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

Welcome back, Congress. Send me a final out-of-office email so that I know you missed me.

Biden’s $1.5 trillion skinny budget was finally submitted to Congress on Friday. It would increase non-defense discretionary spending by 16% to $769.4 billion and increase defense discretionary spending by 1.7% to $753 billion. The proposal would finally end the so-called emergency Overseas Contingency Operations fund — an additional, bloated defense slush fund that was not counted against the so-called spending caps — by merging it with the base defense budget. On that point, CRS has a new report on the expiration of discretionary spending limits and you should read Mandy Smithberger’s testimony on ending OCO. The president can propose whatever he wants, but Congress sets the spending priorities.

A security supplemental will soon be taken up by the House, per an announcement from House Approps Chair DeLauro. Presumably this would pay for the costs of the Trump insurrection and fixing the flaws it revealed: addressing “intelligence collection and review, bolster the capacity and training of the Capitol Police, and make physical security improvements to the Capitol Complex.” Demand Progress published a menu of recommendations for the security supplemental recommendations that address additional failings of the Capitol Police, congressional cybersecurity, and contingency planning for the continuity of Congress.

The Capitol Police Inspector General will testify Thursday before the House Administration Committee on their preliminary findings concerning the Trump insurrection. Per orders of the Capitol Police Board, the USCP IG does not release its reports to the public, which contradicts best practices for IGs on political independence and fostering accountability.

What should appropriators do? Demand Progress published 56 appropriations recommendations with an emphasis on strengthening Congress and government accountability.

The Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress will hold its Member Day Hearing on Thursday. Members who wish to testify must complete this form by COB today.

What’s due in April? Congress often requires Legislative branch support offices and agencies to submit reports to Congress, and we track what’s due when. See our April update, which includes several reports from the CAO and a nifty graphic.

Continue reading “Forecast for April 12, 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

Capitol Police officer William F. Evans died and another officer was injured on Friday after sustaining injuries when a vehicle driven by Noah Green apparently tried to break through a barrier on the Constitution Avenue side of the Capitol Complex. Capitol Police said Mr. Green had a knife; USCP officers shot him; Mr. Green subsequently died. Capitol Police held a press briefing just hours after the attack (full video here). USCP said there is no ongoing threat, and Tim Barber, a new spokesperson for the USCP PIO, said the department will continue to release updates. Our condolences to Officer Evans and those who knew him. We remind everyone that early news reports are often wrong. More recent reporting by the Washington Post, for example, suggests Mr. Green may have suffered from mental illness; it also says he did not stab the officers, as other reporting suggested. We encourage members of the Congressional community to visit Capitol Strong if they are experiencing feelings of trauma.

It is almost infrastructure week. Yes, Pres. Biden and congressional Democrats are getting ready to use budget reconciliation to move a long overdue infrastructure repair + jobs bill in the House by July 4th. Yes, Sen. McConnell is saying no Republicans will support the measure (per BGOV’s ($) Laura Litvan). Yes, the filibuster is distorting the political process, further incentivizing broad-based Republican opposition, which is why reconciliation is being used. Yes, we will learn shortly whether it’s possible to use reconciliation more than once per fiscal year, a process which James Wallner explains here. Yes, this doesn’t address the rest of the Democratic agenda — including overturning minority rule and protecting the ability of everyone to vote — which likely will require curtailing or eliminating the filibuster.

What should be in the appropriations package? Demand Progress and a variety of civil society organizations put together a menu of ideas to strengthen our democracy — focused particularly on strengthening Congress — for consideration by appropriators. The 56 recommendations are here. Additional recommendations for the security supplemental are here. (We have released recommendations for prior appropriations cycles, including FY 2021, FY 2020, etc.) More to come as the groups begin to submit their written testimony and we surface additional proposals.

Former Speaker John Boehner’s new book is coming out so we will be seeing teasers everywhere. The former Speaker recycled a few paragraphs for POLITICO, available here, which explains how exactly Michelle Bachmann ended up on the Intel Committee, how the Steering Committee works, and how the vicious conservative media cycle used to make “people who used to be fringe characters into powerful media stars.” Oh? “By 2013 the chaos caucus in the House had built up their own power base thanks to fawning right-wing media and outrage-driven fundraising cash.” Grab a glass of merlot and read along. (By the way, Rep. Bachmann’s appointment suggests that a Speaker cannot be entrusted with keeping politics out of appointments to HPSCI, so perhaps we were right that the appointment process to that select committee should be reformed.)

