Forecast for June 21, 2021

Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your weekly look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Subscribe here. We hope you had a good Juneteenth holiday weekend. The Senate is back on Monday and the House is back on Tuesday.

THE TOP LINE

Follow the money. The House deemed top line discretionary spending as part of an unrelated bill — avoiding a tough vote — and Appropriations Chair DeLauro communicated her views on top line funding levels to the 12 approps subcommittees chairs, which they will use in marking up their bills. The public won’t know those numbers in full until June 29th, when Appropriators vote to formally adopt those numbers. We are excited for subcommittee markups, the first of which are Leg branch and FSGG this Thursday. Keep an eye on Congressional staff pay levels, the subject of multiple member letters. (We’re tracking them here.) Rep. Clyburn expects floor votes on the bills by the end of July. Will the Senate cut short its August recess given the legislative pile-up?

The House voted to repeal the 2002 Iraq AUMF 2002 by 268-161. Presidents often twist AUMFs into a general license for military force and overseas intervention. Should the Senate agree, this repeal would mark a major first step toward restoring Congress’s authority over war, long undermined by the presidency and the Supreme Court. However, the 2001 AUMF repeal remains, which will be a harder fight; all war authorizing legislation should contain expiration dates and all administration legal interpretations of their scope should be available to Congress.

The Trump insurrection was the focus of three hearings this past week, by House Admin, House Oversight, and Senate Rules. Details below.

Improving the culture of Congress was the focus of a House Modernization Committee hearing. More below.

The Senate needs to ensure its continuity in times of crisis. Demand Progress and the Niskanen Center organized two coalition letters — one to Senate leadership and one to the Senate Rules and Admin Committee — commending Sens. Portman and Durban on S.Res. 201, a bipartisan resolution to amend the Senate Standing Rules to allow absent senators to participate during a national crisis. Under this resolution, senators would have access to the necessary technology to cast votes outside the Senate chamber when the situation calls for it. Building the infrastructure for senators to do their jobs when unforeseen or dangerous circumstances arise is a critical piece of protecting our democracy, as the events of this past year have hopefully made evident.

Senate Judiciary Committee has a nominations hearing scheduled for Wednesday. The committee has not yet publicly announced who is on the schedule, but we are keeping a close eye for Christopher Schroeder, nominated to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Demand Progress led a bipartisan 20-organization letter calling on Mr. Schroeder to endorse proactive disclosure for OLC opinions, something he supported as a private citizen. This would help address an office that experts say is in “crisis,” effectively promulgating secret law with an undue bias in favor of the presidency. Transparency might help counter the pressure to decide in favor of its political masters. (Demand Progress also submitted appropriations testimony on OLC.)

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Forecast for June 14, 2021

Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your weekly look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Subscribe here.

THE TOP LINE

Justice Department surveillance. The Justice Department surveilled at least two Members of the House Intelligence Committee, some committee staff, and family members in 2017-8 as part of a “leaks” investigation. Apple and an unidentified Information Service Provider were directed to provide information to the DOJ and were gagged from telling the targets of the surveillance that the DOJ had demanded their records. This follows on the heels of Justice Department surveillance of the press, which included obtaining email and phone call records and gagging the third party communications providers. Both the surveillance and how it came to light is highly irregular and dangerous to our democracy. More details below.

HSGAC/Senate Rules report on the Jan. 6th attacks. We read and review the 128-page bipartisan document and offer our key takeaways. 3 hearings on that topic are scheduled this week. More details below.

That the Senate must address its continuity in an emergency is the subject of two letters (one to the Senate Rules Committee and one to Senate leadership) by us, the Niskanen Center, and a coalition of 24 organizations and congressional experts.

The FOIA Advisory Committee unanimously adopted a recommendation to extend FOIA-like processes to Legislative branch support offices and agencies.

Repeal of the 2002 AUMF for Iraq will be considered next week by the House of Representatives, which is a first step towards repealing the many AUMFs that give too much power to the Executive branch to decide matters of war and peace. The CPCC has an explainer on the various AUMFs.

THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SPYING ON CONGRESS

The Justice Department seized Apple metadata on House Intelligence Committee members, aides, and family members, including a minor. Prosecutors subpoenaed Apple for material from the accounts of at least two lawmakers, Rep. Eric Swalwell of California and Rep. Adam B. Schiff of California. This seizure happened during 2017-2018 while prosecutors hunted for sources behind media reports about contacts between Trump associates and Russia; Trump was known to have held a vendetta against Rep. Schiff, who, ironically, has long been an advocate for relaxing standards for surveillance. (We note that Trump’s vendetta is not necessarily the cause of the inquiry.) Upon becoming Attorney General under the Trump administration, William P. Barr revived leak investigations in 2020 that had lost steam under A.G. Sessions and he rebooted the investigation of Schiff and others. The Justice Department secured a gag order on Apple and at least one Internet Service Provider. This could suggest that these lawmakers may have been unaware until last month that their information was being sought, although it is equally plausible they had been notified or had reason to suspect this at an earlier date. At least one staffer was notified last year by the ISP, and there may be more. It is now being reported a focus of the inquiry was Michael Bahar, the Democratic Staff Director for the House Intelligence Committee; per the NYT the case concerning him was closed and no charges were brought. The circumstance of this investigation and its targets are particularly troubling.

The Justice Department’s Inspector General said it will investigate, but the focus will be on whether the DOJ followed its policies and procedures and will “not substitute the OIG’s judgment for the legal and investigative judgments made in the matters under OIG review.” Surely Congress should investigate; the House has given no indication it would launch an inquiry, though Rep. Schiff has said he has been in touch with the DOJ, which he said has not been forthcoming. Rep. Schiff called on the DOJ to investigate — and applauded it after the IG’s announcement — and Speaker Pelosi issued an unusually worded statement supporting Schiff’s call for an OIG investigation, which starts: “recently, it has become public that….” Surely an inquiry is a job for the House Judiciary Committee or a panel that can looks more broadly into activities of the Intelligence Community. Sens. Schumer and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Durbin have called for Barr and Sessions to testify before the Senate and Speaker Pelosi called for them to testify before Congress.

This whole thing is odd. Rep. Schiff and others certainly found out about the investigation in May, potentially sometime last year (which is when at least one staffer received notice), or maybe even earlier, but the first news report was June 10th. There was no press conference or release from the House Intelligence Committee, but instead a unnamed staffer was quoted by both the New York Times and the Washington Post, which gives rise to the question of whether the disclosure was authorized by the committee — if it was, why would these papers not name the staffer? The Post said the staffer “spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter remains politically sensitive,” but how does that make any sense and why didn’t the Committee speak officially and for attribution? The delay in releasing this news meant that Attorney General Garland could not be questioned on the matter when he testified before the Senate on Wednesday or in the House last month.

This could be explained, at least in part, in that it is a job of the House Intelligence Committee (of which Speaker Pelosi is the longest serving member in history) to address matters of surveillance, especially those politically driven and aimed at Members of Congress and the press. There is a sordid history of the President using the Justice Department to go after his political enemies; the misuse of surveillance authorities was one reason HPSCI was created. Did HPSCI know this was happening? It seems that some members may have been aware. Why didn’t they push to put in place sufficient controls? Why haven’t they pushed for legislation to protect the press and public? As Reps. Schiff and Pelosi are surveillance hawks, perhaps this is politically awkward for them. Is it possible they did not share this information with their colleagues — maybe not even other members of the House Intel Committee?

The Senate did include a provision in the omnibus appropriations bill enacted in December to protect itself from this very circumstance. If you look on page 1953, the Senate Sergeant at Arms Cloud Services provision covers Senate electronic communications stored off-site. If someone (e.g. the DOJ) wants to obtain Senate records held by a third party (like Apple or Google), they must show up with a warrant and the third-party must tell the Senate and cannot be gagged from doing so; and the Senate has the right to intervene in court. Clearly there should be a provision that applies across the entire Legislative branch, including the House and support offices and agencies, but there is not. (There also are repeated legislative efforts to protect information stored by third parties for everyone.)

