Procedural Background and Overview
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Introduction
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In the wake of numerous revelations in the news media of unusual, and possibly illegal, campaign contributions to the Democratic Party during the 1996 presidential campaign, the Senate Majority Leader announced during the first week of December 1996, that the Committee on Governmental Affairs would conduct an investigation on behalf of the Senate into fund-raising practices of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) following the convocation of the 105th Congress in January 1997. The Majority Leader determined to centralize all aspects of the inquiry in the Governmental Affairs Committee (hereafter referred to simply as the Committee), which has the broadest oversight jurisdiction and most extensive subpoena authority of any committee of the Senate.
The investigation and its public hearings had three fundamental and interrelated purposes, consistent with the constitutional responsibilities of the Senate: informing the public, examining the operation of the law and of government officials, and developing a record to assist the Senate in considering legislation.
The first of these purposes was to create a record of what occurred during the 1996 election cycle to inform the American people. A knowledgeable electorate is the cornerstone of democracy, and the public has a right to know what went on during the 1996 campaign. The people need to be informed of the operations of their government and the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the laws in order to make informed judgments at the polls. Because all else flows from the people in a democracy, this purpose of informing the people must be ranked as the primary purpose of the investigation. In this regard, the Committee carried on the official inquiry, while the media fulfill their similar, but unofficial role, of informing the people of the facts.
The Committee succeeded in laying before the American people a great deal of information that would never have become public in the absence of the Committees investigation. It was not always the Committee itself that released the information, but it was the Committee that was responsible for the release. For example, the White House released a great deal of information to the media before producing it the Committee. None of that information would have been publicly disclosed without the Committees demands for the information from the White House. Vindicating the publics right to know, more than drawing its own conclusions or achieving partisan political goals, was the paramount purpose of the special investigation, and the Committee succeeded in satisfying this first purpose.
A second purpose of the inquiry and hearings was to scrutinize the operation of the current legal and regulatory framework for federal elections. For Congress to legislate and govern effectively, it must conduct routine oversight to learn how the government is functioning. Congress also has a responsibility to examine the operation of current laws on the government and private parties. This Committee is particularly well-suited to conduct such a broad oversight inquiry into the multifarious elements of this scandal because it has the broadest oversight jurisdiction in the Senate: to study or investigate the efficiency and economy of operations of all branches of the Government.1
The investigation reviewed the operations of a large number of disparate agencies. From the Commerce Department, which employed John Huang, to the Interior Department and the role of campaign contributions on the approval of off-reservation Indian casinos, to the Energy Department, senior officials of which were caught up in Roger Tamrazs effort to buy access and to secure a change in U.S. policy in return for political contributions to the Democratic Party, to the White House staff and its role in developing and implementing a scheme to evade the campaign expenditure limits during the Presidents re-election campaign, the Committee probed into the often-ignored corners of government operations to shine light on the impact political contributions may have on the formulation and substance of government policy. The hearings informed the Committee, the Senate, and the American people of these matters and enhanced our knowledge, not always in a way that made us proud, but hopefully in a way that will improve our government.
The third purpose of the hearings is the one on which the Senates ability to conduct this type of investigation is founded, its constitutional role to legislate. The Senate cannot legislate without knowing what is happening. How do the laws the Congress passes work in the real world? What gaps exist in their coverage? What gaps exist in the governments enforcement capabilities? Are there situations where legal proscriptions do not work? These are the types of questions relevant to any congressional hearing, as they are central to the role of Congress in our constitutional republic. The Committee went forward always bearing in mind that its entire authority was premised on the underlying legislative responsibilities of Congress, even though the Committee itself lacked legislative jurisdiction over many of the items at issue in these hearings. For this reason, the Committee did not hold hearings on particular legislative proposals; it never examined what works and does not work with an eye towards developing and recommending a legislative solution, which is typically the responsibility of the legislative committee with legislative jurisdiction conferred by Rule XXV of the Standing Rules of the Senate. The hearings did, however, develop a factual record on which other committees with such jurisdiction can rely in formulating legislative proposals. Thus, it is the expectation of the Committee that the facts developed by its investigation and revealed in its hearings will be of use to the Committee on Rules and Administration, when it considers legislation to reform campaign finance laws, and to the other members of the Senate. Other information developed by the Committee should be relevant to other committees in the exercise of their legislative and oversight responsibilities. Finally, some of the issues investigated by the Committee touched on matters within the legislative jurisdiction of the Committee, such as potential violations of the Hatch Act.
This report should be considered an interim report to the American people and the Senate on the results of the Committees investigation. Because the time allotted to the Committee to conduct the inquiry was severely limited, the Committee was unable to complete the inquiry, leaving a number of questions unanswered. This report may serve as a starting point for other Senate committees, the House of Representatives, and the Department of Justice to continue the investigations into the multifaceted aspects of the issues broached by the Committees investigation.
Procedural Chronology
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When the 105th Congress convened in early January 1997, Senator Fred Thompson (RTN) was confirmed as the chairman of the Committee. On January 7, 1997, Chairman Thompson named Hannah Sistare as staff director of the Committee and hired Michael J. Madigan, a partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, to serve as chief counsel for the special investigation into campaign fundraising abuses in the 1996 elections. Senator John Glenn (D-OH) was selected as the ranking minority member of the Committee, and he named former Senate Legal Counsel Michael Davidson to serve as minority chief counsel for the special investigation.
