We’ve been busy writing reports and appropriations requests, so welcome to an abbreviated and belated First Branch Forecast.

IN BRIEF

House Rules are a way for lawmakers to set priorities & implement reforms. We tracked the status of reforms in the House Rules package: see the results.

Approps season is in full swing. Roll Call has a draft House markup schedule, and check out our approps tracker.

This week, the Library of Congress and GAO are testifying before H. Leg Branch Approps on Thursday; next week House Officers, Members, the public, the AOC, and GPO are all testifying. Mismanagement and discrimination at CRS was the topic of a House Admin hearing last year.

Remember that panel discussion on DOJ’s OLC opinions that we teased you about last week? Video is now available! (And here’s a 1-pager on a legislative fix.)

It appears the Acting DNI was removed for sharing information with Congress; the latest in a series of steps to turn off the information faucet from the Exec. Branch to Leg. Branch overseers.

GAO launched a new line of products, science and tech spotlights.

ICYMI: Congress has systematically underfunded its own operations for decades. We have the charts to prove it.

VA Reporting Transparency Act, a bill requiring reports the VA must provide to Congress to be available on a central website, will get a House floor vote on Thursday.

Continue reading “Forecast for February 25, 2020.” →

ON YOUR RADAR

A nice breather. Both the House and Senate are in recess this week.

Whistleblower Ombudsman. Congratulations to Shanna Devine, who was just named the House of Representatives’ first Whistleblower Ombudsman. The nonpartisan, independent office, established 14 months ago as part of the House rules package and filled this past week — with bipartisan support for the appointee — is responsible for providing training to congressional offices and helping them develop best practices for receiving communications from whistleblowers. At Congress’s request, GAO issued a report in May 2019 on key procedures congressional staff should follow to safeguard whistleblower information and identity, and now congressional staff will have someone to call. Perhaps the Senate will follow suit.

If you want to strengthen Congress’s policy chops, be sure to attend this briefing on strengthening Congressional formulation of science and technology policy this Friday from 12-1:30 in Rayburn 2044, featuring a new Ash Center report (one-pager) co-written by Zach Graves at the Lincoln Network and Daniel Schuman at Demand Progress. RSVP here.

The House released dates and times for many upcoming Approps hearings. More below, and see our approps tracker for when testimony is due.

The Office of Legal Counsel is an office inside the Department of Justice that churns out (sometimes secret) legal opinions that often elevate the presidency at the expense of Congress. This past week, the Congressional Transparency Caucus hosted a phenomenal panel discussion on the OLC that everyone should watch. (We’ll have video soon — honest!) Here’s a 1-pager on legislation to address congressional notification re: OLC opinions.

The House Democratic Caucus was asked, more than a year ago, to publish its rules online, just like the Republicans do. This week we re-upped our letters; we didn’t get a response from Rep. Jeffries, but Roll Call did: “Continuing our long-standing commitment to complete transparency, the Caucus is in the process of making its rules available online for all to see.” Roll Call notes the spokesperson did not respond to questions about a timeline.

Continue reading “Forecast for February 18, 2020.” →