DOCSLIB.ORG

Congress' Power of the Purse

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Congress' Power of the Purse Congress' Power of the Purse Kate Stitht In view of the significance of Congress' power of the purse, it is surprising that there has been so little scholarly exploration of its contours. In this Arti- cle, Professor Stith draws upon constitutional structure, history, and practice to develop a general theory of Congress' appropriationspower. She concludes that the appropriationsclause of the Constitution imposes an obligation upon Congress as well as a limitation upon the executive branch: The Executive may not raise or spend funds not appropriatedby explicit legislative action, and Congress has a constitutional duty to limit the amount and duration of each grant of spending authority. Professor Stith examinesforms of spending authority that are constitutionally troubling, especially gift authority, through which Congress permits federal agencies to receive and spend private contri- butions withoutfurther legislative review. Other types of "backdoor" spending authority, including statutory entitlements and revolving funds, may also be inconsistent with Congress' duty to exercise control over the size and duration of appropriations.Finally, Professor Stith proposes that nonjudicial institu- tions such as the General Accounting Office play a larger role in enforcing and vindicating Congress' power of the purse. TABLE OF CONTENTS I. THE CONSTITUTIONAL LAW OF APPROPRIATIONS 1346 A. The Constitutional Prerequisitesfor Federal Gov- ernment Activity 1346 B. The Place of Congress' Power To Appropriate in the Structure of the Constitution 1348 C. The Constitutional Function of "Appropriations" 1352 D. The Principlesof the Public Fisc and of Appropria- tions Control 1356 E. The Power to Deny Appropriations 1360 II. APPROPRIATIONS CONTROL: THE LEGISLATIVE FRAME- WORK 1363 t Associate Professor of Law, Yale Law School. B.A. 1973, Dartmouth College; M.P.P., 1977; J.D. 1977, Harvard University. Previous versions of this Article were presented at the Yale Law School Faculty Workshop and the Law and Economics Workshop of the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law. The author thanks the members of each workshop for their comments. I am espe- cially grateful for the advice and comments of colleagues who read early drafts of portions of the Article: Bruce Ackerman, Akhil Amar, Owen Fiss, Paul Gewirtz, Joseph Goldstein, Paul Kahn, Har- old Koh, Jerry Mashaw, George Priest, Roberta Romano, and Peter Schuck. 1343 1344 The Yale Law Journal [Vol. 97: 1343 A. The Miscellaneous Receipts Statute and Its Excep- tions 1364 B. The Anti-Deficiency Act 1370 1. The Rule Against Deficiencies 1370 2. The Rule Against Voluntary Service 1372 C. The Anti-Deficiency Act and the Principle of Appro- priations Control 1374 III. THE MEANING OF "APPROPRIATIONS" UNDER THE CON- STITUTION 1377 A. Legislative Permission as "Appropriation" 1378 B. Constitutional Limits on Spending Authority 1381 IV. ENFORCING THE APPROPRIATIONS REQUIREMENT 1386 A. Enforcement Against the Executive 1386 B. Enforcement Against Congress 1392 The covert program of supportfor the Contras evaded the Consti- tution's most significant check on Executive power: the President can spend funds on a program only if he can convince Congress to appropriatethe money.' Among the duties-and among the rights, too-of this House, there is perhaps none so important as the control which it constitu- tionally possesses over the public purse.' The Constitution places the power of the purse in Congress: "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appro- priations made by Law . ... , This empowerment of the legislature is at the foundation of our constitutional order. Yet there has been virtually no sustained legal scholarship that addresses the constitutional function and significance of Congress' power of the purse, explains how Congress' exclusive power of appropriation relates to other constitutional powers of Congress and the President, or considers the proper arenas in which the appropriations requirement might be construed and enforced." Nor has it previously been proposed that Congress itself might violate the appropria- 1. SENATE SELECT COMM. ON SECRET MILITARY ASSISTANCE TO IRAN AND THE NICARAGUAN OPPOSITION & HOUSE SELECT COMM. TO INVESTIGATE COVERT ARMS TRANSACTIONS WITH IRAN, REPORT, S. REP. No. 100-216, H.R. REP. No. 100-433, 100th Cong., 1st Sess. 18 (1987) [hereinafter IRAN-CONTRA REPORT]. 2. 19 ANNALS OF CONG. 1330 (1809) (remarks of Rep. J. Randolph). 3. U.S. CONST. art. I, § 9, ci. 7. 4. A thoughtful consideration of some of these issues is L. FISHER, PRESIDENTIAL SPENDING POWER (1975); see also L. TRIBE, AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 257 (2d ed. 1988) (noting dearth of scholarship concerning constitutional constraints on executive spending power). The most thorough account of the early struggles between Congress and the Executive over control of the fisc is L. WILMERDING, THE SPENDING POWER (1943). 