The Committee on Oversight and Reform is the main investigative
committee of the
United States House of Representatives.
The committee's broad
jurisdiction and legislative authority make it one of the most influential and powerful panels in the House. Its chairman is one of only three in the House with the authority to issue
subpoenas without a committee vote or consultation with the
ranking member. However, in recent history, it has become practice to refrain from unilateral subpoenas.
Carolyn Maloney (
D-New York) served as acting chair of the committee following the death of
Elijah Cummings (
D-Maryland) on October 17, 2019;
she was elected chair a month later. Representative
Jim Jordan served as ranking member from January 3, 2019, until March 12, 2020. On March 31, 2020, Jordan started his second stint as ranking member. Representative
Mark Meadows served as ranking member from March 13, 2020, until March 30, 2020, when he resigned his congressional seat to become
White House Chief of Staff.
Representative
James Comer (R-Kentucky) was selected to succeed Meadows on June 29, 2020.
History
The panel now known as the Committee on Oversight and Reform was originally the Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, created in 1927 to consolidate 11 separate Committees on Expenditures that had previously overseen the spending of various departments of the federal government.
The modern-day committee's immediate predecessor, the Committee on Government Operations, was established in 1952.
The new name was intended to reflect the committee's broad mission: to oversee "the operations of Government activities at all levels with a view to determining their economy and efficiency".
After Republicans gained control of the House in the
1994 elections
The following elections occurred in the year 1994.
Africa
* 1994 Botswana general election
* 1994 Guinea-Bissau general election
* 1994 Malawian general election
* 1994 Mozambican general election
* 1994 Namibian general election
* 1994 South Afr ...
, the committee was reorganized to include seven subcommittees instead of 14. This reorganization consolidated the jurisdiction previously covered by three full committees and resulted in a 50 percent cut in staff. In 2007, a reorganization under
a new Democratic majority combined the duties of the seven subcommittees into five.
In the
106th Congress
The 106th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C., from January 3, 19 ...
, the panel was renamed the Committee on Government Reform. While retaining the agenda of the former Committee on Government Operations, the new committee also took on the responsibilities of the former House Committee on the
Post Office and
Civil Service
The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...
and the Committee on the
District of Columbia. On January 4, 2007, the
110th Congress
The 110th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, between January 3, 2007, and January 3, 2009, during the last two years of the Presidency of George W. Bush. It was composed of ...
renamed it the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The name was changed again by the
116th Congress
The 116th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives. It convened in Washington, D.C., on January 3, 2019, and ended on Janua ...
to its current iteration: the Committee on Oversight and Reform. Since 2007, it has been called the "Oversight Committee" for short.
Subpoena usage
In 1997, the Republican majority on the committee changed its rules to allow the chairman,
Dan Burton (R-Indiana), to issue subpoenas without the consent of the committee's ranking Democrat. From 1997 to 2002, Burton used this authority to issue 1,052 unilateral subpoenas, many of them related to alleged misconduct by President
Bill Clinton, at a cost of more than $35 million.
By contrast, from 2003 to 2005, under the chairmanship of
Tom Davis (R-Virginia), the committee issued only three subpoenas to the
Bush administration.
After Republicans retook the House in the
2010 elections, the new chairman,
Darrell Issa (R-California), escalated the use of subpoenas again, issuing more than 100 in four years during the
Obama administration
Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican ...
. That was more than the combined total issued by the previous three chairmen—Davis,
Henry Waxman (D-California), and
Edolphus Towns (D-New York)—from 2003 to 2010.
Prominent hearings and investigations
Between 2000 and 2006, many major events and scandals in the Bush administration generated few or no subpoenas from the Republican-led committee. These events included the
September 11 attacks; the leaking of classified information identifying
Central Intelligence Agency agent
Valerie Plame; CIA-backed abuses at
Abu Ghraib prison
Abu Ghraib prison ( ar, سجن أبو غريب, ''Sijn Abū Ghurayb'') was a prison complex in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, located west of Baghdad. Abu Ghraib prison was opened in the 1950s and served as a maximum-security prison with torture, weekly exe ...
; the Bush administration claim that Iraq possessed
weapons of mass destruction; illegal campaign contributions by lobbyists, including
Jack Abramoff; deaths and damage due to the
Federal Emergency Management Agency's weak response to
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cost ...
; and
Philip Cooney's suppression of data demonstrating the existence of
global warming. After the release of the
Downing Street memo, which contained incriminating information on the buildup to the
Iraq War, Democrats in the minority were refused a hearing chamber and were forced to meet in the basement of the
United States Capitol.
