Senate Reorganization Study Calls on Political ScientistsAuthor(s): Roger H. DavidsonSource: PS, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Summer, 1976), pp. 288-289Published by: American Political Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/418007 .

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Senate Reorganization Study Calls on Political Scientists

For the first time in 30 years, the United States Senate has undertaken a thoroughgoing review of its committee system. Political scientists with congressional experience and expertise are playing a significant role in the research aspects of this review. The agent for this reorganization effort is a newly-created body with a formidable title: the Temporary Select Committee to Study the Senate Committee System. It was established on March 31, 1976, when the Senate without objection adopted S.Res. 109, which had been sponsored by 57 Senators. The new Select Committee has a broad man- date. It is charged with conducting a compre- hensive inquiry into the Senate's committee system; the structure, jurisdiction, number, and optimum size of Senate committees; committee rules and procedures; media coverage of meet- ings; and staffing and other committee facili- ties. It has also been asked to make recommen- dations designed to promote optimum utiliza- tion of Senators' time; optimum effectiveness of committees in creating and overseeing fed- eral programs; clear and consistent procedures for referring legislation falling within the re- sponsibilities of two or more committees; and workable methods for ongoing review and revision of committee jurisdictions. Senator Adlai Stevenson (D-lll.) and Senator Bill Brock (R-Tenn.), who were key sponsors of S.Res. 109, are serving as the Select Commit- tee's chairman and co-chairman, respectively. Other members are: Frank E. Moss (Utah), Lee Metcalf (Mont.), Gaylord Nelson (Wis.), Lloyd Bentsen (Tex.), and Lawton Chiles (Fla.), all Democrats; and Republicans Clifford P. Hansen (Wyo.), Barry Goldwater (Ariz.), Bob Pack- wood (Ore.), Pete V. Domenici (N.Mex.), and Jesse Helms (N.C.). The Select Committee's core staff includes several political scientists with extensive Capitol Hill experience. Staff Director is Kenneth E. Gray, a former Senate administrative assistant and committee professional staff member who heads the Government Division of the Congres- sional Research Service. Counsel to the Co- Chairman is Harrison W. Fox, Jr., a political scientist with six years' staff experience on the Hill and publications relating to congressional staffing and oversight. Other key staff members include: Walter Kra- vitz, senior specialist in the Congressional Re- search Service and former staff director of the House Budget Committee; Roger H. Davidson, former professional staff member with the House Select Committee on Committees (the Bolling Committee) and professor at the Uni-

Roger H. Davidson Temporary Select Committee to Study the Senate Committee System, United States Senate

versity of California, Santa Barbara; James A. Thurber, former APSA Congressional Fellow and Senate legislative assistant who now teaches at the American University; Walter J. Oleszek, a Congressional Research Service specialist who also served with the Bolling Committee and the House Rules Committee; James McClellan, legislative assistant to Senator Helms and for- merly a faculty member at Alabama and Emory universities and Hampden-Sydney College; Nor- man J. Ornstein of Catholic University; Judith Parris of the Congressional Research Service, who wrote extensively on Congress while on the staff of the Brookings Institution; Beverly Lovelady, a General Accounting Office audit manager now serving as an APSA Congressional Fellow; and Judy Schneider, an information specialist who served with the American Soci- ety for Information Science.

Central research objectives of the Select Com- mittee's staff will be to identify all the jurisdic- tional categories of issues handled by Senate committees, and to describe the procedures used to refer bills to committees. Areas of jurisdictional overlap or conflict, not to men- tion jurisdictional gaps, will also be identified. Assembling information will require a variety of techniques, including a series of detailed inter- views with approximately 150 staff aides in standing, select, special, and joint committees and subcommittees. Senate committee jurisdic- tions will be compared to other jurisdictional boundaries in the national policy-making pro- cess-such as those embodied in House commit- tees, Executive agencies and programs, and budgetary categories. In short, the Committee's research program is designed to illuminate the complex layering of categories that has accom- panied the proliferation of governmental activity. Workloads of Senate committees and subcom- mittees will also be examined. Because there are many possible measures of workload, the Com- mittee is preparing inventories of the work of Senate committees according to number of bills referred to each committee; number of hearings held; number of days devoted to hearings and markups; allocations of member and staff time among various issues; and Senators' over-all interest in various issues. To the extent feasible, the same measures will be applied to subcom- mittees as to full committees.

To help the Senators assess the implications and probable impact of specific changes, the Select Committee staff is preparing detailed descrip- tions of hypothetical committee systems, based upon alternative sets of premises. Such commit- tee plans might include: a system contemplat- ing only minimal changes in existing commit-

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tees; one featuring a powerful scheduling mech- anism; one based on a small number of exclu- sive committees; one based on a large number of committees with interlocking memberships surrounding key issues; and one utilizing several "manager committees" in broad functional categories (e.g., natural resources, human re- sources, economics, national security, and gen- eral government) to coordinate and schedule a large number of permanent subcommittees with legislative authority. The Committee's final recommendations are not likely to parallel any of these models; but the models will serve to pose alternatives and clarify probable conse- quences of alternative organizational approaches. In addition to processing legislation, the Senate committee system also is a major vehicle for review, or oversight, of Executive agencies and programs. Many observers of Congress, includ- ing Senators and Representatives themselves, believe that committees fall far short of exercis- ing the "continuous watchfulness" mandated by law. The Select Committee will therefore compile information on the oversight function -its techniques, frequency, effectiveness, and pitfalls. Proposals for the Senate committee system will be examined in light of their implications for the oversight function, with the objective of maximizing Senators' incen- tives for engaging in oversight activities. The Select Committee's research is being coor- dinated with the work of the Commission on the Operation of the Senate, headed by former Senator Harold Hughes. Although the two agencies' mandates overlap in certain respects,

the Select Committee is concentrating on the jurisdiction and workloads of Senate commit- tees, while the Commission is dealing with wide-ranging questions of management and informational resources.

According to S.Res. 109, the Select Commit- tee's life will extend only to February 28, 1977. In reality, the staff's deadline for com- pleting its work will be much earlier. Explora- tory hearings, tentatively set for mid-July, will concentrate on committee assignments, refer- rals, jurisdictions, workloads, and alternative committee plans. Senators and public witnesses will be heard. A second set of hearings, slated for mid-September, will focus either on a draft interim Committee report or on such ancillary issues as oversight and management. The Com- mittee hopes to agree upon an interim report at that time so that the recommendations can be considered during the 94th Congress and per- haps implemented in January 1977.

The Select Committee's staff are eager to maintain close communication with scholars and practitioners throughout the country. Po- litical scientists who have unpublished research pertaining to the Senate committee system, or who have proposals for improving the system's operations, are encouraged to correspond with the Staff Director or any member of the Committee's staff. Those desiring to receive materials and reports issued by the Committee may send their names and addresses to: Sherry Towell, Chief Clerk, Temporary Select Commit- tee to Study the Senate Committee System, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510.

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