Talk:Contempt of Congress/Archive 1

Contempt as crime
Can Congress charge a sitting state judge with Contempt of Congress for preventing a suopeanaed witness from testifying before Congress?

I am surprised that the article calls contempt of Congress as being a crime of obstruction. In fact, I am pretty sure that it is wrong. PhatJew 07:38, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Looks like 'obstruction' to me. Compare with Wikipedia's obstruction of justice article, for example. Obstruction isn't just interference like intimidating witnesses. Certainly, refusing to answer questions when legally required to do so, or refusing to appear when required to do so, is obstruction. joeOnSunset 05:08, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

The two concepts overlap. Depending on the facts of a particular case, you can have one or the other or both. Prosecutors may charge both offenses if they both fit a particular event. However, if a defendant is convicted on both counts, the sentences will run concurrently, not consecutively. KMA1623 12:51, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

In terms of the spirit of the law, Contempt of Congress is when Congress is using its investigative powers: in other words, when Congress is trying to establish the truth so that it can come to fair conclusions. That lines up with the intent of "obstruction of justice." loudlikeamouse 23:06, 04 July 2007
 * Except that the legislative branch is not involved with the process of justice, so it cannot apply. One branch cannot assume the exclusive powers of another branch, for whatever purpose. "Obstruction of justice" is unique to the executive branch. God bless Wikipedia's armchair legal analysts! --70.131.60.45 (talk) 22:30, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

List of persons found to be in contempt
I'm interested in adding to the article a list of notable persons found to be in contempt of Congress. (I would think that this would be a notable feature of anyone's biography, and that the number of such persons would be fairly small.) For example, I see that Arthur Miller was found in contempt of Congress.

My idea is that we can discuss this, and/or work on assembling such a list, here in the Discussion until we can see whether it's worth doing and then move it to the article if desired. -- Writtenonsand 14:07, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused about the citations surrounding Charles Duncan Jr. and James B. Edwards. They are both listed as Secretaries of Energy cited for contempt of Congress within a few months of each other in 1980, but Edwards was appointed in 1981 under a different administration (Duncan from Carter and Edwards from Reagan), so he wasn't serving as the Secretary of Energy at the time that the wiki says he was held in contempt. I can't find any reference to Edwards' Secretary years. If anyone knows how this confusion happened, please fix it -- I will if I uncover anything -- loudlikeamouse 23:02, 4 July 2007

History
I'd be interested to learn some history on this, especially with regard to the 1857 procedural change. The article mentions Congress running amok and jailing their political opponents. Anyone have any leads on examples of that in history? Sounds interesting! joeOnSunset 05:10, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, but how is jailing offenders "running amok?" Contempt charges mean little without an associated penalty. William (Bill) Bean 20:47, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The article has changed significantly since 16 May 2006. In my experience, responding to talk posts that are more than a year out of date is probably not going to produce a response from the original poster. JasonCNJ 23:16, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

"state contempt of Congress laws"
Shouldn't that be "state contempt of legislature laws"? Few states, if any, call their legislatures "Congress". Mohrr 12:15, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

In New York, it's called the Legislature. In Rhode Island, the General Assembly. In Massachusetts, the Great and General Court. I wonder if anyone has done a 50 state survey of the names of the state legislative bodies. KMA1623 13:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Needs Citations
This article could use citations on a number of points.

Complete Rewrite
I decided to be bold and completely rewrite the entire article. I have included a partial list of those held in contempt, with the appropriate links. There are some blanks, of course, as I didn't have all the information available. I have failed to include my references, which I will update tomorrow as it's pretty late in EDT for more editing.

I'm sure there are some things to address in the rewrite, so I look forward to some edits from others. Please do let me know what you think. JasonCNJ 04:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

"Postmaster"
"Concerned with the time-consuming nature of a contempt proceeding and the inability to extend punishment further than the session of the Congress concerned (under Supreme Court rulings), Congress created a statutory process in 1857. While Congress retains its "inherent contempt" authority and may exercise it at any time, this inherent contempt process was last used by the Senate in 1934, against a U.S. Postmaster. After a one-week trial on the Senate floor (presided by the Vice-President of the United States, acting as Senate President), a former Postmaster, William P. MacCracken, was found guilty and sentenced to 10 days imprisonment.

