Forecast for March 9, 2020.

TOP LINE

There’s more news than can fit in our little newsletter.

The House Rules Committee did its part to encourage the Article I Renaissance (to steal a phrase from Lorelei Kelly) with a nearly four-hour hearing spiced with thoughtful expert testimony examining how Congress’ role has been diminished over decades and how to reassert congressional authority. (How, you ask?)

Members and outside experts testified before the House Leg. Branch Approps Subcommittee, covering greatest hits like Congress needs more resources to do its job, how to restore Congressional capacity, and the fan-favorite let’s rebuild in-house science and tech expertise. We cover the entire album, or you can watch the live-to-tape Member testimony and Public Witness testimony. If you tune in to nothing else, check out Rodney Davis’ written statement.

House Officers — the Clerk, the SAA, the CAO, and others — had their day before leg branch approps. We cannot help but highlight questions raised by Rep. Ruppersberger on providing sufficient clearances for congressional staff. We note that the CAO’s funding request contains a notional $10m to fulfill Modernization Committee recs, but the Clerk’s funding request would need a plus-up. Rep. Clark asked excellent questions on the value of increasing the student loan repayment cap to $80k, and whether Leg Counsel can provide draft legislation as Word files in addition to PDFs (so offices can make their own edits). I couldn’t make heads or tails of the testimony by Congress’s Attending Physician, but I think he said the question of whether to close Congress would be made by leadership.

GPO’s new director testified before House Admin this past week (written testimony, video), and we were impressed with the agency’s desire to fundamentally rethink Congressional documents so they are user-friendly, easy to generate, and designed for a modern legislative process. We also were interested in the new GAO IG’s efforts to transform that office after recent lapses.

Pay staff better. That’s the simple message of a bipartisan letter, organized by the R Street Institute, and sent to appropriators.

Lots of reports about Congressional operations are due, and we’ve got this month’s list. If anyone has the unclassified report on how long it takes staffers to receive their clearances in the House, which was due on March 1, send it my way. 🙂

If you’re looking for a little light reading, check out our 65-page list of approps requests, plus our House Leg. Branch testimony on congressionally-mandated reports, congressional clearances, and Capitol Police arrest data.

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Forecast for March 2, 2020.

ON YOUR RADAR

Approps season is firing on all cylinders, with many Members schedules double- or triple-booked. It’s running us ragged, too. (At least we can help you keep track of testimony deadlines.) Maybe Congress should take a real look at fixing its hearing schedule? Anyway—

Leg Branch heard testimony from LOC and GAO this past week, and there’s news in a CBO QFR response. (More on that below.) Hearings this week include House Officers (Tuesday at 1), Members (Wednesday at 1), the public (Wednesday at 2), the AOC (Thursday at 10), and GPO (Thursday at 11). If you’re looking for good ideas to strengthen Congress, watch the public witness testimony on Wednesday and check out our detailed list of approps requests. It looks like Tuesday is going to be super.

This week is jam-packed with other notable hearings, including on—

• Reasserting Congressional Authority, H. Rules on Tuesday at 10

• GPO Oversight, H. Admin on Tuesday at 10

• Member Day testimony, H. FSGG Approps on Tuesday at 10

• Markup of the Congressional Budget Justification Transparency Act (H.R. 4894) + more good government bills, H. Oversight on Wednesday at 10:30

• Making Federal IT a Priority, H. Oversight on Wednesday at 2

The Coronavirus supplemental is expected to top $7 billion. Considering how little trust there is on the administration’s handling of this issue, I wonder if it will prompt a reinvestment in Congress’s Science and Technology Policy capacity — whether in the STAA, a new OTA, or something else. As you know, we have recommendations. Also, how will the virus affect Congressional operations? What’s the plan for continuity of Congress?

The renewal of (bad) surveillance provisions under FISA hit a speedbump when Intel Committee Chair Adam Schiff threatened to torpedo a secretly-negotiated H Judiciary bill — which was published two days before the markup — when it became apparent that bipartisan amendments to strengthen civil liberties protections would be offered (and likely succeed) in a Judiciary Committee markup. The proceedings were indefinitely postponed. {{BOOM}} This dynamic — of Intel working to limit popular reforms likely to be adopted by the primary committee of jurisdiction, i.e. the Judiciary committee — has been going on for years and suggests structural problems with how the committee referral system provides undue veto power. (It also points to problems with how HPSCI is organized and run).

• The Senate is pushing a straight reauthorization of the failed CDR program, which is evidence of Congress’s unwillingness to legislate and conduct oversight over national security matters. After significant pushback, House Dems are now saying they’re unwilling to use the Coronavirus supplemental as a vehicle. Speaker Pelosi expects a vote on surveillance before March 12; the underlying legislation expires on March 15, after an extension was jammed through in a must-pass bill in December. (We have primers on section 215 here.) Notably, this issue separates Democratic leadership (which is pro-surveillance and had joined with the Republicans previously on an extension) from the vast majority of Democratic party members (who support civil liberties protections) and a few dozen Republicans.

Sunshine week, which focuses on open government and is centered around Madison’s birthday, is coming up quickly. We will be co-hosting an event on March 12 in the Capitol Visitor Center (info here); additional events are listed here and in the calendar section below.

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Forecast for February 18, 2020.

ON YOUR RADAR

A nice breather. Both the House and Senate are in recess this week.