1988] Power of the Purse 1345 tions clause by failing to exercise effective control over federal 5 expenditures. The present inquiry may be summarized as follows. The Constitution presupposes a distinction between the public sphere and the private sphere and permits expansion of the public sphere only with legislative approval. The appropriations requirement both reflects and implements these fundamental constitutional choices. In specifying the activities on which public funds may be spent, the legislature defines the contours of the federal government. From this understanding of the structural function of appropriations, we may derive two governing principles: first, a Principle of the Public Fisc, asserting that all monies received from whatever source by any part of the government are public funds, and second, a Principle of Appropria- tions Control, prohibiting expenditure of any public money without legis- lative authorization. The two principles are complementary: The Public Fisc principle defines all federal receipts, while the Appropriations Con- trol principle defines all lawful federal expenditures. These two principles impose powerful limitations on the executive branch. Agencies and officials of the federal government may not spend monies from any source, private or public, without legislative permission to do so. Even where unauthorized spending by the Executive would im- pose no additional obligation on the Treasury-because it is made with private or other non-governmental funds-the Constitution prohibits such spending if it is not authorized by Congress. All federal receipts must be "deposited," at least figuratively, into the Treasury, and all spending in the name of the United States must be pursuant to legislative appropriation. The Principles of the Public Fisc and of Appropriations Control also impose an obligation on Congress itself. Congress has not only the power but also the duty to exercise legislative control over federal expenditures. If Congress permits the Executive access to the public fisc without effec- tive appropriations control, then the Executive alone defines the scope and character of the public sphere, especially in areas that inherently require significant executive discretion. Congress abdicates, rather than exercises, its power of the purse if it creates permanent or other open-ended spend- ing authority that effectively escapes periodic legislative review and limita- tion. Accordingly, I propose that not every legislative grant of spending 5. Students of the Constitution have generally assumed that Congress has exclusive authority to construe and implement the appropriations clause and thus have not considered the possibility that Congress itself may violate the clause. See, e.g., E. CORWIN, THE CONSTITUTION AND WHAT IT MEANS TODAY 133-34 (14th ed. 1978); 1 W. WILLOUGHBY, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW OF THE UNITED STATES 105 (2d ed. 1929). But see CONSTITUTIONAL CONTROVERSIES 95 (R. Goldwin, W. Schambra & A. Kaufman eds. 1987) (suggestion by author that certain aspects of legislative budget practice are "not in keeping with at least the spirit of the appropriations clause"). 1346 The Yale Law Journal [Vol. 97: 1343 authority necessarily qualifies as an "Appropriation[ ] made by Law" under the Constitution. Under present practice, Congress creates many forms of spending au- thority outside of the legislative appropriations process, many of which are open-ended as to amount or time.6 Not all of this spending is constitution- ally suspect, for Congress may effectively limit spending authority through substantive legislation and periodic review, even when the form of the au- thority is open-ended. In determining whether a grant of spending author- ity is a constitutional appropriation, it does not matter whether Congress uses the word "appropriate." What matters is whether Congress in fact determines how much funding for a government activity is "appropriate." Section I develops a general theory of Congress' appropriations power and proposes that the Principles of the Public Fisc and of Appropriations Control are implicit in our constitutional order. Section II examines how Congress has construed and implemented the appropriations requirement in two framework statutes first enacted in the nineteenth and early twen- tieth centuries: the Miscellaneous Receipts statute7 and the Anti- Deficiency Act.' Section III argues that, in certain circumstances, legisla- tion granting permanent or indefinite spending authority outside of legis- lative appropriations control is inconsistent with the basic constitutional obligations of Congress. Section IV suggests
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Congress' Power of the Purse
    Congress' Power of the Purse Kate Stitht In view of the significance of Congress' power of the purse, it is surprising that there has been so little scholarly exploration of its contours. In this Arti- cle, Professor Stith draws upon constitutional structure, history, and practice to develop a general theory of Congress' appropriationspower. She concludes that the appropriationsclause of the Constitution imposes an obligation upon Congress as well as a limitation upon the executive branch: The Executive may not raise or spend funds not appropriatedby explicit legislative action, and Congress has a constitutional duty to limit the amount and duration of each grant of spending authority. Professor Stith examinesforms of spending authority that are constitutionally troubling, especially gift authority, through which Congress permits federal agencies to receive and spend private contri- butions withoutfurther legislative review. Other types of "backdoor" spending authority, including statutory entitlements and revolving funds, may also be inconsistent with Congress' duty to exercise control over the size and duration of appropriations.Finally, Professor Stith proposes that nonjudicial institu- tions such as the General Accounting Office play a larger role in enforcing and vindicating Congress' power of the purse. TABLE OF CONTENTS I. THE CONSTITUTIONAL LAW OF APPROPRIATIONS 1346 A. The Constitutional Prerequisitesfor Federal Gov- ernment Activity 1346 B. The Place of Congress' Power To Appropriate in the Structure of the Constitution 1348 C. The Constitutional Function of "Appropriations" 1352 D. The Principlesof the Public Fisc and of Appropria- tions Control 1356 E. The Power to Deny Appropriations 1360 II. APPROPRIATIONS CONTROL: THE LEGISLATIVE FRAME- WORK 1363 t Associate Professor of Law, Yale Law School.
