As much as I secretly want to rant about this, I suppose I should know the facts first.
Who in the Congress decides that this is worthy of a full investigation and who proposed it in the first place? What law gives the Congress subpoena power?
Congress gives Congress subpoena power. They can subpoena anyone they want for pretty much any reason.
Major-League Baseball only exists in its current form due to a special exemption from Anti-Trust law. (Look up the history of the Federal League for the interesting story.) Consequently, Congress has historically had a very politicized relationship with MLB, because it serves as a nice platform for the issue of the day. While they have no particular regulatory control over MLB, MLB is well-aware that their special exemption can be easily revoked by amending the current anti-trust statutes. Consequently they’re likely to play ball, as it were.
As a constitutional matter, there is no specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress an investigatory power. It is viewed to be implied from the clause which grants Congress all legislative power. It is therefore reasonably implied that Congress can investigate matters which relate to areas in which Congress can legislate – it is not supposed to give Congress the power to investigate the private affairs of private citizens, according to one court case. For more on this, see the annotated Constitution, and search for [[Page 90]]. (include both brackets)
As a practical matter, the jurisdiction of committees is determined by each house of Congress, and the Chairman of any committee is fully empowered to call hearings on matters as he wishes. Rules vary, but there are procedures by which a committee can issue subpoenas (i.e., sometimes a Chairman can act on his own to issue a subpoena, sometimes there must be a vote of committee members, etc.) The hearing in question was called by the Chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, with the concurrance of the Ranking Democrat.
As to why, the answer is simple: public opinion. For one thing, the state of baseball is a noticable factor in the public’s state of well-being; baseball and apple pie, and all that. For example, a large portion of the public were enthused by the homerun run ups that McGuire and Bonds had. The recent steriod revelations have tainted those numbers, and in the view of most of the public the offenders should be punished.
Plus, it has the added convenience of improving most people’s attitudes (or at least name-recognition) towards those on the committee and it detracts attention from other issues of the day. Say, for instance the current situations in Ireland, Israel, or Iraq (The axis of I’s?) And let’s not forget the public’s appetite for schadenfreude.
I guess what I don’t quite understand is what information they are trying to find and to what end. Steroids are illegal–are they thinking about changing that for MLB? If not, what interest do they have as a legislative body? Make the penalties harsher?
Letter from the committee chairman explaining his views on the jurisdiction of the committee. A couple highlights: “The Government Reform Committee is the principal investigative committee in the House. Under the rules of the House, “[T]he Committee on Government Reform may at any time conduct investigations of any matter . . . . In addition, the Committee also has considerable legislative jurisdiction in the area of drug policy. The Committee has jurisdiction over the laws authorizing the activities of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, which “establishes policies, priorities, and objectives for the Nation’s drug control program.””
Further, it might be noted that the President, himself, not the House of Representatives, that first raised questions about steroid use in sports in his state of the union from two years ago, if memory serves.
But the point is well taken that publicity probably has a lot more to do with this than the strict functions of the legislative branch.
I’m guessing they’re going to be asking questions in the vein of – how prevalent is this? And then they’re going to put the screws to Bud Selig to start clamping down on steroid use in Major League Baseball. Their prime motivations probably include:
- publicity for themselves and a chance to express their concern and outrage
- send a not-too-subtle signal to Selig that he’d better start doing something quickly
Theoretically, they could consider legislation to expand the regulation of steroids and other performance enhancing substances. For example, they could try to mandate some kinds of monitoring system. Realistically, though, they probably don’t want to have to draft legislation. They probably just want the publicity and hope that the implied threat will get M.L.B. to do something on its own.
If McGwire or whoever told Congress to buzz off and didn’t show, could he be charged with a crime? NPR mentioned “Contempt of Congress,” but I’m unclear on whether this means anything other than the equivalent of a verbal warning, albeit from Congress.
Furthermore, aren’t steroids perfectly legal if a doctor prescribes them? Meaning, Canseco may have violated baseball rules by taking roids, but he didn’t violate federal law by doing so. I concede that I’m probably wrong on this point.
(Unless you’re the federal government) you can’t ignore subpoenas. I don’t know what the penalties for Contempt of Congress are, but I’ll eat my head if temporary incarceration is not one of them.