Continue reading “Forecast for April 5, 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

The security supplemental funding bill could reach $2 billion, according to Billy House, and is intended to strengthen security at the Capitol and enhance member protection. To place this number in context: combined funding in FY 2021 for the Capitol Police and the Architect of the Capitol was $1.2 billion; total funding for the entire Legislative branch was slightly over $5 billion; and the AOC & USCP asked for more than a 20% increase in funding this year — and already said their requests will significantly increase in light of the Honoré report.

•There are likely billions in “deferred” or otherwise necessary maintenance in the Capitol complex, so an infusion of billions in multi-year funds would be welcome if it addresses these unmet needs. By contrast, throwing money at the Capitol police, unless we first reform its management and oversight structures, likely would squander those funds. Members are terrified about their personal security, but giving money to an incompetently-managed security force without fixing it will only promote the illusion of security.

• We are gravely concerned that the carrying costs for the new personnel — the Honoré report recommends 854 new full-time employees (FTEs) and the AOC wants nearly 100 FTEs — would simply crush Congress’s budget. The Legislative branch is the lowest funded of the 12 appropriations subcommittees — the next smallest subcommittee is 5x larger — and all those costs must be borne somewhere. The last 25 years of growth in USCP & AOC budgets has come at the expense of Congress’s policymaking capabilities, including personal offices, committees, GAO, CRS, and the like. If not addressed, the current trend would result in beautiful, well-protected buildings filled with no one experienced enough to do the policymaking work.

• How to fix this? There are three big options that we can see. First, we can increase the amount of funding for the Legislative branch. We naively called for a 10% increase in Leg branch funding, but self-evidently we need much more than that. In addition, there should be a firewall that separates funds for policymaking against those for protecting the campus. A second option is to draw funding for the USCP and the AOC for other sources — such as defense discretionary spending (050) — which would be logical because a big portion of the Capitol’s post-9/11 expenses are defense related and this would provide a huge new pot of funding, and are where a few hundred million dollars wouldn’t be missed. A third option is to have the other appropriations subcommittees provide funding for components in the Legislative branch that serve the rest of the government, such as the GAO. (We already have the Judiciary kicking in for the Capitol power plant, so there is precedent.) In this schema, you could imagine a pro-rata assessment of the other 11 appropriations subcommittees to cover GAO’s funding, which would free up obligations from the tiny Leg branch budget.

The outer layer of the Capitol fencing is coming down, according to acting House Sergeant-at-Arms Timothy P. Blodgett. The inner layer around “capitol square” will remain. For how long? Good question. Last month, we led a coalition letter opposing permanent fencing.

The Capitol Police’s misconduct report for 2020 is one page long and raises more questions than it answers, according to Emmanuel Felton. His article draws from our report: from what we can tell, more than 40% of charges against USCP employees were substantiated by department investigations. The report from the USCP is virtually worthless as is, and raises more questions and answers. We note that most people don’t know how to file a complaint concerning the USCP. This is one of many areas where the USCP needs more transparency. Our recs for immediate next steps are here.

Congress’s embrace of technology during the pandemic was crucial for its continuity, according to me and POPVOX’s Marci Harris. Even more importantly, Congress must continue to innovate.

Hearings. We note in particular House Oversight’s hearing on DC statehood on Monday; House Rules & House Foreign Affairs hearings Tuesday on War Powers; Wednesday’s Senate Rules Committee hearing on S.1, the democracy reform bill that mirrors H.R. 1; and the first meeting of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress on Thursday.

Appropriations deadlines. Now that the House has started to release guidance on its deadlines for Members and the public to submit their testimony, we have begun to track it here.

Solidarity. Asian Americans continue to suffer attacks and mistreatment on the basis of race. Our country has a long history of otherization of Asian Americans, and only now is that fact starting to break through into mainstream consciousness. For example, we need only look to the Chinese Exclusion Act and Japanese Internment Camps. We stand in solidarity.

Continue reading “Forecast for March 22, 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

It’s been a year since we wrote to every Member of Congress on how Capitol Hill should respond to COVID. If I were to grade the response, I’d likely give the House of Representatives a B+, the Senate a D-, and varying grades for the support agencies. The House, after a significant delay, changed its rules: implemented proxy voting on the House floor, remote proceedings in committees, modernized some of its procedures, and implemented inconsistent measures to protect staff. Meanwhile, the Senate failed to change its rules, implemented hybrid proceedings in its committees that didn’t address absences, and staff protections vary by the office. At least 71 lawmakers, or roughly 10 percent of Congress, has tested positive for COVID-19, and an unknown number of staff. We think the House should implement fully remote floor proceedings that do not rely on proxy voting, and the new Senate leadership — which previously committed to a better approach — should do the best it can to make changes over likely obstruction. For more on what’s happened, see continuityofcongress.org.

