists attacked 

the homeland of the United States. It is in response to September 

11, 2001, that our being here can best be explained. 

At the urging of Congress, President Bush signed legislation into 

law creating a new Department of Homeland Security, the largest 

reorganization of the executive branch since at least the establishment of the Department of Defense in 1947. Now, it is the responsibility of this subcommittee to assess whether the House and most 

especially its committee system is organized effectively to address 

the many issues associated with homeland security. 

We undertake this assignment with no preconceived ideas or preferred outcomes. We are open to all ideas and recommendations. 

We may find, for example, that the current standing committee 

structure is functioning as we wish it to function, or we may come 

to the conclusion that the committee system as it exists needs perhaps minor tinkering or significant reform. There may be additional rules besides rule X that might require our attention. My 

point is that the subcommittee is willing and open to explore a 

wide range of options and questions as we undertake our review of 

the House rules as mandated by the House. 

A fundamental objective of our hearings will be to provide the 

members with background information and analysis on several of 

the past House reorganization efforts. All of us need to know what 

lessons or insights can be learned from what has happened in the 

past. Were real reforms achieved or were some of the boxes simply 

shifted around or committees renamed with no significant improvement in how we conduct or business? We also need to hear from 

experts who can perhaps identify other major institutional reform 

areas that merit review and attention by this subcommittee. 

Our ranking member Louise Slaughter and I plan to include a 

panel of former Cabinet Secretaries at today’s hearing. We wanted 

to consider their views on how they worked with the Congress’ 

committees. However, many of the people we invited were out of 

the country or had conflicting engagements and they could not be 

with us today, so we will try to schedule that panel at a later date. 

At this point I would ask any members of the subcommittee for 

any opening statements. Mr. Dreier. 

Mr. DREIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me congratulate you 

and our friend Mrs. Slaughter, with whom I just attended the U.S.-

canada conference this weekend. She is coming back because she 

is actually participating in another subcommittee hearing of this 

committee in Canada now, or I guess it is in New York, where they 

are holding this meeting. 

Let me say that this is obviously very, very important what we 

are undertaking here. The mandate of this subcommittee as well 

as the work of Mr. Linder, who chairs the Technology and the 

House Subcommittee of the Rules Committee, will be undergoing 

3

a thorough and complete study of the operation and implementation of the rules of the House, including rule X, with respect to 

homeland security. That is actually the language as it was put 

forth that has led to the work of this effort. We all know that rule 

X deals with the basically the jurisdictional issue with the committee system. And Mr. Chairman, let me say that, and I know I 

said this at our opening meeting, and that is I think it is very important for to us remain as open-minded as we possibly can. A lot 

of people come with preconceived notions to this issue. And you 

mentioned back in 1993 we worked on this. That was one of the 

challenges we had then, was to try and be as open-mined as possible and we know it is challenging when you deal with a wide 

range of issues and, of course for all of us, personalities. So I hope 

very much that we will be able to do that. 

As you correctly pointed out, since the attacks of September 11th 

our perception of national priorities has changed dramatically. Terrorist attacks on our homeland introduced a new sense of vulnerability to Americans and gave Congress an imperative to act to protect the American people. Congress responded with its passage of 

the Department of Homeland Security legislation last year and 

with its formation of homeland security appropriations subcommittees and in the House this Select Committee on Homeland Security. We know that our mission is to review all the rules and procedures of the House to ensure that we are dealing with homeland 

security in the best, most coherent way possible. And to that end 

let me just say that I am very pleased that we are joined—well, 

Mrs. Slaughter made it back. We are glad that she is here along 

with my colleague Mr. Goss. You are right over here, Louise. Not 

that I am in charge but it is hard for me to break that habit. 

Let me say I am very, very pleased that we have the rare privilege of having the great Parliamentarian of the House Charlie 

Johnson as our first witness. As I said, I don’t know of another instance when a Parliamentarian has come forward to testify before 

a committee in the House and I also want to say that the staff of 

the Parliamentarian are extraordinarily e capable, extraordinarily 

knowledgeable, and I have a lot of fun with them, often late at 

night because the Rules Committee meets late at night. But I do 

want the record to show that I have a great appreciation for the 

expertise and the professionalism of the Parliamentarian and his 

staff. 

I also want to say that two friends with whom I worked very 

closely a decade ago on the Joint Committee on the Organization 

of Congress are going to be testifying, Norm Ornstein and Tom 

Mann. I am looking forward to their thoughts on this and congratulate you for the leadership you are showing on this. 

Mrs. Slaughter, I mentioned you before you came in. Thank you 

for your hard work on this. I want to again thank Mr. Linder, 

whose subcommittee is focusing on these issues as well. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Thank you, and we are very pleased to have 

our ranking member Louise Slaughter, who has joined us after 

having been present at another hearing today, and thank you, Louise. You are recognized. 

4

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We did have a spectacular morning. We had a press conference looking over Niagara 

Falls on a glorious day this morning. So that was really quite nice. 

But I am happy to be here with all of you this afternoon. 

Like the chairman, I am glad the work of the subcommittee is 

getting underway. We have several excellent witnesses who I have 

known for some time. Back in my old venture in trying to save the 

rules of the House, you were very helpful. I am anxious to hear 

what they have to say about whether or to what extent the House 

needs to revise its organization and its procedures and structures. 

As a veteran of past reform efforts, I know the subcommittee has 

been handed a difficult assignment. To change the procedures, 

practices or routines of the House is no easy matter. 

Members often have a vested interest in the status quo or if not 

a vested interest, then members may have learned to accommodate 

whatever deficiencies they may encounter. For all the headaches 

and heartaches that advocates of reform often face, it is still a 

worthwhile endeavor for the House to step back and periodically 

study and review its organization. 

There is always room for improvement in any institution, especially in a place as large and as complex as the House of Representatives. That is why I am particularly interested to hearing 

what today’s witnesses have to say and what insights they can 

share with us about how they might improve the effectiveness of 

the House of Representatives. 

Drs. Mann and Ornstein were the lead authors a decade ago of 

a major study entitled ‘‘Renewing Congress.’’ Is renewal again a top 

priority for the House? And our Parliamentarian Charles Johnson 

just issued a new version of House Practice, a renewal project that 

may also stimulate in Mr. Johnson some ideas for change. 

Our mandate under H. Res. 5 is broad, as the chairman indicated, a study to review House rules, especially rule X, dealing 

with our committee systems, to determine if they need change or 

revision so that the House can more effectively handle issues of 

homeland security. 

This is a large assignment and our time is relatively short. We 

all have other assignments and many other duties and functions in 

the House. I suggest that as we begin our several rounds of hearings we also begin to think about what should be the principal 

focus of our attention. We cannot take on every reform area that 

our various witnesses might suggest. Simply dealing with the committee system is a huge undertaking. As we proceed in our work, 

I believe it is very important that we hear not only from outside 

experts and former Members, but also from sitting Members, a sitting Member who wants to testify or submit testimony for the 

record. 

We all know that the House has many committees and subcommittees and scores of other work groups and a complex array 

of rules and procedures. Our colleagues know the strengths and 

weaknesses of this institution as few others do. We need to hear 

from them in this process. I know our chairman will invite all of 

them to appear at this point, but I want to underscore the contribution that they can make. At some point we might want to soVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:04 Sep 16, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\DOCS\HEARINGS\108-5\95778.TXT DIANE
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licit their views through a questionnaire or conduct personal interviews with a selected number of them. 

Mr. Chairman, the time we spend in hearings and study should 

provide the subcommittee with ideas on how to approach particular 

problems areas and how they may be resolved. Our hearings may 

very well lay down some important markers, the route that we 

should take to improving, strengthen the House. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Thank you for your remarks, very thoughtful, 

and I appreciate them very much. 

Mr. Goss. 

Mr. GOSS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I actually came to hear 

what the witnesses had to say. So I will thank you very much for 

this great opportunity to come and hear some excellent witnesses 

on a matter that we care about. I appreciate the remarks that have 

been made by my other colleagues and associate myself with them 

and yield back. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Ms. Lofgren. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I would also like to hear from the witnesses, so I 

will defer a statement. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Mr. Linder. 

Mr. LINDER. Nothing.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JIM TURNER 

The Select Committee on Homeland Security will consider many matters over the 

coming months that will bear directly on the security of the American people. Nonetheless, one of most important responsibilities of this Committee will be the subject 

of this evening’s hearing—changes that ought to be made to the Rules of the House 

in response the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. 

One might ask how mere rules could possibly be as important as the substantive 

issues that have and will come before this Committee. The answer is that our rules 

will determine the character of relationship between Congress and the new Department. And this relationship may very well have a strong bearing on the success or 

failure of the Department. 

Let us keep in mind the challenges facing the Department of Homeland Security. 

It must take 22 separate agencies, which all had different cultures and operational 

structures, and merge them into a coherent whole with a common mission of protecting the homeland. This will be no easy task. But this task is made even more 

difficult by the current congressional committee structure. 

As the scholars on our panel will tell us tonight, the Department of Homeland 

Security must currently answer to dozens of House and Senate Committees and 

scores of subcommittees. This structure not only places a serious administrative 

burden on the Department’s senior management, but it also pulls a department that 

it trying to unify itself, in multiple policy directions. This result is not good for the 

Department, for the Congress, and ultimately, for the country. 

I am well aware that the history of congressional reform movements suggests that 

efforts to make radical changes to the House’s committee structure have most often 

ended in failure. But we must all keep in mind that the September 11 attacks on 

our homeland require a new approach to governing. We have taken the first step 

by undertaking the largest reorganization of the Executive Branch in half a century. 

Congress must now take the next step of adapting to the reality of the new Department of Homeland Security. To its credit, the Appropriations Committee has already 

responded. The authorizing committees must now also respond. Tonight’s hearing 

marks the beginning of that process and I welcome the distinguished panel.

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Thank you all very much. I am honored that 

our lead off witness is someone not only we all know but who has 

an institutional memory and expertise about the House that is 

probably unmatched, and that is Charles Johnson, the House Parliamentarian. Mr. Johnson has been the Parliamentarian since 

1995, but has served in the Office of the Parliamentarian for four 

decades. It is truly a privilege to have you here before us, sir, and 

6

without objection your remarks will be part of the record and you 

are recognized. 

STATEMENT OF CHARLES W. JOHNSON, PARLIAMENTARIAN 

OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The five pages of remarks I hope are disseminated in a timely way. I don’t plan to repeat much of that, just to highlight a few things and then, to maximize your time, Mr. Chairman, and the members, to be available 

for questions. 

The chairman of the Rules Committee couldn’t remember when 

anyone had ever testified from our office. My beloved predecessor 

William Brown testified almost 10 years ago to this day before his 

joint committee. 

Mr. DREIER. I remember that now. 

Mr. JOHNSON. So whether it was forgettable testimony, it 

shouldn’t have been. Bill approached it with the same trepidation 

as I approach this, because our function is to serve all the Members 

in an advisory capacity, beginning with the Speaker clearly, and 

not necessarily to be advocates. As I was asked to give some background about past reorganization attempts, I have attempted 

through my submission, and particularly through the appendices A 

through G that I believe you all have, to give an indication of how 

difficult reorganization attempts have been, especially through select committees. Just to elaborate on some of that prepared testimony for a few minutes and then, as I say, to be available to questions, both about past jurisdictional and reorganization efforts and 

more precisely now about the enactment of the Homeland Security 

Act and the consequent reorganization efforts that you are mandated to conduct. 

Let me just begin by going back to 1974 very quickly. Appendix 

A is a summary in 1993 of jurisdictional overlaps which we have 

updated to a certain extent. That is across-the-board jurisdictional 

overlaps. What I want the committee to understand is where we 

are in the referral process, where we have been since 1974. I use 

the word ‘‘inadvertent’’ in my prepared statement to suggest that 

the House on that watershed day of October 8th, 1974, rejected a 

major organizational attempt through the so-called Select Committee on Committees, chaired by Richard Bolling, later to become 

chairman of the Rules Committee, but maintained within the recommendation that was finally adopted a referral mechanism that 

has proven difficult, now with almost 30 years of precedent behind 

it. One of the submissions here is an excerpt from our most recent 

House Rules and Manual which shows the variations of referrals 

that Speakers have made. The whole premise of the Bolling select 

committee was that there be for the first time beginning in 1975 

the authority for the Speaker to make multiple referrals. Until that 

point the Speakers were only required by tradition and by the rules 

of the House to make a referral to one committee. 

My first 10 years as an Assistant Parliamentarian were spent to 

a great extent trying to discern primary jurisdiction on every bill 

referred. It wasn’t always easy but we collected files, we had examples. We always made recommendations to the Speaker based on 

precedent if we could find similar bills, similarly referred. We had 

7

guidelines indicating what were major committees and what were 

perhaps incidental or secondary committees. But when the organization came to the attention of the House, the House in its wisdom 

retained more or less the existing fragmentation of committee jurisdictions. 

Submission B is a summary of those rules changes. It was summarized in a little red book prepared by the so-called Hansen-Burton coalition, primarily of the Democratic Caucus at the time. This 

OSR sub-unit of the Democratic Caucus served as the review entity 

of the Bolling select committee’s recommendations, and they were 

more focused in their substitute. They retained this notion of multiple referral in their alternative recommendation, describing it as 

merely giving the Speaker discretion. 

Now, the Speaker’s discretion comes in various shapes and 

forms. It is not similar to the absolute power of discretionary recognition that the Speaker has on the floor, but it is guided by the 

language of clause 2 of rule XII that suggests that referrals must 

be made to the maximum extent practicable, that is where the motion of discretion comes in, to all committees with legitimate jurisdictional claims. The precedents that have evolved for the 30 years 

which are shown in our submission C, it is just an excerpt from the 

House Manual, show the variety over those 30 years of referrals 

that have been made. And the one constant, is that our advice has 

been based upon the consistent tradition of the House, which has 

been to depoliticize the referral process. 

Now, the role of the Speaker is multifold, as you all know. He 

is the presiding officer of the House, he is the political leader of the 

majority party. But in his role as presiding officer he is required 

under the rules of the House to make referrals to committees. Both 

before the multiple referral change and since, all Speakers without 

exception have delegated to the Office of the Parliamentarian the 

authority to make, render advice which they will abide by on committee jurisdiction. 

Now, that is not to say that there is no element of political consideration given on referrals. Certain elements may be injected. 

When it comes, for example, to determining the length of referrals, 

Speakers now have the ability to put time limits on all referrals. 

They often exercise the authority to put time limits on sequential 

referrals. The decision was made by those of us in the Parliamentarian’s office, with the approval of Speaker Albert and then Speaker O’Neill, to defer decisions on referral to the committees that we 

discerned to be relatively incidental to the primary committees of 

jurisdiction. 

So to a great extent referrals that you will read in the record on 

opening day do not reflect decisions that our office has made for 

the Speaker on sequential referrals where we feel a committee has 

a relatively incidental jurisdictional claim, waiting instead to discern whether or not the primary committee or committees will recommend a certain policy change. There are so many examples of 

sequential referrals where the decisions have first been deferred 

and then ultimately made that the work product of that primary 

committee should then be sequentially reviewed. That is basically 

the process today. I mention it not just from an historical perspecVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:04 Sep 16, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\DOCS\HEARINGS\108-5\95778.TXT DIANE
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tive because it describes where we are right now in the referral 

process to your Select Committee on Homeland Security. 

As you know, the Speaker has been mandated by the opening 

day rules to make referrals as determined by the Speaker of measures, bills and resolutions. So it is more than an oversight function 

that your full committee and by extension your various subcommittees will be performing. 

Submissions F and G are summaries of the various elements of 

the Homeland Security Act of 2002 over which various standing 

committees of the House in this Congress and in last Congress can 

legitimately claim jurisdiction. So I will call your attention—as you 

have time to read those insertions, those appendices G and F, you 

will find that there is considerable overlap but it goes to the basic 

decision that the House made in the last Congress as it created the 

Select Committee on Homeland Security to receive recommendations from the various standing committees. That was about a 

month and a half period just about a year ago at this time when 

12 standing committees—11 standing committees and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence submitted recommendations 

to the then five and four Select Committee on Homeland Security, 

comprised as you know primarily of leadership on both sides. Those 

recommendations, many of which were implemented in the House 

passed version and in the final version of the Act, are worthy of 

your perusal at this point, not only the recommendations that were 

implemented but the recommendations that were not, at least then, 

implemented. 

We have also submitted an index, a table of contents, what is 

soon to be the very voluminous hearing record of last year’s select 

committee on committees, because it will show the recommendations to the extreme detail of all of the standing committees and 

intelligence select committee to the Select Committee on Homeland 

Security, and analyses of those recommendations, as I say many of 

which were implemented, more of which were not. 