Is this is the tip of the iceberg? The House Intelligence Committee has long been a stronghold for increasing Executive branch surveillance powers — and the Intel Community is less than straightforward — so HPSCI must itself be reformed to align its interests with the rest of Congress, the public (see this report and coalition letter), and strengthened to do so effectively. So too should every personal office be eligible to have at least one staffer with a TS/SCI clearance so they can better advise their bosses on matters the Executive branch deems classified (see this report on how Congressional clearances actually work). Congress should consider enacting a reporter shield law, which would protect the press against having their records seized, such as the Free Flow of Information Act. Because the DOJ has a history of secretly reinterpreting laws passed by Congress to the advantage of the Executive branch, final opinions by the Office of Legal Counsel should be proactively disclosed except when not possible and all opinions should be published online in an index. Data brokers should be unable to sell your information to law enforcement as part of an end run around the 4th amendment. The provisions protecting Senate information should be expanded to the Legislative branch and also cover personal devices used by members. And Congress should establish a modern Church committee to investigate whether there have been additional abuses by the intelligence agencies, including the DOJ.

A cautionary note: It must be terrifying to have the powers of the Executive branch aimed at you for the apparent purpose of political retribution. Whether you are an average person with an opinion or the Chairman of a powerful committee, undue scrutiny can have a chilling effect and raise the specter of the weaponization of your private life against you. Our sympathy lies with those every innocent person who finds themselves at the wrong end of a microscope.

When we place all these powers in the hands of Executive branch agencies we create tremendous risks for our democracy. In the hand of an autocrat, they could mean the end of our republic. Absent meaningful, wide-ranging, and adversarial oversight, power will accrete to the presidency and the intelligence community. Surveillance hawks have underestimated the risks over the decades. We have to act now before the political wheel turns again.

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Forecast for June 7, 2021

Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, our weekly look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Don’t miss an issue: subscribe here (it’s free).

THE TOP LINE

This week. The Senate is back and the House is holding a committee work week. Attorney General Garland will testify on Wednesday and the approps process is heating up.

Strengthening Congress. We look at the different avenues available to strengthening the Legislative branch, and who must do what. The clock is ticking.

Freedom of the Press. Journalists continue to be squeezed by the Executive branch with several new spying scandals in the last few weeks. We give the run-down.

The Capitol Police will hold a training exercise on Monday involving emergency vehicles and low flying helicopters.

STRENGTHENING CONGRESS

Congressional staff are significantly underpaid, thereby depriving Congress of the talent and policy expertise needed to make good legislative decisions, Business Insider’s Kayla Epstein reports ($). The starting salary range is laughable in the face of skyrocketing DC housing prices, and low pay rapidly pushes many staff out of the Legislative branch and into the private sector that pays two to three times as much for their legislative expertise. Our analysis suggests pay in the Executive branch for the same work can result in a 20%+ bump and that personal and committee offices are in steep decline. Meager congressional salaries most severely hamper efforts to hire and retain staffers of color, who are most likely to lack a financial support structure to subside their government employment.

What to do about it? In April, Rep. Steny Hoyer urged a 20% increase in funding for House salaries and expenses, which would return those funding levels to their 2011 baseline. Demand Progress and the Lincoln Network organized a bipartisan 30 organization letter in May endorsing a 20% increase in funding for personal offices and committees; it follows a February letter, also coordinated by Demand Progress and the Lincoln Network, that included 38 organizations + congressional experts endorsing a 10% or $530.9 million increase in funding for the Legislative branch. (This was before we knew hundreds of millions of dollars would have to be spent on Capitol Police and infrastructure.) Both the Chair and Ranking Members of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress have noted significant underfunding of Congressional staff and called for significant increases in resources, and the Committee last Congress detailed many of the deficiencies and endorsed modernizing funding levels. We also understand that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez sent a Dear Colleague requesting members endorse an excellent letter in support of a 21% increase for MRAs, committee funding, and leadership office budgets, with signatories due Thursday at 11 a.m.