The Postmaster had filed a petition of Habeas Corpus in federal courts to overturn his arrest, but after litigation, the US Supreme Court ruled that Congress had acted constitutionally, and denied the petition in the case Jurney v. MacCracken, 294 U.S. 125 (1935). [1]"

Was he really a Postmaster general? He's not on any of these lists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postmaster_General

I thought he was just a lawyer who had documents involved in the case.

More info on him: http://www.ecommcode2.com/hoover/research/historicalmaterials/other/maccrack.htm Apparently he was formerly involved as an aviation regulator, but then resumed practicing law in private.

"                After helping to draft much needed safety standards and regulations, MacCracken         left the Commerce Department in 1929 to resume the practice of law.  He continued to be         actively involved in the growth of commercial aviation after leaving the Commerce         Department.  Indeed, his role as chairman of the 1930 conference was thrust upon him         because his firm had advised and represented so many of the major airlines.  Ultimately,        this relationship would make him a prime target of Senate investigators.  The conference         had been convened by U.S. Postmaster Walter F. Brown in an effort to get airline         operators to agree to a consolidation of the various airmail routes into three or four         coast to coast networks operated by the best equipped and most financially stable         companies.  This close cooperation between the federal government and the major commercial airlines left Brown and MacCracken vulnerable to charges of favoritism. When a complaint was lodged with the Senate Committee on Ocean Mail and Air Mail Contracts, Chairman Hugo Black agreed to investigate what appeared to be a Republican scandal."


 * Wikipedia is being cited all over the internet as stating that MacCracken was the Attorney General. I added his actual former govnerment job of "Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Avaition" per the Papers listed above. Edison 18:10, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I just made a tiny correction in the article ( putting "to" in front of a word that was supposed to be an infinitive), and while I was doing this I saw that the references for the numbers in the article are there when it's in edit mode. So the article doesn't have to be unreferenced. I left a note reporting this in an edit comment, but I thought I should do it here as well. I don't have the technical knowledge to create the citation the numbered link jumps to, or I'd have done it myself.Scrabbledemon 16:34, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Citation warning
This needs to be taken off. There are numerous citations throughout. Who placed this flag? William (Bill) Bean 22:23, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree, though I'm not terribly familiar with the process around this (infrequent editor!) It might need a bit more inline sourcing, but large chunks of the article seem to be most appropriately cited by the PDF that's currently External Link #1 (http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34097.pdf). It seems to me like it might help if that article were moved to be a source and then linked to the relevant text. I haven't the foggiest clue how to manage the sourcing, though, nor what the right way to remove that flag is.


 * I did take a moment to look at the edit history, though - the flag was added in this edit by Argos'Dad - perhaps this will be of some use in figuring out why it was added and how to remove it? Orbus 20:10, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Done and done. Be Bold. JasonCNJ 20:18, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Statutory Proceedings &sect; tag dated 2008-02
I see a fact checked sentence, what other basis is there for tag? 74.78.162.229 (talk) 22:37, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * That section speaks of what "some people" believe, answered by what "other people" believe. The views of particular persons should be cited.  As it stands, the section gives the "best" or "ideal" argument for either side of the debate, which is a matter of original research. RJC Talk Contribs 16:21, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Federalist Papers
The article says:
 * The legal basis for this belief, they contend, can be found in Federalist 49, in which James Madison wrote "“The several departments being perfectly co-ordinate by the terms of their common commission, none of them, it is evident, can pretend to an exclusive or superior right of settling the boundaries between their respective powers.” This approach to government is commonly known as "departmentalism” or “coordinate construction

The Federalist Papers are not a part of US law. How could they have any standing? &mdash; goethean &#2384; 01:45, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, in a sense it doesn't matter: their arguments don't have to be right for them to be their arguments, and we're concerned only with faithfully presenting the arguments put forward.  As to your question, the Federalist Papers are often turned to in order to clarify the intent of the Founders, which is important to originalist jurisprudence. RJC Talk Contribs 05:14, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Partial list of those found to be in contempt
This list should be pared down considerably, since most of the people were not found in contempt by either the House or the Senate: the full house did not act on most of the committee votes. Am I missing something? RJC Talk Contribs 15:47, 30 July 2008 (UTC)