Inherent Contempt

Think Progress » DoJ blocks voting section chief from testifying.

DoJ blocks voting section chief from testifying. The House Judiciary Committee’s scheduled hearing tomorrow on the Civil Rights Division’s voting rights section has been canceled because “the Justice Department has refused to allow the chief of the section, John Tanner, to testify.” Read More...

At point does this congress say, "Enough!! All already!" And start Inherent Contempt proceedings against anyone not coming before the presiding oversight committees. Last night I caught part of one of the discussions on MSNBC on what congress can do about a contemptuous Executive Branch.


I found out that congress can under Inherent contempt:

The procedure for holding a person in contempt involves only the chamber concerned. Following a contempt citation, the person cited for contempt is arrested by the Sergeant-at-Arms for the House or Senate, brought to the floor of the chamber, held to answer charges by the presiding officer, and then subject to punishment that the House may dictate (usually imprisonment for punishment reasons, imprisonment for coercive effect, or release from the contempt citation.)

Concerned with the time-consuming nature of a contempt proceeding and the inability to extend punishment further than the session of the Congress concerned (under Supreme Court rulings), Congress created a statutory process in 1857. While Congress retains its "inherent contempt" authority and may exercise it at any time, this inherent contempt process was last used by the Senate in 1934, against a U.S. Postmaster. After a one-week trial on the Senate floor (presided by the Vice-President of the United States, acting as Senate President), a former Postmaster, William P. MacCracken, was found guilty and sentenced to 10 days imprisonment.

The Postmaster had filed a petition of Habeas Corpus in federal courts to overturn his arrest, but after litigation, the US Supreme Court ruled that Congress had acted constitutionally, and denied the petition in the case Jurney v. MacCracken, 294 U.S. 125 (1935). [1]

Excepted from Wikipedia Contempt of Congress Section

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