How this could work: House Budget Chair Yarmuth says the top line defense and nondefense appropriations numbers likely will mirror the President’s proposal, which is $1,521.0 Billion in discretionary spending, split between defense at $752.9 Billion (+1.6%) and non-defense at $769.6 Billion (+16.5%). We would imagine the Senate will come out in a similar spot and both will “deem” these numbers instead of passing a budget resolution. That leaves Chair DeLauro and Chair Leahy (in consultation with leadership and committee members — although the evenly divided Senate makes this even more complicated) to allocate these funds between the 12 appropriations subcommittees, including the perpetually underfunded Legislative branch appropriations subcommittee.

What to watch: First, will Chairs DeLauro and Leahy bump the approximately ~$5 Billion funding level for the Legislative branch by enough to cover the huge new anticipated costs for the Capitol Police and the Architect as well providing funding to remediate the decimation of staff? If the discretionary spending increase of 16% is spread evenly, we should see another $800m for the Legislative branch, although it needs more than this. Second: will some spending inside the Legislative branch, such as for the Capitol Police and Architect, be treated as defense discretionary spending and thus come from a different pool of funds? Third, will other sources or mechanisms of funding be found for Legislative branch items? And finally, what recommendations will Leg branch approps — chaired by Rep. Ryan and Sen. Reed — make in terms of allotting the money inside each chamber. Remember: the Senate will defer to the House on its internal funding arrangements and the House will defer to the Senate on its internal funding arrangements.

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Forecast for June 1, 2021.

Bring on the out-of-office responses and welcome to this recess edition of the First Branch Forecast, where we look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Now, you’ll have time enough at last to encourage your colleagues to subscribe here.

TOP LINE

The forgotten art of congressional oversight is the topic of a fantastic, extensive article by the American Prospect’s David Dayen. It explores — with smart examples — how congressional oversight has held the powerful to account, the ingredients to make it work, what has changed in Congress over time, and who is making it work even in our current political environment. This is the best kind of long read: it’s one you can use.

Transparency around the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel opinions is a key element of government accountability, which is why Demand Progress coordinated a letter with a bipartisan group of 20 organizations calling on Biden’s nominee to run that office to endorse proactive disclosure for the opinions (with minimal exceptions) and to release an index of all OLC opinions. The often secret opinions constitute a body of law that hides from Congress and the American people how the Executive branch is applying the law. Notably, nominee Christopher Schroeder himself endorsed transparency for the opinions in 2004, and a 2020 statement drafted with substantial assistance from former OLC attorneys described the office as being in “crisis” and endorsed proactive disclosure. Schroeder’s nomination will come before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Demand Progress continues to support appropriations language that directs the OLC to release the opinions, included in the House bills in FY 2021 and FY 2020.

Congressional Republicans killed the January 6th Commission even after Democrats gave them every possible point of leverage to protect their political interests. Luke Broadwater details the many questions that will be left unanswered in the absence of a coordinated and wide-ranging investigation. Meanwhile, many Republicans in state legislatures are stepping up their unrelenting efforts to undermine democracy through attacks on the ability to vote and how those votes are counted and reported, which is part and parcel of the Trump insurrection and will accomplish the same purpose. For those who still believe in bipartisanship as a value, I refer you to this excellent opinion piece by Jack Shafer, that not only declares it long dead, but explains why bipartisanship was neither real nor a political good. (I’d love to have a discussion of how each political party in itself is a multiparty coalition, but that’s a topic for a different time.)

Appropriations Timeline. President Biden’s budget came out Friday — order a copy from GPO — and it provides a starting point for congressional negotiations over top line numbers. If I’m reading it right (I’m looking at table S-7 on page 56): Biden is proposing the Defense Allocation increase from $740.7B in FY 2021 to $752.9B in FY 2022, an increase of $12.2B (or 1.6%); the Non-Defense Allocation would increase from $660.7B in FY 2021 to $769.6B in FY 2022, an increase of $108.9B (or 16.5%). The FY 2021 number does not include $191.0B in off-budget discretionary spending, so apparently total discretionary budget authority would actually decrease from $1,592.3B in FY 2021 to $1,521.0B in FY 2022.

