Drafting Legislation Just Got Easier. Introducing BillToText.com

Drafting legislation in Congress can be a daunting process. Typically, staffers provide an outline of the desired bill to the Office of Legislative Counsel (OLC), and an OLC attorney drafts the legislation. This often is an iterative process, with OLC asking questions and congressional staff updating their ideas.

This process can create problems for staff when they request feedback from other congressional offices or outside stakeholders. OLC sends the draft back as a PDF, which staffers can’t change on their own and other stakeholders cannot edit. This makes it hard to collaborate.

We’ve tried to find a way to improve how Members solicit and receive feedback. We’re proud to introduce BillToText.com, a tool for more efficient drafting.

Continue reading →

Sens. Peters and Portman Intro Transparency Bill for Agency Spending Plans

On Friday, Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI) and Rob Portman (R-OH) introduced legislation to make it much easier to find how federal agencies propose to spend federal funds. The Congressional Budget Justification Transparency Act of 2019 (S. 2560) requires all agencies to publish a plain language explanation of their funding proposal — known as a Congressional Justification (CJ) — online within two weeks of submitting them to Congress. Users must be able to download reports individually and in bulk, and agencies are encouraged to publish the CJs as structured data.

Currently, getting your hands on these federal spending roadmaps can be a challenge. This adds yet another hurdle to tracking federal spending, an already tricky topic. Trust us, we’ve tried. Here’s the problem: Continue reading “Sens. Peters and Portman Intro Transparency Bill for Agency Spending Plans” →

The OLC SUNLIGHT Act brings much needed transparency to DOJ legal opinions

The OLC SUNLIGHT Act — which would bring desperately needed transparency and accountability to the often secret opinions of the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel — was introduced today.

How often are those opinions secret? No one knows, because there’s no publicly or congressionally-available list of all the opinions. The opinions that have become publicly available reveal that they often have undermined federal legislation and reinterpreted the Constitution in ways favorable to the executive branch and harmful to the framers’ system of checks and balances. This is intolerable.

The OLC Sunlight Act does two things —

It requires a publicly available list of all OLC opinions, including when they are issued and a summary of the legal question presented.
It requires OLC to publish all its final opinions online, with allowances for text to be withheld when it is properly classified, contains materials that impact privacy, and in other limited circumstances.

The original cosponsors are Reps. Matt Cartwright, (PA) Mike Quigley (IL), Zoe Lofgren (CA), Blumenauer (OR), Cardenas (CA), Carson (IN), Clay (MO), Davis (CA), Gomez (CA), Johnson, Jr. (GA), Hill (CA), Holmes Norton (DC), Phillips (MN), Raskin (MD), Tlaib (MI), and Vargas (CA). A bipartisan coalition of 17 organizations from across the political spectrum, including us, issued a letter endorsing the legislation.

Congress has long struggled to provide public and congressional transparency to OLC opinions. We are a nation of laws, not a nation of secret laws. In our system of government, Congress makes the law, not the president, and the president must faithfully execute the law.

We applaud the cosponsors for introducing the legislation. Public access to OLC opinions has long enjoyed bipartisan support, and we urge all Members of Congress to take up the fight for the rule of law.

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.” →

Congressional Transparency Caucus Briefing: Shining a Light on Foreign Lobbying

The Congressional Transparency Caucus will host a briefing on foreign lobbying on July 25th at 2pm in Rayburn 2456. RSVP here.

Rep. Mike Quigley will be giving opening remarks. Panelists will include:

Carrie Levine, Senior Political Reporter, Project on Public Integrity
Lydia Dennett, Investigator, Project on Government Oversight (POGO)
Daniel Schuman, policy director, Demand Progress Action
Tom Susman, Director of Government Affairs, the American Bar Association

Here is the announcement from Rep. Mike Quigley, caucus co-chair, in his “Dear Colleague” letter.

Continue reading “Congressional Transparency Caucus Briefing: Shining a Light on Foreign Lobbying” →

What’s in the Senate Appropriations Committee’s 2019 Leg Branch Approps Bill

On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously adopted the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill for 2019 (committee bill text, committee report), advancing the measure to the full chamber. The legislation contains provisions concerning the Senate’s ability to do its job, mirroring in some instances provisions contained in the House bill, which was passed by that chamber last week. (As is common practice for Senate legislative branch appropriations, there was no public subcommittee markup and the full committee markup was recorded as audio only — listen to the last 8 minutes here).

Among the highlights of what was included in the bill text or committee report: Continue reading “What’s in the Senate Appropriations Committee’s 2019 Leg Branch Approps Bill” →

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” →

Recs on the House’s Harassment Bill

In early December, we shared our recommendations on how Congress should address harassment. Since then, the Committee on House Administration has published a draft reform bill — the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 Reform Act — and today we are publishing our recommendations on how that bill should be further strengthened. We expect the underlying legislation will be shortly enacted into law.

Members of Congress and their staff are making a serious effort to grapple with the immediate issue of reforming how these claims are handled. Perhaps future legislation will address some of the problems in the House Ethics Committee itself, and also look at how Congress can proactively prevent these problems from arising instead of dealing with them one-at-a-time or after-the-fact.

Continue reading “Recs on the House’s Harassment Bill” →

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” →

Thoughts on Harassment in Congress and Reform of the Congressional Accountability Act

Today the House of Representatives held its second hearing on the issue of sexual harassment in Congress, focusing on the 1995 Congressional Accountability Act, the law that created the framework through which harassment and other congressional workplace issues are addressed.

The House and Senate recently passed resolutions requiring sexual harassment training, and the House is exploring whether it should do more. Rep. Speier has introduced legislation to reform the CAA, H.R. 4396, although she has said it does not go far enough.

I have some thoughts on how Congress can deal with the sexual harassment issue and other forms of discrimination as well. Continue reading “Thoughts on Harassment in Congress and Reform of the Congressional Accountability Act” →