Coalition Urges House Democratic Caucus to Publish Caucus Rules

Earlier today, a coalition of 15 organizations sent a letter requesting the House Democratic Caucus to publish its current set of Caucus rules.

Similar letters were sent on January 31, 2019, February 7, 2019, and April 10, 2019, requesting the Caucus to publish the rules online. The coalition received a response on February 7, 2019, saying that the issue would be brought up to the Caucus shortly. Unfortunately, no further action was taken by the Caucus.

It has been one year since the Democratic Caucus informed the coalition that the matter would be brought to the Caucus’ attention. The letter once again requests that these rules be published online.

Read the full letter here

Forecast For February 10, 2020.

ON YOUR RADAR

Shedding light on the Justice Department’s OLC Opinions is the topic of today’s Transparency Caucus briefing, set for 2pm in 1310 Longworth. RSVP to Hannah.Mansbach@mail.house.gov. Here’s why we think OLC opinion transparency is important plus a refresher on legislative efforts concerning OLC opinions. Also, read Mike Stern’s latest on OLC.

Oversight hearings on Leg Branch agencies before House appropriators start this week. Tuesday’s hearings include the Open World Leadership Center at 10 and the US Capitol Police at 11; Wednesday it’s the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights at 10 and CBO at 11. Coincidentally, we have a new report out today on what a year’s worth of data tells us about the Capitol Police.

DIGGING INTO CONGRESS!

Ever wonder how congressional clearances work? We did, and spent several years (with the Project on Government Oversight) to write this new report. The upshot: as a consequence of overclassification and undue deference to the executive branch, Congress’s capacity to oversee classified matters has eroded, with access to information unduly limited to a smattering of staff in a handful of offices.

Congress isn’t subject to FOIA, but many of its offices and agencies have a public records request process. How does it work — and does it work well? Alex Howard took a close look: read his excellent article and look at our data that evaluates each agency and component.

The US Capitol Police is one of the least transparent and accountable legislative branch agencies, which we know because we spent a year looking deeply into their behavior. They have 10% of the legislative branch’s budget, a 2-square mile primary jurisdiction, and a staff the size of Atlanta’s police department (seriously!), but they disclose little information and are often non-responsive to questions. In addition, a non-trivial amount of their work is not closely tied to protecting the Capitol complex and its visitors.

What’s on the Leg Branch’s to-do list? We went through the FY 2020 approps bill and tracked every request and deadline related to congressional modernization. You’re welcome. 🙂

The Library of Congress is publishing some CRS reports, but they should do better: 25 organizations urged the Library to publish current CRS reports as HTML and release important archived reports. (By the way, we appreciate the Library fulfilling our public records request for CRS’s annual reports to Congress for 1981-1994; we made that request last August.)

Interested in Congress’s ability to formulate science and technology policy? You can read our new report, published by the Ash Center, but why not come to our Feb. 21st briefing in 2044 Rayburn? RSVP here.

Is there something we missed in this week’s forecast? Let us know — send us your articles, news, press releases, and angry tweets. Also, encourage your friends to subscribe.

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The U.S. Capitol Police: What A Year Of Data Tells Us About The Congressional Police Force

Written by Amelia Strauss, Amelia@DemandProgress.org

Research and Editing Contributions by Daniel Schuman & Taylor J. Swift

Download this report as a PDF here. Download the underlying data as a CSV here.

Introduction

Congress has a security-force-police-department hybrid, the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP), tasked with the critical mission of protecting the Congress—Members, employees, and visitors—so constitutionally mandated business can be carried out in a safe and open environment. The department mitigates threats against Members of Congress, which the House Sergeant at Arms says have increased three-fold in recent years, with some cases resulting in criminal charges [1]. Additionally, USCP evaluates millions of Capitol campus visitors each year, screening more than 10 million visitors in 2018 alone.

The department has 2,300 employees and a budget of over $460 million to protect its extended jurisdiction of almost two-square-miles. That’s enough staff to rival the Atlanta Police Department, and its budget eclipses spending levels of police departments in cities like Austin, Texas and Detroit, Michigan.

USCP absorbs almost 10% of Congress’ (already limited) funding, a percentage that has dramatically increased over the last decade. Does USCP use that money and manpower efficiently and effectively? The short answer is, we don’t know.