What’s due in June? Congress often requires Legislative branch support office and agencies to submit reports to Congress and we track what’s due when. See our June update, which includes a U.S. Capitol Police report on the cost for creating an arrest summary data system (Demand Progress testified on this issue last year), a CAO report on House-wide leave policy, a report from the Clerk on automated committee roll call voting systems, and more.

House Democrats have upgraded DemCom, the incredibly cool internal website that provides context for legislative information. (More below)

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Forecast for May 24, 2021

Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your weekly look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Encourage your colleagues to subscribe here.

TOP LINE

The House is holding a committee work week and the Senate is in. Next week, both chambers will be out to coincide with the Memorial Day holiday.

The January 6th Commission bill (H.R. 3233) passed the House 252-175-3. (More below)

The security supplemental appropriations bill (H.R. 3237) passed the House by one vote and faces an uphill path from members of both parties in the Senate. (More below)

The Capitol Police Board. The Committee on House Administration invited the Capitol Police Board to testify; the Senate Sergeant at Arms, who serves on the Board, did not attend. (More below)

Safe in-person House proceedings require Members to be vaccinated, but up-to half of House Republicans are not vaccinated as they protest the consequences of their own behavior. (More below)

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Forecast for May 17, 2021

Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your weekly look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Encourage your colleagues to subscribe here.

TOP LINE

Both chambers are in session this week and getting down to business:

A bill providing for a January 6th Commission likely will be considered in the House this week. The legislation, introduced by House Homeland Security Committee Chair Thompson and Ranking Member Katko, provides for the creation of an independent, bipartisan Commission. (More below).

The Emergency Security Supplemental Appropriations bill is the subject of a House Rules hearing tomorrow and is on the House floor calendar for later this week. It’s not smooth sailing, however: Republican leadership is hesitant and Senate Appropriations Chair Leahy “would be more comfortable pushing through a security supplemental once an independent commission has completed a review,” Jack Fitzpatrick reports. (More below)

The Capitol Police Board will testify at the House Admin hearing on “Reforming The Capitol Police And Improving Accountability For The Capitol Police Board” this Wednesday at 3. The last time the trio (excluding the Police Chief) testified together in the House was in the 1940s.

Capitol safety and the January 6th insurrection were the focus of a House Oversight hearing with the DoD, DOJ, and Metro Police, as well as two House Admin hearings with the USCP IG and the Architect of the Capitol Inspector General. The upshot so far: the people responsible for security don’t regularly update their security protocols and practices, don’t plan together, don’t think ahead, communicate poorly, and engage in turf battles. The IGs have at times made recommendations for fixes, which are routinely ignored. The power to fix many of these problems appears to rest in the hands of the Police Chief and her senior leadership, who have a long history of failing to act. The USCP Board appears to be a mechanism to avoid public accountability for the USCP but does not collectively exercise control or impose accountability, with de facto power residing in the hands of the House and Senate Sergeants at Arms. And DC’s unique status as a non-state combined with the fiction of a cohesive Capitol Police Board create unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles to requesting and receiving aid from the federal government. Money alone cannot fix what is primarily a management problem. (More below)

Marjorie Taylor Greene appears to be unwell and erratic. The most recent example was when she chased down and verbally accosting Rep. Ocasio Cortez, calling the New York congresswoman a terrorist sympathizer and other untruths. Video surfaced of Greene in 2019 acting in a bizarre manner, videotaping herself taunting AOC’s staff through her office mailslot and having a colleague deface her guestbook. Republican leadership does not appear to be taking efforts to rein her in or address the creepy and escalatory behavior. Greene is the poster child for why everyone entering into the Capitol, including members, should be subject to security screenings. Leadership should not sleep on addressing this problem.

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Forecast for May 10, 2021.

Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your weekly look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here.

TOP LINE

STOP EVERYTHING. “100% of my focus is on stopping this new administration,” said Sen. McConnell at a press conference. He added: Democrats want to turn America into a “socialist country” and Senate Republicans are in “total unity… in opposition to what the new Biden administration is trying to do to this country.” Does this makes it official?

