Congress Oversight Essay

Oleszek (2011) defines oversight as some form of legislative “supervision” or “watchfulness” of delegated authority to executive branch entities and officials. It is an implicit constitutional obligation of the Congress. According to Oleszek (2011) there is a large number of overlapping purposes associated with oversight. They can be divided into three basic types; programmatic, political, and institutional (Oleszek, 2011). Programmatic purposes include such objectives as investigating waste, fraud, and abuse in governmental programs. There are political associated with oversight. Such as winning the electoral support of constituents and outside groups, or rebutting criticism of favorite programs or agencies. Lastly, the institutional oversight purposes include checking the power of the executive branch; …show more content…
The purpose of oversight is to ensure executive compliance with legislative intent (James, 2002). According to James (2002) Congress must delegate discretionary authority to federal administrators to make certain that these officers faithfully execute laws according to the intent of Congress, Committees and Members can review the actions taken and regulations formulated by departments and agencies. For instance, the Department of Homeland Security was established on November 25, 2002, by the Homeland Security Act 2002 (IBP USA, 2003). Congress has to oversee that this Department fulfills its responsibility of protecting the territory of the United States from terrorist attack and responding to natural disasters. Administrators must work to meet the objective of this department as the laws state. According to Kettl (2015) states that members of Congress naturally wish to ensure that administrators’ actions are consistent with what Congress intended in passing