Continue reading “The U.S. Capitol Police: What A Year Of Data Tells Us About The Congressional Police Force” →

Capitol Police Round Up: Week Ending February 6, 2020

For the week ending February 6, 2020, there were 19 Capitol Police incidents reported; 58 individuals arrested. There were 5 traffic related incidents, including 4 invalid permit arrests. Capitol Police arrested 39 individuals for crowding and obstructing the entrance of the U.S. Capitol Building on Wednesday, January 29th at 2:06 pm.

Here’s how this week’s activity was distributed:

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Exempt from FOIA, US legislative support agencies follow uneven transparency standards

Reading room in the Library of Congress Jefferson Building. Source: https://www.house.gov/the-house-explained/legislative-branch-partners — Reading room in the Library of Congress Jefferson Building. Source: House.gov

Around the world, over one hundred nations have adopted freedom of information (FOI) laws that give their publics a right to request records from their governments. While these statutes are riddled with exemptions, marked by political interference, and often light on sanctions for those that block them, FOI laws remain essential tools for democratic governance everywhere they exist.

FOI laws have the greatest impact on transparency and accountability in states and nations where press freedom is strong and independent FOI ombudsmen and courts provide an adversarial venue where requesters can make appeals and challenge denials.

Sweden’s FOI law is the oldest in the world, passed in 1766. It wasn’t until July 4, 1966 that President Lyndon Johnson reluctantly signed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) at his ranch in Texas, codifying into law the American public’s right to access information from government agencies in the executive branch.

During the Trump administration, the number of FOIA requests, FOIA lawsuits, and records censored have all reached record levels, driven from a combination of non-responsive agencies, reduced proactive disclosure, and active litigation by civil society groups.

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Update on CRS Annual Reports

On Halloween we posted a spooky story on the disappearance of CRS’s Annual Reports. The annual reports to Congress explain what the agency has been doing the past year — and what it plans to do — and, for our purposes, contain some useful statistical data that we want for a report we are writing on how usage of CRS’s services have changed over time. The reports contain other information, such the priorities for the components inside CRS, management’s focus, and a list of all CRS reports issued that year.

The thing is, we were able to find CRS’s Annual Reports from 1971-1980, and from 1995 to present, but a huge tranche of the reports were missing. The October blogpost details everywhere that we (unsuccessfully) looked, including our efforts to go through unofficial and semi-official channels to obtain copies. Finally, we submitted this public records request to the Library on August 8, 2019. This Friday would have marked six months since our request. (Six months for documents that likely were originally publicly available, at least at the time of submission!) Continue reading “Update on CRS Annual Reports” →

A Primer on Congressional Staff Clearances

Today Demand Progress Education Fund and the Project on Government Oversight are pleased to publish a primer on congressional staff clearances. It is the result of several years worth of research.

Security clearances govern access to classified information. While members of Congress are entitled to access classified information by virtue of the constitutional offices they hold and do not need security clearances, they must rely on their staff to sift through reams of information and brief them on issues. Those staff often do not hold sufficient clearances to access the requisite information, thereby undermining the support they can provide to their superiors and weakening Congress’s ability to legislate or conduct effective oversight.

This primer is a review, to the extent possible with the available information, of how the processes for staff clearance operate in the House of Representatives and Senate (though not in congressional support offices and agencies), who is able to obtain a clearance, and at what level a clearance can be obtained. It specifically focuses on “SCI,” or Sensitive Compartmented Information.

Read the full document here.

2020 Legislative Branch Wish List

The passage of the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill for FY 2020 back in December started the clock on a number of projects and reports inside the legislative branch. We took a look at the requests, broke them down by office, and summarized the deadlines, which are drawn from the House committee report, the Senate committee report, and the Joint Explanatory Statement.

Continue reading “2020 Legislative Branch Wish List” →

Coalition Letters Urge House and Senate Committees to Expand Access to CRS Reports.

Earlier today, letters signed by 25 organizations were sent to the Committee on House Administration and the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration urging them to address issues of congressional and public access to CRS reports.

Previously, Congress directed the Library of Congress to public current and archived CRS reports, but many of these reports are not made available to the public are not made generally available to Congress unless specifically requested and are not available from either the Library’s internal website or from its public-facing website.

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Save the Date: Harvard Ash Center Briefing on Science, Technology, and Democracy Friday February 21st.

The Ash Center is hosting a congressional lunch briefing to offer recommendations and present road map for resurrecting a technology assessment capability in Congress with Zach Graves and Daniel Schuman, authors of “Science, Technology, and Democracy: Building a Modern Congressional Technology Assessment Office”.

The briefing will take place on Friday February 21 from 12:00 to 1:30 pm in the Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2044.

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