Press Releases

(Washington, DC) – U.S. Representative Ed Case (HI-01) today announced the introduction of a measure to assert Congress’ full responsibility and control of key legislative branch positions to counter the Trump administration’s efforts to remove Congressional agency leaders.

In May of this year, the administration fired Carla Hayden, head the Library of Congress (LOC), a Congressional entity, the de facto national library of the United States and the world’s largest library. It also sought to remove Shira Perlmutter, the Register of Copyrights, whose was appointed by Hayden and whose office is part of the LOC.

“The executive branch has no business selecting or removing the leaders of agencies which are part of the legislative branch and key to its independent operations,” said Case, a member of the House Appropriations Committee who served four years on its Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch.

“My bill (H.R. 6517) would amend the appointment processes for three key legislative branch positions - the Librarian of Congress, the Comptroller General and the Director of the Government Publishing Office (GPO) - to provide that appointment and removal of their leaders are the exclusive purview of Congress. These three agencies are critical to the independent operations of Congress and should not be subject to direction by the executive branch or any other external organization.”

The Librarian of Congress is also the main research arm of Congress, managing the Congressional Research Service which is Congress’ dedicated source of information, research and legislative development. The Comptroller General leads the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which conducts government-wide audits and reviews government programs to provide nonpartisan oversight for Congress. The GPO prints and distributes official Congressional and federal publications. “To ensure their independence from the executive branch, there must be no question that Congress has complete authority to dictate the appointment as well as the removal of the leaders of these organizations,” said Case.

“Thus, my proposal would remove the President from the appointment process for all these positions and change it to a commission structure. The commissions would be made up of House and Senate leadership, as well as members from the relevant Congressional committees. The House would now also have a say in the appointment process, since its appointees would have to be confirmed by the adoption of concurrent resolutions. Additionally, removal would be the exclusive purview of Congress.”

·        Case’s remarks on introduction of his bill are here.

·        Bill text is attached.

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