Marking the one-year anniversary of the passing of its namesake founder Sen. Carl Levin, the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy, in collaboration with the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, today released a “Portrait in Oversight” summarizing his 36-year career as a leader in the art and practice of congressional oversight investigations. “The breadth, depth, and sheer number of complex, bipartisan investigations led by Sen. Levin, when assembled in one place, make clear his genius for oversight and his legacy as one of
Congress’ great investigators,” said Jim Townsend, director of the Levin Center.
A Democrat who represented Michigan from 1979 to 2015, Sen. Levin played a leading role in some of the U.S. Senate’s most complicated and consequential investigations. They include inquiries into the causes of the 2008 financial crisis, the collapse of Enron, defense procurement contracts with inflated costs, abusive Iraqi interrogations, and tax dodging by major corporations like Apple and wealthy individuals hiding assets offshore. He conducted his investigations as chair or ranking member on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Armed Services Committee, and the Select Committee on Intelligence.
The Levin Portrait is the 16th in a series of profiles developed by the Levin Center to describe notable congressional oversight investigations and key figures in the history of legislative oversight. Together, the portraits explore congressional investigations from 1792 to the modern era including inquiries into the Civil War, Ku Klux Klan, covert intelligence operations, Iran-Contra affair, and Watergate as well as figures such as Representatives John Dingell and Elijah Cummings and Senators Harry Truman and Joe McCarthy.