–Cliffy
IMHO, a Congressional Hearing is often nothing more than grandstanding.
It must be Joseph McCarthy nostalgia week.
The thought of the government being able to compel citizens to come before them and admit to crimes or face contempt charges is straight out of McCarthy’s play book. It’s disgusting. And the government has no damned business interfering in the private collective bargaining agreements of citizens.
Let’s face it - they’re doing it because they’re politicians looking to score points with the public. Unfortunately, they’re abusing their powers to do so.
I think Ravenman has it. Congress has the power to legislate but in order to exercise that power in an effective manner the Congress must be able to look into areas of possible legislative action. Except, of course, in case of things like the USA Patriot Act in which case they can add to existing powers willy-nilly without hearings and in many cases without members actually having read the proposed legislation.
Well, there’s a decent amount of law that allows the Federal government to intervene in labor disputes. There’s the National Labor Relations Board, the Taft-Hartley Act, and the Landum-Griffin Act, to name a few. These laws allow the President to unilaterally intervene in certain labor disputes to force the parties back to work for an 80 day cooling-off period.
Clearly, those circumstances have little to nothing to do with baseball. However, it demonstrates that Congress does have ample power to legislate in areas relating to labor and collective bargaining. Whether you think Congress should have this power is one thing, and whether you think that Congress should do this is another, but the fact is, Congress does have the power to legislate in these areas.
But your underlying point bears merit: lawful powers can be abused for political ends. No doubt about that.
Congress does not have the power to compel people to admit to crimes. You still have a Fifth Amendment right and many people over the years have exercised such right before Congress. Oliver North got off because Congress promised him immunity from prosecution if he testified – Congress couldn’t make him admit to anything.
Congress does have the power to make you appear before it. And if you choose to speak and lie, then you may be charged with a crime.
Sure it does, if it sees that such agreement is facilitating criminal activity.
That’s apparent.
That’s not apparent.
It’s also out of the playbook of:
- Senator Sam Ervin, whose Watergate Committee investigation was instrumental in exposing corruption in the Nixon administration;
- Senator Harry Truman, whose Special Committee investigation into defense contract abuses saved money and lives during World War II;
- Senator Karl Mundt, whose Special Committee investigation of McCarthy’s charges against the Army was instrumental in exposing McCarthy as a fraud and led directly to his censure by the Senate and fall from public favor.
The fact that Congress may be abusing a power on a particular occasion doesn’t mean that the power is inherently abusive. And, as others have pointed out, citizens have a third option other than confessing to crimes or facing contempt charges: taking the Fifth Amendment.
Taking the fifth does not guarantee immunity from contempt charges in Congress, does it? Didn’t Susan McDougal do time for doing exactly that? She took the fifth, they charged her with contempt.
Perhaps I’m wrong - law is not my strong suit. Besides, just being forced to take the fifth in public is damaging, and can be seen as a de-facto admission of guilt in the public eye. That’s one of the things wrong about show trials. If they want to be serious about protecting the rights of the players, they could have the trial in closed session. Or perhaps they are?
This CNN report details McDougal’s legal problems. It looks like she was twice charged with comtempt of court, one civil and one criminal, for refusing to testify to a grand jury. She was also charged with obstruction of justice. She was convicted of the civil contempt charge and served 18 months. She was acquited of the obstruction of justice and the jury deadlocked on the criminal cntempt charge. I don’t see any contempt of Congress charge there.
McDougal’s problems arose from refusal to testify in court, against other people–so that the Fifth Amendment option wasn’t available. The same principle applies to testimony before Congress–you can refuse to testify against yourself, but not against others.
Is this process open to abuse? Certainly. Congress can ask Canseco, “What other players did you observe taking steroids?” Assuming that he has in fact observed such a thing, he then either has to rat out his former teammates (by telling the truth), or open himself to contempt (by refusing to answer) or perjury (by answering falsely) charges.
Of course, a prosecutor can ask him the same questions. In either hand, its a formidable power and should be used guardedly. By the time these hearings are over, I may well agree with you that they were a McCarthyite witch hunt. But again, the power to compel testimony is a necessary thing, and has served us well at times in the past.