Several legislative aides and a senior administration official said Gates' idea for joint funds might not fly, given that the multiple congressional committees that oversee the Defense and State budgets are unlikely to cede control.
The firm has close ties to Republican consultant Scott B. Mackenzie, a treasurer for multiple political action committees that have drawn scrutiny for spending little money on candidates and instead steering donations to consultants, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
He also argued that amendments agreed in the House of Commons ostensibly aiming to add a "privacy backbone" to the bill do not go far enough, noting that the chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee — one of multiple highly critical committees that have scrutinized the bill — has called for these clauses to be made clearer.
On the other hand, the US Congress has multiple committees and sub-committees that go in-depth into particular topics, even controversial ones.
Earlier decisions allowed the aggregate limits in order to prevent donors from using multiple contributions to get around the cap, by giving to numerous committees that might pass the money around and get it to the candidate anyway.
Also, if there are suddenly a proliferation of LLCs (like the IRS sec. 527 independent expenditure committees that blossomed last decade), having the same CEO approve multiple communications might signify that someone is over-engaged.
But Schumer argued that only a select committee could adequately maintain jurisdiction across all government agencies, and that an investigation run by multiple committees could lead to "holes that no committee covers".
There is a stability problem in that legislative processes change over time, sometimes in ways that are very significant, as when (in 1975) the House rules changed to allow bills to be considered by multiple committees, and sometimes in ways that are not, as when House procedural rules are revised in trivial, short-lived ways at the beginning of each new Congress.
It's part of the reason that we've had multiple committees involving, broadly, mainly staff and faculty and administrators, not so much students, but the administrative processes.
The vast range of the request raised the specter of unfocused inquiries that could last years and involve multiple committees competing for witnesses and documents.
