Talk:Contempt of Congress

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1 Contempt as crime
2 List of persons found to be in contempt
3 History
4 "state contempt of Congress laws"

[edit] Contempt as crime

Can Congress charge a sitting state judge with Contempt of Congress for preventing a suopeanaed witness from testifying before Congress?

I am surprised that the article calls contempt of Congress as being a crime of obstruction. In fact, I am pretty sure that it is wrong. PhatJew 07:38, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Looks like 'obstruction' to me. Compare with Wikipedia's obstruction of justice article, for example. Obstruction isn't just interference like intimidating witnesses. Certainly, refusing to answer questions when legally required to do so, or refusing to appear when required to do so, is obstruction. joeOnSunset 05:08, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of persons found to be in contempt

I'm interested in adding to the article a list of notable persons found to be in contempt of Congress. (I would think that this would be a notable feature of anyone's biography, and that the number of such persons would be fairly small.) For example, I see that Arthur Miller was found in contempt of Congress.

My idea is that we can discuss this, and/or work on assembling such a list, here in the Discussion until we can see whether it's worth doing and then move it to the article if desired. -- Writtenonsand 14:07, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History

I'd be interested to learn some history on this, especially with regard to the 1857 procedural change. The article mentions Congress running amok and jailing their political opponents. Anyone have any leads on examples of that in history? Sounds interesting! joeOnSunset 05:10, 16 May 2006 (UTC)