TOP LINE
In a place driven by interpersonal relationships, failures to treat other people with respect in the Legislative branch stand out. Last week, we learned a lot more about how the people inside CRS feel about how upper management treats them and how that impacts its capabilities. We did so through its union, which reminds us on the first anniversary of House policy staff being able to unionize of the importance of institutional mechanisms to provide voice to everyone working there.
This week, both chambers are in session Monday through Thursday, with the Senate remaining in session Friday.
Tuesday, the House Admin Committee (“CHA”) holds an oversight hearing of the US Capitol Police. The committee has much to inquire about, particularly because the department has requested another tremendous budget increase in the Leg branch appropriations bill soon to go to markup. Inspector General and GAO reports examining the department’s response to the January 6 insurrection pointed not to scarce resources but poor training, intelligence analysis, communications, and planning practices by department management.
Reforms that bring greater transparency to the department, particularly a FOIA-like model that we have developed, would assist tracking improvements in these areas.
Also Tuesday, Senate HSGAC marks up several original bills of note: the Expanding Whistleblower Protections for Contractors Act, the Congressional Budget Office Data Access Act, and the GAO Inspector General Parity Act. CRS has not yet published summaries on Congress.gov, but fortunately you can Google for the press releases for the Whistleblower bill and the CBO bill; a quick read of the GAO bill suggests it’s aimed at insulating the GAO IG. CBO did mention the need for a legislative fix to be able to access some data during its testimony to the Leg branch appropriations subcommittee and with the Modernization Committee in 2021.
On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the federal courts will take a swing at judicial ethics in a hearing with the Judicial Conference of the US. Senator Dianne Feinstein’s return to the full committee opens the path for the committee to issue subpoenas to Justice Clarence Thomas’s coterie of patrons. Her frailty and perpetual need for a staff minder, however, is going to remain an issue for the committee as it tries to pursue accountability on top of its judicial nominations schedule and in a committee well known for its asymmetric polarization.
CRS, AOC LEADERSHIP
As we noted after CHA’s oversight hearing on CRS several weeks ago, the managerial issues facing the agency are not new nor easily remedied by Congress because of the way it is embedded within the Library of Congress. Because the staff at CRS are unionized, we have a much clearer picture of present employee morale and confidence in their management than Director Mary Mazanec shared with CHA. In advance of her appearance before the Senate Rules Committee, the parent union of CRS’s union (CREA) sent a letter to Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden that revealed a deeply disaffected workforce through internal survey data.
Management’s response to the COVD-19 pandemic has accelerated an attrition and morale crisis in CRS. One example of this problem is how senior CRS management adopted a more restrictive telework policy than other sections of the Library, exacerbating an unsatisfying work-life balance situation for staff. During FY 2022, 44 staff quit, more than double the already alarming annual average for CRS over the last decade. Almost half of those who left cited its telework policy as a reason.
That turnover left enormous gaps in agency capacity and burned out many who stayed. Only about a quarter of CRS employees agreed that “senior leaders generated high levels of motivation and commitment,” with many citing “palpable disdain” for employees from leadership in communicating the return to onsite operations. Overall employee satisfaction with management’s communications cratered to only a third affirming. The pace of departures for FY 2023 may be higher than 2022.