Capitol Police to Publish Some Arrest Information

The US Capitol Police announced yesterday they will publish their weekly arrest summaries online each Wednesday that they had previously had distributed via email to the press. This practice will start on January 2, 2019. The summaries will include “the Capitol File Number (CFN); crime classification with any additional charges; offense date and time, and crime summary. ”

The USCP did not give a reason for the change in their blogpost, but we had made multiple (unsuccessful) requests for information from the Capitol Police and had organized a civil society letter on this topic, and it also seemed likely that incoming House Democrats may push them to take this step. Continue reading “Capitol Police to Publish Some Arrest Information” →

How Many People Exactly Have the Capitol Police Arrested?

In the lead up to the Senate vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the U.S. Capitol Police arrested hundreds — if not thousands — of protesters. We can’t say how many people were arrested or what they were arrested for, however, as the Capitol Police did not publish that information online and will not answer our questions. (It took five tries to get any kind of response to our calls and emails to their Communications Director.) We know the rough number of arrests from media reports, but members of the press have told us they have a hard time getting information from the Capitol Police as well.

This is why we wrote a letter to Capitol Police Chief Verderosa requesting improved transparency. We want the department to regularly publish certain arrest information online. Specifically, the department should disclose the location of each arrest, what the charges were, and demographic data about the person arrested (i.e. race, age, gender, and ethnicity). The department should also disclose its total number of arrests. Continue reading “How Many People Exactly Have the Capitol Police Arrested?” →

The House Office of Inspector General Should Publish Information About Its Reports

The House of Representatives has an Inspector General that is authorized to provide independent, nonpartisan investigations into the House’s operations, but over the years that office’s findings have become largely shrouded from public view. In what ways has it become less transparent? How many reports does the office issue and what do they cover?

We looked at all the public records we could find since the IG’s office was created in 1992.

Our findings:

Initially, many of the House Inspector General’s reports were made publicly available on its website, but now there is very little public information concerning the office’s work.
While most federal Inspectors General have increased transparency concerning their findings, transparency concerning the House IG has decreased.
Information about the work of the House Inspector General has been inconsistently made available to the public; we created our own inventory of House IG reports pieced together from publicly available information.

Continue reading “The House Office of Inspector General Should Publish Information About Its Reports” →

Congressional Child Care Options Are Grossly Inadequate

It is hard enough to be a congressional staffer, but if you have young children the problem is magnified. Washington, D.C. is the most expensive place in the United States to raise a family, congressional staff work on average 53 hours-per-week when Congress is in session, and child care options in the nation’s capital can be particularly challenging. Given that Congress already faces significant staff retention problems and three-quarters of its staff find their jobs insufficiently flexible in addressing the work-life balance, is Congress doing enough to support staff in taking care of their youngest family members?

Here’s what we found:

The child care spots available to staff who work in the House, Senate, and Library of Congress are woefully inadequate to meet demand
The wait lists for infant-care are so long that by the time a position opens up, the average child ages out of infant care.

Continue reading “Congressional Child Care Options Are Grossly Inadequate” →

Do 218 Co-Sponsors Make a Difference? Apparently, Yes.

Recent proposals to reform the rules of the House of Representatives included measures to make it easier for legislation that has the support of a majority of the chamber to advance to the floor or prompt committee consideration. If implemented, would this make a difference in how legislation plays out? Apparently, yes.

To find out, we reviewed all House bills that had 218 or more sponsors between 1999–2016, i.e., the 106th-114th Congresses. In the House, 218 members constitutes a majority, so for simplicity’s sake we’ll refer to this set of bills as “popular House bills.”

During the 106th-114th Congresses, 108,086 bills were introduced, but only 3.5% were enacted, or 3,728 bills. In the same period, 450 popular House bills were introduced, with 22% enacted, or 102 bills.