    [Show full text]
  • The Constitutionality of Congressional Regulation of the President's Wartime Detention Policies, 2011 BYU L
    BYU Law Review Volume 2011 | Issue 6 Article 12 12-18-2011 Challenging the Executive: The onsC titutionality of Congressional Regulation of the President's Wartime Detention Policies William M. Hains Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/lawreview Part of the Military, War, and Peace Commons Recommended Citation William M. Hains, Challenging the Executive: The Constitutionality of Congressional Regulation of the President's Wartime Detention Policies, 2011 BYU L. Rev. 2283 (2011). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/lawreview/vol2011/iss6/12 This Comment is brought to you for free and open access by the Brigham Young University Law Review at BYU Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in BYU Law Review by an authorized editor of BYU Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DO NOT DELETE 12/20/2011 3:44 PM Challenging the Executive: The Constitutionality of Congressional Regulation of the President’s Wartime Detention Policies I. INTRODUCTION The war on terrorism has involved several clashes on the political home front, with the President and Congress asserting conflicting policies. A recent example is Congress’s effort to deny funding to transfer detainees from Guantánamo Bay to the United States for prosecution and to place strict, almost impossible conditions on the President’s use of funds to release or transfer detainees to other countries. In the study of national security law, especially during the war on terrorism, “the lion’s
    [Show full text]
  • Evolutions in Legislative Budgeting and Independent Fiscal Institutions
    Evolutions in Legislative Budgeting and Independent Fiscal Institutions This paper appeared in Un Estado para la Ciudadanía. Estudios para su modernización, published by the Centro Estudios Públicos (CEP) Chile, 2017. Evolutions in Legislative Budgeting and Independent Fiscal Institutions1 Abstract Two trends can be observed over the past decade within the OECD: the legislature reasserting its budgetary role and the growth of independent fiscal institutions (IFIs - independent parliamentary budget offices and fiscal councils). These trends can be seen as interlinked, particularly in those countries that have chosen an independent parliamentary budget office model, as sufficient analytical capacity is a necessary prerequisite for a legislature to exercise its budgetary function. This paper explores the potential benefits of parliamentary budget offices using two case studies from Mexico and Korea. Drawing on the OECD Principles for Independent Fiscal Institutions, the paper also identifies good practices for the design and governance of IFIs. 1 By Lisa von Trapp, Senior Policy Analyst, Budgeting and Public Expenditures Division, Directorate for Public Governance, OECD. The author would like to thank Scherie Nicol, Policy Analyst for her contributions to the figures on OECD IFIs and Jón Blöndal, Head of Division, for his thoughtful comments. 1 Introduction Two trends can be observed over the past decade within the OECD: the legislature reasserting its budgetary role and the growth of independent fiscal institutions (IFIs).2 These trends can be seen as interlinked, particularly in those countries that have chosen an independent parliamentary budget office model, as sufficient analytical capacity is a necessary prerequisite for a legislature to exercise its budgetary function.