Approps season continues as the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights presents its budget to the House Leg branch appropriations subcommittee Thursday at 10. We are curious about whether Congress will implement the legislative recommendations they made in their once-a-Congress report and have some questions about staff unionization. Below we have recaps of last week’s many, many hearings.

It’s sunshine week, which started yesterday and focuses on government transparency. There are lots of events on the calendar. We note that HSGAC will be marking up the Congressional Budget Justification Transparency Act on Tuesday at 9:30, a bill we support, and we expect more opengov news as the week goes on. Video is now available on what increased transparency could look like in the Legislative and Judicial branches, discussed at the recent FOIA Advisory Committee meeting. And there’s a new civil society letter in support of court transparency.

Welcome, Ginger McCall. We’re pleased to announce that Ginger McCall is joining us as our first-ever Legal Director. She is an expert on FOIA, transparency, privacy, and much more. Ginger recently was the Deputy Associate Chief Counsel for Information Law at FEMA and before that was the first-ever Oregon Public Records Advocate. Prior to that she served as an attorney in the Office of the Solicitor at the Department of Labor, Associate Director of Electronic Privacy Information Center, and Federal Policy Manager at Sunlight. Her email is ginger@demandprogress.org. Don’t miss her on Thursday as she moderates an Open Government Summit panel focused on transparency in Washington, D.C.

Bipartisan? House Democrats increasingly are unwilling to co-sponsor legislation with Republicans who voted against certifying the Electoral College results, Leigh Ann Caldwell reports. Supporting insurrection, in their view, is a bridge too far. We have a lot to say about this — for and against bipartianship — but we’ll save that hot take for another time.

Continue reading “Forecast for March 15, 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

Officials tasked with keeping the Capitol safe and open testified before Congress last week — see the video & written testimony from the HSGAC/Senate Rules hearing with all the former security leaders and from the House Leg branch Approps hearings into the Capitol Police/ SAA (written testimony) and employee health and wellness + Capitol physical damage (written testimony). I shared my thoughts with the Bulwark on the testimony by the former security chiefs. We have more analysis below.

RE: the Jan. 6 insurrection, this upcoming week will feature a joint HSGAC/Rules hearing on Wednesday at 10 into the Executive branch response, with witnesses from DOD, DHS, and the FBI. At the exact same time, the Capitol Police will return to House Leg branch Approps to testify in support of their budget request for FY 2022. The House’s proceedings will go beyond Jan. 6 and may delve into all operations of the USCP. You can find last year’s USCP Budget Justification here (on page 225) and here is our primer on the agency. Don’t forget there’s a supplemental security funding bill that will emerge at some point — no hearings or markup into that so far — our recs for that bill are here.

H. Leg branch Approps budget hearings also are scheduled for this week —- this is where the Legislative branch support agencies sing for their money. On the schedule: the Open World Leadership Center and CBO are testifying Tuesday at 10 & 2, the Capitol Police and the Library of Congress are testifying Wednesday at 10 and 12:30, and the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights is testifying Thursday at 10.

• The Office of Congressional Workplace Right’s biannual report to Congress was just released and contains a half-dozen recommendations to update the Congressional Accountability Act. They include providing whistleblower protections to the Legislative branch, providing subpoena authority to aid in tracking safety and health investigations, requiring records be kept of of workplace injuries, adopting federal workplace record-keeping requirements, and approving the Board’s FMLA and Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) Regulations when they are resubmitted, and more. (An easier-to-read version is available on their website.)

• As a reminder, we keep track of Leg branch approps bills & documents here and also track requests and requirements put into the Leg branch approps bill. (See the graphics far below.) Also, full disclosure, we routinely request bill text and report language regarding Leg branch agencies — see, e.g., last year’s requests. A final note: these hearings can move around at the last moment, so double-check docs.house.gov.

The $5 Billion question: how much money will be available for the Legislative branch? We know Congress and its support offices are significantly underfunded, which is why we and a bipartisan coalition called for a 10% increase in Leg branch funding. One historical problem is that even as funding for Congress has lagged behind the rest of government, 2/3s of any new funding has gone to the Capitol Police and the Architect of the Capitol. We expect Congress will dump a ton of money into the Capitol Police via the supplemental to address decades of mismanagement, even though the USCP has a huge budget and has always gotten its giant requests, which likely will further undermine non-USCP congressional ops in the out-years. Watch leadership + the budget committees as they determine the top line defense vs non-defense spending numbers, and see how the new Approps chairs divide that money among the 12 approps subcommittees.

Continue reading “Forecast for March 1, 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.)

SUPPORTING CONGRESSIONAL STAFF + MEMBERS

The Office of Employee Assistance (OEA) and mental health inside the Legislative branch was the topic of the first Leg branch Appropriations subcommittee hearing for the FY 2022 appropriations cycle, which will have 14 hearings in total, the first three focusing on January 6th. We should note that Rep. Ryan has long made mental health and well-being a focus, and we applaud him and the committee for starting on this topic.