So here you are today as a committee which has legislative jurisdiction over, quote, ‘‘matters relating to the Homeland Security Act 

of 2002.’’ What do those words really mean as far as our responsibility through the Speaker to make referrals and submission? Appendix F will give you an indication of the 10 or so bills that have 

been referred so far in this session. There will be the Technical 

Corrections Act, for example, referred to the select committee 

which has been reported and which has not had to undergo a sequential referrals. There are other bills where the select committee 

is primary on the bill. 

As the chairman knows, when the Republicans became the majority party in 1995, a mandate was placed on the Speaker to refer 

bills, to choose a primary committee. Only in this Congress was 

there an extraordinary exception written in where there are such 

jurisdictional overlaps that the notion of primacy really isn’t that 

important. The notion of primacy isn’t as essential as the lobbying 

community and others might believe because additional original 

committees can get started on oversight and on the legislative function of ‘‘matters within their respective jurisdictions.’’ That admonition on every introduced bill is de facto a rule that governs various 

standing committees’ considerations of matters within their respecVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:04 Sep 16, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\DOCS\HEARINGS\108-5\95778.TXT DIANE
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tive jurisdictions. So as bills come in, consolidated, complicated 

bills where we may have had to choose a primary committee, yet 

committees B, C and D may be additional initial committees but 

they are not restricted in terms of time, conducting oversight or 

producing a legislative work product. Even if committee A, the socalled primary committee, reports, which would then force the 

Speaker to make sequential referrals or to impose time limits on 

the additional original committees, those times can be sufficiently 

long to in effect turn committees B’s jurisdictional claim into truly 

a primary claim. So this notion of primacy, while it makes sense 

being in the rule, forces us to try to understand each bill as to 

where the primary emphasis is being placed, yet there is a whole 

lot of flexibility with respect to the other committees. 

When you superimpose a new decision-making process; namely, 

a select committee which has jurisdiction over ‘‘matters relating’’, 

some may say, well, if it is not in last year’s bill, if you are not 

directly amending language already in last year’s law, it doesn’t 

necessarily relate. Others, as reflected in referrals already made, 

suggest that matters which should have been consolidated into the 

department and even though they weren’t, are still ‘‘matters relating to.’’ There is a legitimate jurisdictional claim in that respect. 

Where we are headed jurisdictionally, Mr. Chairman, is not for 

me to predict. There may be others, political scientists and certainly Members, who will want to focus on whether or not a standing committee with consolidated jurisdiction in this or the next 

Congress or in a future Congress makes more sense than the perpetuation, if at all, of a select committee with similar jurisdictions. 

There are clearly options. 

Let me just invite all Members, whether it is the distinguished 

group here or any Member of the House, to understand that oversight is a difficult operation. There isn’t enough time in the week. 

I have facetiously commented here on doing oversight on a Monday 

and with certainly a quorum present. This isn’t just two members 

to take testimony, this participation is impressive. It needs to be 

kept in mind that oversight is painstaking and it is a collegial function that Members should conduct. Staff can compile and, can advise, but it is the Members’ attention to detail and the way it dovetails into the need for a revitalization of the authorization process, 

not just confined to homeland security, all of those issues are going 

to be presented to you in considerable detail. But ultimately I believe whether you conduct oversight or whether you legislate, it becomes a matter of will. The rules currently allow sufficient oversight. You don’t have to worry, I don’t believe, about new rules empowering committees to conduct more oversight. The rules are 

there. It is a matter of will and finding the time. 

Our office nonpartisan, we make referrals based on precedents, 

and the Speaker has taken a very personal interest in referrals of 

bills in this Congress. He made the extraordinary presentation, as 

you will recall, before he took the oath of office, reminding the 

Members that a rules package not even yet presented would create 

this select committee. He advised Members that the standing committees would retain oversight and legislative jurisdiction. So he 

laid down a marker before he even took the oath of office. 

10

Then Chairman Dreier, managing the rule, supplemented that 

commitment both to the standing committees conducting oversight 

and legislative responsibility, but then inviting this new select committee to be the eyes and ears of the Congress and to exert legislative jurisdiction where appropriate, as determined by the Speaker. 

So those are terms of art where that I can’t fully predict the patterns of referral—each bill obviously will be reviewed on its merits. 

Our office is available on a sustained basis to your panel and to 

all the Members to give advice, we hope consistent advice, but I 

can assure you nonpartisan advice, if not the best advice, but nonpartisan advice on patterns of referral because the referrals that 

are being made now may well become precedent in future Congresses. 

So with that, I will certainly be available for questions.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHARLES W. JOHNSON 

Mr. Chairman; It was almost precisely ten years ago (on May 18, 1993 to be 

exact) that my beloved predecessor as Parliamentarian, Mr. Wm. Holmes Brown, 

appeared before the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress to testify regarding a broad range of issues relating to floor deliberations and scheduling. In appearing be fore your subcommittee today, I have been asked to bring to your attention some of the relatively recent difficulties that have confronted the House as it 

has considered committee jurisdictional reform, as well as observations concerning 

current jurisdictional overlaps relating to the issue of Homeland Security. 

Included in Mr. Brown’s prepared statement and oral testimony on that occasion 

were references to a complicated development in committee jurisdictions in the 

House as of that date, especially since House consideration of the Committee Reform 

Amendments of 1974 and the multiplicity of referrals which had resulted since the 

Speaker was mandated to begin multiple referrals. On that occasion Mr. Brown inserted. in the Joint Committee’s hearing record a chart depicting ‘‘major committee 

jurisdictional overlaps.’’ I resubmit that chart (A) for your hearing record, with the 

reminder that many subsequent jurisdictional overlaps have emerged since 1993, 

too numerous to be documented here. I also submit a second chart (B) showing the 

mini mal jurisdictional realignments resulting from the adoption on October 8, 1974, 

of the Democratic Caucus originated ‘‘Hansen’’ substitute for the ‘‘Bolling’’ select 

committee consolidations, for your committee’s hearing record. Suffice it to say that 

on that occasion in 1974, the House retained fragmented committee jurisdictions 

within rule X, but almost by inadvertence included a multiple referral mandate on 

the Speaker which had been taken from the ‘‘Bolling’’ Committee’s recommendation. 

The only change was to strike a mechanism for appeal of the Speaker’s referrals 

to the Committee on Rules. There is no discernible legislative history to indicate 

that the House, by adopting the ‘‘Hansen’’ substitute deliberately chose to impose 

the requirement for multiple referrals while retaining essentially the same fragmentation and overlap of committee jurisdictions as had existed up to that point, 

beyond an intent to strip the Rules Committee of any appellate authority over 

Speaker’s referrals. After all, the ‘‘Bolling’’ recommendation had suggested a procedure for multiple referrals only in the unlikely event that the consolidation and 

modernization of jurisdiction recommended by the select committee failed to fully 

place within one committee the jurisdictional issues presented by any particular bill. 

I also submit citations (C) from the House Rules and Manual (sec.816) showing the 

variety of referrals which have been made by Speakers since 1975, including three 

occasions in the 1970s when the House established ad hoc select committees to receive recommendations from standing committees on matters relating to energy and 

the outer continental shelf. It should also be noted that the use of ‘‘task forces’’ consisting of various House committees and reporting their work pro duct to the Rules 

Committee became popular in recent years and is well documented in CRS Report 

for Congress RS20421, dated Dec.28, 1999. 

On one subsequent occasion since 1974 the House in response to the recommendations of a select committee realigned standing committee jurisdictions, but not without some difficulty. In 1980, the House considered a resolution reported from a Select Committee on Committees which had recommended the creation of a new standing Committee on Energy, partially in response to the energy crisis and the 

establisbment of the Department of Energy and consequent reorganization in the 

executive branch The Select Committee’s recommendation was amended on the 

11

House floor to provide instead for an enlarged jurisdiction to be vested in the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, (renamed Energy and Commerce) with 

new referrals of jurisdiction as the primary energy committee including jurisdiction 

over ‘‘general management’’ of the Department as an entity, but this action was accompanied by a memorandum of understanding attempting to clarify the resulting 

jurisdictions of the Committees on Science and Technology, Interior and Insular Affairs, Armed Ser vices and Foreign Affairs. In other words, the Select Committee’s 

recommendation to create a new standing committee on energy was replaced by retention of fragmented jurisdiction among several existing standing committees. 

Other realignments of standing committee jurisdictions have occurred at the organization of new Congresses, where the majority party conference has recommended 

jurisdictional changes as part of the adoption of rules on opening day. I recall the 

creation of the Department of Transportation in the late 1960s. Incrementally there 

after, the House in adoption of its rules from the majority caucus on opening day 

accomplished a consolidation of committee jurisdiction. Whereas at the time of creation of the Department, Public Works had jurisdiction over highways and civil 

aviation, Banking had jurisdiction over urban mass transit, Commerce had jurisdiction over rail roads and Merchant Marine and Fisheries had jurisdiction over maritime transportation, those various aspects have been gradually consolidated under 

the umbrella of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure following the 

demise of certain transportation regulatory independent agencies that remained in 

place after the creation of DOT. The House Rules and Manual (sec.739) shows the 

dates of those transfers as eventual responses to an executive reorganization. 

The two most recent significant changes were in 1995, when the standing Committees on the District of Columbia, Merchant Marine and Fisheries, and Post Office 

and Civil Service were abolished and their functions transferred to other existing 

committees, and in 2001 when securities and insurance generally jurisdictions were 

transferred from the Committee on Energy and Commerce to the Committee on Financial Services. Neither of these recommendations emerged from a select or joint 

committee established by the House. In fact, the Joint Committee on the Organization of the Congress, in its wide ranging report to the House (H. Rept. 103–413) refrained from any suggestions as to House or Senate committee jurisdictional realignments, Rather, the joint committee only recommended that the Committee on Rules 

might consider subsequent abolitions of committees if ‘‘membership on a committee 

falls below half if its level during the 103rd Congress.’’

In the last Congress a predecessor Select Committee on Homeland Security was 

established (H.Res.449) to receive recommendations from the several standing committees of legislative jurisdiction with respect to the creation of a new Department 

of Homeland Security. I submit for your record a table of contents (D) of the materials soon to be published as the hearings of that select committee, including the 

legislative recommendations of the eleven standing committee and one permanent 

select committee (on Intelligence). Your committee will be in possession of these 

hearings when they are published. From these extensive materials, as well as from 

the testimony in those hearings, you will be able to glean the respective jurisdictional concerns as ex pressed by those committees in the last Congress, which include concerns about dual missions of agencies such as the Coast Guard, Customs 

Service, and Immigration and Naturalization Service. As you know, the Select Committee on Homeland Security in the last Congress incorporated some of those legislative recommendations into the bill H .R. 5005, while leaving other recommendations for possible subsequent consideration. I also submit a list (E) of the various 

committee activity reports in the last Congress which further express the concerns 

of those committees. 

On the opening day of this Congress Speaker-elect Hastert made the following 

statement to the House before taking the oath of office: ‘‘Later on today, we will vote 

to create a Select Committee on Homeland Security. Members of this select committee will oversee the creation of the Department of Homeland Security to make 

certain that the executive branch is carrying out the will of the Congress. This select committee will be our eyes and our ears as this critical department is organized. 

The standing committees of the House will maintain their jurisdictions and will still 

have authorization and oversight responsibilities. This House needs to adapt to the 

largest reorganization of our executive branch in 50 years, and this select committee 

will help us make this transition.’’

Later on opening day Rep. Dreier, in debating the proposed rules package, stated: 

‘‘Mr. Speaker, section 4 of the resolution is very important and significant, and 

is aimed at ensuring effective oversight of a crucial national priority, and that is 

what was discussed in the Speaker’s address to us namely, homeland security. The 

security threats to our Nation are real and dangerous, Every branch of government, 

including the Congress, must be an integral part of the homeland security effort. 

12

‘‘In that regard, section 4 of the resolution establishes a Select Committee on 

Homeland Security for the 108th Congress with both legislative and oversight responsibilities. 

‘‘The select committee would have legislative jurisdiction over matters that relate 

to the Homeland Security Act of 2002 FL. 107–296. As the Act is the organic statute 

creating the new Department of Homeland Security, it is anticipated that the select 

committee would be the committee of jurisdiction over bills dealing with the new 

Department. 

‘‘Further, the select committee would have jurisdiction over legislation amending 

the Act such as a bill making technical corrections to that Act. In addition to the 

committee of primary jurisdiction, the Speaker would have the authority to refer 

bills to the select committee as an additional committee, either initially or sequentially. Otherwise, the existing jurisdictional rules of the House would continue to 

apply during the 108th Congress. 

‘‘The select committee would have oversight responsibility over laws, programs 

and government activities relating to homeland security and is intended to serve as 

the pri maw coordinating committee of the Rouse. 

‘‘Mr. Speaker, until the new Department of Homeland Security is up and running, 

it is difficult to predict how best to reflect legislative oversight and authorization 

functions for the Department in the House, Furthermore, during this transitional 

period, it is crucial that the White House and the new Department’s leadership have 

a central point of contact with the House. 

This new select committee will provide this interim capacity.’’

Mr. Chairman, this recitation of the recent jurisdictional history of the House, 

while underscoring the complexities of multiple referrals, should be read in light of 

the consistent tradition of the House to depoliticize the referral process. To this end 

all recent Speakers have delegated to the Parliamentarian the authority to determine the validity of committees’ jurisdictional claims, based on consistent interpretations of Rule X and upon the application of past referrals as precedent. It is apparent that Rule X (which establishes standing committees’jurisdictions) does not at 

this time textually mirror executive branch reorganizations in the second half of the 

twentieth century or substantive issues arising in the modem world! Precedent, 

practice and understandings recommended by the Parliamentarian in consultation 

with all the committees of the House have managed this disparity or asymmetry 

through a mechanism of multiple referrals in a nonpartisan way. 

At this point I would include a chart (F) showing the few referrals made in the 

108th Congress of bills to the new Select Committee. On May 15, 2003, the Select 

Committee filed its initial report with the House on HR. 1416, making technical corrections in the 2002 Homeland Security Act, which bill was not referred to any other 

committee. I also include a chart (G) showing some of the jurisdictional oversight 

and legislative authorities retained by the various standing committees over functions and organizations of the new Department of Homeland Security. It should be 

emphasized, as stated by Rep. Dreier, that under the Speaker’s referral authority 

both as stated in the standing rules and specifically in section 4 of H.Res,5, the 

Speaker has discretion to refer matters either initially or sequentially to the select 

committee. Each introduced bill will continue to be scrutinized to discern the legitimate jurisdictional claims of the standing committees and of the select committee, 

either on an initial or sequential referral basis. 

To this end, five permanent committees of the House have reorganized themselves 

in this Congress to create subcommittees specifically having jurisdiction over matters relating to homeland security. They include the standing Committees on Appropriations, Armed Services, International Relations, and the Judiciary and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. 

I believe that the rules of the House provide adequate authority for all committees 

to conduct effective oversight over matters within their respective jurisdictions. Section 4(c) of H. Res. 5 in the 108th Congress incorporates by reference those provisions of rule X which govern standing committees and subcommittees and makes 

them applicable to the select committee, Therefore effective oversight becomes a 

matter of institutional and ultimately political will. I congratulate the subcommittee 

for beginning this hearing on a Monday, and in a collegial fashion with a proper 

quorum present. Clearly committees can gather information in the pursuit of oversight by staff and electronic means, but proper oversight by Congress remains a collegial function to be conducted by Members. The scheduling of votes only on certain 

days in the House, and Members’ desire to be in their districts work as a 

counterforce to the conduct of oversight. Oversight, and the proper restructuring 

and implementation of the authorization process, require time and attention, especially in the face of competing priorities toward consolidation and modernization of 

standing committee jurisdiction on the one hand with retention of legitimate jurisVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:04 Sep 16, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\HEARINGS\108-5\95778.TXT DIANE
13

dictions over non-homeland security related missions of some of those same entities 

within the new Department on the other. 

I commend to the attention of the subcommittee the book entitled ‘‘Congress 

Against Itself’’ written by Mr. Roger H Davidson and Mr. Walter J. Oleszek in 1976 

as an analysis of the efforts taken by the House in 1974 on committee jurisdictional 

reform and earlier jurisdictional reforms. The committee is to be commended for obtaining the services of Mr. Oleszek. His preface to that book could serve as an inspiration and guide to your committee.