    [Show full text]
  • In the Supreme Court of the United States ______
    No. 19A60 In the Supreme Court of the United States _______________________________ DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, ET AL., Applicants, v. SIERRA CLUB, ET AL. _______________________________ MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE AMICUS CURIAE BRIEF AND BRIEF OF FORMER MEMBERS OF CONGRESS AS AMICI CURIAE SUPPORTING MOTION TO LIFT STAY _______________________________ Douglas A. Winthrop Irvin B. Nathan Counsel of Record Robert N. Weiner ARNOLD & PORTER Andrew T. Tutt KAYE SCHOLER LLP Kaitlin Konkel 10th Floor Samuel F. Callahan Three Embarcadero Center ARNOLD & PORTER San Francisco, CA 94111 KAYE SCHOLER LLP (415) 471-3100 601 Massachusetts Ave., NW [email protected] Washington, DC 20001 (202) 942-5000 [email protected] Attorneys for Amici Curiae No. 19A60 In the Supreme Court of the United States _______________________________ DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, ET AL., Applicants, v. SIERRA CLUB, ET AL. _______________________________ MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE AMICUS CURIAE BRIEF _______________________________ Amici curiae, a bipartisan group of more than 100 former Members of Congress, move for leave to file the accompanying brief in support of plaintiffs’ motion to lift this Court’s July 26, 2019 stay of the injunction issued by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in this case.1 Amici filed briefs supporting plaintiffs in the district court and the court of appeals in the proceedings both before and after this Court’s stay. Plaintiffs now seek to lift this Court’s July 2019 stay to ensure that the defendants cannot complete their unauthorized construction activities before this Court can act on a petition for a writ of certiorari.
    [Show full text]
  • Perish: Congress's Effort to Snip Snepp (Before and AFSA)
    Michigan Journal of International Law Volume 10 Issue 1 1989 Publish and Perish: Congress's Effort to Snip Snepp (Before and AFSA) Michael J. Glennon University of California, Davis, School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, Legislation Commons, and the President/Executive Department Commons Recommended Citation Michael J. Glennon, Publish and Perish: Congress's Effort to Snip Snepp (Before and AFSA), 10 MICH. J. INT'L L. 163 (1989). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil/vol10/iss1/17 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Michigan Journal of International Law at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Journal of International Law by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. PUBLISH AND PERISH: CONGRESS'S EFFORT TO SNIP SNEPP (BEFORE AND AFSA) Michael J. Glennon* Over three million present and former federal employees, of the Executive as well as the Congress, are parties to so-called "pre-publi- cation review agreements,"' which require that they submit any writ- ings on topics related to their employment for Executive review prior to publication. In Section 630 of the Omnibus Continuing Resolution for Fiscal Year 1988,2 Congress attempted to restrict the use of funds to implement or enforce certain of those agreements. On May 27, 1988, however, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, in American Foreign Service Association v.
    [Show full text]
  • Sub-National Constitutionalism in Argentina. an Overview by Ricardo Ramírez Calvo ∗
    ISSN: 2036-5438 Sub-National Constitutionalism in Argentina. An Overview by Ricardo Ramírez Calvo ∗ Perspectives on Federalism, Vol. 4, issue 2, 2012 Except where otherwise noted content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons 2.5 Italy License E - 59 Abstract Argentine federalism and sub-national constitutionalism is a very interesting case study for anybody trying to establish a federal system in any country around the world. Not because of its success, but precisely because of its failure. A federation on paper, Argentina is a highly centralized country, in which economic dependence of the Provinces from the central government has destroyed any kind of autonomy of the sub-national entities. This articles aims to investigate the most important features and contradictions of the Argentinean federalism Key-words Argentina, federalism, subnational constitutionalism Except where otherwise noted content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons 2.5 Italy License E - 60 1. Historical Background Argentina has one of the oldest federal systems in the world. The original framework was established in the Constitution in 1853. Although the Constitution has been amended 5 times I, the basic structure adopted in the original Constitution remains unaltered. It was created as a sort of compromise between two opposing forces that had fought a long civil war: the centralists or unitarios and the federalists or federales . The tension between both forces surfaced almost at the very beginning of our independent life, when the country cut its ties with Spain on May 25, 1810 II . The old Spanish colonial administration was highly centralized.
