When Congress Comes Calling

When Congress Comes Calling: A Primer on the Principles, Practices, and Pragmatics of Legislative Inquiry
Preface
The Constitution Project is an independent think tank that promotes and defends constitutional safeguards.
We create coalitions of respected leaders of all political stripes who issue consensus recommendations for
policy reforms on a variety of legal and constitutional issues. Our Rule of Law Program focuses particularly
on preserving the separation of powers structure established by our Constitution and ensuring that all three
branches of our government continue to check and balance each other.
In 2006, the Constitution Project brought together an ideologically diverse group of over forty prominent
Americans, who joined together to express their grave concerns “about the risk of permanent and unchecked
presidential power, and the accompanying failure of Congress to exercise its responsibility as a separate and
independent branch of government.” Since that time, the Constitution Project has urged measures designed
to restore and protect our constitutional system of checks and balances by promoting reforms to, among other
things, the state secrets privilege, the use of presidential signing statements, and our country’s post-9/11 detention
policies.
This handbook on congressional investigations and the respective roles and powers of Congress, the executive
branch, and the courts is a continuation of these efforts. We are pleased to have been able to partner in
creating this handbook with Morton Rosenberg, who served for over 35 years as a researcher and Specialist in
American Law at the Congressional Research Service (CRS), and who is one of the country’s leading experts
on congressional-executive relations. The Constitution Project sincerely thanks Mr. Rosenberg for his extensive
research and drafting work in preparing this handbook. The Constitution Project also thanks our former
colleague Becky Monroe and interns Mason Clutter and Neel Lalchandani for their indispensable assistance in
finalizing this handbook.
The Constitution Project is also grateful to the Atlantic Philanthropies, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Wallace
Global Fund, Educational Foundation of America, CS Fund, Overbrook Foundation, Lawrence and Lillian
Solomon Fund, Community Foundation for the National Capital Region, and Open Society Institute for
their generous support for this project.
–Virginia E. Sloan, President, and Sharon Bradford Franklin, Senior Counsel, June 2009
I would like to thank the Constitution Project for making it possible for me to undertake this study, and in
particular senior counsel Sharon Bradford Franklin for her tireless efforts to render my legalese into readable
and usable expositive prose; to recognize the invaluable contributions to my understanding of this subject
that resulted from the decade-long collaboration with my former CRS colleagues T.J. Halstead and Todd B.
Tatelman; the perceptive insights of Burt Wides; the indispensable technical assistance provided by Catherine
Harris and Nick Mancuso in the preparation of the first draft of this work; and the patience and unstinting
support of my wife, Aileen.
–Morton Rosenberg
The Constitution Project
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