ATTACHMENT A: MAJOR COMMITTEE JURISDICTIONAL OVERLAPS

Agriculture (Agri) 

• with NB on forests, multiple use areas • with BF and EC on commodities exchanges and futures regulation • with EC on food purity; poultry inspections with EL on food nutrition and feeding programs • with PA on CCC food distribution abroad with EC and PIMP on fish inspection, 

fish farming • with PW on stream and soil erosion

Appropriations 

Armed Services (AS) 

• with BC on naval petroleum reserves • with EC, NR or ST on nuclear issues (where military applications at issue) • with EC on Superfund clean of military bases • with FA on arms control inspections, NATO (and status of forces), export li- censes • with VA on educational programs • with BF and EL on defense economic conversion • with BF on defense production

Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs (BF) 

• with EC on bank powers in new fields like securities and insurance; insurance 

industry regulation generally • with WM on government securities initial issuance • with PW on regional commissions; disaster insurance • with ST on earthquake insurance • with AS on defense production

Budget 

District of Columbia (DC) 

• with PW on regional transportation (Metro)

Education and Labor (EL) 

• with Ways & Means on ERISA • with Agri on certain feeding programs; land grant colleges • with WM on workfare (work incentive) requirements • with EC and PW on labor disputes also involving railway or airline labor laws 

(where EC and PW now exclusive) • with Jud on prison labor

Energy and Commerce (EC) 

• with AS, NR, ST on energy policy, authorizations for Dept of Energy • with NB on regulation of commercial nuclear industry, nuclear waste disposal. • with PW on Superfund, transportation issues involving rail roads, magnetic 

levitation, automobile and other commercial vehicle safety standards • with WM on health (part B medicare especially) • with Agri and MMF on fish and food inspection • with Agri on FIFRA; Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act with ST on research and development ‘‘commercialization’’; standardization • with PA and BF on foreign investment in US

Foreign Affairs (PA) 

• with SST and MMF on global environmental issues • with MMF on fishing and whaling agreements with Agri on food distribution overseas • with AS on arms control, export licenses, weapons inspection, NATO • with NR on status of Micronesia and trust territories

Government operations (GO) 

• with any committee on new commissions, subdepartmental reorganizations 

• with Rules on budget process changes 

• with PW on public buildings regulation 

• with EC on indoor clean air 

14

• with JU on ‘‘takings’’ and administrative procedure 

• with AS on defense contracting procedures and standards

House Administration (HA) 

• with EL or PO on labor issues involving House employees 

• with EC or Po on broad campaign reform 

• with Rules on Rule 51

Judiciary (Jud) 

• with EC on copyright issues in cable, digital audio, drug patents 

• with EC on telecommunications regulation: antitrust; insurance regulation antitrust; insurance regulation (McCarran Ferguson) 

• with PW on certain interstate compacts

Merchant Marine (MM) 

• with NR on outer continental shelf, endangered species, Alaska; oil exploration 

• with PW on clean water, ocean dumping, oil spill, wetlands, coastal zone management; intermodal transportation 

• with EC, AG, PW, ST on EPA 

• with NR and FA deep seabed mining

Natural Resources (NR) 

• with EL or EC on Indian issues 

• with Agri on forests 

• with MMF on OCS, public domain wildlife refuges

Post Office and Civil Service (PC) 

• with JUD on judicial branch salaries 

• with HA On legislative branch salaries 

• with others on new departmental positions

Public Works and Transportation (PW) 

• with MM on clean water, ocean dumping, oil spill, wetlands, intermodal transportation 

• with EC on maglev, commercial vehicle safety, Supeerfund 

• with NR on Kennedy Center

Rules 

bills with expedited procedures 

• with GO on budget process 

• with HA on Rule 51

Science, Space and Technology (ST) 

• with EL on science education and scholarships, technical training, etc 

• with EC on commercialization of research and development 

• with EC and NR on Dept of Energy 

• with PA and MMF on Antarctica 

• with Jud on antitrust protection for r&d businesses

Small Business (SB) 

• with AS and GO on contracting setasides (and other committees on agency 

apecific basis)

Veterans Affairs (VA) 

• with AS on educational benefits

Ways and Means (WM) 

• with EC on health and domestic content 

• with EL on ERISA, welfare 

• with BF on public debt management, issuance of notes 

• with BF, MMF, NR, PW and others on fees and assessments (revenue) 

Addendum to ‘‘Major committee jurisdictional overlaps’’ 

Committee re-designations:

Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs was re-designated as Financial Services. 

Education and Labor was re-designated as Education and the Workforce. 

Foreign Affairs was re-designated as International Relations. 

Government Operations was re-designated as Government Reform. 

Natural Resources was re-designated as Resources. 

Public Works and Transportation was re-designated as Transportation and Infrastructure. 

Science, Space and Technology was re-designated as Science. 

Committee re-alignments:

District of Columbia abolished. Its jurisdiction was transferred to Government Reform. 

15

Merchant Marine was abolished. Its jurisdiction was transferred to, among others, 

Armed Services, Resources, and Transportation and Infrastructure. 

Post Office and Civil Service was abolished. Its jurisdiction was transferred to 

Government Reform. 

Major jurisdictional transfers:

Jurisdiction over ‘‘securities and exchanges’’ was transferred from Energy and 

Commerce to Financial Services. 

Jurisdiction over various budget proceedings was transferred from Government 

Operations to Budget. 

Jurisdiction over ‘‘insurance generally’’ was vested in Financial Services.

ATTACHMENT B: SUMMARY OF MAJOR CHANGES IN RULES X AND XI OF 

THE RULES OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Dated: October 10, 1974

A copy is maintained in the Committee Files.

ATTACHMENT C: RULE XII RECEIPT AND REFERRAL OF MEASURES AND 

MATTERS

A copy is maintained in the Committee Files.

ATTACHMENT D:

CONTENTS

Testimony of: 

The Honorable CW. Bill Young, Chairman, Committee on Appropriations 

The Honorable David B. Obey, Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Appropriations 

The Honorable Ike Skelton, Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Armed 

Services 

The Honorable W.J. (Billy) Tauzin, Chairman, Committee on Energy and Commerce 

The Honorable John D. Dingell, Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Energy and Commerce 

The Honorable Dan Burton Chairman, Committee on Government Reform 

The Honorable Henry A. Waxman, Ranking Minority Member, Committee on 

Government Reform 

The Honorable Porter J. Cogs, Chairman, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence 

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Ranking Minority Member, Permanent Select 

Committee on Intelligence 

The Honorable Henry Hyde Chairmen, Committee on International Relations 

The Honorable Tom Lantos Ranking Minority Member, Committee on International Relations 

The Honorable Sherwood L. Boehlert, Chairman, Committee on Science 

The Honorable Ralph M. Hall, Ranking Minority Member, Committee on 

Science 

The Honorable Don Young, Chairman, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

The Honorable James I. Oberstar, Ranking Minority Member, Committee on 

Transportation and Infrastructure 

The Honorable William M. Thomas, Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means 

The Honorable David M. Walker, Comptroller General, General Accounting Office 

Material Submitted for the Record:

Opening Statements of Select Committee Members 

Statement of the Honorable Michael C. Oxley, Chairman, Committee on Financial Services 

Appendix Recommendations of the Standing Committees:

Committee on Agriculture 

Committee on Appropriations 

Committee on Armed Services 

Committee on Energy and Commerce 

Committee on Financial Services 

Committee on Government Reform 

Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence 

16

Committee on International Relations 

Committee on the Judiciary 

Committee on Science 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

Committee on Ways and Means

ATTACHMENT E: LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF H.R. 5005

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 

H.R. 5005, a bill to establish the Department of Homeland Security, was referred 

to the Select Committee on Homeland Security and in addition to 12 committees 

(Agriculture, Appropriations, Armed Services, Energy and Commerce, Financial 

Services, Government Reform, Intelligence (Permanent Select), International Relations, the Judiciary, Science, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Ways and 

Means) in each case for consideration of such matters as fall within their jurisdiction. Pursuant to House Resolution 449, the additional committees provided recommendations on the bill to the Select Committee. The Select Committee then reported the bill to the House (H. Rept. 107-609). The recommendations of the additional committees are to be compiled into an appendix to a Select Committee hearing transcript. In the interim, the following materials may be helpful to tracking 

individual committee action on the bill. 

Document Type Number/Record 

Cite Committee 

Committee Report on 

HR. 5005 

107-609, pt. 1 Select Committee on Homeland Security

Activities Report December 16, 2002 Select Committee on Homeland Security

Activities Report 107-793 Committee on Transportation 

and Infrastructure

Activities Report 107-807 Committee on the Judiciary

Activities Report 107-802 Committee on Energy and 

Commerce

Activities Report 107-801 Committee on Ways and 

Means

Activities Report 107-796 Committee on Agriculture

Activities Report 107-809 Committee on Science

Activities Report 107-805 Committee on Government 

Reform

Activities Report 107-803 Committee on International 

Relations

Activities Report 107-791 Committee on Armed Services 

*The Committees on Appropriations and Financial Services, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence forwarded recommendations to the Select Committee without formal 

meetings. 

ATTACHMENT F: BILLS REFERRED TO THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AS OF MAY 15, 2003.

17

Bills amending the Homeland Security Act of 2002

H.R. 1416, introduced by Rep. Cox, was referred to the Select Committee on 

Homeland Security. It made various technical corrections to the Act. 

H.R. 484, introduced by Rep. Ose, was referred primarily to the Select Committee 

on Homeland Security, and additionally to the Committees on Energy and Commerce, Science, and Government Reform. It amended the Homeland Security Act of 

2002 in several respects regarding a homeland security research program, a vaccine 

injury program, and procurement for the Department of Homeland Security. 

H.R. 853, introduced by Rep. Slaughter, was referred primarily to the Select Committee on Homeland Security, and additionally to the Committee on the Judiciary, 

Transportation and Infrastructure, and Ways and Means. It established a Northern 

Border Coordinator with the Department of Homeland Security to increase border 

security. 

H.R. 1355, introduced by Rep. DeLauro, was referred primarily to the Committee 

on Government Reform, and additionally to the Select Committee on Homeland Security. It addressed restrictions on the Department of Homeland Security contracting with certain foreign incorporated entities. 

H.R. 1389, introduced by Rep. Crowley, was referred primarily to the Committee 

on Transportation and Infrastructure, and additionally to the Select Committee on 

Homeland Security and the Committees on Science and the Judiciary. It required, 

among other matters, a program of assistance by the Secretary of Homeland Security to state and local first responders. 

H.R. 1449, introduced by Rep. Millender-McDonald, was referred primarily to the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and additionally to the Select 

Committee on Homeland Security. It expanded the role of the Office for Domestic 

Preparedness to include making grants to local first responders. 

Bills not amending the Homeland Security Act of 2002

H.R. 277, introduced by Rep. Goode, was referred primarily to the Committee on 

Armed Services, and additionally to the Select Committee on Homeland Security. 

It amended Title 10, United States Code, to allow the assignment of members of 

the armed forces to assist various bureaus of the Department of Homeland Security 

in border security. It also required the Secretary of Homeland Security, along with 

the Secretary of Defense, to provide training for such members. 

H.R, 1007, introduced by Rep. McNulty, was referred primarily to the Committee 

on Transportation and Infrastructure, and additionally to the Select Committee on 

Homeland Security and the Committees on the Judiciary and Energy and Commerce. It directed the Secretary of Homeland Security to make homeland security 

grants to localities for firefighters, first responders, and law enforcement. 

H.R. 1010, introduced by Rep. Nadler, was referred primarily to the Committee 

on Transportation and Infrastructure, and additionally to the Select Committee on 

Homeland Security and the Committee on Ways and Means. It required the Department of Homeland Security and the Customs Service to inspect cargo on vessels entering domestic ports. 

H.R. 2122, introduced by Rep. Tauzin, was referred primarily to the Committee 

on Energy and Commerce, and additionally to the Select Committee on Homeland 

Security and the Committee on Government Reform. It established a program of research, procurement, and deployment of biomedical countermeasures managed primarily by the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services.

ATTACHMENT G: DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS)

Pursuant to section 4 to Public Law 107–296, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was established on January 24, 2003. P.L. 10F296 provided for the transfer of several disparate government entities into the new department and allowed 

the President to submit a reorganization plan and subsequent modifications thereof. 

This jurisdictional breakdown is limited to the major entities transferred under the 

law, the Reorganization Plan, and subsequent modifications (House Documents 108–

16 and 108–32). Interested parties should consult those documents for specific details on entities being transferred. 

Reporting directly to the Secretary

Secret Service - Committee on the Judiciary and Committee on Transportation 

and Infrastructure 

Coast Guard - Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

Border and Transportation Security directorate

Customs - Committee on Ways and Means 

Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) - Committee on the Judiciary 

Federal Protective Service - Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

18

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) - Committee on Transportationand 

Infrastructure 

Federal Law Enforcement Training Center - Committee on the JudiciaryAnimal 

and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) -. Committee on 

Agriculture 

Office for Domestic Preparedness - Committee on the Judiciary 

Emergency Preparedness and Response directorate

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) - Committee on Transportation 

and Infrastructure 

Strategic National Stockpile and the National Disaster Medical System - Committee on Energy and Commerce 

Nuclear Incident Response Team - Committee on Energy and Commerce 

Domestic Emergency Support Teams - Committee on the Judiciary 

Science and Technology directorate

CBRN Countermeasures Programs - Committee on Science 

Environmental Measurements Laboratory - Committee on Science 

National BW Defense Analysis Center - Committee on Armed Services 

Plum Island Animal Disease Center - Committee on Agriculture 

Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection directorate

Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office - Committee on Science 

Federal Computer Incident Response Center - Committee on Science 

National Communications System - Committee on Armed Services 

National Infrastructure Protection Center - Committee on the Judiciary 

Energy Security and Assurance Program - Committee on Science

Department of Homeland Security (DI–IS) 

Pursuant to section 4 of Public Law 107–296, the Department of Homeland Security (DI–IS) was established on January 24, 2003. P.L. 107–296 provided for the 

transfer of several disparate government entities into the new department and allowed the President to submit a reorganization plan and subsequent modifications 

thereof. This jurisdictional breakdown Is limited to the major entities transferred 

under the law, the Reorganization Plan, and subsequent modifications (House Documents 108-16 and 108-32). Interested parties should consult those documents for 

specific details on entities being transferred.

Committee on Agriculture 

Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) - responsible for protecting 

and promoting U.S. agricultural health, administering the Animal Welfare Act, and 

carrying out wildlife damage management activities.

Committee on Armed Services 

National Bio-Weapons Defense Analysis Center - information source for chemical 

warfare (CW) and chemical and biological defense (CBD) science and technology. 

National Communications System (DOD) - national security and emergency preparedness communication.

Committee on Energy and Commerce 

Strategic National Stockpile and the National Disaster Medical System 

(HHS) - public health emergency readiness. 

Nuclear Incident Response Team (DOE) - expert personnel that deal withnuclear 

emergencies, nuclear accidents, and nuclear terrorism.

Committee on the Judiciary 

Secret Service - protection of persons, see also Transportation and Infrastructure. 

Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) - immigration and naturalization 

issues Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (Treasury) - law-enforcement 

training. 

Office for Domestic Preparedness (DOJ) - responsible for state and local jurisdictions response to incidents of domestic terrorism. 

Domestic Emergency Response Teams (DOJ) - stand-by interagency team that 

provides advice and support to FBI commanders at crisis scene National Infrastructure Protection Center (FBI) - terror threat evaluation and public warning.

Committee on Science 

CBRN Countermeasures Programs (DOE) research on chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear countermeasures. 

Environmental Measurements Laboratory (DOE) - advances and applies the 

science and technology required for preventing, protecting against, and responding 

to radiological and nuclear events in the service of Homeland and National Security. 

Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office (Commerce) - general cybersecurity. Federal Computer Incident Response Center (GSA) - federal government cybersecurity. 

19

Energy Security and Assurance Program (DOE) - using science and technology to 

secure energy infrastructure.

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

Secret Service - protection of certain foreign missions and other buildings within 

D.C., see also Judiciary.Coast Guard - maritime responsibilities ranging from maritime safety to national defense. 

Federal Protective Service - protection of federal buildings. 

Transportation Security Administration (ISA) - provides security across all modes 

of transportation. 

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) - disaster preparedness, management, and relief.

Committee on Ways and Means 

Customs Service - enforcer of trade laws and treaties and certain law- enforcement responsibilities.

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Very instructive. Enjoyed your testimony very 

much. I want to welcome the distinguished chairman and ranking 

member of the full committee for joining us, Mr. Cox and Mr. Turner. We are honored with your presence. Thank you very much for 

joining us as we learn and think out loud. 