The Justice Department was castigated for lying to a federal court in an effort to prevent public access to an Office of Legal Counsel Memorandum on whether Trump could be prosecuted. It’s not the first time DOJ has lied to a court about FOIA requests. This also highlights the importance of public access to OLC’s work, which we discuss below. We also note that Attorney General Barr okayed the collection of email contacts by journalists as part of a so-called “leak” investigation, another stab at the heart of government accountability.

Quill, an excellent new tool that allows Member offices to get electronic signatures on their Dear Colleagues, made its House debut; it is already available in the Senate. (More below.)

Kudos to the House Labor-HHS Approps subcommittee, which so far is the only subcommittee to hold public witness hearings. We are appreciative of Chair DeLauro for making it happen. We are tracking appropriations testimony deadlines here.

Earmarks. We also favorably note that the House Approps committee has both published earmark requests on its webpage ~and~ published them as a spreadsheet (downloadable here). We published recommendations on what data elements should be included in the spreadsheet, a spreadsheet being the bare minimum requirement for modern data disclosure. We welcome the appearance of data fields like Membername, subcommittee, project title, amount requested, recipient address, and explanation. However, there are serious deficiencies, such a lack of unique identifiers, missing data fields, and too many data elements in the same field. In addition, it is unclear whether the spreadsheet will be updated as earmarks move through the legislative process or how users would be informed that updates have occurred. I’m hoping this is an alpha release and it will be improved. There is a significant community of civic technologists who would be glad to help.

White House visitor logs will now (again) be made publicly available, but we are cranky about it. Transparency should be required by law and not granted at the sufferance of the sovereign. This illustrates one of the failings of the Obama administration, which repeatedly fought against turning good government norms into law.

This upcoming week will be busy: House Admin will hold hearings on Monday and Wednesday into the Capitol Police and the Architect. On Tuesday, Senate Rules will hold a business meeting on S. 1, which is the Democrats’ democracy reform package. On Wednesday, House Oversight will look into unanswered questions on the Capitol Insurrection (what an anodyne name for what happened). And on Thursday House Modernization will look into recruiting, empowering, and retaining a diverse congressional staff.

Last week on the Hill was busy, too. The House Oversight Committee held a hearing on transparency and accountability legislation; Demand Progress hosted its Advisory Committee on Transparency panel discussion on what’s on Congress’s transparency agenda. The House Modernization Committee looked at congressional staff capacity. And the Lincoln Network hosted an excellent event on GAO at 100. (More below.)

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Forecast for May 3, 2021

Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your weekly look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. We had thought last week would be quiet, but we were wrong. Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here.

TOP LINE

Calendar. The Senate is out this week and the House is holding a committee work week, which means there are hearings but not floor votes. Still, it’s another busy week. On Monday — yes, today — House Oversight is holding a hearing on Improving Government Transparency and Accountability and the Lincoln Network is hosting an all-star virtual conference on GAO’s Next 100 Years. Tuesday is our Advisory Committee on Transparency event on Congress’s Transparency Agenda and House CJS will have A.G. Merrick Garland testify on the Justice Department’s budget. On Thursday the House Modernization Committee is holding a hearing on Congressional Staff Capacity.

Restoring staff pay to historical norms is the subject of an excellent letter sent by Reps. Hoyer and Jeffries, who call to return staff pay to its 2011 levels (when it was 20% higher).

Continuity of Congress. Sens. Portman and Durbin reintroduced a resolution to allow for remote voting on the Senate floor, which would allow for the Senate to continue to operate in an emergency.

This past week was incredibly busy. Below we recap the Senate Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on budgets for GAO, CBO, and the Library; the House Modernization Committee’s hearing on interns and fellows, the House Budget Committee’s examination of the Power of the Purse, and a webinar hosted by Demand Progress where a dozen organizations gave five-minute talks on the requests they’ve made of the appropriations committee.

Quick bits. Sen. Manchin opposes DC statehood bill; House Admin received a third flash Capitol Police IG report on the same day a USCP intel official resigned; Sen. Leahy announced earmark regs; more news on when Approps testimony is due; and 4 new reports from the Clerk on implementing modernization proposals.

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Forecast for April 26, 2021

Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your weekly look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here.

