REFORMING THE REFORMERS

Congress is moving toward a major overhaul of the nation’s intelligence network, a reform urged by the 9-11 Commission and, by most reports, entirely necessary. But it has stopped short of true reform unless it also changes the way it oversees the 15 agencies within Intelligence, a step it has so far refused to take.

The reform of the intelligence community, the commission wrote, “will not work if congressional oversight does not change too. Unity of effort in executive management can be lost if it is fractured by divided congressional oversight.” A key message throughout the commission’s report on improving the system is consistent: Make sure people are held accountable for the work of the intelligence community.

The closest Congress came to that was in the Senate last week, with a commission idea to combine policy and spending powers within the Intelligence Committee and another to turn the Governmental Affairs Committee into a more powerful Homeland Security Committee. The former was soundly rejected, but Governmental Affairs did become Homeland Security, although it wasn’t given more power. Both Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe voted for the larger reforms.

What became clear through the debate on these measures, however, was that many in the Senate – the House has yet to get even this far – would not be prepared to give up the ability, through the appropriations committees, to approve programs and spending. With that approval comes power, and few surrender that easily. There is, in addition, the legitimate question of whether giving policy-makers appropriations authority in this instance provides too much authority in too few hands.

Another influence is also at work with this reform. When the Senate overwhelmingly approved reform of the intelligence community it did so only after Governmental Affairs met for two months, held eight hearings and produced legislation that its members supported unanimously. The committee reform was the work of party leadership, with little input from members. Arriving just days before the end of the Senate’s already-extended session, there had been no imperative to pass it.

Yet if the 9-11 Commission is correct, and the reform of the intelligence community will not work without reform in Congress, it is crucial for the Senate to try again, perhaps by taking the longer process of sending it through committee for refinement and to strengthen the arguments for its passage. Congress hasn’t gotten much done this year and has a lame-duck session full of budget bills to consider. But it has an opportunity with this two-part reform to achieve something important. It should stick with it until the reform is complete.