Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Cokie Roberts introduces report on potential Constitutional conflict between Congress and the courts, as an officer of the Congress has been held in Contempt of Court and fined after a Congressional investigation of Cancer Insurance used ABC News to record an undercover investigation
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
DO NOT USE Clip of the ABC News video, an Insurance salesman pitches his policies to two elderly women.
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Dean Sharp, attorney, He was put in a montage of various pictures of other agents, showing that these people are crooks
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Robert Weiner, Former Staff Director, House Committee on Aging, and the only way you can actually find precisely what happens is to see it firsthand. And bad guys don t come forward to the Congress and say here s what we re doing. So we had to go undercover
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
April 28, 1983. Rostrum of House. House Reading Clerk, resolve that the House considers the subpoena and unwarranted and unconstitutional invasion of its constitutional prerogative
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R Wisconsin) I would say if there was a conspiracy on part of the employees of the Committee on Ageing to violate the Maryland eavesdropping statute that is a relevant issue that ought to come out in court. And a determination on whether there was that violation of that state statute be made by the relevant court. Representative Tom Foley (D Washington) That goes to the very heart of the Speech and Debate Clause. Because if all that one needed to allege was that there was a conspiracy on the part of a member, or an officer, or an employee of the House, to violate some right of some individual, the Constitutional prerogative of the Speech and Debate Clause wouldn t be worth a snap of the fingers the very essence of Constitutional protection is that it must apply in difficult cases. If it applies only in easy cases where members could prove the action or the speech, or the debate, or the sentiment, or the investigation, or the conduct of the individual office, employee, or member, there d be no great reason to have the privilege because as in the case of protection of the freedom of speech and the press and other Constitutional guarantees, their proof is in difficult cases. Not in easy cases, in difficult cases.
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Representative Philip Crane (R Illinois) I understand that this was a duly authorized investigation by the Committee on Aging. And those people, and correct me if I have my facts wrong, those people violated the law in the state of Maryland in the process of performing this investigation. Representative Tom Foley (D Washington) That hasn t been established. Representative Philip Crane (R Illinois) That has not been established. But is the gentleman suggesting that under the Speech and Debate Clause that this body could permit illegal actions to be taken against private citizens? That that is a part of the prerogatives of the House? Representative Tom Foley (D Washington) I m saying that under the Speech and Debate Clause, it would be theatrically possible for a member of Congress to commit what would be outside the House an act of criminal libel or certainly an act of civil libel and be immune from doing so. That s a hard reality of the Speech and Debate Clause. But there is no question that if you are going to give any validity to the Speech and Debate Clause, you have to read the words in the Constitution which says it shall not be called upon to answer in any other place.
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Clerk of the House, Ben Guthrie, in office at desk.
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Stanley Brand, Counsel to the House, In the 194 years of judicial legislative relations we ve never found a case where any court has placed the Clerk in contempt, much less imposed a fine
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Dean Sharp, attorney, any time we try to get the House subject, to put some law and order into the House of Representatives they raise the separation of power. But when the shoe s on the other foot, when they re after the Executive for something or they re after the courts, that s okay. That s alright. They can do what they please. No, they are not above the law.
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R Wisconsin) I m concerned about the image that the House sets. And I m concerned about really the prerogatives of the House of Representatives and how they re put forth. It seems to me that the business of deciding whether to comply or not to comply with the subpoena, you ve got to know when to hold em and know when to fold em
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Congressional hearing of Anne Gorsuch Burford, Environmental Protection Agency.
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
DO NOT USE Newspaper headlines
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R Wisconsin) is when somebody sues Congressional employees they re telling those employees not to show up with the documents in compliance with the subpoena. That s a very clear double standard and really should not apply.
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Stanley Brand, Counsel to the House what was at issue in that case was the ability of the Congress to investigate, to probe the executive branch of government and see whether they were enforcing the law or whether laws needed to be changed or revised. And that s exactly what s going on here. Can the Congress investigate certain abusive practices in an industry and address that by legislation which they did in this case
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Robert Weiner, Former Staff Director, House Committee on Aging, companies that can harass investigating committees, single companies, by bringing trial and causing time to be wasted away from important investigations, has a chilling effect on investigations.
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R Wisconsin) anybody who says that is really raising a red herring. Congress is a very ingenious institution and I m certain that is someone wanted to investigate something in fulfillment of Congressional oversight functions, they would figure out some kind of a way to do it.
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Dean Sharp, attorney, as a former Congressional investigator, I think it s about time, after spending 11 years doing investigating myself, I think it s time that the Congress have certain curbs on its power.
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Stanley Brand, Counsel to the House Civil litigants, or anyone else for that matter, could come in, sue, peruse the files and make what they could out of whatever they found. Harass and chill the activity of the Congress in passing laws and I think that would be a very far reaching and dangerous precedent a lot of ground-breaking things have happened in this case. I would hope that wouldn t happen
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Dean Sharp, attorney, I guess so, either that or the judge will have to send up his own militia to take care of the Capitol police. I don t know what this is going to come down to. But the case now is before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, they have appealed the contempt citation and we ll see where it goes from there.
Lawmakers 8/04/1983 Congress and Courts
Cokie Roberts discusses the pending appeal from the House. Notes both the House staff and ABC News were found innocent in a parallel criminal case.