23 – Teeing Up a Busy July

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This week Congress starts its two-week Independence Day holiday. We’re hoping to take next week off from writing our little newsletter, but we’ll be back.

Among the highlights from this past week:

Senate Appropriators adopted 302(b) allocations that are very different from the House’s untenable numbers, but with many Republican defections
the National Defense Authorization Act got a full committee markup in the House
the Leg Branch Approps bill was reported by the full Appropriations Committee with a few culture-war amendments
a resolution to allow for unions in the Senate was introduced by Sen. Brown
the Congressional Data Task Force discussed significant efforts to modernize congressional technology
the PRESS Act was introduced in both chambers
OMB released guidance for the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act.

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First Branch Forecast for June 20, 2023: Approps Heats Up

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After a House Administration Subcommittee hearing focused on the personal rather than the institutional aspects of the Office of Congressional Ethics, we take a deeper look at why that office is vital to an ethical Congress.

Congressional unions scored an historic win for committee staff and others.

This week both chambers are in session through Friday after the Juneteenth holiday.

The full Senate Appropriations Committee plans to complete markups for the Agriculture and MilCon/VA bills at the funding levels set by the debt ceiling agreement, teeing up a conflict with House Republicans who are reneging on the deal. Meanwhile, House Appropriators will have a full committee markup on Wednesday for Leg Branch and Homeland Security, and on Thursday a full committee markup for Defense and Energy & Water.

Senate Armed Services Committee will have a series of closed hearings on the NDAA while the House will hold its markup of the bill Wednesday morning.

The Congressional Data Task Force will hold a quarterly meeting on Thursday from 2-4 PM in B-248/B-249 Longworth. If you care about congressional data, this open meeting is for you. RSVP and catch up on what happened in March.

A bipartisan quartet of members have circulated a Dear Colleague letter inviting cosponsors for the PRESS Act, an important journalist shield law, which the House passed unanimously last Congress but was blocked by a lone senator on a spurious basis. In light of the recent death of American hero Daniel Ellsberg, who told the truth about Vietnam at the risk of his freedom, we should make sure that the government cannot compel the press to spill on their sources.

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The House’s new Statements of Disbursements with Improved Metadata Disclosure

In a win for government spending transparency, the House is publishing highly detailed information about the money it spends on itself. The Clerk of the House just released the latest House Statements of Disbursements — which catalog every penny spent by every person in the House of Representatives — with new metadata (or entity identifiers).

The Clerk of the House recently reported that as of March 2023, the Statements of Disbursements data it publishes as a CSV file “now includes additional entity identifiers for select data fields, including, but not limited to, organization, vendor name, and description, to enable the public to better analyze and understand the data provided. CSV files posted prior to March 2023 will not include these new data fields.”

“The House’s new Statements of Disbursements metadata disclosure and the entire process to make this financial data public is a shining example of open government meeting government accountability,” said Daniel Schuman, policy director at Demand Progress and co-founder of the Congressional Data Coalition. “From the start, the modernizing of the Statements of Disbursements data was developed in a transparent and collaborative effort between government and civil society facilitated by the Congressional Data Task Force. Together, they iteratively modeled what the data would look like and sought public feedback to make it as useful and user-friendly as possible. We commend the House Chief Administrative Officer and House administration for this model effort.”

Demand Progress successfully made the case to require the disclosure of such unique identifiers — like organization names including the CAO, the Clerk, a committee, an individual member, etc., to make it easier to analyze this spending data.

And we led a multi-year effort to transform the Disbursements from a paper-based to an electronic system, making it possible to track congressional spending in great detail over time.

We are still seeking the publication of unique identifiers for individual staffers, which would make it possible to better understand staff career paths, their pay and retention rates, and what happens when they leave Congress. The decision to publish that final key piece of the puzzle is up to the House Administration Committee.

Over the last 15 years, the House has gone from publishing its spending information in gigantic dusty books to publishing that information online but an unwieldy PDF, to publishing that same information as a digital spreadsheet, and now enhancing the digital spreadsheet with metadata so it’s possible to dig deeply and accurately into what the House is doing.

