not a member of the legislative committee, desiring jurisdiction of that bill, can also move that privileged resolution; and it doesn't require committee action. It does't require committee resolution, but it does help if you are trying to discharge a committee from a legislative bill to have the committee claiming that jurisdiction raise the issue and be united in the fight to transfer it to the proper jurisdiction. However, I would hate to see us go beyond the limitations, or put more limitations on the discharge of a committee from investigation, or the transfer to another committee by an individual Senator, than are now provided for the transfer of a legislative bill. While, from a practical standpoint, it works that way, in that the committee protects its own jurisdiction and raises the issue and makes the fight on the floor of the Senate, it would still be advisable, I think, in some cases to leave the rules as they have traditionally applied for the discharge of legislation, and to make them apply the same way on investigations.

After all, the author has nothing to say about where it is referred. It is referred by the Vice President, under the rules, and the bill is lodged in a committee by official action of the Senate; but on investigations today, since the select committees were empowered by the whole Senate to go into fields of investigation, they are removed from the Senate itself and transferred to any committee chairman who decides to go on a hunting expedition.

Your own committee has statutory rights, Mr. Jenner. It was set up for that purpose.

The CHAIRMAN. Special committee.

Senator MONRONEY. And it is clearly outlined in the rules of the Senate.

So, the question of jurisdiction would be spelled out there, but I believe any Member who has the right on the discharge of a legislative bill should also have the right to put that matter before the whole Senate and have it either disposed of by the Vice President in a ruling or, if an appeal is desired, and it is spelled out that an appeal may be taken, in the rules, to put that matter before the whole Senate, whether that investigation more properly lies within committee A or within committee B.

Senator HAYDEN. The Senator may be correct in saying the right of an individual Senator to raise the issue should not be taken away, but, as a practical matter, we all know the way it is done. If a committee felt that its jurisdiction was being invaded, the matter could be brought to the attention of the Senate by the chairman of the committee. But, as the rule stands now-and this is the omission I find, I think, in your proposal-it is not a matter of privilege. It must be made a matter of privilege when the question is raised, so it can be acted upon promptly by the Senate.

Senator MONRONEY. I would say it is. I have gone into that-my apologies to you, sir-with the Parliamentarian. Any motion to discharge a committee from a legislative bill is a privileged resolution that comes up on the next legislative day during the morning hour. It has a privileged status, and we should make the rules for discharge of legislation apply to the discharge of an investigation. We do not need to cover that by additional language saying it is privileged, because if you make the same rule apply on investigations as on legislation, it is privileged.

Senator HAYDEN. Take the case cited with respect to the jurisdiction of the Committee on the Judiciary. The present rule, in defining the jurisdiction of that committee, among other things, states it shall have jurisdiction over espionage.

Senator MONRONEY. That is right.

Senator HAYDEN. That is a very broad term, broad enough to cover any kind of Communist activity of any sort that is adverse to the interests of the United States.

It is hard for me to read into the jurisdiction given by the La Follette-Monroney Act to the Committee on Government Operationsstudying the operation of Government activities at all levels with a view to determining its economy and efficiency

jurisdiction to investigate all Government activities of every kind and character.

Senator MONRONEY. And may I say to the distinguished Senator, that is the paragraph under which the committee gets its money. When we give it for this special investigation, if you will look up the appropriations, as I have done, it is under that sole paragraph—

studying the operation of Government activities at all levels with a view to determining its economy and efficiency—

that these far-reaching investigations, both here and abroad, have been carried out. If you will read the rest of the committee's jurisdiction, you will find that it deals strictly with fiscal matters, strictly with matters affecting the economy and operation of the Government and to improving our operations in that direction.

Senator HAYDEN. Undoubtedly the idea originally was that Committee on Government Operations would be concerned over money previously appropriated and what became of it.

Senator MONRONEY. That is right, to follow through to see if there was any chicanery in the handling of appropriated money.

The Appropriations Committee, in our estimation, was to study the operation and needs of these departments for the budget and for the money they asked. This was to follow up, in a way, as a sort of special supervising agent, on how the money was spent and whether there had been any devious or unappropriate use of the money as the Congress intended it to be spent.

