New coronavirus oversight committee in Congress puts partisan spotlight on Clyburn
Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina says “transparency is my only priority” as the chairman of a new committee with expansive oversight powers — including subpoena authority — to police the multi-trillion-dollar federal response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Every other element of the committee — the other House Democratic committee members, the finer points of the panel’s mandate, a timeline for when members would even return to Washington to vote on the committee’s formal creation — will be at the discretion of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Clyburn said in an interview with McClatchy on Thursday.
Clyburn said Pelosi offered him the chairmanship on Wednesday and he had not yet had the chance to inform his staff about the news before the speaker announced the formation of a “House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis” in a conference call with reporters Thursday morning.
By Thursday afternoon, Clyburn said, “about 25% of our caucus has expressed interest in being on the committee.”
He had not discussed logistics with Pelosi. “Nancy and I will probably talk tomorrow,” he said.
This rapid-fire succession of events leading up to the announcement of a new committee in the midst of an unprecedented global health emergency underscores House Democrats’ eagerness to appear proactive in responding to the crisis, despite scarce details about the high-profile operation.
The Republican response to the committee’s creation also signaled how polarizing the panel is likely to be when lawmakers return to Washington.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., called the concept behind the new committee “partisan” and “redundant,” saying Clyburn’s appointment was “concerning.”
“He’s the one who thought the coronavirus crisis was an opportunity to restructure government,” McCarthy said in a call with reporters.
McCarthy was alluding to comments Clyburn made recently about the importance of using coronavirus relief legislation to address weaknesses exposed by the pandemic, specifically lack of health care and internet access in rural areas.
Clyburn again emphasized his desire to illuminate and fix what he sees as structural failures.
“This crisis has revealed some faults in our system and this is an opportunity to repair those faults,” he said. “And if McCarthy’s got a problem with that, something’s wrong with him, not with me.”
In a memo to colleagues, Pelosi said the “House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis” would be modeled after the “Truman Commission,” which was tasked with oversight of the billions of dollars being spent in the early days of World War II.
The committee’s purpose, Pelosi wrote, will be to “ensure that the over $2 trillion that Congress has dedicated to this battle — and any additional funds Congress provides in future legislation — are spent wisely and effectively.”
Clyburn told McClatchy the committee’s origins also arose from Democratic skepticism about President Donald Trump’s handling of the crisis and the desire to provide a check against the administration.
Clyburn said many Democrats are worried that Trump will seek to exercise unilateral authority in determining how $500 billion in industry relief will be disbursed to various companies.
The financial relief legislation, known as the CARES Act, specified an inspector general would oversee the disbursement of those funds. Trump, when he signed the bill into law last week, suggested that the inspector general would have to get his permission first.
“A lot of people were concerned about that, as to whether or not there would be any significant oversight of the entire effort,” said Clyburn.
Clyburn said he didn’t know why Pelosi offered him the chairmanship, but suspected she might have remembered his leadership of a House Democratic task force overseeing the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.
Pelosi, he said, might have remembered the complimentary remarks he made about the Truman Commission during a leadership meeting with then-President Elect Barack Obama in the fall of 2008.
Clyburn was not specific about his objectives for the oversight panel other than a promise to assure transparency in the disbursements of federal funds, but suggested he was inspired by the values that guided President Harry Truman.
“[Truman] said that any attempt to spend one dime on low income and poor people met with all kinds of opposition, but nobody said a word when you started spending all this money on defense,” Clyburn said.