First Branch Forecast for Oct. 31, 2022: Improving Congressional Tech

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1/ Speaker Pelosi’s husband was violently assaulted in their San Francisco residence.

• At the time of writing, we do not know the motives of the assailant. However, it would not be surprising if the ultimate aim was to harm Speaker Pelosi. In this newsletter we have previously discussed the concept of stochastic terrorism, which is “the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted.” We condemn all acts of violence, and incitement to violence, against elected officials and their families. We wish Paul Pelosi a speedy and full recovery.

• Political violence is sometimes used as a reason to overreach and curtail political speech. We acknowledge the importance of allowing for criticism of the policies advanced by a politician. Bad political actors have demonstrated a remarkable facility with the use of dog whistles, however. They generate veiled calls for or support of violence that increases the likelihood of violence in such a way as to create some doubt about what they are doing. The traditional media has largely been unable or unwilling to cover this appropriately, and partisan media and partisan actors have amplified these calls.

• We wonder about the role of the extraordinarily well-funded U.S. Capitol Police in this incident. It seems plausible that one of their most visible protectees was a target regardless of whether she was actually present. What does it say about security for other Members of Congress in their homes, workplaces, and elsewhere? What does it say about the USCP’s ability to detect, deter, and address threats? We stand by our concerns that structural problems with the leadership and oversight of the USCP create a fundamental risk to the safety of Congress, a problem that cannot be resolved by throwing money at the problem. We have yet to see any real reforms at the USCP or its oversight board.

• We realize that Congress’s most likely reaction will be to shovel more money at the Capitol Police. The overall funding level for the Legislative branch can’t handle these hundred-million-dollar annual increases for the USCP without undercutting the ability of the Legislative branch to function by constraining funds for all other purposes. (There’s a $100 million increase in the works when the delayed appropriations bill becomes law.) We’d suggest that some of the USCP’s funds start coming from another appropriations subcommittee, like Defense or CJS, because their work includes responding to terrorism and crime threats.

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First Branch Forecast for September 13, 2022: And We’re Back

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A pre-midterm cram session is emerging as the Senate tries to squeeze in votes on same-sex marrige protections, reforms to the Electoral Count Act, insulin pricing, energy permitting reform, FDA user fees…oh, and avoiding a government shutdown Oct. 1. So here we are, less than two months before a very consequential midterm election with the prospect of a variety of major legislation heading to the President’s desk – and with significant bipartisan support. Weird, huh?

Finalizing the government spending package sounds much more like a when than an if, as both parties were seeking a continuing resolution that carried well past the midterms. The Biden Administration’s request of an additional $13.7 billion in military aid for Ukraine and more COVID spending may slow that down. Democratic leadership also has several tactical decisions to make on what measures to attach to the CR.

Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Susan Collins are continuing to seek out Republican co-sponsors of their marriage bill to get it over the filibuster threshold. On the ECA (S. 4573), Senator Charles Grassley’s office confirmed he will sign on to be the 10th Republican co-sponsor, joining Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, and others critical of President Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection.

The shifting political environment is providing a spark for reviving the ECA before the lame duck session. After President Biden’s speech in Philadelphia denouncing the “MAGA” faction of the GOP as a direct threat to democracy, 58% of poll respondents agreed with his assessment. Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed by CBS News at the end of August predicted an uptick in political violence in the coming years, up from 51% in Jan. 2021. On the question of democratic decline, 54% agreed that the country would be less democratic a generation from now.

A ban on stock trading by sitting Members of Congress also may sneak in under the election wire. Progressive and moderate sponsors of a bipartisan House bill have asked for a vote by Sept. 30. Reps. Jayapal, Rosendale and Senators Warren, Blackburn, Daines, and Stabenow have introduced their own bill. The House Administration Committee was expected to release a stock ban framework in early August, but if they have, we must have missed it.

This week on the floor. The House begins three weeks of votes starting Tuesday. Don’t miss Wednesday’s ModCom hearing on a roadmap to the future and the Transparency Caucus’ panel discussion on what’s next in transparency across the government.

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