Senator HAYDEN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator, right there, if you don't mind, on that point

Senator HAYDEN. Certainly.

The CHAIRMAN. What concerns me is this: If you take line 4 of this resolution of Senator Monroney's, "In any case in which a controversy arises," who is to determine the controversy!

Now, take the matter you just referred to about the Government Operations Committee. It is limited to looking into the efficiency of government. Suppose this committee, as it has in the past, goes into the field of investigations of communism, into various departments of Government, for instance at Fort Monmouth, and so forth, can it not be said it is certainly inefficient of Government to permit Communists to steal its vital secrets. Who is to determine who is right and who is wrong and where the controversy begins and where it ends?

Senator MONRONEY. I would say to the distinguished chairman that the words are taken directly from section 137, under which we have been operating since 1946, which reads:

In any case in which a controversy arises as to the jurisdiction of any standing committee of the Senate with respect to any proposed legislation, the question of jurisdiction shall be decided by the presiding officer of the Senate, without debate, in favor of that committee which has jurisdiction over the subject matter which predominates in such proposed legislation; but such decision shall be subject to an appeal.

Therefore, we recognize that there are cases where, by the stretch of the imagination, you can investigate almost anything. I mean there is nothing the committee could not, by stretching the English language, and the imagination and personal desires for achievement in investigative prowess, go into by saying everything is economy and efficiency.

But a reasonable man would say, and I believe a reasonable Senate would say, if one's jurisdiction was spelled out specifically as espionage that would deal with the Communist problem more properly than the matter of stretching the English language to

The CHAIRMAN. I think of another example. You happen to use that example, but here is another: The Internal Security Committee, for example, started its career, as you say, by special resolution, and its first major project was the Institute of Pacific Relations investigations. Now, of course, that investigation and report led directly into the field of foreign affairs. In other words, at any time, under this procedure that you are suggesting here, the Foreign Relations Committee could come in and say, "Well, now, wait a minute; this is a matter for our jurisdiction," and, yet, it did affect the internal security of the United States, and here was a special committee authorized, with its metes and bounds prescribed, being challenged by another committee, a standing committee, that could reasonably say, "You are in our field of jurisdiction."

Now, let me ask you this: Is it up to the Senate to vote on appeal from the Vice President as to who has jurisdiction?

Senator MONRONEY. I think, in the final analysis, that the Senate should be the master of its agents and that when the conduct of any Senate committee is such that a majority of the Senators is willing to go on a record vote to say, "We feel that more properly the field of this investigation should be done by this committee rather than that committee," then we should not mistrust the majority rule of the United States Senate.

The CHAIRMAN. And this question could arise by the fact that any individual Member of the Senate could present a resolution.

Senator MONRONEY. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. At any time.

Senator MONRONEY. That is right, and it is a privileged resolution. The rules on discharge specifically provide that it will come up the next legislative day, during the morning hour, and shall be disposed of at that time. So, when your morning hour runs out, your debate ends, the Senate then, on appeal from the decision of the Chair, would be the master.

No human mind can write a set of jurisdictional rules where you will not have various infiltrations of jurisdictions, and that is why, I think wisely, it states "which predominates":

*** the question of jurisdiction shall be decided by the presiding officer of the Senate, without debate, in favor of that committee which has jurisdiction over the subject matter which predominates [emphasis added] in such proposed legislation

We make it apply to investigations. So, I believe that you have the safeguards that have not been found wanting on legislative bills. You have the safeguards there if you make it apply to investigations as well.

The Senate is not a capricious body. The Senate, in fact, is loath to move to change jurisdictions.

I don't remember very many transfers of jurisdictions over legislative bills during my 4 years in the Senate. I don't think it is a matter that would be capriciously used; but I do think that it is a power that should rest with the 96 Members of the Senate and not with 1 Member of the Senate. I think, finally, we have to come down to this: We take the responsibility. Do we have anything to say about it and how it is used?

Senator HAYDEN. Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Hayden.

Senator HAYDEN. I might say in my time I have only known of two instances where the ruling of the Vice President or the presiding officer on a question of jurisdiction was overruled by the Senate-only twice in all my time in the Senate.

Senator MONRONEY. But the right of appeal is specifically provided to the whole Senate on legislative bills and, therefore, it would be in this the same way.