• Capitol Police. The hearing primarily revolved around resources OEA is providing USCP officers, congressional staffers, and essential workers on the Hill. OEA Director Tewsburky said the office currently has a total of 16 counselors, four of whom are professional crisis counselors with backgrounds in law enforcement trauma. Since January 6, OEA began deploying 24-hour counseling services for USCP officers, which have provided approximately 1,150 interactions, including 750 counseling sessions. These on-site counselors are being financed by USCP.

• Staff and essential workers support. OEA Director Tewsburky mentioned that OEA services were provided to over 3,000 people in 2020, and the office continues to work with contract companies to ensure contract workers are receiving the necessary support systems. Rep. Espelliat mentioned the critical need for diversity and representation for employees and officers of all backgrounds. Tewsburky mentioned that 50% of OEA professionals are African Americans, and they continue to connect employees to bilingual services to strengthen support.

• Telephone, not video. OEA is using telephonic services, not video, to hold sessions with staffers and officers. (In non-COVID time, some services would be offered in-person.) OEA said the transition to full telephonic support was seamless since they have used these types of services with district staffers for decades. Rep. Wexton mentioned she would like OEA to have the ability to use video counseling.

• More resources. Throughout the hearing, almost every single Member asked “What do you need from us?” The committee is apparently prepared to provide more resources so mental health and wellness services can be sustained at a higher level. Full Appropriations Chair DeLauro, who participated in the proceedings, echoed this sentiment during her opening remarks. Chair DeLauro and said she plans to attend as many Leg branch hearings as she can.

The experiences of Black staffers during the Trump insurrection — how close they came to violence, what it means for democracy, how they feel towards others — is the focus of an article by Luke Broadwater. In recent years there has been increasing research into the lack of diversity among Congressional staff and how that shapes the environment, with some of the most in-depth research conducted by Prof. James R. Jones of Rutgers, who has spoken about the Capitol’s racial caste system and is finishing up his new book, the Last Plantation, on racial inequality in the Congressional workplace. We have seen some efforts to address the staffer pipeline, such as the House’s creation of an Office of Diversity and Inclusion, the beginning of paid internships in both chambers (but not yet committees), a House study on staff pay and diversity, and a now quite-late Senate study on its staff, but there’s much more work to do.

Continue reading “Forecast for February 22, 2021” →

THE TOP LINE

Impeachment Trial. There’s no legitimate question about Trump’s guilt, the Senate confirmed its jurisdiction 56-44 (which is basically what CRS said), and jury nullification is not a legitimate option. What’s at stake for Trump: disqualification from serving again in high office. What’s at stake for America? Whether we suffocate our democracy. Sen. McConnell declared his support for acquittal of Trump prior to the vote and personally blocked the reconvening of the Senate to receive the House’s impeachment message, which would have eliminated the jurisdictional argument on which he says he based his vote. As we all know, actions speak louder than words and votes speak louder than belated floor speeches. The final result, 57-43 to convict — the ayes representing 62% of the US population — with 7 Republican senators worthy of the name of the party: Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, and Pat Toomey. Whether we pass legislation to save our democracy will fall on the shoulders of Democrats for the next two years; it is obvious we cannot rely on help from ten Republican senators necessary to overcome a filibuster.

How to keep Congress safe and open? Congress will consider a “security supplemental” appropriations bill, but what should it address? We think the Capitol Police, remote deliberations, and cybersecurity. Our (newly released) recommendations are here. Also, we have a new coalition letter opposing permanent fencing out today; and Reps. Takano and Foster have questions about House cybersecurity. Meanwhile, the Capitol Police union voted “no confidence” in USCP management and ProPublica’s Joaquin Sapien and Joshua Kaplan have a devastating report about management failures.

Appropriations. The Leg branch appropriations subcommittee, which typically goes first, set a hearing on House Wellness and Office of Employee Assistance (Thursday @10). Other House appropriators also are starting to hold hearings this week. In the Senate, the new Murphy rule (Murphy’s law?) has led to an approps subcommittee chair shuffle. We’ve summarized the changes in this spreadsheet; for our purposes, the big news is Leg branch’s new leaders: Sen. Reed as chair and Sen. Braun as RM.

Rep. Wright died as a consequence of contracting COVID. He is the first sitting Member of Congress to die from the illness (Rep.-elect Letlow passed in December), although we do not know how many staff have died or how many people will suffer long term consequences. More resources on continuity of Congress during COVID are here.

Continue reading “Forecast for February 15, 2021” →