United States House Committee On Oversight and Government Reform

United States House Committee On Oversight And Government Reform

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is a United States House of Representatives committee that has existed in varying forms since 1816.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the main investigative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. After Republicans gained control of the House in 1995, the committee was reorganized to include just seven subcommittees. This reorganization consolidated the jurisdiction previously covered by 3 full committees and 14 subcommittees, and resulted in a 50 percent cut in staff. In 2007, Henry Waxman, (D-CA) the chairman of the committee proposed an additional reorganization which combined the duties of the seven previous subcommittees into five. This reorganization was adopted by the full committee January 18, 2007.

As of the 112th Congress, the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is Rep. Darrell Issa of California and the Ranking Member is Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings.

The Committee's government-wide oversight jurisdiction and expanded legislative authority make it one of the most influential and powerful committees in the House. The Committee serves as Congress' chief investigative and oversight committee, and is granted broad jurisdiction. The chairman of the committee is the only committee chairman in the House with the authority to issue subpoenas without a committee vote. However, in recent history, it has become practice to refrain from unilateral subpoenas.

Read more about United States House Committee On Oversight And Government Reform:  Establishment and Alumni of The Committee, Recent Events, 1997–2009, Hearing On February 16, 2012, Members, 112th Congress, Subcommittees

Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, house, committee, government and/or reform:

    In the United States all business not transacted over the telephone is accomplished in conjunction with alcohol or food, often under conditions of advanced intoxication. This is a fact of the utmost importance for the visitor of limited funds ... for it means that the most expensive restaurants are, with rare exceptions, the worst.
    John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)

    Then the American flag was saluted. In general, in the United States people always salute the American flag.
    Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)

    By intervening in the Vietnamese struggle the United States was attempting to fit its global strategies into a world of hillocks and hamlets, to reduce its majestic concerns for the containment of communism and the security of the Free World to a dimension where governments rose and fell as a result of arguments between two colonels’ wives.
    Frances Fitzgerald (b. 1940)

    If the main timbers in the house are not straight, the smaller timbers will be unsafe; and if the smaller timbers are not straight, the house will fall.
    Chinese proverb.

    The small creatures chirp thinly through the dust, through the night.
    O mother
    What shall I cry?
    We demand a committee, a representative committee, a committee of investigation
    RESIGN RESIGN RESIGN
    —T.S. (Thomas Stearns)

    His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
    —A.J. (Arthur James)

    All reform aims, in some one particular, to let the soul have its way through us; in other words, to engage us to obey.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)