The professor and the commissions

by Greenwood Press (Contributor)

275 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[Frank Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

I pulled this book down from the library shelf by chance, but I quickly discovered that it was an intriguing and original memoir, one recounting a year spent as an outside investigator in the ethical morass that is Washington D.C. In a strange way it forms a perfect complement to Neil Barofsky's "Bailout" that I just read. Both honestly admit to their authors' political naivete before coming to Washington, both chronicle the ubiquity of business lobbying they discovered, and both talk about politicians' attempts to stymie what each of the author's believed they signed up for, namely, a legitimate investigation. The only difference is that Barofsy's book was written in 2012, and this book was written in 1959.

In 1957 Bernard Schwartz, who would later become a famous scholar of the Supreme Court, was appointed the general counsel of a "Special Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight." The subcommittee itself was set up when the then all-powerful Speaker of the House of Representatives, Sam Rayburn, became concerned that the independent regulatory commissions, that both wrote new regulations and prosecuted and decided cases, had gone rogue and were no longer acting as Congress had hoped they would. Sam Rayburn had been in Congress and participated in the creation of all except one of the "Big Six" regulatory agencies at the time (the ICC, CAB, FPC, FTC, FCC, SEC) and he wanted to protect his legacy. Other congressmen were worried though that an investigation would sully their connections with the agencies, and appointed someone who they thought was an appropriate political naif without practical investigating experience, namely, Schwartz. Schwartz surprised them though.

At every step the Congressman tried to block his unexpected investigation. They stacked his staff with political hires who reported to them, not the counsel, had those same hires spy on Schwartz and leaked false accusations about him to the press. They denied him the subpoena power he needed to investigate specific cases and the funds he requested to do so. In the end, they fired him, but he went to the press with his findings. The President's closest aide, Sherman Adams, and several regulatory commissioners would have to resign because of these revelations, in what was certainly the greatest scandal in the Eisenhower presidency. Despite the politicians' stonewalling, Schwarz succeeded in exposing the corruption he expected all along.

In this book, Schwartz also discusses why he thinks the agencies traveled so far from their original path. The power of the President to appoint their chairman and the power of the chairman to appoint all the agency's staff, granted in 1950, meant the effective end of their "independent" existence, as did requiring them to report requested budgets and legislation to the President's Bureau of the Budget. Also, before the term "regulatory capture" gained prominence, Schwartz showed how favors from the regulated industries to the agencies, including fully paid junkets, and new TVs and appliances, could color policy decisions. This was the era before any ethics legislation, so commissioners felt free to accept almost anything offered. The level and casualness of the corruption is pretty astounding.

Schwartz focuses on the FCC, and on why it approved certain "comparative applications" for TV and radio broadcasters. He shows that the agency favored Republican friends and punished political enemies, and that they favored big corporations who provided favors and helped push out local TV owners.

There's also a lot of rambling in this book, and much repetition, but the story here has its own kind of perennial insight, one which remains very relevant.