Mr. Johnson, you mentioned what has become pretty evident in 

terms of the, let’s say, the weakening of the authorizing process. 

Do you have any ideas on how we could revitalize the authorizing 

process? 

Mr. JOHNSON. We are a bicameral system, and to a certain extent I would have to observe that efforts made on the House side 

to perpetuate and validate the authorizing process have not been 

matched on the Senate side. It is easier for the Senate to incorporate legislative provisions into must pass appropriation bills, 

than to enter a full blown consideration of Senate and then conference authorization matters. Beyond that, the timetable contemplated in the rules, contemplate authorizations enacted into 

law, not just passed by the House. The Rules Committee often 

grants waivers of points of order, very often on appropriation bills, 

where all or some of the funding in those bills has not yet been authorized by law for the fiscal year in question. I know this dovetails 

into the issue of biennial budgeting. There are a lot of different approaches to it, I don’t advocate one necessarily over the other, but 

I think there needs to be more attention paid to the work product 

of authorizing committees, consistent with the multiplicity of referrals that we often get on authorization bills, but also consistent 

with the leadership’s desire to program bills throughout the year 

as they become available. 

Now, prior to the Republicans being in the majority, I can remember in the late 1980s, early 1990s, the Democratic whip saying 

we need to have a full schedule in the early part of the year. The 

pattern began to be set of bills coming out of the authorizing committees and going quickly to the floor without timely or lengthy sequential referrals but with so-called task forces. Speaker Wright 

become enamored of the notion of ‘‘task force’’ recommendations. I 

would mention there is a good paper from CRS on what was then 

the proliferation of task forces in the early 1990s. But it has given 

way I think more often these days to an exchange of correspondence between the primary committee and various potential sequential committees while foregoing jurisdictional claims. Virtually 

every authorization bill that is initially reported is accompanied by 

some correspondence between the various committees temporarily 

20

relinquishing a jurisdictional claim but still asserting it and asking 

to be considered as conferees. The notion of the authorization process being a legitimate separate decision-making tier in the process 

of decision-making, when the budget process was superimposed as 

a separate level of decision-making in addition to the authorization 

process, it just really compressed the available time that Members 

have over the course of the year to give full attention to the authorization process. Part of it is a House-Senate relationship, part it 

was perhaps the leadership being more sensitive to allowing the 

authorization process to play out if they could started in a timely 

way, to consider whether the 3-day availability rule should be routinely waived as opposed to allowing Members legitimate time to 

review the authorizing committees’ reports. 

In other words, Mr. Chairman, I have no complete answer. It is 

a matter of planning through the leadership and the various committees, both in conducting oversight and legislative responsibilities, to systematically and properly schedule over the course of the 

2-year period. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. You spoke at some length about multiple referrals. In your view, are there ways to strengthen the Speaker’s 

referral authority or does he have as much authority as he needs? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I think he has all the authority he needs. I mean 

we have seen it reflected, as I say, in the many sequential referrals 

where decisions are deferred until the primary committee has a 

work product. We have seen three examples of an ad hoc select 

subcommittee, first Energy and then twice regarding the Continental Shelf, where the House endorsed the notion of bringing the 

standing committees immediately together within an ad hoc select 

committee to consider a certain bill. The notion of joint referrals 

giving way to primary plus additional allows all kinds of flexibility. 

I think it is more a planning issue within the majority party in 

consultation with the minority so that effective oversight can precede effective authorizing. That planning has to go on far in advance. 

I think I would suggest to your committee, as you decide on the 

extent of your own oversight with the mandate to report to the 

Rules Committee a year from September, while you have got some 

time but don’t consider that you have so much time that you can 

go backload it all. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. If we look at the pattern of multiple referrals 

in a specific area, for example, Homeland Security or Energy or 

Health, does that tell us anything about whether there is too much 

committee fragmentation? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, that is precisely the kind of question that I 

might be sensitive about answering. Clearly committee fragmentation has remained in the rules, and this pamphlet, which is exhibit 

B, shows that. In the area of Homeland Security submissions F and 

G will show fragmentation. Whether it is, quote, ‘‘too much’’ is a 

difficult question because a lot of these jurisdictional concerns; for 

example, the Customs Service, the Immigration and Naturalization 

Service, there are homeland and nonhomeland aspects of those 

agencies remaining. There are legitimate reasons for a standing 

committee to retain jurisdiction in perhaps more of a nonhomeland 

environment than to focus it all under one umbrella. But time is 

21

the key question. Is there time for all these committees to coordinate their legislative and oversight efforts in a meaningful way to 

bring them to the attention of the House? The recent attempts at 

reorganization, at master consolidation were inspired to minimize 

overlapping jurisdictions and Speaker’s multiple referrals. That 

was the whole premise of the Bolling effort in 1974. But if you ask 

to put a political explanation on it, once that package was reported 

from the select committee it was not called up for 6 months. In the 

meantime other Members were very active convincing their colleagues that more stood to lose power and influence than to gain 

by a huge consolidation into—for example, energy and environment 

into one committee, combining six or seven committees’ jurisdictions. 

I think that is the ultimate political test that you face. If you do 

come up with recommendations, how do you present those recommendations to the Rules Committee and to other Members? 

That is, I think, your biggest challenge. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Ms. Slaughter. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to 

really poring over your statement. I had a cursory view of it. It is 

very interesting. 

Let me ask about multiple referrals. Have they complicated, in 

your opinion, the conferee selection process? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. In what ways? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Because there is a track record, we used to have 

major tax bills or civil rights bills where the Senate would add 

something non germane and the only House people going to conference were the Ways and Means members; for example, if there 

was a civil rights amendment tacked on in the Senate. So when 

there is an institutional record of jurisdictional referrals, although 

the Speaker has some flexibility on conference appointments, he is 

not a free agent because committees can legitimately say we were 

additional, original, joint, or sequential, we deserve representation 

at the conference table both with respect to the House version and 

with respect very often to nongermane Senate versions that have 

been added in an attempt to bypass a House committee. 

So Speakers since Speaker O’Neill have been forced to recognize 

that in appointment of conferees. Speaker Foley made a statement 

on the floor one day that he was determined to simplify conference 

appointments. He was working in the face of some very entrenched 

committee interests in those days. Speakers Hastert and Gingrich 

have found it a little easier to simplify conference appointments, 

but because of multiple referrals, are still forced to take into account legitimate jurisdictional claims, perhaps the numbers will be 

focused more toward the primary committee, but clearly subconferences with additional or even exclusive areas of conference jurisdiction have proliferated since multiple referral. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Has that damaged, do you think, the bargaining 

process in the House itself among committees? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Conference reports then can emerge as the work 

product of a more representative group. The question then is does 

the House take cognizance of that and have time to review some 

of those very complicated conference reports. You asked ‘‘does the 

22

House suffer?’’ Potentially no. If they are being presented the input 

of a majority of the signatures from Members with expertise and 

a variety of jurisdictions, presumably the House benefits. I would 

just suggest that the House would benefit even more if it has the 

ability to understand the full complexity of what is being sent to 

conference and what emerges as a conference report. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. What effect does it have on the Senate’s bargaining ability? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, the Senate normally does not go to the extent the House does in dividing committee jurisdictions. They stay 

pretty close to the primary committee. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Do you think that helps them to bargain together as a unit? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Probably. I have never really attended. I guess I 

could discern that and have more information for you. With each 

House getting one vote, the Senate conferees often go with proxies. 

The committee anti-proxy rule does not necessarily keep House 

conferees from using proxies if the two conferees groups together 

decide to allow proxies. But I think properly most House conferees 

go with members in attendance and obviously their signatures are 

required for final approval of a conference report. Signatures are 

always required. That is the bottom line. But my guess is that it 

is easier for the Senate, which very often uses proxies in conference, to facilitate, to come to a position on a particular issue 

more readily than the House, which has subgroups of conferees. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. This is my 17th year. I have been appointed to 

three conferences mostly before I came onto the Rules Committee. 

In every case within 24 hours it was settled with very little input 

or any consultation or, frankly, we didn’t know what was happening in most cases. And that was always difficult because I think 

all of us want very much to be conferees and to be able to leave 

some mark on legislation on which we have worked. But that is a 

concern of mine that having so many House conferees, whether 

some committees carry so much more weight than others might, 

and that the decisions are made so quickly and most of us, in my 

view anyway, most of us conferees never participate at all except 

to show up and answer roll call. 

Mr. JOHNSON. The appropriations process is rather unique still 

because the Speakers have consistently appointed only appropriators to appropriations conferences. Even though the House and 

Senate versions may be loaded with legislation and other policy 

provisions, there is an unwritten rule and expectation that the 

committees of important jurisdiction will be at least advisers to the 

appropriation conferees, to influence their eventual bargaining on 

what are purely policy or legislative issues. So perhaps from the 

simplification standpoint, the House has acknowledged institutionally those bills are must-go bills, let’s try to expedite conference 

procedures, but still allow the legislative committee’s input through 

the appointed members. Whether that is a model to be followed in 

overall simplification is certainly worth the examination. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I think the theory is good, but I don’t think in 

practice, Mr. Johnson, it always worked that way. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Ms. Dunn. 

23

Ms. DUNN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for holding this 

hearing. It is interesting to get back into motion on reorganization. 

I recall 10 years ago having served on a committee and I remember 

Mr. Ornstein and Mr. Mann testifying then and David Dreier’s involvement. I think what stands out the most in my mind is the 

complete frustration of Chairman Hamilton as we tried to take our 

committee’s recommendations to the floor and we really had very 

little opportunity to debate those provisions that we believed would 

create a bipartisan Congress in much better shape. As it turned 

out, Republicans took over control and on opening day and thereafter we were able to implement one of those many reforms, proxy 

voting being just one of those, but the open meetings act, which I 

was particularly interested in, being a very important one to bring 

openness to the Congress. That is why we can always have press 

now in our meetings unless they deal with national security or people’s reputations. 

So I have somewhat of a sense of the limitations of what you can 

do when you reform the committees of Congress. I am one who 

would like to see broader reform come at a time when we have a 

speaker behind our effort and we have an opportunity for the first 

time in ages to create a new department that is up to date and in 

tune with today’s needs, the Homeland Security Department. I 

know we have options. We don’t have to move forward and create 

a new standing committee. My mind is far beyond that. So it is interesting to even read that that would be one of our options. I certainly hope we do move forward and create a committee that broadens jurisdiction over issues having to do with homeland security. 

I have a couple of questions, and one of those I guess is can we 

create a committee with meaningful jurisdiction considering the 

difficulties we already have had in putting this one together with 

jurisdictional concerns. What do you think? 

Mr. JOHNSON. A black letter rewrite of rule X to say, yes, there 

shall be a standing committee on homeland security either would 

have to literally transfer very much jurisdiction, and those concerns were expressed at last Congress’ Homeland Security Committee, or create an additional layer as another standing committee. But do the other committees retain current jurisdictions? 

For the time being under the Speaker’s mandate they do. Whether 

eventually more Members stand to lose power and influence by a 

consolidation than to gain, that is perhaps or realistic approach to 

the eventual creation of a permanent standing committee. 

The rules of the House have never completely matched the executive department reorganizations. We tried to do it, as my statement 

said, in the Department of Transportation area and the Department of Energy area, and incrementally some of those changes 

have come to pass where, for instance, the Public Works Committee is now the Committee on Transportation, but it took 20 

years to get there from the creation of the department. 

With respect to Energy, there is still not an Energy Committee. 

The Energy and Commerce Committee is certainly primary, they 

have a statement of jurisdiction over management, but there are 

five or six other jurisdictional claims that other committees retain. 

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24

ing separate nonhomeland security functions in standing committees, Customs, Immigration, Food Inspection, Public Health, other 

transportation aspects, Coast Guard, those are all examples where 

there are clearly overlaps. If you had to draw a new rule X you 

would have to be very conscious of whether you were bifurcating 

those current statements of jurisdiction. 

Ms. DUNN. Do you think that having a specific standing committee on homeland security is the best way for us to oversee that 

department, newly formed department in the administration? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, oversight, as I pointed out, is within all committees’ authorities. The rules of the House say, for example, the 

Government Reform Committee can specifically conduct oversight 

on any subject notwithstanding the fact that one or more of the 

other standing committees has legislative and oversight jurisdiction. So the the potential for repetition in oversight is the question. 

All the standing committees can conduct oversight in their respective areas of concern right now, as can your Select Committee on 

Homeland Security. Does it make sense to have those potentially 

competing authorities for oversight or must it eventually become a 

leadership driven coordination effort to try to simplify oversight, to 

parcel out, if you will, to get understandings? I suppose that is 

partly the reason that so many standing committee chairmen and 

some ranking members are on this committee, to know the extent 

to which the select committee will conduct oversight in addition to 

or in lieu of the standing committees. 

Again, Ms. Dunn, you can tell I don’t have an easy answer to it. 

Ms. DUNN. To add to your answer, I think focus is a major reason that we have this particular committee and are thinking about 

extending it to a standing committee. What would you suggest we 

do in areas over which we do not have oversight like FBI and CIA. 

We have Porter Goss on our committee and others who sit on committees, Judiciary chairman is on our committee. How would you 

suggest that we handle that sort of responsibility that certainly has 

a huge bearing on homeland security but isn’t within the 22 agencies over which our committee has jurisdiction? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, it is an interesting question. You say you 

don’t think you have the jurisdiction. Legislatively perhaps not because that did not become part of the structure of the new department. There was a decision made to keep FBI and CIA within an 

entity—there was an office, a center, I think, proposed in the 

House version that was ultimately dropped in the final version. I 

am not sure that necessarily translates into the conclusion that 

this committee has no jurisdiction, no oversight jurisdiction over intelligence. You have an Intelligence and Counterterrorism Subcommittee created. Now, I think you can point to the rules of the 

House and say you can conduct oversight in this area, but there 

obviously are security and other concerns with the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which clearly has that very strong 

mandate in the House rules. The extent to which you as a subcommittee consider that potential inconsistency is a legitimate concern. But I wouldn’t necessarily say that you have no oversight in 

this area. I think the threshold is the extent which you want to exercise it consistent with the strong mandate for the Intelligence 

Committee. 

25

Ms. DUNN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Ms. Sanchez. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. 

Johnson, for being here today. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. I begin by thinking that the more I look into 

things, the more I think that there might be a case made for having a standing committee for homeland security. And I come to 

that reason, and let me first sort of lay out what I am thinking and 

then ask you some, I think, pertinent questions to that. 

My biggest problem with what is going on with homeland security is that I think it can be a very black hole with respect for resources spent in protecting this homeland, and that when there is 

jurisdiction, authorizing jurisdiction, I guess, between different 

committees, that maybe there isn’t somebody really taking the 

whole picture of what is the—what are the limited resources and 

what are really the priorities that we have to do. And when you 

have something in Transportation and something in Intelligence 

and something in Commerce and other issues, then everybody is 

trying to solve a problem, but nobody is really taking a look at the 

overall picture. And I have a feeling that, from an authorizing 

standpoint as well as from a spending standpoint, that this committee can become a pretty large money committee in a sense. 

On the other hand, when I took a look at some of the real policy 

issues that this committee might be addressing, they seem to be, 

quite frankly, taken pretty well care of within some of the standing 

committees. In other words, there is— Government Reform and Judiciary have done a pretty good job in looking at and addressing 

more policy rather than the money issues that come along with this 

problem. 

I want to ask you a couple questions with respect to the Commerce Committee and the reorganization that happened 20 years 

ago, or whenever it happened, because that is the last real indication we have here. First of all, where would I go to find some of 

the discussion that happened with respect to what people were 

thinking when they were looking at the jurisdictional issues of 

Commerce and Energy Committee? And, secondly, Commerce, 

when I look at it, is a committee that really does more policy rather 

than money. So maybe it doesn’t really apply as well to what I am 

asking of you. What would you say were some of the biggest issues 

that were worked through when that reorganization was going on 

and things that we should be taking a look at from an overall 

standpoint? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, that was in 1980 when a similar select committee on committees chaired by then Representative Patterson 

from California, Jerry Patterson, was established in the wake of 

the creation of the Department of Energy, which was in turn a response to the energy crisis of the late 1970s. The House in its wisdom adopted a substitute offered by one of the most respected 

Members of the House, Jonathan Bingham of New York. He saw 

the jurisdiction which had been in five or six committees going to 

a new Energy Committee which would be separate from the remaining jurisdiction of what was then called the Interstate and 

Foreign Commerce Committee. 

