Rule of Procedure for Senate Investigating Committees

Also present: Boris S. Berkovitch, counsel to Subcommittee on Rules; W. F. Bookwalter, chief clerk of the Committee on Rules and Administration; Darrell St. Claire, professional staff member, Committee on Rules and Administration; and Judge Robert Morris.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

We have as our first witness Senator Guy M. Gillette, of Iowa. We are glad to see you, Senator. Do you have a statement?

Senator GILLETTE. I have a statement, Mr. Chairman, but as I have got to go to the Foreign Relations Committee, I want to put it in the record and make a brief supplemental statement.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, fine.

Do you solemnly swear the testimony given in this hearing will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Senator GILLETTE. I do.

TESTIMONY OF HON. GUY M. GILLETTE, A UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF IOWA

Senator GILLETTE. Mr. Chairman, because of the limitation on your time and mine I have prepared a statement here for the record and I will just, if you will permit it, leave it to be incorporated in the record and I will make a few brief supplemental statements.

The CHAIRMAN. The statement of Senator Gillette will go in the record and become a part of the record.

(The statement referred to is as follows:)

Mr. Chairman and members, before submitting a few specific comments about certain of the proposals pending before your subcommittee, I wish to make a general observation.

You are examining the question of establishing a set of procedures applicable to the conduct of investigations by all committees or subcommittees of the Senate. Because the need for some common standard of committee procedure and practice has long been apparent and is becoming increasingly urgent, the fact that this hearing is taking place is in itself a highly encouraging and significant development.

Committees and subcommittees of the Senate, of course, are agents and creatures of the Senate, created under its rules, maintained under its rules, guided by its rules, and exercising power delegated to them by the Senate. Having no power whatsoever excepting that which they derive from the Senate, the committees and subcommittees are merely agents responsible to their principal, and, as their principal, the Senate in turn is responsible to the people of the United States for the conduct of its agents and agencies.

Lawyers will recall the Latin precept. "Qui facit per alium facit per se," the free translation of which usually is "The acts of his agent are his own acts.” In view of these basic considerations, it is clear that any criticism leveled at the procedures and practices of one or another of the Senate's subagencies is in fact a criticism of the Senate as a whole. As Senators we cannot wash our hands of responsibility for activities carried on in the name of the Senate by one or another of its subagencies.

The people of the United States will and should hold the whole Senate to account for any failure on the part of one of its committees or subcommittees to assure to citizens haled before such committee or subcommittee the full protection of the full rights and liberties guaranteed them by the Constitution. Obviously, one of the best ways for the Senate to fulfill this responsibility is to institute a uniform code of procedure for all its subagencies and to provide some sort of sanction to enforce that code.

Senate Resolution 256: I am a cosponsor of Senate Resolution 256, introduced by the senior Senator from Tennessee with the cosponsorship of 18 other Members of the Senate.

I am proud to have joined in submitting this resolution, not because I am in complete accord with every single provision of it, but because of my conviction that the Senate must exercise greater control over the conduct of investigations carried on under its authority and in its name. I endorse its purpose and I congratulate Senator Kefauver and the other Senators who initiated the concept of a code of fair committee procedure.

I should prefer to give detailed consideration to the specific provisions of the resolution, or a similar resolution, when your subcommittee reports to the full Committee on Rules and Administration, of which I am a member.

Senate Resolution 223: May I mention Senate Resolution 223, which I introduced on March 25 this year and which is merely a technical provision requiring that the rules of procedure of Senate committees or subcommittees now in force or adopted in the future shall be published by the Secretary of the Senate in the Congressional Record. If the Senate approves a set of uniform procedures, this provision would be unnecessary. I would urge its adoption only if the Senate fails to approve a standard code of procedures in the present session.

Should the Senate fail to take such action, it would be valuable to have this resolution approved so that citizens dealing with the various committees can know what the rules of such committees are or, in fact, whether such rules exist or not.

Senate Resolution 65: My principal interest in testifying before your subcommittee is to explain the purpose of Senate Resolution 65, which I introduced on February 6, last year. In simplest terms, this resolution would establish in the Senate the same general procedure for authorizing and appropriating funds for investigations as is now employed in authorizing and appropriating funds for any function of the Federal Government. The House of Representatives has in effect a rule similar to the one I am proposing.

When a Senate committee approves a resolution authorizing an investigation, under my proposal, the full Senate will be required to approve such a resolution before a second resolution of appropriation can be introduced. After the Senate has debated the resolution of authorization and has given its approval of the investigation to be carried on under such resolution, then a second resolution will be introduced, to be referred to the Rules Committee, providing for a certain sum to be appropriated from the contingent fund of the Senate to pay the costs of the investigation.

This second resolution will, if approved by the Rules Committee, then be reported to the Senate. Only after the Senate has adopted the second resolution will the funds become available to the committee originating the resolution authorizing the investigation.

Thus it will be an operation in two stages, similar to the procedure followed with a bill authorizing an executive department to carry out a certain function, which is followed by a bill appropriating the necessary funds.

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