The Laudable Pursuit: Getting the Job Done
June 8, 2018
"to elevate the condition of men--to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all, to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance, in the race of life." --Abraham Lincoln
Chairman's Note: Getting the Job Done
Last month, 15 of my colleagues and I sent a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) urging the Senate to “immediately begin work” on the appropriations bills needed to keep the federal government open past September 30, 2018.
We offered to work nights and weekends to make sure President Trump was not forced to sign another 2,000-page spending bill that had been written completely behind closed doors without any chance for amendment.
We even suggested that the Senate’s August recess ought to be cancelled if, after all those nights and weekends of work, we still couldn’t get the spending bills passed.
Unfortunately, since we sent that letter the Senate has not worked any nights. We haven’t worked any weekends, either. In fact, we’ve barely worked four days a week since the last vote is usually scheduled on Thursday. And no appropriations bills have been scheduled for a debate on the Senate floor.
Despite this lack of extra effort, McConnell announced this Tuesday that he was going to cancel August recess anyway. "Due to the historic obstruction by Senate Democrats of the president's nominees, and the goal of passing appropriations bills prior to the end of the fiscal year, the August recess has been canceled," McConnell explained.
And it is true: Senate Democrats have been obstructing Trump’s nominees at a historic pace. Already Senate Democrats have forced 101 cloture votes on Trump’s judicial and executive nominees, compared to just 12 cloture votes forced during the first two years of Obama’s presidency.
Democrats may argue that their obstruction is justified due to the controversial and unqualified nature of Trump nominations. And it is true that there have been some controversial and unqualified nominees. But the numbers show that those concerns are not what is driving Democratic obstruction. Of the 101 cloture votes forced by Democrats, 38 nominees later received more than 67 votes for final confirmation. In other words, Senate Democrats had no real objection to 38 of Trump’s nominees, - they voted to obstruct for the sole reason of obstructing!
But this obstruction from the Democrats is all the more reason we need to buckle down, work nights, work weekends, and start debating appropriations bills now!
My 15 conservative colleagues and I did not sign that letter in May with the goal of cancelling the August recess. Our goal is not to stay in Washington longer. Our goal is to get our jobs done.
And the best way we can do that is to start getting spending bills to the Senate floor where they can be debated and amended before being sent to the president.
Issue in Focus: The Inspector General Access Act
When it first became law in 1978, the Inspector General Act created just 12 offices of inspector general, one for each cabinet agency. But as Congress discovered how useful these offices were in identifying waste, fraud, and abuse, the number of OIGs has proliferated. Today there are more than 70 OIGs spread throughout executive branch agencies.
Each OIG is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. They report to and are nominally supervised by the acting head of each federal entity they are assigned to, but they are not beholden to any other staff at the agency.
The OIGs are not the primary tool the American people have to keep the federal government accountable -- Congress is. But the OIGs have proven to be a valuable asset to Congress in identifying and correcting federal negligence and malfeasance.
Unfortunately, there are some federal employees that are currently exempt from OIG investigation, an oversight that is much in need of correction. Specifically, Department of Justice attorneys acting in their capacity as lawyers for the Justice Department are exempt from OIG investigation.
Complaints about DOJ lawyer conduct are currently referred to the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility. But the OPR is not independent from the agency in any way. It is entirely controlled by the head of the Justice Department – the Attorney General – thus allowing the exact conflict of interest that the OIG was created to mitigate.
This oversight has enabled federal misconduct on a number of occasions, including a 2009 incident where two separate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court judges made complaints to DOJ’s OPR about misleading statements made by DOJ lawyers concerning the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program. If DOJ’s OPR had not swept those allegations under the rug, the DOJ’s OIG could have investigated the matter and the federal government’s domestic spying program would have been exposed years earlier.
To fix this oversight, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and I have introduced the Inspector General Access Act of 2018. This bill would amend Section 8E of the Inspector General Act so that DOJ lawyer misconduct can be referred to the OIG.
