Pending Good Government Bills: 116th Congress

The 116th Congress is coming to a close, with Members getting ready to depart to campaign full-time and then return in late-November/December for a lame duck session. Time is running out before bills turn into pumpkins and have to be re-introduced at the start of the next Congress. According to GovTrack, 151 bills have become law so far. By comparison, 12,874 bills have been introduced, or 1.1%, although some of these bills are duplicates of ones that have become law.

We and our friends in civil society have compiled a non-exhaustive list of pending good government bills that lawmakers should consider pushing across the finish line before time runs out. As legislation that’s further along in the process is more likely to become law, we’ve sorted our list by their status. We’ve further subdivided the list regarding the part of government they would affect.

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The Constitution Annotated in 2020

For the first time since 2009, I don’t have to write a blogpost or letter calling on the Library of Congress to make its legal treatise, the Constitution Annotated, available online in a usable format. Last year, the Library finally published that document online as HTML. For those unfamiliar, the Constitution Annotated is a legal treatise, prepared by the Congressional Research Service, that explains the U.S. Constitution as it has been interpreted by the Supreme Court. Continue reading “The Constitution Annotated in 2020” →

Forecast for September 14, 2020

THE TOP LINE

More should be happening. We are 16 days away from the end of the fiscal year; COVID-19 is everywhere and not going away any time soon; wildfires are burning on the west coast; the Executive branch is unabashedly flouting the law; and senior congressional leaders are raising concerns Pres. Trump will not peacefully transition power should he be defeated and is working to undermine elections. The skinny Senate COVID-19 bill was defeated — its major purpose was blame-shifting and incumbent protection — and Senate Rs are saying no deal is possible until after the election (if then).

The House & White House are working towards a “clean CR,” with one big open question as to when it will expire. The “clean” description is an acknowledgement that it won’t address any of the aforementioned problems and that House Dem Leadership miscalculated around the first (and subsequent) COVID-19 relief bills. Should Dems agree to let the CR expire in December, they could be setting up a government shutdown that could last a month or longer, undermining what they hope would be the start of the Biden administration.

In the House this week, the Congressional Budget Justification Transparency Act of 2020 (HR 4894) is one of 31 bills on suspension, with a few additional bills set for floor debate. There are 18 committee meetings scheduled, including a House Oversight markup that should advance the PLUM Act (HR 7107). The former requires all agency Congressional Budget Justifications to be online in a central location; the later would transform the Plum Book into a living, digital document.

The Senate floor, meanwhile, will spend Monday focused on another judicial nomination. 17 committee meetings are currently scheduled.

For your calendar: Tuesday is the International Day for Democracy, and Brazil’s Bussola Tech is holding an international conference (with English translation) on the experience of 20 parliaments in transforming their legislatures during COVID-19. House Deputy Clerk Bob Reeves will be representing the U.S. House of Reps. RSVP here. Thursday is Constitution Day. Friday is the start of Rosh Hashana.

Transitions. Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA) will resign in October; he is the co-chair of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. While waiting for a new member to take office, the House Clerk will be responsible for keeping the lights on. House Parliamentarian Tom Wickham is retiring, and will be succeeded by his deputy, Jason Smith.

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Select Recommendations for Updating the House Rules 117th Congress

Introduction

Demand Progress released 129 recommended updates to the Rules of the House of Representatives and separate orders the House should adopt for the 117th Congress as part of an August 20, 2020 report. The report is the culmination of months of work, reflects significant engagement with experts on Congress, and addresses ten major thematic areas.

We recognize the volume of recommendations in the full report can be overwhelming, so the following document highlights 13 reforms that the House should consider. We chose these particular reform recommendations based on how feasible they are to implement, the extent to which they would strengthen the House of Representatives, their political viability, and their overall significance to Congressional operations.

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September Update: What Items are Due in the Modernization Committee Resolution

In early March, the House passed H.Res 756, adopting modernization recommendations of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. The resolution included 29 recommendations that were unanimously reported by the Fix Congress Committee last year. The resolution calls on legislative support offices to start a number of projects and report back on how to implement others.

In July, the Committee on House Administration released a series of congressional reports that were due in H.Res 756. We continue to catalogue the projects and their due dates into a public spreadsheet, and have them broken down by items.

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House Rules: How Committees Operate

Each House committee has rules that dictate how the committee will function. These rules govern how many members must be present to take an action (i.e., quorum requirements), subpoenas, and other actions. The committees are (theoretically) the workhorses of Congress — legislation, reports, budgets, appropriations, and oversight all originate in committees.

Committee rules exist under the umbrella of the rules that govern the entire House of Representatives. House and committee rules change every two years as the “new” House takes office after elections. The Congressional Research Service notes: “One of the majority party’s prerogatives is writing House rules and using its numbers to effect the chamber’s rules on the day a new House convenes.”

That CRS report provides an overview of House rule changes from 2007 to 2017. CRS also provides a survey of House and Senate subpoena requirements through 2018. Finally, a CRS report describes rule changes affecting committee procedures in the current 116th Congress.

Current committee rules are compiled in this 400 page document. Here are some highlights:

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What’s the Difference? Senate Committee Quorum Rules and Procedures

Despite the longstanding warnings from the Capitol attending physician and D.C. health official extending the stay-at-home order from May 15 to June 8, the Senate chose to return to Washington DC on May 4 for regular business. This includes voting on voting on nominations on the Senate floor as well as holding various committee proceedings.

But a majority of the committee proceedings have been different since the Senate has returned, with senators often choosing to appear via video conference to adhere to social distancing guidelines. Earlier this year, the Senate HELP Committee hosted a proceeding that included the chairman, the ranking member, and all four witnesses all participating via video conference.

Given the circumstances, these modified proceedings had us thinking: What are the quorum requirements of each committee and what could potentially need to be changed if virtual proceedings are fully implemented?

Senate Rule XXVI establishes specific requirements for certain Senate committee procedures. In addition, each Senate committee is required to adopt rules to govern its own proceedings. These rules may “not be inconsistent with the Rules of the Senate,” but committees are allowed some flexibility to establish rules tailored to how certain activities can be conducted, which can result in significant variation in the way each committee operates.

Given the changing circumstances of committee proceedings, we read each Senate committee’s rules and procedures to find trends, gaps, and unusual practices. Our complete spreadsheet on the House and Senate committee rules breakdown can be found here and is embedded below.

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Capitol Police Release 2019 Complaints Data With Significant Omissions That Reduce Clarity

The U.S. Capitol Police is notoriously opaque; among the limited information they will provide to the public are summary statistics on employee misconduct, published in their Annual Statistical Summary Report. This report provides a high level summary of the number of complaints made against USCP employees.

We requested a copy of the 2019 data in June, and it arrived in August, which is par for the course with USCP. Here is what the statistics show:

There were 228 complaints filed against USCP employees in 2019, of which nearly 140 charges were sustained.

More than 80% of complaints were filed by department employees; by comparison 14% were citizen submissions, and 3% were filed by outside law enforcement.

There have been zero anonymous complaints filed in 2019, and the same was true in 2018. This suggests a problem with the way the anonymous complaints process works.

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