TOP LINE

Staffers on Capitol Hill continue to bear the trauma and burn out from working through a pandemic, the 2020 election, and the insurrection, leading many staff to leave their jobs, according to Business Insider’s Kayla Epstein. The article spells out what life has been like for them. Another factor is staff pay and benefits; CRS has a new report on staff pay levels in senators’ offices from FY 2001-2020. While it is not out yet, we are expecting a report from the Senate on staff pay and retention in that chamber; the House’s report is here.

Have politics ever been this nasty? Dr. Jon Grinspan discusses American politics in the late 19th century in a recent article in Politico. “In the years between the Civil War and the turn of the 20th century, U.S. politics was far more unruly, violent and corrupt than it’s been before or since, for politicians and ordinary Americans alike. It was a period of mass participation, but also mass outrage.” He notes that that era saw the highest voter turnouts in American history, actually stolen elections, and thousands dead in political warfare. Take a look.

Security supplemental draft language began circulating in the House last week, according to Roll Call’s Katherine Tully-McManus. We really don’t know much about the legislation except that Sen. Leahy elicited a positive response from the USCP and Architect regarding whether the funding levels it contains address their concerns. Even the scope of the legislation is unclear to us. Demand Progress released a security supplemental recommendations report on what should be included.

USCP, AOC, and the Senate Sergeant at Arms all testified before the Senate Leg Branch Appropriations Subcommittee last Wednesday, which we summarize below. The subcommittee will hold its second hearing on LOC, CBO, and GAO FY 2022 budgets on Wednesday. The House Leg Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, by comparison, is finished with its hearings except for Member day.

Congressional calendar. The Senate is in session this week but will move to a state work period next week. The next two weeks are committee work weeks for the House. President Biden will address Congress Wednesday evening, although only a fraction of members will be able to attend.

Hearings this week. On Tuesday, Senate Judiciary is holding a hearing on Supreme Court Fact-Finding and the Distortion of American Democracy. On Wednesday, Senate Legislative Branch Appropriations subcommittee is holding a hearing on budget requests for the Library, CBO, and GAO. On Thursday, House Oversight is holding a hearing on the Capitol Insurrection; House Budget is holding a hearing on Congress’s power of the purse; and House Modernization is holding a hearing on Congressional internships. More details below.

House approps subcommittees will not be holding “in-person” public witness testimony (via video) this year, citing the pandemic. Demand Progress will host a webinar this Friday at 11 am ET where you can hear from organizations and individuals who otherwise would have testified in person on improving government transparency and accountability. Speakers including former Member of Congress Brian Baird, Demand Progress’s Legal Director Ginger McCall, President of the R Street Institute Eli Lehrer, yours truly, and more. RSVP here.

Transparency webinar on Star Wars day. On Tuesday, May 4th, our team is hosting the first Advisory Committee on Transparency event of the 117th Congress, focused on what’s on Congress’s transparency and open government agenda. Panelists include Liz Hempoicz of the Project of Government Oversight, Freddy Martinez of Open the Government, and yours truly. It will be moderated by GovExec’s Courtney Buble. RSVP here.

Several appropriations deadlines are this week, with each House subcommittee closing its Member requests Wednesday through Friday. If you’re looking for ideas, check this out. No new public witness testimony deadlines have been added. Keep up to date with all of the deadlines by using our handy spreadsheet.

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Forecast for April 19, 2021

Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your weekly look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. (Tell your friends to subscribe.)

TOP LINE

White nationalism has no place in Congress and yet several representatives on Friday were gathering support to start the America First Caucus, ostensibly focused on Anglo-Saxon “political traditions,” per PunchBowl.news. The America First Committee, the obvious antecedent, was formed in 1940 to keep the U.S. from intervening in WWII against the Nazis and was led by the most prominent anti-semites of the day. In recent times, America First has been invoked by Pat Buchanan and Donald Trump. You don’t need German shepherd ears to hear this fascist dog whistle.

