Where Congress Learns About Congress
(These is a prepared version of oral testimony)
Chairman Yoder, Ranking Member Ryan, and members of the Committee, thank you providing this opportunity for public testimony. This is such an important tradition, and I commend you for resuming it. Continue reading “My Testimony on Why CRS Reports Should be Publicly Available”
New Civil Society Website Makes Available to the American People Reports Previously Available to Congressional Staff and DC Insiders
Contact: Daniel Schuman, Demand Progress
202–577–6100, daniel@demandprogress.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Washington, DC — October 19, 2016 — More than 8,200 reports authored by the Congressional Research Service, Congress’ think-tank, were published online today at EveryCRSReport.com by Demand Progress, a progressive grassroots organization with 2 million members that works to build a modern democracy. CRS reports contain non-partisan, in-depth analysis of important issues before Congress, ranging from telecommunications to privacy to social security and more, and are written to help members of Congress understand the policy choices they must make. Continue reading “For The First Time, More than 8,200 Congressional Research Service Reports Available Online”
I first started working for Congress as a senate intern in September 2001. I was 23 years old and had no experience working on policy. I found myself responding to letters from constituents on issues that I’d never heard of previously. It was then that I first encountered the Congressional Research Service and its reports.
The Congressional Research Service, sometimes called Congress’ think-tank, provided introductory classes to orient interns on the service. It was fascinating to see all the different kinds of analysis performed by CRS — and there were rooms filled, just loaded with reports on every issue that you could imagine. CRS also provided classes on how Congress worked. It was a great way to learn.
I worked for Congress for the next year or so, eventually rising to become a (very) low-level staffer. Occasionally I spoke with analysts, but generally speaking the reports often were enough. CRS emphasized that its advice was non-partisan and even-handed. When I left, I did what many departing staff did, and took an armful of reports with me. Continue reading “Why I Came To Believe CRS Reports Should be Publicly Available (and Built a Website to Make it Happen)”
After a powerful speech by Khizr Khan at the Democratic National Convention, sales of pocket U.S. Constitutions have skyrocketed, becoming the second best selling book on Amazon. This is great! But the words of the Constitution are unsufficient to provide an understanding into how it has been applied by the courts over the last two centuries. That’s where the Constitution Annotated comes it.
The Constitution Annotated (aka CONAN) is a plain language explanation of the U.S. Constitution as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court. Published by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service at the direction of Congress, CONAN provides insight into the meaning of our founding document. It also is available online as of 2013 and can downloaded as an app for your phone (iPhone) (Android is under development). Continue reading “The Constitution (Annotated) In Your Pocket”
The Library of Congress announced that the legislative information website THOMAS is scheduled to stop functioning on July 5, with Congress.gov to replace its functionality. This will allow the Library to focus all its energy on Congress.gov instead of having also to maintain a very awkward, 21-year-old website.
I’m sure that many news reports will give credit to Newt Gingrich for THOMAS. It is true that he was largely responsible for the political lifting required to build the site, which is a big deal. It was not his brain child, however, and a fair amount of technical work was previously performed under the democrats, who lost power in 1994/5. There were prior efforts to make legislative information available to the general public, including a wrongheaded effort by GPO to sell the data and the clever use of GOPHER to release data, which I dare not try to describe. Continue reading “So Long, THOMAS”
Yesterday I sat behind Dr. Carla Hayden as she testified on her pending nomination as Librarian of Congress before the Senate Rules committee. It was a surprisingly emotional moment, as I waited among her friends and family who were so very excited to see an amazing woman nominated for this high honor. Her mother was there, who was impressively poised and elegant among the crowd of well wishers. Many had traveled a long distance to be there today. Continue reading “Thoughts on Public Access to CRS Reports and the Next Librarian of Congress: Watching Hayden Testify”
On Wednesday, the Senate Rules Committee will hear from Dr. Carla Hayden, President Obama’s nominee to serve as the next Librarian of Congress. Last June I described criteria President Obama should use in choosing his nominee. Continue reading “What We’re Looking For at Wednesday’s Hearing on the Librarian of Congress Nominee”
Today the Government Publishing Office published the House Manual — which contains Rules of the House of Representatives, Jefferson’s Manual, and other important legislative documents — online in a structured data format on GitHub. GPO did so pursuant to direction from the House Rules Committee, which was acting in accordance with the rules package passed at the beginning of the 114th Congress, which declares:
Continue reading “House Publishes Its Rules, Jefferson’s Manual, & More Online as Structured Data”The House shall continue efforts to broaden the availability of legislative documents in machine readable formats in the One Hundred Fourteenth Congress in furtherance of the institutional priority of improving public availability and use of legislative information produced by the House and its committees.
How do we use technology to build congressional capacity to perform its work? In part, the work of the Congressional Data Coalition is powering this virtuous cycle in partnership with Congress. Congress works best with a single entity that represents public stakeholders, and the Congressional Data Coalition is a trusted partner. Greater support of the work of the coalition will speed the process up and provide support to the Senate to follow the path trod by the House as well as encourage the House to go further.
Congress, however, still is not equipped to think systematically about how the information revolution can transform the way it governs. For example, with respect to congressional access to information:
How can Congress muster sufficient resources to properly fund its essential functions in an era of asphyxiating budgets? Unsurprisingly for a 227-year-old institution, congressional operations often are inefficient, expensive, or no longer necessary. There’s not a lot of money there, but there’s enough to invest in greater productivity. Moving to a digital congress, and finding cost savings in doing so, is a way forward in transforming how Congress operates.
For example, the House already has moved to publish the House Calendar online so it does not have to physically print and distribute copies to all offices. The same is true of printing and distributing bills, the U.S. code, and other documents. Money saved by making these operational changes can go towards supporting process reforms. To some extent, Congress is moving down this path.
Continue reading “Congress Can Fix Itself … With A Little Help”