McGrain v. Daugherty

273 U.S. 135

Case Year: 1927

Case Ruling: 8-0

Opinion Justice: Van Devanter

FACTS

In 1922 Congress began an investigation of a huge scandal known as Teapot Dome. It involved the alleged bribery of public officials by private companies to obtain leasing rights to government-held oil reserves, including the Teapot Dome reserves in Wyoming. Initial inquiries centered on employees of the Department of the Interior, but Congress soon turned its attention to the Justice Department. It was thought that Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty was involved in fraudulent activities because he failed to prosecute wrongdoers. A Senate committee ordered the attorney general's brother, Mally S. Daugherty, to appear before it and to produce documents. Mally Daugherty was a bank president, and the committee suspected that he was involved in the scandal.

This suspicion grew stronger with the resignation of the attorney general and the subsequent refusal of his brother to appear before the committee. The Senate had Mally arrested. He, in turn, challenged the committee's authority to compel him--through arrest--to testify against his brother. Picking up on one of the limits of investigation emanating from Kilbourn v. Thompson (1881), Mally's lawyer argued that "the arrest of Mr. Daugherty is the result of an attempt of the Senate to vest its committee with judicial power."

The U.S. government's brief was written by Attorney General Harlan Stone, who had since been appointed a justice on the Court deciding the case. The brief also used Kilbourn to frame its arguments: "The investigation ordered by the Senate, in the course of which the testimony of the Appellee [Daugherty] and the production of books and records of the bank of which he is President were required, was legislative in its character."

MR. JUSTICE VAN DEVANTER DELIVERED THE OPINION OF THE COURT.

We have given the case earnest and prolonged consideration because the principal questions involved are of unusual importance and delicacy. . . .

The first of the principal questions--the one which the witness particularly presses on our attention--is . . . whether the Senate--or the House of Representatives . . . --has power . . . to compel a private individual to appear before it or one of its committees and give testimony needed to enable it efficiently to exercise a legislative function belonging to it under the Constitution.

The Constitution provides for a Congress consisting of a Senate and House of Representatives and invests it with "all legislative powers" granted to the United States, and with power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper" for carrying into execution these powers and "all other powers" vested by the Constitution in the United States or in any department or officer thereof. . . . But there is no provision expressly investing either house with power to make investigations and exact testimony to the end that it may exercise its legislative function advisedly and effectively. So the question arises whether this power is so far incidental to the legislative function as to be implied.

In actual legislative practice, power to secure needed information by such means has long been treated as an attribute of the power to legislate. It was so regarded in the British Parliament and in the colonial Legislatures before the American Revolution; and a like view has prevailed and been carried into effect in both houses of Congress and in most of the state Legislatures. . . .

. . . The state courts quite generally have held that the power to legislate carries with it by necessary implication ample authority to obtain information needed in the rightful exercise of that power, and to employ compulsory process for the purpose. . . .

[This Court has decided several cases that] are not decisive . . . [but] definitely settle two propositions . . . : One, that the two houses of Congress . . . possess, not only such powers as are expressly granted to them by the Constitution, but such auxiliary powers as are necessary and appropriate to make the express powers effective; and the other, that neither house is invested with "general" power to inquire into private affairs and compel disclosures, but only with such limited power of inquiry as is shown to exist when the rule of constitutional interpretation just stated is rightly applied. . . .

We are of opinion that the power of inquiry--with process to enforce it--is an essential and appropriate auxiliary to the legislative function. . . . A legislative body cannot legislate wisely or effectively in the absence of information respecting the conditions which the legislation is intended to affect or change; and where the legislative body does not itself possess the requisite information . . . recourse must be had to others who do possess it. Experience has taught that mere requests for such information often are unavailing, and also that information which is volunteered is not always accurate or complete; so some means of compulsion are essential to obtain what is needed. All this was true before and when the Constitution was framed and adopted. In that period the power of inquiry--with enforcing process--was regarded and employed as a necessary and appropriate attribute of the power to legislate--indeed, was treated as inhering in it. Thus there is ample warrant for thinking, as we do, that the constitutional provisions which commit the legislative function to the two houses are intended to include this attribute to the end that the function may be effectively exercised.

The contention is earnestly made on behalf of the witness that this power of inquiry, if sustained, may be abusively and oppressively exerted. If this be so, it affords no ground for denying the power. The same contention might be directed against the power to legislate, and of course would be unavailing. We must assume, for present purposes, that neither house will be disposed to exert the power beyond its proper bounds, or without due regard to the rights of witnesses. But if, contrary to this assumption, controlling limitations or restrictions are disregarded, the decision . . . in Kilbourn v. Thompson . . . point[s] to admissible measures of relief. And it is a necessary deduction from the decision . . . that a witness rightfully may refuse to answer where the bounds of the power are exceeded or the questions are not pertinent to the matter under inquiry.

We come now to the question whether it sufficiently appears that the purpose for which the witness's testimony was sought was to obtain information in aid of the legislative function. . . .

We are of opinion that . . . it sufficiently appears . . . that the object of the investigation and of the effort to secure the witness's testimony was to obtain information for legislative purposes.

It is quite true that the resolution directing the investigation does not in terms avow that it is intended to be in aid of legislation; but it does show that the subject to be investigated was . . . one on which legislation could be had and would be materially aided by the information which the investigation was calculated to elicit. This becomes manifest when it is reflected that the functions of the Department of Justice, the powers and duties of the Attorney General and the duties of his assistants, are all subject to regulation by congressional legislation, and that the department is maintained and its activities are carried on under such appropriations as in the judgment of Congress are needed from year to year.

The only legitimate object the Senate could have in ordering the investigation was to aid it in legislating; and we think the subject-matter was such that the presumption should be indulged that this was the real object. An express avowal of the object would have been better; but in view of the particular subject-matter was not indispensable. . . .

We conclude that the investigation was ordered for a legitimate object; that the witness wrongfully refused to appear and testify before the committee and was lawfully attached; [and] that the Senate is entitled to have him give testimony pertinent to the inquiry, either at its bar or before the committee.