26

They are committee reports and summaries, and certainly the 

debates in 1980 are instructive because the day—similar to the day 

the Bolling recommendations were rejected, the day the Jonathan 

Bingham substitute overcame the recommendations of the select 

committee was another watershed day in the House. It was yet another indication that a select committee’s recommendations, unless 

there is a lot of work done to encourage Members to appreciate and 

vote for them, may not prevail on the House floor when, as it 

turned out, six committees, including then Interior, Science, Armed 

Services-nuclear energy was a huge issue then, still is. Armed 

Services, Resources, Science committees together perhaps felt that 

they were going to stand to lose more power and influence than 

would remain with them, so it was a tough sell. 

A memorandum of understanding finally emerged when the continued fragmentation among the committees was adopted, the five 

or six committee chairmen got together. It is very instructive for 

you to read that memorandum of understanding. They basically 

agreed by signing a piece of paper that no one lost anything jurisdictionally. They agreed that the Speaker could make multiple referrals as he had begun to make over those preceding 4 years to 

honor every committee’s retained jurisdiction, and that is where it 

stood. I think that is a valuable lesson, as you ponder this potential 

reorganization, that there has been such a proliferation of referrals 

that it does enhance the status quo arguments for retention of existing jurisdictions. 

But when you-focus on money as distinguished from policy. The 

authorization process is really both. In its traditional form, it is 

supposed to recommend levels of spending above which the appropriators should not go in conjunction with new policy, whether it 

is permanent or whether it is sunsetted after a few years. So a true 

authorization in the traditional sense is both. The question is, 

given the compression of scheduling in the current-day reality on 

establishing the Congressional budget, meeting the October 1st fiscal year deadlines, with a budget resolution or without one, does 

the reauthorization process, which is potentially there to set limits 

on spending, is it relevant anymore, or could it be made more relevant once again? 

So, policy and spending issues really intersect in a true authorization environment. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Ms. Sanchez, please feel free to continue; but 

since we have been interrupted by this nasty business called democracy, why don’t we go and vote. And then, if the witnesses 

would be so kind, Mr. Johnson and the two subsequent witnesses, 

to return, then we can continue. So we will resume. Thank you 

very much. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Mr. Johnson, I didn’t mean that—I realize that a 

good authorizing bill, you know, does involve the money perspective. That is what I mean that I think this committee could become 

a money committee, probably just right behind defense, in my opinion. There are so many issues that people are approaching us about 

in order to protect the homeland. I am interested to ask you what 

you think about the whole issue of having one place to really take 

a look at limited resources and where one places them versus the 

27

situation that we have now, which is spread over almost every committee in the Congress. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Why don’t we do this: The committee will be 

in recess. If you can hold your answer, then you can continue; 

please feel free to continue your line of questions, and we will be 

back. If you could hold your answer until we come back, Mr. Johnson. Thank you very much. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. The subcommittee hearing will reconvene. 

I recall that Ms. Sanchez was asking some questions. As a matter of fact, the last she had asked some questions, and before, Mr. 

Johnson, you had an opportunity to reply, we had the interruptions. Perhaps you could reply, and then if there are any questions 

from Members present, we will have them—. And, again, we thank 

you so much for waiting. 

Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, I did have a follow-up conversation 

with Ms. Sanchez before she left, and she was using her membership on the Armed Services Committee as an example, as probably 

the most vivid example, of the House authorization process being 

honored on an annual basis, because the defense authorization bill, 

while it has undergone unique procedural nuances in recent years, 

as you know, Mr.Chairman, as a member of the Rules Committee, 

they have gone to issue clusters, so-called, as they allowed amendments. But invariably the Armed Services Committee has been 

able to report and have considered on the House floor their authorization bill before the defense appropriation bill is considered. Now, 

that doesn’t mean the appropriation bill doesn’t need a waiver of 

points of order; it does, because the authorization doesn’t become 

law in time. To the extent that they have been able to sanctify the 

authorization process with debate on policy and funding levels on 

an annual basis, a framework for appropriations has been developed. 

So I think in her mind she was asking can this same guarantee, 

if you will—I don’t want to put words in her mouth—translate over 

into this area of homeland security. It is perhaps more difficult because you have entrenched established areas of jurisdiction within 

the various standing committees as opposed to clearly delineated 

jurisdictional areas that have existed for some time within the 

Committee on Armed Services. So I think that was the model she 

using. 

There is not a clear answer as to whether there is time and the 

willpower to sanctify, if you will, an authorization process within 

the homeland security area. I don’t think the Armed Services Committee is an exact model, but, again, it is instructive to the dilemma that your committee faces as you submit recommendations 

to the Rules Committee. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. 

Do you have any follow-up questions? 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. No, I don’t. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. I have found your testimony extremely helpful, and again feel it has been an honor that you have gotten us 

off to a wonderful start. So thank you for testifying. 

28

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, if I might just say that our office 

remains available to any of your Members and staff in an ongoing 

way to furnish information or to be helpful. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Thank you so very much. 

Following Mr. Johnson, we will hear from two very well-known 

legislative and political experts: Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution, and Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. Each is highly regarded for sharp analysis and their prolific 

writing on Congress and other important matters. Each, too, has 

testified many times on reform issues before diverse House and 

Senate panels, and we are honored to have Mr. Ornstein and Mr. 

Mann here. 

Your entire testimony will be included in the record without objection, and so, as you wish to proceed in the order that you wish, 

you are very welcome. 

STATEMENT OF THOMAS E. MANN, SENIOR FELLOW, 

GOVERNANCE STUDIES, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION 

Mr. MANN. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Ms. Slaughter, 

I am delighted to be here, delighted to join once again with my 

friend and colleague Norman Ornstein in collaborating on our testimony and reflecting back on the experience of a decade ago with 

our Renewing Congress project and the efforts surrounding the 

Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress. We also had occasion to work with the Rules Committee on a number of changes, 

and am very pleased to be asked to participate in your deliberation 

on this question. 

Let me say that there is a natural temptation for a political scientist, student of Congress, who has watched major jurisdictional 

reform efforts in the past, to simply avoid the whole question. Congressional history is littered with the failure of jurisdictional reform. Mr. Johnson referred to much of that history, the Bolling 

Committee, the Patterson Committee, the Joint Committee on the 

Organization of Congress. We can look at the formation of new executive departments, whether it be Energy, Education, Transportation, and see that in the past that hasn’t been sufficient to 

prompt a rethinking of rule 10 here in the House of Representatives. You probably have to go all the way back to the formation 

of the Department of Defense to find a really positive story, but 

that was relatively easy, because there were separate service committees that could easily be combined into the Armed Services 

Committee up here in the Congress. So, lots of failure in the past. 

Secondly, mechanisms have been developed over time to cope 

with jurisdictional sprawl. And again, Mr. Johnson was very informative in discussing the referrals. He could have talked about 

special rules, of scheduling, of moral situation that has been used 

to try to deal with the multiple jurisdictions across committees that 

exist. 

It is also the case that there are some real advantages in allowing this jurisdictional sprawl, or at least advantages in not eliminating it radically. There are little oases of historical memory, of 

expertise among Members and staff on various committees and 

subcommittees. There are alternative perspectives brought to bear 

29

on similar problems that provides the House and the Congress with 

some real advantage. 

So you could make a pretty powerful case that, let well enough 

alone; if you try to build a permanent standing committee on homeland security, you will fail; and if you succeed, you may end up 

doing some damage. 

Now, that would have been the easy thing to say before your 

committee today, but we are going to acknowledge the truth of everything that I have just said, but take it one step forward: That 

we believe your goal should be the establishment of a permanent 

standing committee on homeland security. That these are not ordinary times. September 11th doesn’t happen every month or year or 

decade or century. 

Right now, Norman and I are involved in another project called 

the Continuity of Congress project in which commissioned members 

have concluded that replenishing the House in the face of a catastrophic terrorist attack is virtually impossible under our constitutional arrangements, and they will recommend to you very shortly 

a constitutional amendment. And yet virtually every member of the 

commission, ourselves included, always argue against constitutional amendments. But extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures, and I think this is one of those measures 

that—those times when your committee should set as a goal the establishment of a permanent standing committee on homeland security with jurisdiction spelled out in rule 10. 

Now, that doesn’t mean it is absolutely comprehensive and it is 

all exclusive jurisdiction. There are many areas in which some 

shared jurisdiction are only natural. There are areas within the 

Department of Homeland Security that have nothing to do with 

homeland security. There are important activities in the intelligence, the FBI, defense communities that are not within the Department of Homeland Security. So of course it is not a neat oneto-one mapping, but the problem is so central, the experience has 

been so traumatic, that if Congress can’t make one substantial 

change in its jurisdictions under these conditions, I suspect it never 

will be able to do so. So for you to accept this as an impossible task 

at the outset, I think, is to not give proper deference to the experiences we have gone through in the last couple of years. 

But our recommendation is that you move gradually and strategically; that if you try to establish a permanent standing committee 

with substantial jurisdiction that takes away from other committees at once, you will fail. But one could imagine moving incrementally and strategically with several areas of jurisdiction, and maybe 

even enticing some members on those committees to move to the 

new standing committee on homeland security. It might be possible 

with the support of the Speaker to pull it off. It is also clear that 

this effort would have to be combined with all the other efforts of 

coordination to make it work, because there never could be one-toone mapping. 

Let me make one final comment before turning it over to Norm. 

Congress throughout its history goes through periods of centralization and decentralization. Right now we are in the midst of an extraordinary centralization of power and authority and procedures. 

The committees have suffered vis-a-vis the leadership, and delibVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:04 Sep 16, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\DOCS\HEARINGS\108-5\95778.TXT DIANE
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eration within a division of labor has suffered to some extent. And 

there are advantages to that. There are also disadvantages for the 

House as an institution. 

My own view is that centralization is well-suited to a pattern of 

dispersed jurisdiction, where the Speaker and his agents can organize the effort to bring to the House, while establishing a stronger 

standing committee with some original jurisdiction acknowledges 

the advantages of division of labor and genuine specialization. I 

think there is something to be said for if only a slight move back 

in the direction of some division of labor, specialization, decentralization in a House whose great strength is its ability to deliberate one colleague with another. Thank you. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Ornstein. 

STATEMENT OF NORMAN J. ORNSTEIN, RESIDENT SCHOLAR, 

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY 

RESEARCH 

Mr. ORNSTEIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for the 

honor of appearing in front of you. And thanks to Ms. Slaughter 

for the yeoman efforts to make it back for this hearing. 

We have been around the block on these issues for a long time, 

I must tell you. Both of us were involved with the Bolling Committee. You have other people in this room who were as well. We 

don’t look that old, I know. And we carried through with the successor committees in the House up to and including the Patterson 

Committee and beyond that. We both worked very closely with Mr. 

Dreier and his counterpart Lee Hamilton in the creation of the select committee 10 years ago and its efforts. And I also was very 

proud to be a significant part of the most successful effort at reorganization in Congress in a very long time, which was the reorganization of the Senate in 1976, 1977, where we actually had some 

greater success, although not what we had hoped for. 

Let me raise three larger questions that it seems to me we 

should deal with. The first is, should this now be an occasion for 

a full-scale reconception of the committee system as a whole, something that we have done before, and unsuccessfully? And one can 

certainly make the case both for Congress and for the executive 

branch that the late great Daniel Patrick Moynihan called for the 

creation of a new Hoover Commission to look at the executive 

branch. The idea that we have moved from the industrial age to 

the information age, and we have institutions of government that 

are really set back in the post-World War II industrial age should 

make us think through whether we are organized appropriately to 

deal with the issues and problems that lie ahead. And that is true 

of Congress as a whole. 

Desirable as that goal may be, it is a fool’s errand right now. It 

is not going to happen. We don’t have any great sense of urgency 

that this system is entirely broken, and the resistance to it is so 

overwhelming that, unless you have a much, much larger feeling 

out there that it has got to be done, it is an important exercise, an 

interesting exercise, one that may help us down the road, just as 

we know that a lot of things that we have written, that others here 

have written you could pull out now, 30 years later, and change a 

31

few words here and there and they would apply, the same problems, maybe even the same analysis may be useful at a later stage, 

but we are not going to do that right now. 

So we get to the second question, which is, when you have the 

emergence of a new and powerful large-scale national problem that 

cuts across existing lines, should that emergence lead to the creation of a new, powerful, and comprehensive standing committee to 

take it into account? And of course there is a corollary there. If the 

executive branch responds to this new, powerful, large-scale national problem by creating an executive department, should Congress act in a parallel fashion so that you have a comparable committee as much of the committee system is organized along those 

lines? 

Here, of course, is where the example of the energy problem becomes an instructive one, and we have written about it a little bit, 

and I will come back to it in just a second. 

Then there is the third issue or the third question: Can we find 

other mechanisms, including some creative ones, that can work at 

least in part as a solution to this problem if it turns out that, for 

a variety of reasons, we either don’t believe it is a good idea to create a sweeping new committee or we simply can’t? And that is 

where some of the things that we have briefly touched on in our 

testimony, I think, become relevant, and also some of the previous 

examples do. 

Now, I want to talk about the energy issue just briefly for a 

minute. But let me say, my own feeling is that we have a problem 

now that does call out for a standing committee which has very 

considerable jurisdiction over this problem area, and as we suggest 

in the testimony, at least a little bit, I think the parallels with the 

executive branch in this case are important, powerful, and instructive. 

The President started out with the equivalent of a select committee, really, by putting the Office of Homeland Security in the 

White House without significant line authority, substantive authority; really the power of proximity to the President, the power of 

having a very prestigious and influential and important person appointed to that post in Tom Ridge, and relied on his ability to coordinate matters to make it work. It didn’t work very well, and 

over time he came, I think, inexorably to the conclusion that what 

he had originally rejected, a department that is the equivalent of 

a powerful standing committee, was a better way to go. 

Now, I am not sure that I would have created a department as 

sweeping as this one. I early on had thought that the initial recommendation of the Hart-Rudman Commission that would focus 

particularly on the border security areas was a good way to start 

this process and basically pull together those agencies that have a 

piece of the border and then move from there. But I could understand what drove him to that larger department. 

And I think Congress will come and should come inexorably to 

the conclusion that even though you have a tremendously prestigious, intelligent leadership for this committee, and even though 

you have the imprimatur of the Speaker, and even though you 

have a lot of powerful Members, that if you don’t end up with some 

substantive jurisdiction, over the long run we are going to have 

32

continuing problems overseeing and legislating on and authorizing 

this huge new department that represents the largest reorganization, I would argue, anywhere in history. And we are already seeing the difficulties of pulling that together, and having good, tough 

congressional oversight becomes important. 

So I am for that, while I recognize that it is simply not practical 

or possible to do the kind of sweeping reorganization in the Congress that was done in the executive branch, which would do great 

violence to the jurisdictions of a significant number of committees. 

And it is not going to happen. And there, again, the example of Energy does become instructive, because it wasn’t just the efforts of 

the Patterson Committee and then the Bingham substitute here. 

You could go back to the 1975, 1976, when we had this strong 

emerging sense of a crisis in energy. We had an effort by Speaker 

O’Neill to try to create an energy committee and met fierce resistance by all the other committees. He was unable to do it. We had 

another effort after the Energy Department was created by President Carter, and it failed, of course, all this following on the 

Bolling Committee’s efforts before we ended up with the fairly 

minor tinkering along the way. 

But I don’t think we are in much of a different situation now, 

and clearly we are not in a position in the short term to go ahead 

and move forward with a full-scale reorganization. 

One element of the energy issue, though, that becomes instructive here, I think, is worth mentioning, and that is that after it became clear we weren’t going to get a full-scale committee, we did 

have President Carter move forward with his chief priority early in 

his administration. It was a comprehensive energy plan. And what 

Speaker O’Neill did at the time was a very creative approach to 

move that piece of legislation along. He created an ad hoc energy 

committee with fairly widespread representation, kept the substantive jurisdiction in the existing standing committees, but set 

very firm deadlines for them to report out their pieces of this legislation, and held them to those deadlines, moved it along. And then 

the ad hoc committee coordinated the pieces. As they took it to the 

floor, you actually had a sort of sharing of responsibility on the 

floor between the standing committees and the ad hoc committee. 

The ad hoc committee which pulled those pieces together had some 

significant impact on the legislation. They actually were able to 

build in elements that the standing committees would not or could 

not, and helped to expedite it through the process, and then also 

played some role a long time down the road in the conference committee. 