However, under Davis's chairmanship from 2003 to 2007, the committee launched two controversial investigations. One of those investigations—triggered by the publication of
Jose Canseco's memoir, ''
Juiced—''concerned the use of
anabolic steroid
Anabolic steroids, also known more properly as anabolic–androgenic steroids (AAS), are steroidal androgens that include natural androgens like testosterone (medication), testosterone as well as synthetic androgens that are structurally related ...
s by
Major League Baseball players.
An inquiry was also made into the case of Terry Schiavo. In that investigation, which concerned the removal of a
feeding tube from a woman in a
persistent vegetative state, the committee issued a subpoena requiring Schiavo to "appear" so that members could "examine nutrition and hydration which incapacitated patients receive as part of their care". The apparent objective of this, beyond providing information to committee members, was to delay the pending withdrawal of life support from Schiavo, whose wishes were in dispute, while Congress considered legislation specifically targeted at her case. Members of the Democratic minority opposed the action. Chairman Davis said it was "a legitimate legislative inquiry".
The committee also investigated
World Wrestling Entertainment's wellness and drug policies, amid speculation about a possible link between steroid use and
the death
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in En ...
of WWE performer
Chris Benoit.
On July 8, 2009, committee Republicans released an investigative staff report discussing the
financial crisis of 2007–2008. The report alleged that the government had caused the collapse by meddling in the United States' housing and lending market in the name of "affordable housing".
In February 2012, the committee held a hearing on the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and colloquially known as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Presi ...
's mandate that would "require all employers to cover birth control free of cost to women". Specifically, Republicans on the committee alleged that the
Department of Health and Human Services's rules governing exemptions for religious institutions violated the
Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution. The chairman, Darrell Issa, said the hearing was "meant to be more broadly about religious freedom and not specifically about the contraception mandate in the Health Reform law".
After
Aaron Swartz committed suicide on January 11, 2013, the committee investigated the Justice Department's actions in prosecuting Swartz on hacking charges.
On January 28, Issa and ranking member
Elijah Cummings published a letter to Attorney General
Eric Holder, questioning whether prosecutors had intentionally added felony counts to increase the amount of prison time Swartz faced.
On July 10, 2019, a hearing was held by the
entitled "Kids in Cages: Inhumane Treatment at the Border" on the "inhumane treatment of children and families" inside child detention centers on the southern US border.
Jamie Raskin (D-MD) chaired the session which included testimony from Yazmin Juarez, the mother of Mariee who died at the age of nineteen months while detained in a
United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) center in Dilley, Texas.
In his opening statement Raskin said that "hundreds of thousands of people" have responded to the "harsh policies" by deciding to "migrate now before things get even worse".
Members, 118th Congress
Resolutions electing members: (Chair), (Ranking Member)
Subcommittees
TBD for the 118th Congress
Chair
Historical membership rosters
116th Congress
Sources: (Chair), (Ranking Member), (D), (R)
Membership changes
The Oversight and Government Reform Committee underwent numerous membership changes over the course of the
116th United States Congress
The 116th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives. It convened in Washington, D.C., on January 3, 2019, and ended on Januar ...
.
* July 10, 2019:
Fred Keller (R-PA) added to committee roster.
* October 17, 2019: Chairman
Elijah Cummings (D-MD) passed away. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) assumed acting Chairship.
* November 3, 2019: Vice Chair
Katie Hill (D-CA) resigned.
* November 20, 2019: Carolyn Maloney elected permanent chair.
* December 19, 2019:
Katie Porter (D-CA) and
Deb Haaland (D-NM) added to committee roster.
* February 27, 2020:
Ro Khanna (D-CA) added to committee roster, ranking after Harley Rouda.
* March 21, 2020: Ranking Member
Jim Jordan (R-OH) stepped down to assume the Ranking Membership of the
Judiciary Committee;
Mark Meadows (R-NC) assumes Ranking Membership.
* March 30, 2020:
Mark Meadows (R-NC) resigned to become
White House Chief of Staff.
Jim Jordan resumes Ranking Membership temporarily.
* May 8, 2020:
Kweisi Mfume (D-MD) added to committee roster, ranking after Harley Rouda.
* June 29, 2020:
James Comer (R-KY) elected permanent Ranking Member.
* July 1, 2020:
Gary Palmer (R-AL) added to committee roster, ranking after Michael Cloud.
;Subcommittees
115th Congress
Sources: (Chair), (Ranking Member), (D) (R), , and (D)
See also
*
List of current United States House of Representatives committees
References
External links
House Oversight and Government Reform CommitteeArchive
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
Legislation activity and reports, Congress.gov.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Hearings and Meetings Video
Congress.gov.
OMB Watch
a government ethics and reform nonprofit agency
Plum Book
''United States Government Policy Key Employees and Supporting Positions: About the Committee on Government Reform''
at the National Archives and Records Administration
{{authority control
Oversight and Government Reform
1816 establishments in Washington, D.C.
Organizations established in 1816
Parliamentary committees on Justice