Wisconsin Senators Nelson (1963-1981) and Proxmire (1957-1989)
Archive for the ‘Oversight’ Category
Elmer Staats
July 27, 2011
Chicago (our annual spring pilgrimage)
April 27, 2010
Back from our annual spring pilgrimage to Chicago. We stayed in Hyde Park with Rachel’s brother Ross and his wife Meera. I attended the MPSA conference was a discussant on for a couple panels “Campaigning to Governing” and (the clumsily titled) “Bureaucratic Leadership Transition and Agency Performance.”
Patrick Roberts presented a paper he and I are writing our CPAP colleague Sang Ok Choi currently titled, “Guarding the Guardians: Oversight Appointees and the Search for Accountability in U.S. Federal Agencies.” It’s a paper looks that the historical development and problem of vacancies among president-appointed, Senate-confirmed appointees in three positions: inspectors general (IGs), chief financial officers (CFOs), and general counsels (GCs).
Dave Parker and I also presented a paper we’re co-autoring – a second – on congressional committee investigtions. This one, “Rooting Out Waste, Fraud, and Abuse: House Committee Investigations, 1947-2004,” looks at investigative hearings across committees and chairmen.
Before leaving on Sunday, guided by Ross’s phone, we caught a couple Southside buses to the Hull House Museum, which consists of only the original house and one or two other structures, the bulk of the buildings that made up the historical settlement house have been replaced by the UIC student center. Anyway, the small museum on the house’s first floor was neat. Meera’s photo of a few of the children’s cubbies displayed in the museum really evokes the spirit of the place:
Transparency Talks: Louis Fisher (10/20)
October 15, 2009On October 20th at 5:30pm, Dr. Louis Fisher, Specialist in Constitutional Law at the Law Library of the Library of Congress, will join us in Alexandria for the first in a series of “Transparency Talks” discussions addressing the role of transparency in governments and markets. Dr. Fisher is the author of 19 books , including The Constitution and 9/11: Recurring Threats to America’s Freedoms (2008), In the Name of National Security: Unchecked Presidential Power and the Reynolds Case (2006), Presidential War Power (2d ed. 2004), American Constitutional Law (with Katy J. Harriger, 8th ed. 2009), Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the Presidency (5th ed. 2005), and Political Dynamics of Constitutional Law (with Neal Devins, 4th ed. 2006).
Dr. Fisher will discuss the role of secrecy in presidential power and his recent testimony before the Crime Subcommittee of the House Committee on the Judiciary on the “The Executive Accountability Act of 2009” (testimony available here: http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/Fisher090727.pdf.)
Time: Reception – 5:00-5:30, Discussion – 5:30-6:30
Location: 1021 Prince Street, 2nd Floor Common Area
Coffee and donuts will be served prior to the discussion.
We will link by Polycom to Thomas Conner House in Blacksburg.
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The Transparency Talks series is being coordinated by SPIA faculty members Matt Dull (CPAP) and Giselle Datz (GIA) to explore the dimensions of transparency as a reform imperative across a range of governmental and market settings. To learn more about the series – or to receive updates about future Transparency Talks, email: mdull@vt.edu.
Congressional Oversight
September 20, 2009In The Weekly Standard (9/17):
Failing to hold your own party responsible through vigorous congressional oversight is not an imperfection that plagues just the current Democratic majority. Some new research by David C.W. Parker and Matthew Dull in the current issue of Legislative Studies Quarterly investigates the politics of congressional investigations from 1947-2004. Their research demonstrates divided government generates more intensive oversight efforts to invDestigate waste, fraud and abuse than when Congress and the president are controlled by the same party.
The article (again): Parker, David C.W. and Matthew Dull. 2009. “Divided We Quarrel: The Politics of Congressional Investigations, 1947–2004,” Legislative Studies Quarterly. 34:3 (August): 319-345.