Because the bill as it passed through the House rather quickly 

was then brought to a standstill by a filibuster in the Senate for 

months, I think this ad hoc committee got no credit for what it did, 

and at least the creative elements of this process that engaged the 

Speaker got lost in the shuffle. And it was not a process that was 

applied on any kind of a regular basis later on. And I am not suggesting that you have a single piece of legislation moving forward 

or that it should become the process along the way, but what it did 

for me and what I think it should lead you to do is to think 

through ways as we move, perhaps gradually, and we hope towards, in fact, the creation of a standing committee with some subVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:04 Sep 16, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\DOCS\HEARINGS\108-5\95778.TXT DIANE
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stantive jurisdiction. Some additional elements, including the more 

creative use of the referral process, and including perhaps a more 

active involvement of the Speaker in that process and in designating lead actors when important pieces of legislation move forward, and maybe doing the same thing through an oversight process, could help us along. 

Now, let me say finally that we have also come to the conclusion—there are actually two other quick pieces—that we should 

look at shared referrals in this case, and that it may be more appropriate to look at shared jurisdiction and shared referrals—

shared jurisdiction is what I meant—than in many other cases. If 

you really think about the rationale for the creation of a Department of Homeland Security and go back to what the Hart-Rudman 

people used as their rationale when they first recommended it, it 

really was the idea that we had a group of agencies and bureaus 

and departments that had missions and had had them for decades, 

were focused around those missions, as with any organization built 

cultures to reinforce those missions, and now they had a new and 

important mission, and unless you moved them away from their 

cultures, they were not likely to fulfill those missions. And they 

came to the conclusion that the only way to do that was to forcibly 

move them physically and otherwise out of their cultures. But that 

ignored in some ways the reality that those old missions would continue in place. 

We have the same thing now with every single element of the 

new Department of Homeland Security. They have a homeland security mission. They also have additional missions. And we have 

the same problem on a different scale with the intelligence process 

in other areas where they have a homeland security mission, but 

they are not a part of the new Department. We have, obviously, a 

challenge coordinating those things. 

It would seem to me that having some shared jurisdictions in 

these areas would be very useful. It would enable you to make sure 

that the homeland security element of the mission of those different bureaus is maintained while the committees that have responsibility for the other elements, including the Agriculture Committee for animal and plant inspection, would retain some ability 

to make sure that those functions are carried out and not lost in 

the shuffle either. So we can think through some creative things 

there. 

And, finally, I want to come back to something that we had recommended a long time ago that I also think really needs serious 

consideration. There really is a problem with executive agencies 

and their top officials having to deal with demands from 20 or 30 

or 40 committees and subcommittees to come up and testify, often 

saying the same things or on the same subjects. Everybody wants 

a piece of the action, and if you say no, you create a huge problem. 

This is an area where it just seems to me the Speaker needs to be 

given the authority and the encouragement to step in and create 

a process of prioritizing for those top officials. In this area especially, where there is such a political attraction to homeland security, the temptation for dozens of committees up here to want to 

get the top officials of the Department to come and testify will be 

34

very, very large, and that will leave them no time to focus on what 

they should be focusing on, which is homeland security. 

We have got to set priorities and have it come from the Congress 

where you say, no, you can’t; or, you will have to come to us and 

give us a compelling reason for why testimony in front of your subcommittee by Tom Ridge or Asa Hutchinson or any of these other 

top officials is an appropriate thing to do when they have testified 

six other times elsewhere. That is true for every department, it 

seems to me, and for every one of these top officials, and ought to 

be another area that the Rules Committee, that this subcommittee, 

considers as well. Thank you. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Thank you. Thank you both very much. I am 

very impressed with the crispness and the clarity as well as the 

candor of your testimony, and I think it is extremely helpful as this 

subcommittee begins to build a record for ultimately coming to decisions.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THOMAS E. MANN AND NORMAN J. ORNSTEIN 

The views expressed in this statement are those of the authors and should not 

be ascribed to the trustees, officers, or staff members of the American Enterprise 

Institute or The Brookings Institution. 

Thank you for inviting us to testify before your subcommittee on whether the existing committee structure in the House is adequately organized to address the policy and oversight issues associated with homeland security. A decade ago the two 

of us and our respective institutions collaborated on a Renewing Congress Project, 

which was designed to offer recommendations for improving the effectiveness of 

Congress and restoring its legitimacy within the American political system. As part 

of that effort, we testified before the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress on problems with the committee system and made a number of suggestions 

regarding the number, size, assignments to, jurisdictions, processes, and coordination of committees. Some significant changes took place in the House committee system in the years thereafter, thanks largely to the efforts of David Dreier in 1994-

95. But many of the same problems and issues remain. So do the basic principles 

of congressional committee organization and practice we articulated in 1993. We are 

pleased to collaborate once again on a question central to our earlier deliberation: 

how might the Congress best organize itself to deal with a new and pressing issue, 

one that is exceedingly complex and multi-faceted. 

September 11 and its aftermath generated tumultuous changes in American government, including the most complex government reorganization in American history. The new Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a behemoth struggling to 

combine twenty-two agencies employing nearly 200,000 workers, faces daunting 

managerial challenges as well as immediate demands to deal with high-priority 

risks. While its responsibilities extend well beyond homeland security, many critical 

elements of the federal government’s homeland security activities continue to reside 

in other departments and agencies. The new department will need all the help it 

can get ‘‘ adequate funding, a clear sense of priorities, coordination of governmentwide efforts by the Office of Homeland Security, strong presidential support, and an 

effective working relationship with Congress. 

Just as importantly, the country needs strong, active and informed congressional 

oversight of DHS and of the broader homeland security mission of the federal government. Congress has taken some initial steps in this direction, by creating new 

appropriations subcommittees with responsibility for the homeland security budget, 

and by creating the House Select Committee to begin the process of focusing and 

coordinating congressional oversight of DHS and the broader strategy for protecting 

the nation’s security at home. The critical question that must now be addressed by 

the House is whether the Select Committee should be a steppingstone to a major 

permanent standing committee of the House, with primary jurisdiction over both the 

department and the areas of policy it encompasses, and with its areas of jurisdiction 

spelled out in Rule X. 

The reason for creating a permanent standing committee with primary jurisdiction is clear. Currently, according to the Administration, 13 full committees in each 

house, along with more than 60 subcommittees (a total of 88 panels overall) share 

some jurisdiction or responsibility for homeland security. Of course, for many of 

35

these panels the piece of jurisdiction or the centrality of the focus is very limited. 

Nonetheless, many major pieces of responsibility for the new department are central 

to at least four authorizing committees in the House (Agriculture, Judiciary, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Ways and Means.) These four committees have 

primary jurisdiction and oversight authority for the Animal and Plant Inspection 

Service, the INS, the Coast Guard, FEMA, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Customs Service, which combined make up the lion’s share of the new 

department. To leave this fragmentation means that the central motivation to create a new department -- to merge functions and change cultures and outlook in 

these areas to focus on homeland security -- will be seriously compromised. 

There is certainly a case to be made for addressing an even broader question. The 

basic structure of the committee system, one designed in the aftermath of World 

War II to fit its era, including focus on the issues that dominated the times; to fit 

oversight of the executive branch by having committees in many cases parallel the 

agencies; and to be sensitive to representation of important groups like veterans and 

small business, has not changed in nearly 60 years. Should the committee system 

designed for the industrial age and the Cold War era be replaced by one designed 

to fit the information age and the post-Cold War era, with its problems of rogue 

states and terrorism? 

We would be delighted if Congress used this opportunity to rethink the basics. 

But we know that such an ambitious reform, or even such focus, is not in the cards. 

Congress has too many other things to do, and changes in the committee system, 

even of a small variety, are excruciatingly difficult to achieve. We are painfully 

aware of what has happened to other efforts at fundamental reform, including especially the fate of recommendations of the Bolling Committee thirty years ago and 

of the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress a decade ago. 

We also know well that the emergence of a major national problem or creation 

of a massive new cabinet department is usually not enough to overcome turf considerations, power relationships, and the electoral interests of Members to create major 

new authorizing committees. The case of energy is particularly instructive. As many 

as 83 committees and subcommittees had jurisdiction over energy policy and related 

agencies in the 1970s. Among its sweeping changes, the Bolling Committee had recommended creation of a new energy committee in 1974. That proposal failed along 

with the other major recommendations. As the energy problem deepened, Speaker 

O’Neill in late 1976 (before the proposal for a Department of Energy) pledged to 

work for the creation of a new standing committee on energy. The fierce reaction 

from committee elders forced him to retreat from that pledge. 

When President Carter made his energy plan the centerpiece of his first year in 

office, in 1977, Speaker O’Neill created an ad hoc committee to help shepherd the 

Carter plan through the House on an expedited basis. He was unable to give this 

ad hoc committee primary jurisdiction over the omnibus energy plan. Instead, the 

Speaker crafted a plan allowing existing standing committees to work on their 

pieces of the action, but under time deadlines. Their marked-up legislative products 

were then given to the ad hoc committee to pull together into a comprehensive plan. 

On the House floor, the leaders of the standing committees managed their relevant 

portions of the bill, and these same standing committee leaders were primary figures in the subsequent conference committee. The ad hoc committee, under Thomas 

‘‘Lud’’ Ashley of Ohio and with a broad representation of senior members, had a real 

impact, including, among other things, allowing passage of a gasoline tax that had 

been opposed by the committee of original jurisdiction, Ways and Means, and giving 

the overall product enough legitimacy that it survived attacks by amendment on the 

House floor. 

As a model to manage a major bill cutting across several committees’’ jurisdiction, 

the Ad Hoc Select Committee on Energy was a strong one. It worked’’ but then was 

disbanded. No comparable efforts followed. The problem with fragmented jurisdictions in the energy area remained. The House came back to this continuing problem 

a few years later, after the second OPEC-driven oil embargo. In 1979, a successor 

to the Bolling Committee, chaired by Jerry Patterson of California, had as its major 

recommendation a consolidation of energy jurisdiction into a new standing committee. The result was de ́ ja` vu all over again. Fierce opposition from entrenched 

powerhouses on existing standing committees doomed the proposal. A more modest 

alternative, crafted by Rep. Jonathan Bingham of New York, was implemented, enhancing the coordinating role of the Interstate and Commerce Committee (renaming 

it Energy and Commerce) and giving it jurisdiction over ‘‘national energy policy generally.’’ It also maintained jurisdiction and primary oversight authority for the Department of Energy. At the same time, the Bingham plan underscored the primary 

role of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs over nuclear issues and of 

other committees in separate areas of research and policy. 

36

Both sweeping comprehensive reform of the Bolling variety, and narrower, singleissue committee reform of the Patterson variety, faltered. The energy experience is 

instructive, but it should not suggest to you that changes in Rule X are hopeless. 

Given the reality—a major new problem for the nation that will not diminish, much 

less disappear, in the foreseeable future and a massive new executive department 

requiring both a regular authorization and serious oversight—you must grapple 

with the need for jurisdictional review and change. 

In some important respects, the problem facing Congress on homeland security is 

the same as the problem that faced the president in the immediate aftermath of 9/

11. He initially eschewed the recommendation of the Hart/Rudman Commission to 

create a full-fledged agency of homeland security and opted for an office inside the 

White House-the equivalent, in many ways, of choosing a select committee over a 

standing committee. The office lacked line authority or budget power over the various agencies, bureaus, offices and departments dealing with facets of homeland security, relying instead on the importance of the issue, the stature of its director, 

Tom Ridge, and on his physical proximity to the Oval Office. Within months, the 

president realized that those assets were not enough. Following proposals developed 

in Congress, he recommended a large and far-reaching Cabinet-level department to 

deal with homeland security issues. 

The House opted to create a select committee, with no primary legislative or oversight jurisdiction, relying for its authority on the importance of the issue, the stature of its chair, Chris Cox, and ranking member, Jim Turner, the assignment to the 

select committee of chairs of committees with Rule X jurisdiction, and the imprimatur of the Speaker and the Minority Leader. These assets, too, will not be enough 

for the long term. Things a select committee can do-highlight a problem, look at the 

bigger picture, coordinate the work and reconcile differences among other committees, prod the executive branch to implement reforms or focus on new areas, educate 

the public-will not sustain it over the long run and do not solve the fundamental 

problem. Some entity must provide the broader supervision for the massive DHS 

and pull the jurisdictional pieces together in a substantive way for Congress. Congress, of course, was explicit in this realization; the Homeland Security Act says 

that it is ‘‘the sense of Congress that each House of Congress should review its committee structure in light of the reorganization of responsibilities within the executive branch.’’ In our judgment, there is no way out of the logic that there should 

eventually be a permanent standing committee on homeland security. 

That said, we do not necessarily mean that the permanent standing committee 

should be exactly parallel to the executive department-that the House should create 

a colossus and in the process do violence to the very fabric of its committee system. 

Instead, we recommend that the House adopt a measured and multi-pronged strategy, including an incremental approach to jurisdictional change, done in stages so 

the new committee can absorb areas gradually and all the relevant committees can 

adjust to change. This strategy will also involve some overlapping jurisdiction (for 

example, sharing responsibility with Agriculture for the Animal and Plant Inspection Service, or with Transportation and Infrastructure for the Coast Guard). It also 

suggests that leaders may want to rethink their initial decision to populate a homeland security committee with chairs of other committees. 

Shared and overlapping jurisdiction, in this case, is not just to avoid opposition 

to change from existing committees. Historical memory, expertise and competing 

perspectives on homeland security matters are valuable commodities that should not 

be lightly dismissed. In addition, the fact is that entities like the Customs Service, 

the Coast Guard and the Animal and Plant Inspection Service have dual responsibilities. It was the president’s judgment, as it had been that of the Hart-Rudman 

Commission beforehand, that the homeland security responsibility, previously a secondary or non-existent one, must now be primary in all these areas. To make it so 

means changing the bureaucratic cultures of all these agencies and bureaus, which 

can only be done by moving them into a new department with a new mission. 

But the old missions do not disappear. The Customs Service still must facilitate 

trade, keep traffic moving efficiently at borders, and raise customs revenues. The 

Coast Guard must still facilitate transportation and promote safety in our coastal 

waters. The Animal and Plant Inspection Service must still protect sanitary conditions in meat and food processing plants. The Transportation Security Administration must still make sure that the aviation industry functions and that travelers can 

get from place to place without undue inconvenience. If homeland security is the 

only consideration, these functions can get lost or perverted along the way. So keeping shared jurisdiction in Congress can help make the dual functions work in the 

new department. 

We also strongly recommend that the House, with the active participation of the 

Speaker, the Parliamentarian and the Committee on Rules, make full use of joint 

37

and sequential referrals, special rules, scheduling and moral suasion to establish effective coordination among committees and to ensure timely consideration of legislation. These mechanisms will be especially important in coordinating authorizers and 

appropriators of DHS activities with those overseeing the related homeland security 

activities in the FBI, the intelligence agencies, the Defense Department and other 

agencies. Finally, we recommend that the Speaker establish his own coordination 

mechanism regulating the required testimony of DHS officials before committees 

and subcommittees. This will be necessary to prevent the debacle of executives facing demands to testify in front of dozens of panels, often on the same subjects, 

draining valuable time from their efforts to protect the home front without any incremental addition to Congress’s knowledge base or ability to fulfill its own responsibilities.

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. You have so much experience, let me ask you, 

in your studies you have pointed to the extraordinary difficulty of 

actually accomplishing these types of reforms. Could you address, 

maybe give us some advice from your study of the history of these 

efforts, perhaps some obvious lessons learned in terms of overcoming or potentially overcoming the inevitable turf wars or pressures for maintenance of the status quo? Do you have some advice 

to give us, if the subcommittee were to come to that conclusion, 

that we might want to share then with our Members? 

Mr. ORNSTEIN. Kevlar. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Excuse me? 

Mr. ORNSTEIN. Kevlar. Bulletproof vests we start with. 

Mr. MANN. Listen, one of the most—the clearest and most obvious constraints here is that Members of the House, most Members 

of the House build their careers through congressional committees. 

They make a commitment. They are usually on several committees. 

They develop expertise, they build seniority, they establish relationships with interest groups that work with those committees. 

Both the Members and the groups that have developed patterns of 

communication, access, deliberation are very reluctant to see those 

disrupted in any way, which a full-scale jurisdictional realignment 

almost inevitably does. So that is behind our suggestion that you 

initially develop joint jurisdictions, that you move gradually and incrementally over time with pieces of exclusive jurisdiction in ways 

that make the committee attractive and could lead to some committee transfers. 

Now, one would have to do a calculation on the votes and how 

that would work out, but I really believe you have to think in these 

very practical terms. So you have got to come at it from the bottom 

up, but at the same time you have to have a larger strategy. And 

in this case it really is September 11th, and what it has done to 

this country, the government, the priority that the battle against 

terrorism will have for the foreseeable future, it seems to me you 

have a claim, a public claim, a moral claim. 