Whistleblower Ombudsman. Congratulations to Shanna Devine, who was just named the House of Representatives’ first Whistleblower Ombudsman. The nonpartisan, independent office, established 14 months ago as part of the House rules package and filled this past week — with bipartisan support for the appointee — is responsible for providing training to congressional offices and helping them develop best practices for receiving communications from whistleblowers. At Congress’s request, GAO issued a report in May 2019 on key procedures congressional staff should follow to safeguard whistleblower information and identity, and now congressional staff will have someone to call. Perhaps the Senate will follow suit.

If you want to strengthen Congress’s policy chops, be sure to attend this briefing on strengthening Congressional formulation of science and technology policy this Friday from 12-1:30 in Rayburn 2044, featuring a new Ash Center report (one-pager) co-written by Zach Graves at the Lincoln Network and Daniel Schuman at Demand Progress. RSVP here.

The House released dates and times for many upcoming Approps hearings. More below, and see our approps tracker for when testimony is due.

The Office of Legal Counsel is an office inside the Department of Justice that churns out (sometimes secret) legal opinions that often elevate the presidency at the expense of Congress. This past week, the Congressional Transparency Caucus hosted a phenomenal panel discussion on the OLC that everyone should watch. (We’ll have video soon — honest!) Here’s a 1-pager on legislation to address congressional notification re: OLC opinions.

The House Democratic Caucus was asked, more than a year ago, to publish its rules online, just like the Republicans do. This week we re-upped our letters; we didn’t get a response from Rep. Jeffries, but Roll Call did: “Continuing our long-standing commitment to complete transparency, the Caucus is in the process of making its rules available online for all to see.” Roll Call notes the spokesperson did not respond to questions about a timeline.

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Forecast For February 10, 2020.

ON YOUR RADAR

Shedding light on the Justice Department’s OLC Opinions is the topic of today’s Transparency Caucus briefing, set for 2pm in 1310 Longworth. RSVP to Hannah.Mansbach@mail.house.gov. Here’s why we think OLC opinion transparency is important plus a refresher on legislative efforts concerning OLC opinions. Also, read Mike Stern’s latest on OLC.

Oversight hearings on Leg Branch agencies before House appropriators start this week. Tuesday’s hearings include the Open World Leadership Center at 10 and the US Capitol Police at 11; Wednesday it’s the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights at 10 and CBO at 11. Coincidentally, we have a new report out today on what a year’s worth of data tells us about the Capitol Police.

DIGGING INTO CONGRESS!

Ever wonder how congressional clearances work? We did, and spent several years (with the Project on Government Oversight) to write this new report. The upshot: as a consequence of overclassification and undue deference to the executive branch, Congress’s capacity to oversee classified matters has eroded, with access to information unduly limited to a smattering of staff in a handful of offices.

Congress isn’t subject to FOIA, but many of its offices and agencies have a public records request process. How does it work — and does it work well? Alex Howard took a close look: read his excellent article and look at our data that evaluates each agency and component.

The US Capitol Police is one of the least transparent and accountable legislative branch agencies, which we know because we spent a year looking deeply into their behavior. They have 10% of the legislative branch’s budget, a 2-square mile primary jurisdiction, and a staff the size of Atlanta’s police department (seriously!), but they disclose little information and are often non-responsive to questions. In addition, a non-trivial amount of their work is not closely tied to protecting the Capitol complex and its visitors.

What’s on the Leg Branch’s to-do list? We went through the FY 2020 approps bill and tracked every request and deadline related to congressional modernization. You’re welcome. 🙂

The Library of Congress is publishing some CRS reports, but they should do better: 25 organizations urged the Library to publish current CRS reports as HTML and release important archived reports. (By the way, we appreciate the Library fulfilling our public records request for CRS’s annual reports to Congress for 1981-1994; we made that request last August.)

Interested in Congress’s ability to formulate science and technology policy? You can read our new report, published by the Ash Center, but why not come to our Feb. 21st briefing in 2044 Rayburn? RSVP here.

Is there something we missed in this week’s forecast? Let us know — send us your articles, news, press releases, and angry tweets. Also, encourage your friends to subscribe.

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Forecast for January 27, 2020.

THE TOP LINE

The “Senate is hiding from all of us,” writes longtime hill reporter Kathy Kiely, who said “the current security scheme appears designed to protect lawmakers from reporters’ questions.” The restrictions on press access, which we oppose, are a black eye on the Senate and a provocation for future restrictions.

Care about leg branch funding? We’ve built the definitive spreadsheet on funding, tracking every line item appropriation over the last 25 years.

Congress’s Science & Technology Policy capabilities were the subject of a recent NAPA report; our white paper covers the reports strengths and weaknesses and now we are pleased to release a 1-page summary. Stay tuned for news about an upcoming hill briefing on recs we co-authored (and will release soon) with the Lincoln Network.

Whistleblowers and CBO hearings: House Oversight will discuss whistleblower protections tomorrow at 2. The House Budget Committee has a hearing on “The Congressional Budget Office’s Budget and Economic Outlook” at 10 on Wednesday.

War and Peace. Tonight at 5, House Rules will consider a measure from Reps. Barbara Lee and Ro Khanna to repeal the 2002 AUMF and prohibit military strikes on Iran absent Congressional authorization; the effort is an aspect of the leg branch’s reassertion of its proper role. (Notable is the procedural posture to avoid defection from a handful of Dems by sidestepping a MTR.) In addition, newly introduced legislation would provide long overdue reforms of the government’s surveillance powers — some authorities are set to sunset in March — in the wake of revelations of misuse of those authorities and a recent DOJ IG report on FISA process abuses. See our primer on section 215.

Just for fun: the NYT made a 3-D tour of how the Senate was transformed for the impeachment trial.
OVERSIGHT

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