But you have to work very hard to avoid connecting the dots from the Trump administration to election rejection to the Trump insurrection to this caucus. Will Republican leaders continue their deal with the devil in hopes of regaining political control? The clearest signals so far are the continued caucusing of America First representatives with the Republican party and voter-suppression legislation across the country. It’s not like we do not know how to fix the minority-rule doom loop just like we already know who is digging the grave of our democracy.

A commission proposal aimed at nailing down the “scope, composition, and resources necessary to seek and find the truth” of the euphemistically-described “January 6th” events is being re-sent to Republicans by Speaker Pelosi. Just as before, there will not be any takers to do anything meaningful — Sen. McConnell will reject this proposal as he rejected the previous one, by calling it partisan. That’s a neat trick: by definition a proposal is partisan unless Sen. McConnell says otherwise, even though rejection does not negate its wisdom. Calls for bipartisanship to fix our broken politics in a two-party system where one party’s leadership by-and-large rejects fundamental democratic principles is a fools’ errand beloved by editorial page writers, cable news bookers, and reputation launderers. Either pro-democracy Republicans must retake their party, which is increasingly unlikely, or they must follow Rep. Amash’s example and start anew. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

America has a long history of one-party rule at the state level. At the federal level, one-party rule has been manifested as a minority veto — the modern incarnation of nullification. Nullification is the mid-19th century political theory advanced by Sen. Calhoun that held a state could invalidate federal laws it did not like, and southern states did not like restrictions on slavery and the implications for their wealth derivered therefrom. Here’s how Sen. McConnell has described the modern incarnation of nullification, the filibuster: “So while Yarmuth calls the filibuster a ‘minority veto’, it’s really ‘Kentucky’s veto….’ It protects Jeffersontown and Shively from being steamrolled by Brooklyn and San Francisco. Last year, the voters rehired me to use Kentucky’s veto and protect our values.” We must ask: whose veto, Sen. McConnell? Which values? For what cause?

All is not lost, at least not yet. A handful of Republicans voted to impeach Pres. Trump and a third of the party stood for upholding the election results. Many more are privately horrified by what is happening but are unwilling to risk their positions. We are rapidly passing the point where only a political career is at stake. Only luck and happenstance prevented the Trump insurrection from decapitating Congress and murdering the Constitutional line of succession. We know what is necessary to save our democracy and we know the people who are standing athwart progress, yelling stop. It is not America they are putting first, but themselves.

WHAT’S NEW

The US Capitol Police Inspector General testified & released two reports on the insurrection, focused on inadequate planning, failures of intelligence, and a dysfunctional civil disturbance unit. Notably the USCP IG does not have jurisdiction over the Capitol Police Board.

A committee funding resolution was reported by House Admin, with an average 5% increase that leaves committees still almost 20% below their levels from a decade ago

The Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress held a Member day hearing

The Senate Legislative branch appropriations committee has its first hearing scheduled this week, with testimony expected from USCP Acting Chief Pittman, AOC Blanton, and the new Sergeant at Arms

Deadlines for written testimony for House Legislative branch appropriations were announced and Member witness days are beginning to be announced. Notably, House appropriators are not inviting the public to testify “in person” this year.

A joint report on the Trump insurrection at the Capitol from HSGAC and Senate Rules is expected in the coming weeks.

The timing of the Security Appropriations Supplemental is unclear despite prior reporting. In fact, I’ve begun to distrust the vast majority of reporting on its size and contents and timing. The only report that makes sense is a lack of communication between the chambers. As you know, Demand Progress has recommendations for what should be in the supplemental.

House Admin’s activity report for the 116th Congressis out. It contains a lot of new and unreported information, from COVID adaptations and security reviews to new franking regulations. Admin has oversight of the Capitol Police, and its report provides insight on their activities to reform the USCP before it became a high profile issue.

The Advisory Committee on Transparency is hosting a webinar on Star Wars day, next Tuesday, May 4th, on Transparency in the 117th Congress. The webinar will provide an overview of transparency in the federal government, with a focus on where Congress likely will concentrate its attention and the status of past legislative efforts. Panelists include the Project On Government Overight’s Liz Hempowicz and yours truly, with GovExec’s Courtney Buble moderating and an additional panelists TBA. RSVP here.

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