HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS SHOULD HAVE SEATS ON THE FLOOR OF CONGRESS

I recommend the adoption of legislation which shall make it the duty of heads of departments—­the members of the President’s Cabinet—­at convenient times to attend the session of the House and the Senate, which shall provide seats for them in each House, and give them the opportunity to take part in all discussions and to answer questions of which they have had due notice.  The rigid holding apart of the executive and the legislative branches of this Government has not worked for the great advantage of either.  There has been much lost motion in the machinery, due to the lack of cooperation and interchange of views face to face between the representatives of the Executive and the Members of the two legislative branches of the Government.  It was never intended that they should be separated in the sense of not being in constant effective touch and relationship to each other.  The legislative and the executive each performs its own appropriate function, but these functions must be coordinated.  Time and time again debates have arisen in each House upon issues which the information of a particular department head would have enabled him, if present, to end at once by a simple explanation or statement.  Time and time again a forceful and earnest presentation of facts and arguments by the representative of the Executive whose duty it is to enforce the law would have brought about a useful reform by amendment, which in the absence of such a statement has failed of passage.  I do not think I am mistaken in saying that the presence of the members of the Cabinet on the floor of each House would greatly contribute to the enactment of beneficial legislation.  Nor would this in any degree deprive either the legislative or the executive of the independence which separation of the two branches has been intended to promote.  It would only facilitate their cooperation in the public interest.

On the other hand, I am sure that the necessity and duty imposed upon department heads of appearing in each house and in answer to searching questions, of rendering upon their feet an account of what they have done, or what has been done by the administration, will spur each member of the Cabinet to closer attention to the details of his department, to greater familiarity with its needs, and to greater care to avoid the just criticism which the answers brought out in questions put and discussions arising between the Members of either House and the members of the Cabinet may properly evoke.