There have been some statements from the leadership in support 

of that priority and mission. There have also been other statements 

from the leadership that all current standing committees shall retain their primary jurisdiction on these matters. So there is sort of 

conflicting messages from the leadership. But I think my lesson in 

looking at this experience is you have to do it intelligently and eyes 

wide open to the clear political constraints, and try to work with 

those constraints rather than to deny them; and, secondly, to have 

a macrostrategy that plays off the fact that we have a whole new 

set of problems on our hands that will require the attention of the 

38

Congress as well as the executive branch in the years ahead, and 

Congress has a responsibility to organize itself appropriately to 

deal with that. 

Mr. ORNSTEIN. Let me make a couple of comments, 

Mr.Chairman. I mean, first, to be very candid here—and since 

most of the Chairs of the other committees are not here, I can 

speak openly knowing they won’t know it—that, you know, you 

have an uphill battle that started with the creation of the committee. It makes a lot of sense in many ways in a substantive way 

to have a lot of other senior Chairs on the committee and Ranking 

Members, but they are going to fiercely resist having pieces of their 

jurisdiction taken away. And I have seen this up close and personal 

in a lot of ways. Tom and I will never forget when we were called 

on the carpet by the Chair, by many of the Chairs, 10 years ago 

when we sat in a room with Dan Rostenkowski, John Dingell, Jack 

Brooks, and others wanting to know what we thought we were 

doing, having recommended, among other things, that we move the 

trade jurisdiction out of the Ways and Means Committee to create 

a broader focus. 

So—and these things don’t change. It is actually the one way you 

could bring bipartisanship back to the Congress; you get all the 

members of the committees joining together. 

So we know that this is difficult, and the way in which the committee was created makes it more difficult to move expeditiously in 

this direction. 

The one lesson that I have learned looking at both the House and 

Senate is that any kind of significant jurisdictional change can’t 

take place without the extremely strong backing of the leadership 

on both sides; that unless you have the Speaker and the Minority 

Leader willing to stand up and provide some protection and take 

some of the hits for you, it just isn’t going to happen. We managed 

to get that in the Senate in 1977, and without it, Adlai Stevenson, 

who was the Chair of our committee, and Bill Brock, and then Bob 

Packwood, who was the Ranking Member, would have failed miserably, and we got something done. We got rolled as well. 

I think the lack of really enthusiastic backing from the leadership has doomed other efforts here in the House. And, you know, 

surface backing but not real backing isn’t enough. So you have a 

constituency there that you have to reach, and it is both Speaker 

Hastert and Ms. Pelosi, to convince them of the necessity to make 

these things happen. I think even with that, if you move to basically take very substantial pieces simply out of the jurisdiction of 

committees like Commerce and Judiciary and Agriculture, it 

wouldn’t work, probably not now, probably not for a long time. And 

that is why you have got to be creative here to try to figure out 

how you can gain some considerable jurisdiction, and you are still 

going to get significant opposition, but that is probably the only 

way to make this happen. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Let us talk a little bit for the record, if you 

could give us a sense of how much jurisdictional overlap exists in 

the homeland security area. Could you talk about that? 

Mr. ORNSTEIN. Sure. I mean, the first is, of course, an enormous 

amount. The administration, and it is probably a slight exaggeration, has said that we have 88 panels, committees and subcommitVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:04 Sep 16, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\DOCS\HEARINGS\108-5\95778.TXT DIANE
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tees, in both houses, that have a piece of the homeland security jurisdiction. Now, I would guess we do have 88 that would claim—

maybe even more—that would claim some piece of this jurisdiction, 

because it is natural to want to have a piece of it, but a lot of that 

is very small pieces. 

I mean, the fundamental reality is that we have got obviously 

Appropriations, and then we have got four committees, Agriculture, 

Judiciary, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Ways and 

Means, that have a considerable piece of the jurisdiction over the 

major components of the new Department, and those major components of the new Department, which are Plant and Animal Inspection Service, the INS, the Coast Guard, FEMA, Transportation Security Administration, the Customs Service, those together make 

up about 80 percent of the Department of Homeland Security. And 

so that is really where the lion’s share of jurisdiction is, and that 

is where I think the major challenges are in terms of—other than 

the intelligence process, which obviously is a separate but critically 

important part of this process—the major challenges for you lie as 

well. 

And I would hope, by the way, that if there is any success at 

moving forward the creation of a permanent standing committee, 

and one that does have jurisdiction, including a lot of shared jurisdiction, that there would be a serious effort to bring the intelligence component into it, even if it isn’t in the executive department. It makes for me even a more compelling reason to make a 

joint or at least some shared jurisdiction in the Congress, because 

we have to have some formal mechanism for coordinating and 

thinking through ways in which we can bring those elements together. 

Mr. MANN. Mr. Chairman, I just mention as a resource for your 

committee a book published by Brookings just in the last couple of 

weeks called Protecting the American Homeland One Year On, 

which really provides a lot of detail on the very questions that you 

asked. They also argue that between the problems of Homeland Security having non-homeland security matters to deal with and the 

important homeland security matters outside the Department, the 

challenge of the latter is much greater than the former. And as you 

think about possible reorganization within the House, I think you 

need to give primary attention to how to coordinate the intelligence 

activities that are now overseen elsewhere with key elements of the 

homeland security agenda. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. How much and how well is the fragmentation 

that exists in jurisdiction—jurisdictional fragmentation that exists 

in the area of homeland security, how well is that balanced, offset 

if you will, by the consolidated authority lodged in the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security? 

Mr. MANN. I think that was an important move taken by both 

the House and the Senate to create separate homeland security 

subcommittees on the Appropriations Committee, so a critical step 

that was taken. But appropriators are not authorizers. The kind of 

questions they ask, the concerns that they have are oftentimes different. It is driven in many respects by the budget process and the 

imperatives of the budget resolution. The kind of questions that get 

asked tend not to be the larger strategic questions, but more the 

40

questions about just how dollars are being spent here and there. 

So I thought it was a necessary step for the Congress, and certainly 

important, especially important given the absence of consolidated 

jurisdiction on the authorizing side, but not sufficient. 

Mr. ORNSTEIN. Let me reinforce what Tom said. Actually the appropriations process is a good spot for oversight, and in many respects in many areas it may be the best place for which oversight 

occurs, because it occurs through that annual process. 

But the fact is that the culture of the Appropriations Committee, 

which is to spread money around and to satisfy a lot of different 

Members, can work very much against the imperatives of homeland security. You can imagine, and we have seen this, of course, 

before, where you have a budget to deal with some area that ought 

to be concentrated in the places where we have the most risk, and 

we spread it around every district in the country or to a very large 

number of districts, not with any prioritizing. And I don’t think the 

appropriations process is the best place to make those priority determinations. 

So you have got to have some strong entity outside. The problem 

with fragmentation otherwise is, once again, just exactly what we 

had before we ended up with a Department of Homeland Security, 

which is all these other committees have a longtime interest in 

their own cultures built around the old functions of these agencies, 

and they are going to use their resources and their pressure to 

push those functions, which are appropriate functions. But if we 

don’t have a counterweight to make sure that the Homeland Security culture takes over, then they are going to have even greater 

problems inside the Department making things work. 

So it is really necessary, it seems to me, to make sure that we 

have a counterweight that appropriations will not provide and that 

only you can provide, but you are not going to provide it over the 

long run without having some standing status. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. To what extent should the House’s committee 

system parallel the organization of the executive branch? 

Mr. MANN. I don’t think there is any need for there to be an absolute one-to-one mapping, but when the relationship between the 

committees and the executive departments is hard to fathom, when 

so much change has occurred over time that they bear little direct 

relationship, then I think some problematics exist. 

There is an advantage in having an Armed Services Committee 

with the responsibility for an—in this case, an annual authorization bill, and I think there would be advantages to the House in 

having a Homeland Security Committee. That is not to say, however, that every executive department needs to have an exclusive 

committee dealing with it. That is impossible. And, frankly, the reality is that problems cross departmental boundaries. Much of government is about trying to join up agencies and staffs across departments. 

The most important function of the Cabinet today is not the 

meeting of the Cabinet, but it is the Cabinet councils that are created under the authority of the Cabinet to allow departments to 

work with one another in an effective and authoritative way. So, 

no one-to-one relationship. 

41

Mr. ORNSTEIN. I certainly agree with that. You can’t ignore the 

executive branch’s organization, or you would have chaos around 

here in terms of figuring out who had authority for what and making sure you could have effective oversight. But you don’t want to 

parallel it entirely. And there are indeed going to be areas where, 

if the executive branch has failed to bring areas together under the 

same rubric, you may want to bring them together so that you can 

be sure that there is appropriate sensitivity paid, getting back to 

the example of intelligence and homeland security now, where I am 

not sure—I am not convinced at this point that the way the executive branch is now organized or the coordinating mechanisms that 

they are implementing are sufficient to make sure that we will 

have the intelligence information carried out in the right way, accumulated in the right way, or distributed around to the appropriate people at the appropriate time. And I would love to see Congress weigh in on this and make sure that it is done. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Mr. Dreier. 

Mr. DREIER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Great to see both of you, and it brings back a lot of memories 

sort of in a delayed Ground Hog Day or something. It has been 10 

years since we have gotten together. I was recalling that we had 

243 witnesses and 37 different hearings a decade ago when we had 

this; and maybe that was one of the reasons that it took me a moment to remember that the Parliamentarian was the last Parliamentarian to testify. And Mr. Pitts just reminded me that I guess 

it was 10 years ago almost to the day when Mr. Brown testified before us. 

You know, I, in my opening remarks, commented on the fact that 

I want to keep an open mind, but when I think about—and I remember the two of you were recounting to me that famous Rostenkowski meeting that took place. And I have always had a bias towards trying to consolidate and fewer committees, and you remember the joke that we used to always tell; that if you walk down the 

hall and saw a Democrat whose name you didn’t know, it was just, 

hey, how you doing, Mr.Chairman, because chances are he chaired 

some committee or subcommittee in the place. 

And, you know, then in 1994 we were able to take more than a 

few of those recommendations and put into place a consolidation, 

which, quite frankly, I believe has worked a lot better, a hell of a 

lot better than many people had anticipated. And now obviously we 

are in the wake of September 11th, looking at the prospect of this. 

And I want to keep an open mind on this issue, but I think back. 

You know, you mentioned, Norm, the fact that there were 88—the 

White House has 88 committees in the House and Senate dealing 

with this issue. In the 1970s, there were 83 on the issue of energy. 

.Mr. DREIER. And Charlie proceeded to talk about 

incrementalism and how over the years we saw much of that absorbed. So I guess the question that I would pose to you on this, 

with my bias towards reducing the number of committees and subcommittees, obviously wanting to enhance the deliberative nature 

of the institution, I don’t want to do anything that undermines our 

very important oversight responsibility, I want to do what I can to 

encourage that—it was interesting, you know, the Parliamentarian 

was proud of the fact that there were—I guess 11 members we 

42

were. He thought it was for his testimony. We had votes on the 

House floor. That is frankly what brought people back here in the 

numbers that were here, even though he and the two of you were 

offering very thoughtful input. I guess my question would be what 

is the argument against our establishing this as a standing committee? I mean, other than very personally. You know, Dave 

Bourne and I always joke that we dine alone because of the fact 

that people would rather give up their spouse or a child than they 

would jurisdiction in a committee, because there was such a high 

level of frustration over that and we know we are dealing with all 

these powerful committee jurisdictions. Other than the obvious 

there, which we could assuage some of those concerns that are out 

there, what would be the benefits to our not putting in place a separate standing committee? 

Mr. MANN. I think there are arguments. One of them is that the 

House since 1974 has figured out a way to live with and cope with 

jurisdictional sprawl, that the leadership working through the Parliamentarian’s office has developed strategies of joint and sequential referral of special rules, of scheduling, in ways that allow them, 

the leadership to pull the expertise from various committees and 

subcommittees together in coherent pieces of legislation. In doing 

so, you don’t disrupt existing patterns of expertise, of historical 

memory, of staffing, that you retain some capacity for alternative 

perspectives on similar problems, that you set up some competition 

between teams of members who might see things differently. All 

those are advantages in letting the current system go forward as 

it is. I suppose the biggest advantage is you don’t have to go 

through the bloody process of replacing it and establishing a standing committee. 

Now, I sort of acknowledge those, I offer those in the spirit of 

honestly answering your question, and yet at the same time on balance everything I know tells me in spite of past failures that establishing one new committee, standing committee on homeland security, or setting that as a goal to move towards over time is a sensible thing to do in that some of the advantages that I have just 

given you from jurisdictional sprawl can be retained in a system 

that still has a focal point of a standing committee on homeland 

security. 

Mr. ORNSTEIN. You know, in your question was the seeds of an 

answer to it, Mr. Dreier, and that is adding a committee will mean 

adding a lot of subcommittees, and it becomes even more of an additive process. We end up with more members spread thinner and 

end up more fragmented. Probably you are not going to have people 

who go on this committees who will not give up other committee 

assignments or at least they won’t give up everything and we will 

end up with bigger institutional problems. 

If you remember back 10 years ago, one of the things we recommended most strongly and we recommended it as strongly as jurisdictional change was to get a handle on the total number of assignments that Members have, which has proliferated enormously 

and which have led to the reality, as we were saying earlier, that 

in the dozens of times we have testified the vast majority of them 

have been in front of one person because people have many, many 

43

other things to do, and that doesn’t enhance the deliberative process. 

So you have to be very careful every time a new problem comes 

up that you don’t want to simply create a new committee and add 

it on to what you have done. Ideally if we were doing this, we 

would make some other changes in this process. A little less than 

ideally, but close to it would be that if we go ahead and do this 

we really do get rules and leadership action that begins to clamp 

down on the proliferation of assignments that people have so that 

you don’t have a lot of people with three, four and five major committees, because everybody likes to add them on. It looks good on 

the masthead, the letterhead. You don’t have to be there often to 

be able to have more clout. Given what you have done with the 

proxy, the more you expand the number of assignments the greater 

problem comes in in each of the committees anyhow. But it makes 

it a little bit easier to cut down on some of those numbers and 

maybe you are not going to going to do that. 

Even with that I think this problem is so big and is clearly so 

enduring, this is not a 3 or 4-year problem that is just going to disappear, weapons of mass destruction that are easily and readily 

available to all kinds of actors out there, the fact that Iran it appears is very close to having lots of different ways of getting nuclear weapons that will spread through the region and that will 

create another set of problems, all of those things argue that homeland security is a critically important problem that will be with us 

for a long time. It is going to require coordination across a lot of 

areas. And if Congress doesn’t find a way itself to coordinate and 

to oversee what the executive branch does in a coordinated fashion 

it will be a mistake. 

Mr. DREIER. Let me tell you my letterhead has three words when 

it comes to that department. It says Committee on Rules and nobody knows what the heck that is any way. So I don’t get a lot of 

play on that. 

Mr. ORNSTEIN. We know. 

Mr. DREIER. Let me thank you all very much for your very, very 

thoughtful presentation and the time and energy that you have 

spent on this. I appreciate it. I apologize for the fact that there will 

be one fewer member now at this hearing because I have to leave 

myself. But thank you all very much. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Mr. Meek. 

Mr. MEEK. Thank you so very much, Mr. Chairman. I am excited 

about being on this subcommittee because as a freshman I am just 

glad to be on something that says Rules. That is wonderful. It is 

a great thing. 

Let me move this mike here. You don’t look attractive with a 

mike coming out of your ear. I thought I would share that with 

you. 

That was really the question that I think is going to not only 

plague this committee but this Congress, especially the House, on 

how we are going to oversee one of the largest agencies in the Federal Government. And when we created this select committee we 

had so many people, not only back home but here in the Capitol 

feeling a sense of this committee is going to have so much responsibility and oversight and direction and finally there is a committee 

44

that is going to question the executive branch for whatever kneejerk reaction, good or bad, that it may make. And the department 

will have some sense of patience and may move hastily and in a 

direction if we were to have a terrorist attack. 

Now knowing that we have this effort against terrorism nationally, internationally, this is going to be an agency that needs preventative maintenance. I am trying to form the correct argument, 

Mr. Chairman. I am so glad that we are—chairman of this committee and the full committee—I am glad that we are having this 

discussion because we are going to have to not only explain in the 

different cloakrooms but also as it relates to members who have 

power now, I am on X committee and it says Homeland. Like I 

said, I am glad to be on the Rules Committee. They don’t want to 

let that go. That may not necessarily be the best way to not only 

maintain but have oversight over such a huge agency. And I know 

that you have already commented on it is easier said than done but 

needed. 

