discharge his legislative duties. The Constitution commands that each legislator deliberate and vote on legislation, and the power of inquiry or investigation has traditionally been read expansively to ensure that each Member's deliberation and voting is informed by an extensive survey of relevant information information often within the peculiar control of the Executive Branch agencies subject to that legislative review. Basic precepts of separation of powers, embodied in part in the tradition of a loyal opposition within the legislative body, require that this investigative function not be stifled or blunted when members of a single political party control both Houses of Congress and the Executive.

Representative Leach is pressing his claims in this

case not only as a Member of Congress but as the Ranking Minority Member of the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs of the United States House of Representatives. As this Court is aware, Congress has evolved since its inception to delegate its work to specialized committees of jurisdiction and to devolve responsibility within such committees in a political party context. In general, the Chairman of a committee (majority party) and the Ranking Minority Member of a committee (minority

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party) are granted by their respective caucuses disproportionate and functionally equivalent authority within their committee. Both of these official positions have certain powers and responsibilities, procedural and substantive. R.H. Davidson & W.J. Oleszak, Congress and its Members, at 221 (4th ed. 1994). House practice suggests that both the Chairman and the Ranking Minority Member are integral parts of the legislative process and have analogous institutional status when acting in their official

capacities.

Members of the minority party in Congress require accurate and complete information to enable them to discharge their duties to their constituents and to ensure that Congress

1 Leadership positions are official positions and their authority is derived from certain internal House practices. The Democratic Caucus and the Republican Conference formally convent to nominate and elect the Chairmen or Raking Minority Members :: the various standing committees. Thus, under the authority granted from the Republican Conference, the Ranking Member of the Banking Committee has control over an independent staff and independent budget from the majority.

In tracing for the Court the underlying historical and constitutional concerns implicated by Representative Leach's claims, amici will refer to the rights of individual Members of Congress, as opposed to the rights of the institution as a whole or each of the two Houses or their committees. However, Representative Leach has sought the information in question not only in his capacity as a Member of Congress, but also in his capacity as the Ranking Minority Member of the House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs. Although that position unquestionably confers upon Representative Leach certain rights and obligations under current congressional rules and practices, the committee system under which the modern Congress operates was not foreseen by the Framers. Nevertheless, in resolving the narrow statutory question presented by this case, this Court zeed not resolve whether every Member of Congress necessarily shares the same rights of access to information as a Ranking Minority Member of a House Committee.

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continues to perform its Constitutional role as a separate and co-ordinate Branch of Government. This is particularly true

when, as now, Congress and the Executive Branch both are

controlled by the same party. To these ends, it is essential to protect and give effect to legitimate and legally prescribed

PP. 4-13.

means of securing information including the bases of suit in this case. Thus, amici submit that it is essential that each of Representative Leach's statutory claims for relief be considered against this historical and constitutional backdrop. Sag infra In addition, the constitutional implications of the inquiries underlying this suit indicate that where the law Or three separate laws · provide for disclosure of information, this Court should give effect to those laws rather than, as respondents argue, demur from providing otherwise mandated relief.

See infra pp. 14-20.

Representative Leach's Access To The Documents At Issue
In This Litigation Is Necessary To Fulfill A Well-
Established And Constitutionally Based Congressional
Oversight Function.

This case implicates certain long-recognized powers of Congress, and its duly-constituted Committees and Members, that are auxiliary or ancillary to the express constitutional powers to legislate and to participate in the appropriations process. See U.S. Const., art. I, §§ 1, 7. "[T]he two houses of Congress, in their separate relations, 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

(1927); see Alexander v. Dunn, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 204, 225-26

(1821) (there is not "a grant of powers which does not draw afte:

it others, not expressed, but vital to their exercise; not substantive and independent, indeed, but auxiliary and subordinate") .'

Foremost among those ancillary constitutional powers

are the powers of inquiry that allow Members of Congress to secure the information necessary to discharge their deliberative and legislative duties.' This power of inquiry has been

employed:

throughout our history, over the whole range of
national interests concerning which Congress might
legislate or decide upon due investigation not to
legislate; it has similarly been utilized in
determining what to appropriate from the national
purse, or whether to appropriate. The scope of
the power of inquiry, in short, is as penetrating
and far-reaching as the potential power to enact
and appropriate under the Constitution.

Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U.S. at 111. The congressional role in the appropriations process provides Members of Congress with particular need for information concerning disbursement of

3 See also, &.2., Barry v. United States ex fol. Cunningham, 279 U.S. 597 (1929); Sinclair v. United States, 279 U.S. 263, 291 (1929).

See, L., Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U.S. 109 (1959); Adama v. Maryland, 347 U.S. 179 (1954); Jurney v. MacCracken, 294 U.S. 125 (1935); McGrain v. Daugherty, 273 0.8. 135 (1927); United States v. American Tel. · Tel. Co., 551 P.2d 384, 393 (D.C. Cir. 1976).

and accounting for public funds. For this reason, "Congress has plenary power to exact any reporting and accounting it considers appropriate in the public interest." United States v.

unusually, the

Richardson 418 U.S. 166, 178 n.11 (1974). As this Court recognized in Universal Shipping Co. v. Watced Starog, 652 F. Supp. 668, 674 (D.D.C. 1987), investigation is "quintessentially a power of the legislative branch." This concern is particularly implicated in this case because the House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs has been delegated an unusually important role in Defendant RTC's financing: Committee has oversight over both the RTC's appropriations and its authorizations (obviating most other congressional oversight of Defendants), and for this reason the RTC and its supervisory board are obligated by statute to provide additional information to the Committee. Sea 12 U.S.C. §§ 1441a(k) (4), (5) (semi-annual and annual reports); 12 U.S.C. § 1441a(k) (6) (appearance before Committee).

A primary constitutional rationale that underlies the investigative power is that Members of Congress cannot responsibly fulfill their obligations of office without full information regarding matters that are potential objects of legislation. The importance of informing legislators in this manner has consistently led the courts to interpret broadly and generously the power of investigation, as well as the

corresponding duty of others, particularly officers of the

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