Testimony before a Simulated Virtual Hearing on Remote Voting in Congress

A coalition of organizations, including a number of former Members of Congress, held a simulated virtual hearing on April 16, 2020, to illustrate how the House of Representatives or Senate could use technology to hold a remote hearing. The following is my prepared remarks concerning the constitutional and rules questions that might arise concerning such a proceeding.

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Chairman Baird, Co-Chairman Inglis, distinguished former members of Congress, it is my honor to speak with you today.

It has now been 33 days since the House of Representatives held its last hearing, and 31 days since the House’s last roll call vote on the floor. The legislative branch’s absence has created a power vacuum that the executive branch is readily exploiting. Congress must get back to work. The question is how. Continue reading “Testimony before a Simulated Virtual Hearing on Remote Voting in Congress” →

New Data on House Staff Pay and Retention

Congressional staff are generally overworked and underpaid. Talented employees with vast institutional knowledge are eventually forced to choose between Congress and a sustainable lifestyle; the result is a Legislative Branch brain drain with employees leaving for better paying jobs in the Executive Branch or private sector. On top of that, Congress has a diversity problem: staff don’t reflect the constituency their bosses represent.

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Forecast for April 13, 2020.

It has been another tough week just about everywhere. We hope you and yours are staying safe. This newsletter is becoming harder and harder to write, but we hope it is helpful as we work together to keep our democracy.

CONTINUITY OF CONGRESS

We launched a website that gathers all the major resources and developments on continuity of Congress. Cleverly enough, it’s at continuityofcongress.org. Did we miss something? Drop us an email at daniel@demandprogress.org.

Read this: the Washington Post’s Mike Debonis and Paul Kane have a superb article that you really should read: “Sidelined by coronavirus pandemic, Congress cedes stage and authority to Trump.” They don’t have everything — we worked awfully hard on our report addressing the issues raised by House Rules Dems — but they expertly illustrate how power is shifting to the Executive branch as Congress has made itself unable to act.

• Speaker Pelosi is continuing to dig in on remote deliberations during the COVID-19 pandemic, and dismissed calls from the rank and file: “We’re not there yet, and we’re not going to be there no matter how many letters somebody sends in.”

• Perhaps the letters she referenced were those from the House New Dems and Problem Solvers Caucuses. New Dems urged that “Committees should … utiliz[e] the technology solutions identified by the House Committee on Administration to hold virtual legislative hearings and meetings as soon as possible.” The Problem Solvers called for “alternative ways” for the House to function that boil down to different versions of remote deliberations.

• According to our latest count, 111 members of the House have publicly articulated support for remote voting. (Majority Leader McConnell has entirely disappeared from this debate.)

• A new poll said “80% of Americans support Members of Congress being able to vote ‘remotely’ during the coronavirus pandemic,” and only 10% oppose. Members of Congress must be feeling the pressure to get back to work.

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Where Each Member Stands on Remote Voting in Congress

Congress must change its rules to temporarily enable Members to vote remotely to ensure continuity of Congress.

Where Does Each Member Stand Two Weeks Later?

(Update, 04/10/20 11:48am): Two weeks ago, our team compiled a database to keep track of Members in the House and Senate who support emergency remote voting.

Support for remote voting measures has grown significantly over the past two weeks. On April 2, the New Democrat Coalition Caucus wrote a letter to leadership urging them to engage in new remote measures. Then, on April 7, the Problem Solvers Caucus sent a bipartisan letter to leadership imploring the House to consider measures to enable Members to work remotely, including voting by phone or videoconference, or having voting machines installed in district offices.

Despite this bipartisan push by Rank and File Members and various caucuses, leadership is still against making any changes to the rules to enable remote voting in Congress. Speaker Pelosi indicated that the House most likely will not come back on its originally planned date of April 20, further disabling Congress’ ability to conduct regular business, schedule for its next round of appropriations, and conduct oversight of the executive branch.

Here are the key findings after two weeks:

42 additional Representatives support remote voting. (23 Democrats and 19 Republicans).
In total, 111 Representatives support remote voting (88 Democrats and 23 Republicans).
No additional support in the Senate (18 total: 10 Democrats and 8 Republicans).

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How Has the Congressional Research Service’s Work Changed Over Thirty Years?

How has the Congressional Research Service’s work changed over the last 30 years? We gathered almost five decades of the agency’s annual reports and built a spreadsheet of its self-reported activities. We found interesting patterns, the absence of expected patterns, and lots of missing data. Our key findings:

First, CRS is decreasing its consultations with clients and shifting its resources to providing written products.

Second, CRS is creating more “new” written products and providing fewer “updated” written products, which suggests a shift away from creating and maintaining in-depth analytical products to comparatively superficial, fast-response pieces.

Third, there’s no apparent connection between the products CRS creates and public access to general distribution CRS reports.

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Legislative Staffers Get Paid Family and Medical Leave During The Pandemic, But It’s Not Permanent

In the midst of this pandemic, legislative staffers have been forced to modify the way they support lawmakers and constituents by switching to telework. These staffers remain on the metaphorical front lines though as they provide assistance to constituents who are desperately in need of support. Legislative staffers, especially those who reside in DC, are strapped with high housing costs, low wages, long work hours, and, with risk of illness particularly acute at the moment, they lack adequate paid and family leave protections.

There has undoubtedly been improvements to the paid parental leave benefits offered to legislative staffers in recent years, but there is still a long way to go. We have written before about the push for full paid family and medical leave for congressional staffers, but most policy proposals have been halted due to the ever-important task of adequately combating the coronavirus. While the passage of last year’s National Defense Authorization Act included provisions that enable congressional staff 12 weeks of paid parental leave, the legislation left out paid family and medical leave.

For weeks during this pandemic, legislative staffers have not been able to get guaranteed paid time off to take care of themselves, sick family members, or kids who may be at home due to school closures. There have been numerous cases of congressional staffers contracting coronavirus while others have been forced to quarantine due to exposure. It’s also evident that this pandemic will be lasting months or longer.

But there is some good news: the paid leave guidelines all changed last week, albeit in a narrow way.

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Capitol Police Round Up: Week Ending April 2, 2020

For the week ending April 2, 2020, there were 4 Capitol Police incidents reported; 4 individuals arrested. Only 3 of the 4 incidents reported were within USCP jurisdiction. There were 3 traffic related incidents, including two invalid traffic permits. Numbers continue to decline as the US Capitol Complex stays closed and DC’s stay-at-home order goes into effect.

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