The increasing foreign military and economic engagement in Africa
By Foday Darboe
Between late 19th and early 20th centuries, Africa was apportioned by several European powers— the practice became known as the “Scramble for Africa” or “Race for Africa.” The rush for resources and territories frequently destroyed the indigenous economic, social and political institutions. Many critics in Africa and elsewhere still blame the immoral structures of colonialism for some of the existing economic and political shortcomings in many of the African countries. In recent years, Africa has become a hotspot for increased economic and military activities; some neocolonial powers and multinational corporations are again usurping African states, extracting rich natural resources in exchange for arms, loans, or infrastructural development.
Debates across the continent over these initiatives are ongoing. While the continent is seeing a significant economic growth rate, the questions we ought to ask are: How is the economic growth improving the lives of average Africans? Should Africans worry about the increasing foreign military engagement across Africa?
The United States, China, United Kingdom, France, India, Saudi Arabia are expanding their economic and military footprints across the continent. For decades, Africa was perceived as a hopeless basket case—and was mostly dealt with in matters of peacekeeping, humanitarian missions, and resource extractions. Now, changing world geo-economics has rapidly changed; Africa has become strategically important.
In the past decades, the United States-Africa relations was mainly focused on militarized national security strategy. The U.S. African Command Center (AFRICOM), based in Djibouti, exemplifies the U.S. “national security” interests in the region. For instance, the U.S. has established several temporary posts, using Special Forces and drones, supporting proxy armies across Africa. US-based corporations are tapping into Africa’s natural resource sectors and have vital interests in key resource-producing regions. The U.S. is also countering Beijing’s growing influence across Africa as China poses a strong challenge to U.S. interests in many countries on the continent, even planting its military there.
China has outperformed the United States economically and politically across Africa—and Beijing is playing a major role in economic development, politics, peace and security matters in general. Nonetheless, critics, argued that China’s noninterference policy and regard for self-determination allow aid to be allocated without conditions—giving authoritarian leaders in countries like Chad, Djibouti, Republic of Congo, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Zimbabwe much-needed funding—often used to continue to oppress their own people. China and the US frame it as contest between the two powers, but what of the people of Africa?
France, too, has boosted its military footprints in some of its former colonies. Given its longstanding history in Francophone Africa, France strengthened its influence by preserving vital economic structure, disbursing economic support and building influential social systems and institutions. Also, deep-rooted French business interests, and close personal dealings between the ruling elites contribute to the continuance of France’s primacy in portions of West Africa and the Congo basin in particular. Such relationship gives leaders like Chad’s Idriss Déby, DRC’s Joseph Kabila, the Republic of Congo’s Denis Sassou Nguesso, and Djibouti’s Ismaïl Omar Guelleh some security and a pass on their poor human rights record. To a lesser degree, India, Japan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Saudi Arabia are also increasingly expanding their economic and military interests in some parts of Africa. For instance, Saudi Arabia is using Djibouti’s waterways between the Arabian Peninsula and northeast Africa to fight Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The war on terror has given the United States, France, and allies a pretext for establishing a strong military presence in Africa—but this could create a backlash and essentially help terrorist groups in their recruitment. What the continent needs least is foreign militarization. While there is an argument to be made about the rise of terrorism in Africa, however, there is no silver bullet in fighting terrorism anywhere in the world as the experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, and other countries have shown. From a policy standpoint, if the spread of terrorism in Africa is an utmost concern for the United States, France, United Kingdom et al., a comprehensive economic and social development blueprint must be developed that earnestly addressed long-term objectives, basic human needs, deeply held grievances and root causes of terrorism in Africa. Drone warfare is decidedly unhelpful, alienating hearts and minds every time an African child is collateral damage.
Resource-rich Africa should graduate from foreign aid and its concomitant culture of dependency. Africans must collectively advocate for institutional reforms that hold African leaders and multinational corporations accountable as well as more inclusion of civil society and interest groups in policymaking. The bad old ways of corruption, kleptocracy, exploitation and brutal rule must give way to transparency, human rights, and civil society economic and political empowerment, country by country and insofar as possible, continent-wide.
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Foday J. Darboe is a doctoral candidate in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from Nova Southeastern University.
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