In other words, a bill with 218 co-sponsors is six and a half times more likely to be enacted than any particular bill. Continue reading “Do 218 Co-Sponsors Make a Difference? Apparently, Yes.” →

CRS Publishes Some of its Reports, With Promises of More to Come

A subset of current CRS reports was published online by the Library of Congress on Tuesday. While federal law mandated the Library publish by September 18 any non-confidential final written work product of CRS containing research or analysis in any format that is available for general congressional access and that was published after the date of enactment of the legislation on the CRS Congressional Intranet, CRS published only the R series reports, totalling in the low six hundreds. As longtime CRS watcher and report publisher Steven Aftergood noted, “other CRS product lines — including CRS In Focus, CRS Insight, and CRS Legal Sidebar — are not currently available through the public portal.”

The Librarian of Congress implicitly addressed this gap in her blogpost, writing “we worked closely with Congress to make sure that we had a mutual understanding of the law’s requirements,” hinting at a behind-the-scenes agreement with appropriators. It could also be a response to criticism leveled by us (with R Street and GovTrack) concerning problems in the Library’s implementation plan. Continue reading “CRS Publishes Some of its Reports, With Promises of More to Come” →

2019 House FSGG Approps Bill and Transparency

On Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee favorably reported the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act for FY 2019, which contains a few transparency-related measures and a few omissions. (Bill as reported; Committee Report as reported). I’ll address a few of the items:

Central website for Congressional Budget Justifications
No direct funding for Oversight.Gov
DATA Act/ USASpending.gov Implementation
Undermining Civil Liberties Oversight
New Technology Investments
Pushing SEC and Open Corporate Data
Preventing Easy Tax Filing

Continue reading “2019 House FSGG Approps Bill and Transparency” →

Bill Requiring All Reports to Congress Be Published in Online Repository Introduced

The Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act was introduced yesterday in the House and Senate, thanks to the tremendous leadership of Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) and Sens. Ron Portman (R-OH) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN). The bipartisan bill (read it here) requires:

all reports to Congress that are required by law to be published online in a central repository, and
Congress to keep a list of all of its reporting requirements and check whether agencies have submitted reports on time.

Continue reading “Bill Requiring All Reports to Congress Be Published in Online Repository Introduced” →

The 2017 #OpenGov National Action Plan

City Lights 2012 - Flat map — Photo credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Starting in 2011 and every two years afterward, the White House has drawn up an open government national action plan that is intended to contain specific, measurable open government commitments. The planning process is an outgrowth of the Obama administration’s open government initiative, which kicked off in 2009 when agencies were first required to create open government plans, but takes place on an international scale.

The Trump administration said it will continue this process and is collecting recommendations for the 2017 plan. (More explanation via the Sunlight Foundation.)

While we were heartened to see the Obama administration adopt one of our recommendations — a machine readable government organization chart — most of the other ideas were not put into action. We reiterate and update them here and call on Congress to require the administration to put them into effect. In summary, they are:

Continue reading “The 2017 #OpenGov National Action Plan” →

Congressional Reactions to Charlottesville: An Analysis of 327 Tweets and Statements

1_ypku9svsPSyYVMxOJ13NWA — Trump addressing a joint session of Congress on 2/28/2017. Photo courtesy Wikimedia.

On Saturday, white nationalists including neo-Nazis, the KKK, and the “alt-right” held a rally/riot in Charlottesville, VA. In the immediate aftermath, President Trump said “many sides” were to blame for the violence. Again on Tuesday, Trump drew a moral equivalency between white nationalists and those who opposed them in Charlottesville. These statements were widely interpreted by many, including by white nationalists, to be a tacit endorsement of white nationalism. How did Congress react?

We analyzed 327 communications issued by Members of Congress on Saturday, August 12th. On that day slightly more than half of Congress weighed in on Twitter and in press releases — 152 Democrats and 133 Republicans (285 total). When we analyzed the language and the timing of congressional statements, several trends emerged.

2/3s of those who weighed in on Charlottesville prior to Trump’s 3:33 p.m. statement were Democrats.
Democrats were 3 to 7 times more likely to condemn white nationalists by name than Republicans.
Only 7% of Congress condemned white nationalists by name prior to Trump’s 3:33 p.m. speech — 34 Democrats, 5 Republicans, and 1 Independent.
By the end of the day, 19% of Congress condemned white nationalists by name — 77 Democrats, 24 Republicans, and 1 Independent.

Continue reading “Congressional Reactions to Charlottesville: An Analysis of 327 Tweets and Statements” →