    [Show full text]
  • GCE Getting Started
    AS and A level Politics 2017 Content Mapping – A level – AQA March 2017 AS and A level Politics 2017 – Content Mapping – A level – AQA Contents Information for current AQA centres 3 Mapping 4 2 © Pearson Education Ltd 2017 AS and A level Politics 2017 – Content Mapping – A level – AQA Information for current AQA centres The information in this document is relevant if you are currently teaching the current AQA GCE in Government and Politics and you intend to teach the 2017 Edexcel AS and A level qualifications in Politics from September 2017. Changing to the new Edexcel specifications should be fairly straightforward. The current GCE content has been reviewed and refreshed in the light of extensive research and Ofqual and the DfE’s current requirements to form the new 2017 AS and A level specifications. Qualification structure The 2017 AS qualification has two components (UK Politics and UK Government) The 2017 A level qualification has three components (UK Politics, UK Government and Comparative Politics) Detailed information The tables below should enable tutors to see the main differences in structure and assessment between the two qualifications. For additional detail concerning the 2017 Edexcel specification, see http://qualifications.pearson.com/en/qualifications/edexcel-a-levels/politics- 2017.html. 3 © Pearson Education Ltd 2017 AS and A level Politics 2017 – Content Mapping – A level – AQA UK Politics AQA A Level Politics 2017 Notes Participation and voting behaviour 1.1 Current systems of representative AQA do not have a section on their current democracy and direct democracy. specifications devoted to democracy, as has The nature of participation in the political The features of direct democracy and the current Edexcel specification and the process.
    [Show full text]
  • Congressional Authority to Limit U.S. Military Operations in Iraq
    Order Code RL33837 Congressional Authority to Limit U.S. Military Operations in Iraq Updated February 27, 2008 Jennifer K. Elsea, Michael John Garcia, and Thomas J. Nicola Legislative Attorneys American Law Division Congressional Authority to Limit U.S. Military Operations in Iraq Summary On October 16, 2002, President Bush signed the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. Since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, Congress has enacted appropriation bills to fund the continuation of the Iraq war, including military training, reconstruction, and other aid for the government of Iraq. In April, 2007, however, Congress passed a supplemental appropriations bill to fund the war that contained conditions and a deadline for ending some military operations. The President vetoed the bill, arguing in part that some of its provisions are unconstitutional. The current dispute is centered on whether Congress has the constitutional authority to legislate limits on the President’s authority to conduct military operations in Iraq, even though it did not initially provide express limits. Specific issues include whether Congress may, through limitations on appropriations, set a ceiling on the number of soldiers or regulate which soldiers the President may assign to duty in Iraq, and whether an outright repeal or expiration of the authorization for use of military force (AUMF) against Iraq would have any effect. It has been suggested that the President’s role as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces provides sufficient authority for his deployment of troops, and any efforts on the part of Congress to intervene could represent an unconstitutional violation of separation-of-powers principles.
    [Show full text]
  • Cox the Power of the Purse and the Reversionary Budget.Pdf
    1 Preliminary draft The power of the purse and the reversionary budget* by Gary W. Cox Department of Political Science Stanford University [email protected] First version: May 8, 2012 This version: September 21, 2012 Abstract: In this paper, I argue that the well-known waves of electoral democracy (documented by Huntington (1991) and others) have triggered and been countervailed by waves of fiscal autocracy. I document a dramatic increase, from 1875 to 2005, in the number and proportion of the world’s constitutions that mandate executive-favoring budgetary reversions. After showing that such reversions can in theory eviscerate the legislature’s power of the purse, as traditionally defined, I demonstrate that they were especially likely to be introduced in countries with newly independent legislatures. Finally, I show that executive-favoring reversions had several consequences one would expect, were they intended to defang the legislature and establish fiscal autocracy. In particular, governments operating under such reversions have less credible sovereign debt and more violent leadership transitions—controlling for country fixed effects, standard economic predictors of credit-worthiness and economic development, and standard measures of electoral democracy. * I thank Emily Beaulieu, Lisa Blaydes and Barry Weingast for their comments. 2 The power of the purse and the reversionary budget The power of the purse has long been viewed as the main weapon in the arsenal of legislatures seeking to control the executive branch. English parliamentarians, pamphleteers and philosophers around the time of the Glorious Revolution first trumpeted the importance of such power.1 Their ideas, later amplified by Montesquieu (1989[1748]), Madison (2009[1788]) and other Enlightenment figures, now form part of the standard canon of western political thought.