The CHAIRMAN. I believe it was your statement that there would be no need, in all likelihood, of a code of ethics and procedure, if this resolution

Senator MONRONEY. No; that isn't quite what I said.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me correct that. I believe you said unless you had this it wouldn't be possible to make one work effectively.

Senator MONRONEY. I believe you have got to put the authority back in the Senate, because if you have the best code of fair playand I have read most of them-you still have a very difficult time because you can't make a point of order on the floor of the Senate stand up on what the committee is doing in a committee meeting, or in a subcommittee meeting, or in an executive committee meeting. The Senate is not on notice, and a chairman who would willfully violate his jurisdiction in the Senate rules as they are could very easily say, "Well, I don't think this thing means what it says," or "I interpret it to mean something else."

If you can stretch language as far on the code of fair play as has been stretched on the code of jurisdiction, I think you could certainly find you could nullify that and, unless you have got a majority vote of the subcommittee or the full committee, you would have no way of overriding the chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator.

Do you have any further questions, Senator Hayden?

Senator HAYDEN. No.

Senator MONRONEY. I would say again this could be passed so that we have that power, and the other matter is a matter that is going to take a very great deal of careful study to preserve. I am trying to preserve in this resolution the rights of the Senate and the House to

conduct these investigations; but I feel they should be conducted under the jurisdiction, which has stood the test of time, that the standing committees have.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator.

Senator MONRONEY. Thank you for your kind indulgence.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you for appearing here this morning. Senator MONRONEY. I apologize for not having time to prepare the copies of my testimony as provided by the Reorganization Act.

The CHAIRMAN. At this point I would like to put into our record the statements of Senator Styles Bridges, Senator H. Alexander Smith, Senator Hugh Butler, Senator John W. Bricker, and Senator Olin D. Johnston.

(The statements referred to are as follows:)

STATEMENT OF HON. STYLES BRIDGES, A UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

Mr. Chairman, as chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, I am pleased to accept your invitation to present my views on a code of fair procedures for congressional committee investigations.

The Congress has not only the right but the serious obligation to gather facts in order that it may legislate intelligently and investigate matters pertaining to the general welfare. In doing so, however, Congress has the duty to preserve and not to violate the personal liberties which are the right of freemen in a democracy.

With respect to the work of the Committee on Appropriations, I would like to point out to the committee that we engage in two types of hearings: In the first place, we have hearings before all of our subcommittees on the subject of appropriations for the ensuing fiscal year. The witnesses who come before us in this regard are representatives of the various departments and agencies of the Government as well as many private citizens. The subject matter of this type of hearing is the justification for the amount of funds allowed in the budget estimates and such alterations as may have been made by the House of Representatives. The second type of hearing held before the Committee on Appropriations relates to the investigation of any and all matters pertaining to the expenditure of funds and any matters related thereto. For that purpose the committee has been furnished with an investigations staff which is the professional implement of the full committee in the ascertainment of facts and the making of studies in connection with such investigations. So far as the Committee on Appropriations is concerned, there is no problem on the subject of fair procedures. I am confident that no one can or will accuse the Committee on Appropriations of abusing its power in this regard. However, I recognize there is a problem in this area and both as chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, and personally, I would be willing to see any fair set of rules and procedures made applicable to the Committee on Appropriations. I believe the Rules Committee must be very careful not to recommend burdensome limitations and procedural reforms to the extent that they might impair the vital functions of the Congress.

It was 30 years ago that Justice Frankfurter made the following statement in regard to the powers of inquiry of congressional committees. His thoughts as expressed in the following quotation would seem equally applicable today: "Congressional inquiry ought not to be fettered by advance rigidities, because in the light of experience there can be no reasonable doubt that such curtailment would make effective investigation almost impossible *** the power of investigation should be left for determination of Congress and its committees, as each situation arises."

I have looked over the various resolutions which have been introduced on the subject, of which Senate Resolution 253, introduced by the distinguished Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Bush, seems among the best. On the whole, I am of the opinion that Senator Bush's resolution furnishes a sound approach to many of the difficulties confronting us. While I am unable to endorse this resolution in toto without further thought and careful study, I believe it deserves the most serious consideration of your committee.