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Feel-good exhortations aside, the truth is that most lawmakers on SSCI and HPSCI rarely
make it to oversight hearings, let alone conduct helicopter raids on the CIA. For example, from
1975-90 lawmakers on the two panels appeared at “firefighting” hearings that dealt with
scandals, but their participation in routine, police-patrolling hearings (sans TV cameras) was
spotty. Only approximately one-third of the total SSCI and HPSCI membership, on average,
participated in oversight hearings during these years. Citing Woodrow Wilson’s adage that
“Congress in committee-rooms is Congress at work,” a study (Johnson, 1994a:56) concluded that
“a good many legislators failed to show up for work.” The current HPSCI staff director
(Sample, 2003) claims, however, that upwards of 70 percent of the lawmakers on that panel have
been attending hearings in recent years, perhaps stirred by the failures of 9/11.
Among those who did appear at hearings in the 1975-90 study, the quality of the
questions they posed to CIA witnesses varied widely. Senator Goldwater turned the hearings
away from intelligence and back toward the imperfections of Congress, decrying how “this place
has more leaks than the men’s room at Anheuser-Busch” (Johnson, 1994a:100). Some other
members, though, engaged in thorough cross-examination and even harsh criticism of Agency
operations. Yet, for the most part, Congressional questioning has leaned more toward the
advocacy side of the ledger, except when scandals and major intelligence failures have been the
focus; then a majority of members escalate to a higher level of “hardball” interrogations.
Former HPSCI member Timothy J. Roemer (2003), D, Indiana, expresses a concern about
the degree of commitment to accountability in today’s Congress. “We’ve gotten away from the
Church Committee emphasis on oversight,” he believes. “There aren’t even oversight
subcommittees on HPSCI or SSCI anymore.” Adopting one useful measure to give HPSCI more
Convention