Specifically, the CCR investigates allegations of discrimination based on race, sex, national origin, disability.

In calling for a permanent commission, that committee stated: In a democratic society, the systematic, critical review of social needs and public policy is a fundamental necessity.

... [The Commission should also] serve[] as a clearing house and focus of coordination for the many private, state, and local agencies working in the civil rights field, [and thus] would be invaluable to them and to the federal government.

A permanent Commission on Civil Rights should point all of its work toward regular reports which would include recommendations for action in ensuing periods.

[7]As then-Senator and Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson put it, the commission's task is to "gather facts instead of charges.

Soon after the passage of the 1957 Act, the then-six-member, bipartisan Commission, consisting of John A. Hannah, President of Michigan State University; Robert Storey, Dean of the Southern Methodist University Law School; Father Theodore Hesburgh, President of the University of Notre Dame; John Stewart Battle, former governor of Virginia; Ernest Wilkins, a Department of Labor attorney; and Doyle E. Carlton, former governor of Florida, set about to assemble a record.

Circuit Judge George C. Wallace, who was elected as governor in support of white supremacy, ordered voter registration records to be impounded.

From there, the Commission went on to hold hearings on the implementation of Brown v. Board of Education in Nashville, Tennessee and on housing discrimination in Atlanta, Chicago and New York.

The authorizing legislation stated that a president could only fire a commissioner for "misbehavior in office," and it was clear that the terminations were the result of disagreements over policy.

Since that time the commission has struggled to remain independent, and its agenda has oscillated between liberal and conservative aims as factions among its members have ebbed and waned.

On September 5, 2007, Commissioner Gail Heriot testified about the agency's value on the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Heriot told the Senate Committee on the Judiciary:If the value of a federal agency could be calculated on a per dollar basis, it would not surprise me to find the Commission on Civil Rights to be among the best investments Congress ever made.

My back-of-the-envelope calculation is that the Commission now accounts for less than 1/2000th of 1 percent of the federal budget; back in the late 1950s its size would have been roughly similar.

[15]In 2008, President George W. Bush announced that he would oppose the proposed Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act shortly after the commission issued a report recommending rejection of the bill.

[16] During the Barack Obama administration, this conservative bloc reversed its position and began using the commission as a vigorous advocate for conservative interpretations of civil rights issues, such as opposition to the Voting Rights Act and the expansion of federal hate crimes laws.

[17] In 2010, Commissioner Abigail Thernstrom, a Republican appointee generally considered part of the commission's conservative bloc, criticized her colleagues' investigation into the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case, describing it as motivated by a partisan "fantasy ... [that] they could bring Eric Holder down and really damage [President Obama]"[18] and arguing that only "a moron" could believe the commission's theory that Obama appointees had ordered DoJ attorneys not to protect the voting rights of white people.

The SACs are supported by regional offices whose primary function is to assist them in their planning, fact-finding, and reporting activities.

Like the commission, the SACs produce written reports that are based on fact-finding hearings and other public meetings.

The commission studies alleged discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin.