Relation of the Federal Government to Research 



161 



all such reports submitted to it or to Congress, and "to 

 submit to tlie Senate and tlie House as promptly as pos- 

 sible such findings and recommendations with respect 

 to any such reports as the Joint Committee deems ad- 

 visable." Power was given to the committee to sub- 

 poena witnesses, to administer oaths, and to require 

 the giving of testimony and liie production of records 

 and papers. 



If provisions along these lines should be embodied in 

 law, Congress would have, in the proposed Auditor 

 General's Office and the new Joint Committee on Pub- 

 lic Accounts, instrumentalities of research that would 

 obviate the necessity in the future of setting up special 

 committees to investigate the administrative services, 

 while giving to it the means of exercising a current 

 supervision of the conduct of administrative officers 

 that it does not now have. It is unfortunate that the 

 failure of this bill to receive favorable action has post- 

 poned this important reform. 



All that has been written regarding the need that 

 Congress has for a permanent agency through which 

 it may keep in touch with the administrative agencies 

 and, if need be, inquire into their acts and procedures, 

 a need that can best be met by creating the Office of 

 Auditor of Public Accounts and a Joint Committee 

 on Public Accounts, applies with equal force to the 

 States. Few things would contribute more to increas- 

 ing the faithfulness and efficiency with which the ad- 

 ministrative afi'airs of the States are conducted than 

 action in this way. 



General Comment 



It has, it is believed, been abundantly demonstrated 

 that the American legislature has need of a number of 

 research or technical agencies if it is efficiently to per- 

 form its duties. It has, furthermore, been shown that, 

 to a considerable extent, this need has been recognized 

 by American legislative bodies and at least partial pro- 

 vision made for meeting it. The description of the 

 manner in which they have done so raises the question 

 whether a greater concentration of the work to be done 

 in a fewer number of agencies than is now predomi- 

 nantly the case would not result in a more efficient and 

 less expensive system from the organizational and op- 

 eration standpoints. 



Our examination has revealed that American legisla- 

 tive bodies are now making use of no less than five 

 different kinds of staff agencies: Legislative councils, 

 to which, at times, research divisions are attached; 

 legislative reference services; legislative comisels; re- 

 visors of statutes, and auditors of public accounts. It 

 appears, moreover, that, as regards the first four of 

 these agencies, not only do their duties fall in the same 

 general field, but that, to a considerable extent, they 



have need of the same kind of expert skill and know- 

 ledge on the part of their staffs. 



The recent development of legislative councils, with 

 their great potentialities for rendering services to their 

 parent bodies, suggests that to them be given the duties 

 now so generally entrusted to the separate agencies — 

 legislative reference services, legislative counsel, and 

 revisor of statutes. Dr. Guild, in his account of the 

 experience of the Kansas legislative council, has shown 

 that such a body cannot effectively discharge its func- 

 tion of formulating legislative proposals without hav- 

 ing facilities for the making of researches into the 

 subject matter of such proposals, and that such pro- 

 posals cannot be put into proper form without the aid 

 of skilled bill draftsmen. And it is evident that close 

 working relations should exist between these several 

 services and the revisor of statutes. One of tlie major 

 recommendations of this study therefore is : That legis- 

 lative councils be created by all of the States that have 

 not already done so; that existing separate agencies 

 in the form of legislative reference bureaus, legislative 

 counsel, and revisor of statutes be made subordinate 

 units of such councils; and that, where such agencies 

 are not in existence, the statute setting up the council 

 authorize that body to create divisions for the perform- 

 ance of their functions. Action in this way would 

 eliminate, or obviate, duplication of organization and 

 activities; give to the legislature a single strong body 

 with the technical officers having to do with research, 

 bill drafting, and codification, brought together in a 

 single mutually helpful staff; and a centralization of 

 equipment in the form of a reference library, legislative 

 records, and data regarding conditions in other juris- 

 dictions. Prime responsibility for all the work would 

 rest with the councU as a collegiate body, while im- 

 mediate direction, supervision, and control over the 

 staff could be exercised by an executive secretary to the 

 council who, it need hardly be said, should be a per- 

 manent officer. 



The duties of the council as above laid out, it will 

 be noted, have to do exclusively with the performance 

 by the legislature of its legislative function. For the 

 performance of its function as a board of directors 

 to supervise and control the administrative branch 

 nujch the most effective method of action is for the 

 legislature to make provision for an auditor general 

 of public accounts, who will be a direct representative 

 of the legislative branch, and a joint committee on pub- 

 lic accounts along the lines comprehended by the re- 

 organization bill now under consideration by the Fed- 

 eral Congress. The functions of such auditor general, 

 it cannot be too strongly emphasized, should extend 

 far beyond that of making merely a fidelity audit: 

 that is, an examination having in view merely the 