I don’t see this—you know, Norm, you mentioned this—it is not 

a going away kind of situation. This is like Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare. That is the way I am looking at Homeland now. 

I don’t know how we argue that to our colleagues because you have 

chairmen that are on this committee that are fighting for their 

turf. How do you get them to relinquish that turf and move forward on behalf of the country? 

That is to both of you. 

Mr. ORNSTEIN. This is not going to be easy. It is going to take 

a sustained effort. It isn’t going to happen this Congress. I am 

hopeful that we can build toward having something at the beginning of the next Congress. It is going to take some work in public 

education and making this a larger public issue, in which I hope 

we can help. But as I said earlier, it is also going to take some 

work with the leadership. 

One example here is an issue area I followed for different reasons. We clearly have a problem with—a telecommunications problem in homeland security with something we saw on September 

11th, when we had all of these at the Pentagon, we had all of these 

emergency rescue teams come in from Montgomery and Prince 

George’s County in Maryland and Arlington and Fairfax Counties 

in Virginia and they couldn’t communicate with one another. We 

have got a larger problem with different slices of the spectrum allocated in ways that make emergency communication difficult and 

also have ended up freezing the cell phone system so nobody can 

communicate at the time of an emergency, and it requires a serious 

rethinking. 

Some of that responsibility falls with the new department. They 

got a million things that they are doing. Obviously it is within the 

jurisdiction of the Commerce Committee. But they are not necessarily going to start thinking along homeland security lines. They 

have got other things that they are doing. This is a place where 

having some kind of shared jurisdiction or having the focus of a department can make a difference, but just the select committee 

focus, the oversight focus probably isn’t enough to use the bully 

pulpit in that area. 

45

So it is a whole number of areas where obviously some level of 

jurisdictional clout could matter here. And maybe as we raise some 

of those, we can get some larger understanding of this and maybe 

overcome some of the misgivings of the old bulls otherwise. But we 

should, you know, we should go into this with a very clear-headed 

understanding that just as with every example we have had in the 

past, it is a steeply uphill battle. 

Mr. MEEK. Let me on the shared jurisdiction part, if you were—

the bulk of you were to really look at it, what would you take, not 

cherry picking, but there is a sense of responsibility. I hate to say 

this and God forbid if something happens here in the homeland. 

The chairman is going to be front and center on every news channel that is available: You are Chairman of Homeland Security, how 

could this happen? What is the oversight? What has the committee 

done? Well, we kind of share this with other committees. It is almost like who has responsibility over homeland security and you 

can do one of these numbers: Well, it is him or it is them or they 

had oversight, we really don’t but we are called Homeland. 

If we can push the leadership in that direction, I think would be 

helpful. But once again very powerful individuals in this process 

will have to give up something for that to happen. 

I had a town hall meeting recently in my district and a lot of the 

front line people, cities, counties, we have made all these changes 

but we haven’t seen any difference in those changes. We haven’t 

heard from the department. I think it is good that we have this 

committee because we are able to give the department input that 

they probably won’t get because they don’t have representation in 

100—is it 435, 535 or so districts throughout the Nation. So as we 

move along, I think you are right this will not happen tomorrow 

but on behalf—maybe an event here in the homeland may spearhead a little more targeting. 

I hate to say it, I used to be a state trooper. We don’t get a street 

light until we have five casualties at that intersection and all of a 

sudden we need a street light. 

I am glad to serve on this committee so that we can hopefully 

share with our colleagues and lobby our colleagues in the leadership to be able to make this happen. 

Mr. ORNSTEIN. Let me add one thing, Mr. Meek, and that is if 

we think about how this could work in practice, it seems to me we 

have to revise rule X and certainly you need a committee that 

would have authorizing authority—oversight authority for the new 

department, but obviously authorizing authority would immediately challenge those who authorize, have authorization authority 

over the INS and these other major agencies. Here is where some 

serious thought into the way in which the ad hoc Energy Committee that Speaker O’Neill created may be worth doing. It may be 

that we can create a kind of new process with a Speaker playing 

a very considerable role where you handle the overall authorization 

but the other departments also take primary jurisdiction over the 

authorization for the individual agencies under time deadlines set 

by the Speaker and then you get together in a coordinating fashion 

and you have some shared responsibility as they did when the authorization comes to the floor. And that might be at least one way 

to think about rewriting the rule to create this flexible process. 

46

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Cox. 

Mr. COX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, as 

always, for your attention to the way that Congress operates and 

the way that we might improve the institution. Your testimony I 

think was very clear on the main point before us. Your joint testimony that you formally submitted that states the reason for creating a permanent standing committee with primary jurisdiction is 

clear. I just want to make sure that I understand for the record 

with respect to each of your testimonies, do you favor creating a 

permanent standing committee with primary jurisdiction over 

homeland security? 

Mr. ORNSTEIN. Yes. 

Mr. MANN. Yes. 

Mr. COX. I didn’t think there was any question about that. I 

wanted to be sure, particularly because you did such an excellent 

job of responding to Chairman Dreier, who asked you to play devil’s 

advocate and argue against the proposition you came to testify in 

support of. 

Second, you point out that the Homeland Security Act states, 

reading from the act, each House of Congress should review its 

committee structure in light of the reorganization of responsibilities 

within the executive branch. Now, that was an instruction not only 

to the House, the sense of the Congress, but an instruction quite 

serious nonetheless because it was enacted by Congress, instruction to the House and to the Senate. How do you believe, how do 

you evaluate the job that the Senate is doing? 

Mr. MANN. Sort of my view is not particularly well. 

Mr. COX. I guess I would make it more clear. Are they doing anything formally that we know of? 

Mr. MANN. No. All they have done is refer, if you will, a sort of—

as I understand it, the primary jurisdiction for the law establishing 

the Department of Homeland Security to the Governmental Affairs 

Committee, but haven’t in any way reorganized jurisdictions from 

other committees to set up joint jurisdictions. As best as I can tell, 

the only real change in the Senate is the parallel to the House on 

the Appropriation Subcommittee. 

Mr. ORNSTEIN. Unless they are acting as the White House did 

and going to some secret situation room every night to plot their 

plan for reorganizing the committee system, which I doubt, there 

is no action. There has been no effort made that I can see to get 

either the Rules Committee or some new entity, a select committee, 

going to think this process through. No Senator has suggested that 

I know of that they act in this area, and it is frankly not good. It 

is distressing. You have created a mechanism at least for coordinating, focusing on things, being able to do what Congress should 

be doing right now, at least as we get a new department under 

way, and make sure there aren’t things lost between the cracks or 

problems across agency lines that are highlighted and a venue for 

people to come and talk about such things or to offer complaints 

or problem areas, and they have been. I don’t know it frankly. 

Mr. COX. Of course the Appropriations Committee in the Senate 

has restructured itself. So it is the authorizing side that remains 

to be dealt with. I wanted to ask you, given that state of affairs 

47

in the Senate, what, if any, impact do you think that has on our 

effort here in the House? 

Mr. ORNSTEIN. At one level in the short run it will make it more 

complicated for you and it will make it harder for you. But at the 

same time my guess is that as we see the Senate fall very far short 

of its responsibilities in oversight or in coordination, it will underscore the need to do what you have started to do and have been 

working toward. But obviously if you created a committee and 

began the process of coordinating the authorization of the new department and the Senate did nothing, it would make for a very 

weird set of conferences that would be even stranger than some of 

the ones we have seen before with a floating group of people coming in and out for each of the different pieces it has, which can’t 

be good for making policy. 

Mr. COX. I think that is destined to happen if we don’t change 

because the mission of the Department of Homeland Security and 

indeed the mission of the Federal Government now as it pertains 

to fighting terrorism on our domestic turf is to restructure the executive branch so that a responsibility that right now is merely defined by the margins of the responsibilities of multiple agencies is 

the bureaucratic equivalent of that ball that drops in the middle 

of the outfield while all the fielders meet in areas where they are 

right field, center field, left field, might have them be limited to 

where they can run to catch the ball. So we are trying to get agencies that have worked in parallel in the past to start talking to 

each other and share. Every bit of legislation that we enact with 

respect to homeland security almost certainly is going to be redefining those margins. 

Therefore, if we don’t restructure Congress because of the nature 

of our work here and the nature of the problem in the executive 

branch, we are going to have a half dozen or more congressional 

committees that all say that is me, that is me, that is me. Most 

pointedly we are going to go out to NORTHCOM on the way out 

to Los Angeles mid-June and take a look at DOD’s effort to address 

the domestic terror threat, but you know we have in the middle of 

the Homeland Security Act a statement that the Department of 

Homeland Security is not responsible for warfighting and it is not 

responsible for the military defense of the United States. Now, I 

think what people have in mind is that we are not going to have 

a contest in the chain of command between the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security, and that is a good 

thing that we put that in the statute. But to say that Homeland 

Security is not responsible for warfighting, we got to push a little 

bit on that definition and say what happens now is if the war is 

fought here and what happens if it is not fought using tanks and 

soldiers. What happens if instead the opening day of the war is 23 

shopping centers are blown up in 23 different cities in the United 

States. Is that a war we are in? Is DHS prevented from waging 

that war on our behalf? Does NORTHCOM or the Department of 

Defense think they are in charge of fighting it? If so, how do they 

fight it, posse comitatus and so on? We have all these questions 

that we have to start asking ourselves. But they literally define the 

margins of everyone’s responsibility. 

48

So if Congress doesn’t redefine itself so that this is the center 

lane of somebody’s concern rather than everybody’s marginal concern, I think we are going to have a hell of a time passing any descent legislation or, worse yet, conducting any thorough oversight. 

I want to conclude by commending you on your recommendation 

that the Speaker establish his own coordination mechanism regulating the required testimony of DHS officials before committees 

and subcommittees because obviously 88 on the Hill is too many. 

In the House what we are doing to address this problem at the request of the Speaker and the majority leader is to use this select 

committee as the coordinating mechanism. That doesn’t mean that 

other committees might not under appropriate circumstances have 

department personnel come testify there instead of in front of this 

committee. What it means though is we are the clearinghouse for 

all those requests and there won’t be replication of effort among 

multiple committees. 

So I think thus far I think that has been working very well. It 

may not be evident to the naked eye, but behind the scenes there 

is coordination is going on. It is one of the first dividends that is 

being paid to us from having all these committee chairs on this 

committee. So your recommendation is very sound. I don’t know 

what we are doing on the Senate side to achieve that result. 

Mr. MANN. If I may say that your discussion of the, if you will, 

the war making authority in the example of the shopping centers 

is precisely the kind of question that I believe will get asked only 

by having a focus of sustained attention built into the organization 

of Congress where members like yourselves ask such questions and 

then proceed to get the follow up and get answers so that we think 

through in advance of the need to respond appropriately. 

Mr. ORNSTEIN. You also, I think, have highlighted another very 

interesting issue, which is that for the Speaker the headaches that 

exist trying to create a standing committee in dealing with the 

committee chairs might very well be exceeded if we don’t move in 

that direction and we have these kinds of problems and all these 

competing claimants. So this may be a part of the process of making the leaders understand that not acting could prove even more 

frustrating than biting the bullet and going ahead and making sure 

we have an entity with real importance and reach and clout. 

Mr. COX. I think Congressman Meek stated that very clearly. It 

is inevitable if there is an attack on the country the fingers are 

going to be pointing everywhere. The first place is the President 

and the next place is the Secretary and the next place is to us, and 

there is no escaping that. It shouldn’t be, however, the political 

downside risk that concern us most but rather the fact that there 

might well be some credibility in such charges if we don’t occupy 

the center ground of what is now the new jurisdiction, the new turf 

of Homeland Security with an oversight committee and a legislative committee that has the power to go in and get the job done 

right. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. It doesn’t seem like a possibility, but should 

there be a Joint Committee on Homeland Security? 

Mr. ORNSTEIN. No, they never work. You know, we ended up in 

1976 basically abolishing the joint committees because it simply 

can’t when you have 100 Senators and 435 House members create 

49

the right kind of balance. Rotating chairmanships. If you look back 

at the history of joint committees, the Joint Economic Committee 

is basically—it did have an authorization, but it basically is a select committee in effect. Worked well for a while but eventually it 

lost its focus. The same was true of the Joint Committee on Atomic 

Energy. 

Frankly to have joint committees on taxation and the like, they 

are just devices. They are not really joint committees. They might 

just as well be—we ought to shift the Joint Committee on Taxation 

into a Congressional Tax Office like the Congressional Budget Office, but that is not the way to go. 

Mr. MANN. I agree with that. 

Mr. DIAZ-BARLART. Thank you so much. Your testimony has been 

extraordinarily helpful and we are very, very thankful. The hearing 

is hereby closed.

SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION FROM CHARLES W. JOHNSON 

July 10, 2003

Hon. Lincoln Diaz Chairman 

Subcommittee on Rules, Select Committee on Homeland Security 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Washington, DC 20515

Dear Mr. Chairman: 

Thank you for your recent inquiry regarding the referral of measures to the Select 

Committee on Homeland Security. There are many issues that need to be addressed 

by the House regarding jurisdiction over the Department of Homeland Security. 

Many of those issues might be addressed by the various entities tasked with that 

responsibility, such as the Select Committee on Homeland Security. For example, 

any proposal to establish a new standing committee would also include a proposed 

jurisdictional statement in clause 1 of rule X that would guide the Speaker’s future 

referrals. Such a grant of affirmative jurisdiction within the rule X rubric would 

supplant the Speaker’s current unique discretionary referral authority. 

The starting point for the Select Committee’s jurisdiction is section 4 of House 

Resolution 5. It states, in pertinent part, that the Select Committee may develop 

recommendations on ‘‘such matters that relate to the Homeland Security Act of 2002 

(P.L. 107-296) as may be referred to it by the Speaker.’’ Informing this jurisdictional 

statement were the Speaker’s remarks preceding the adoption of House Resolution 

5. In that statement, the Speaker indicated his belief that the creation of the Select 

Committee would not perturb the existing areas of jurisdiction of the standing committees and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. See 149 Cong. Rec. 

H5 (daily ed. January 7, 2003). The putative chairman of the Committee on Rules 

echoed this sentiment. See Id. at H15. 

This dichotomy between acknowledging the jurisdictional interest of a new select 

committee and maintaining the jurisdiction of the existing standing committees and 

the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence can be seen in the referrals that 

have been made thus far to the Select Committee. It would seem that the category 

of bills you refer to as addressing ‘‘first responder grants’’ (H.R. 1007, 1389, 1449, 

1803, and 1915) exemplifies this jurisdictional overlap. Other categories of bills you 

have cited, namely those addressing agencies and offices that have been transferred 

into the Department of Homeland Security, such as the Coast Guard or the Immigration and Naturalization Service, would seem to indicate a choice by the Speaker 

to allow the committee with jurisdiction over the matter an initial opportunity to 

review the bill. Under clause 1 of rule X, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has jurisdiction over the ‘‘Coast Guard’’ and the Committee on the Judiciary over ‘‘immigration and naturalization.’’

In an appropriate case, the Speaker retains the power to make a sequential referral to the Select Committee of a bill not referred there on the date of introduction. 

Thus it is important to note that the Speaker’s referrals to date do not necessarily 

indicate the breadth or depth of the Select Committee’s jurisdiction to review the 

work product of the standing committees and the Permanent Select Committee on 

Intelligence. At the time the committee of initial referral reports a bill to the House, 

the Speaker may respond to a request by the chairman of the Select Committee for 

a sequential referral to review the recommendations of that committee. In this way, 

50

the Speaker might navigate the very dichotomy that has prompted your insightful 

questions. 

Lastly, would note the Speaker’s referral of H.R. 1416, the Homeland Security 

Technical Corrections Act of 2003. The Select Committee received the referral of 

that measure, reported it to the House, and then managed it on the House floor 

under suspension of the rules. In addition to its being a measure that ‘‘relate to the 

Homeland Security Act of 2002,’’ this referral calls to mind a statement by the putative chairman of the Committee on Rules on the day the Select Committee was created. On that day, he projected that the Select Committee might have jurisdiction 

over a bill making technical corrections to the Homeland Security Act of 2002. See 

149 Cong. Rec. H12 (daily ed. January 7, 2003). The Select Committee subsequently 

reported the measure and managed it on the House floor. 

I hope you find this helpful. 

Sincerely, 

Charles W. Johnson, Parliamentarian

[Whereupon, at 8:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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