    [Show full text]
  • The Founders' Origination Clause and Implications for the Affordable Care
    THE FOUNDERS’ ORIGINATION CLAUSE AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT ROBERT G. NATELSON* This Article is the first comprehensive examination of the original legal force of the Constitution’s Origination Clause, drawing not merely on the records of the 1787–90 constitutional debates, but on Founding-Era British and American legislative practice and other sources. This Article defines the bills governed by the Origination Clause, the precise meaning of the House origination requirement, and the extent of the Senate’s amendment power. For illustrative purposes, the Article tests against its findings the currently-litigated claim that the financial penalty for failure to ac- quire individual health insurance under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is invalid as a Senate-originated “tax.” The Arti- cle concludes that this “tax” was a valid Senate amendment to a House-adopted revenue bill. The Article also concludes, however, that the amendments that added the PPACA’s regulatory provisions and appropriations were outside the Senate’s amendment power. INTRODUCTION ............................................................ 633 I. THE UNLOVED CLAUSE? SURVEY OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION AND RATIFICATION DEBATES ........................................ 636 * Robert G. Natelson was a law professor for twenty-five years at three different universities and is currently is Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Independence Institute in Denver. His works and biography are listed at http://constitution.i2i.org/about [http://perma.cc/4Z4G-FCKX]. The author wishes to thank the following for invaluable assistance: The Inde- pendence Institute, Denver, Colorado, and its research director, Dave Kopel; Vir- ginia Dunn, Archives & Library Reference Services Manager, Library of Virginia; Joanna Innes, Fellow and Tutor in Modern History Somerville College, University of Oxford, England; Seth Barrett Tillman, Lecturer in Law, National University of Ireland Maynooth; Jane Thompson, Associate Director of Faculty Services and Research, William A.
    [Show full text]
  • The Congress, the Purse, the Purpose, and the Power
    Digital Commons @ Georgia Law Sibley Lecture Series Lectures and Presentations 9-25-1986 The onC gress, The Purse, The Purpose, and The Power Abner J. Mikva U.S. Court of Appeals Repository Citation Mikva, Abner J., "The onC gress, The urP se, The urP pose, and The oP wer" (1986). Sibley Lecture Series. 57. https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/lectures_pre_arch_lectures_sibley/57 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Lectures and Presentations at Digital Commons @ Georgia Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sibley Lecture Series by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Georgia Law. Please share how you have benefited from this access For more information, please contact [email protected]. GEORGIA LAW REVIEW VoLumE 21 SPEcIAL IssuE 1986 NtumEm I CONGRESS: THE PURSE, THE PURPOSE, AND THE POWER Abner J. Mikva* The first amendment to the Constitution, Justice Hugo Black once said, was first by design, and not by happenstance; its place- ment signified that to the country's founders, the freedoms of speech and press and religion were of primary concern. So too article I of the Constitution, establishing the Congress of the United States, was first by design rather than by happenstance; its placement reflects the founders' intent and expectation that Congress would be the dominant branch. To ensure that Congress would act as the first branch of gov- ernment, the constitutional framers gave the legislature virtually exclusive power to control the nation's purse strings. Even then, when the nation's purse was small and the amounts in question meager, experienced participants in government knew that the power of the purse was the most far-reaching and effectual of all gov- ernmental powers.
    [Show full text]
  • House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress
    THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE MODERNIZATION OF CONGRESS FINAL REPORT REPORT NO. 116-562 OCTOBER 2020 CHAIR DEREK KILMER VICE CHAIR TOM GRAVES THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE MODERNIZATION OF CONGRESS FINAL REPORT REPORT NO. 116-562 UNION CALENDAR NO. 460 OCTOBER 2020 OCTOBER 27, 2020.— Committed to the CHAIR DEREK KILMER Committee of the Whole House on the VICE CHAIR TOM GRAVES State of the Union and ordered to be printed Contents I. Introduction Opening Letter from Chair Derek Kilmer and Vice Chair Tom Graves Members of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress Recommendations Passed by the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress Committee Packages that Passed the House II. History and Background of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress Past Congressional Reform Efforts III. Recommendations of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress Chapter 1 — Make Congress More Effective, Efficient, and Transparent Chapter 2 — Encourage Civility and Bipartisanship in Congress Chapter 3 — Improve Congressional Capacity Chapter 4 — Overhaul the Onboarding Process and Provide Continuing Education for Members Chapter 5 — Make the House Accessible for All Americans Chapter 6 — Modernize and Revitalize House Technology Chapter 7 — Streamline Processes and Save Taxpayer Dollars Chapter 8 — Increase the Quality of Constituent Communication and the Congressional Frank Chapter 9 — Continuity of Government and Congressional Operations Chapter 10 — Reclaim Congress’ Article One Responsibilities Chapter 11 — Reform the Budget and Appropriations Process — Recommendations from the Joint Select Committee on Budget and Appropriations Reforms Chapter 12 — Improve the Congressional Schedule and Calendar IV. Conclusion Areas for Future Reform I.
    [Show full text]