Bennie Thompson's chief-of-staff defends Homeland Security oversight attempts

The Center for Public Integrity - Is Congress Failing on Homeland Security Oversight?

“We spent the better part of the last two plus years fighting for more jurisdiction,” Lanier Avant, the staff director of the House Homeland Security Committee, explained recently. At the end of 2008, Representative Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and the panel’s chair, submitted a proposal to expand the committee’s legislative jurisdiction. “The truth is that when we sat down with committee chairmen, and staff directors — there were about 15, 16 of us in a room on a December night for probably four or five hours — if you look around the room and look at other committee chairmen, you say well, this is what I want to take from you, it really doesn’t happen like that,” Avant said.