In the last 18 months, the House of Representatives has made significant strides towards greater openness and transparency in congressional deliberations, but significant work remains. The Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill for 2013, which was marked-up by a subcommittee last week, presents a major vehicle for the House leadership to make good on its promise to implement common-sense transparency measures this session.

While there are many issues that can be addressed a number of different ways, Sunlight will be looking at  the full committee markup to see if the bill:

-- Provides bulk access to THOMAS data
-- Fully funds the Office of Congressional Ethics
-- Requires Publication of  CRS Reports online
-- Publishes the Constitution Annotated online as it's updated in XML
-- Reinstates the Office of Technology Assessment
-- Makes reports to Congress available online
-- Publishes House spending information in an appropriate format for the data

Improve Public Access to THOMAS Data

THOMAS was created by Congress to make legislative information freely available to the public, but the Library of Congress has not kept up with best practices. One such practice -- "bulk access" -- would ease the development of new tools and technologies by publishing THOMAS data files online, promoting accurate and timely information dissemination. Congress has expressed its support for bulk data as have many organizations, but the Library continues to stall despite a 2008 memo describing how easy it would be to implement.

At the recent legislative subcommittee hearing, Rep. Honda mentioned that text has been inserted into the committee's report that would in some way address the bulk data question. The last time this happened, the language was watered down sufficiently so that the Library of Congress successfully evaded its obligations over the last half a decade. We hope the bill will contain these two provisions:

(1) Congress directs the Library of Congress to implement bulk access to THOMAS within 120 days of passage (2) Congress directs the Library of Congress to immediately create an advisory committee on improving public access to legislative information that is composed of people inside and outside of government.

Fully Fund the Office of Congressional Ethics

The Office of Congressional Ethics is the House of Representatives' independent ethics watchdog. It came into existence in March 2008 after a series of corruption scandals prompted congressional leaders to explore creating a transparent, outside enforcement entity. While OCE is not as robust as originally contemplated, it plays a crucial role in ethics oversight. Last year, the office survived a counterproductive effort by nearly 100 members of Congress to significantly reduce its funding. This year's appropriations bill maintains OCE's funding at $1,548,000, which is the same level as last year. We believe that OCE should be strengthened, but at a minimum, its funding should be sustained at least at this level.

Publish CRS Reports Online

Congressional Research Service reports undergird the public's understanding of Congress, but CRS no longer directly releases the reports to the public. As a consequence, while many reports used by citizens, courts, and government employees are on the internet, they are often out-of-date, and a fair number are available only for a fee or not at all. By comparison, sister agencies like CBO and GAO regularly publish reports online. For more than a decade, organizations and members of Congress have urged that CRS reports be publicly available, and CRS concerns have been refuted by a former counsel to the House of Representatives. The reports are already digitized and available on Congress's intranet; it would take a trivial effort to publish them online.

During the markup of the 2012 Appropriations Bill, Rep. Leonard Lance introduced an amendment that would have required the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate to maintain a website containing CRS Reports and Appropriation products while protecting confidential advice from CRS. Similar legislation has been introduced by Rep. Quigley. We hope that House Appropriators will move to make these reports more readily available to the public.

Release the Constitution Annotated Online

The Constitution Annotated (or CONAN) is a continuously-updated 100-year-old legal treatise that explains the Constitution as it has been interpreted by Supreme Court. Maintained by CRS and printed by GPO, a hard copy is published (and put online) only once a decade, with printed updates every two years. However, CONAN is updated frequently, with those updates available on Congress' internal website. In November 2010 (18 months ago), the Joint Committee on Printing directed that the continuously-updated version of CONAN be made available online as a searchable PDF, but it still is not. Many organizations have asked that the underlying document be published online in its original (XML) format, which is more user friendly than a PDF, and would take minimal effort to release.

This upcoming year, the Constitution Annotated will be up for its once-a-decade print edition. With at least 4,870 statutorily mandated copies, at an estimated cost of $226, the House and Senate will pay over $1.1 million for a document that will go out of date almost immediately. We suggest that some of these costs may be recouped by asking House offices if they wish to receive a print copy, as a continuously updated web version is already made available to all congressional offices. Regardless, we urge that the web version that is already made available to congressional offices also be made available to the American people in its web friendly format. While publishing the document as a PDF would be a small step forward, the best use of taxpayer dollars to maximize usability would be to publish it in XML, the format in which it is prepared.

Other Provisions

Sunlight support additional measures in the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill. Those provisions include:

The reinstatement of the Office of Technology Assessment, as proposed by Rep. Rush Holt last year. OTA provided Congress http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/taxonomy/term/Office-of-Technology-Assessment/ with the “means for securing competent, unbiased information concerning the physical, biological, economic, social, and political effects” of technology.

Inclusion of the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act, which would would gather together all reports to Congress from federal agencies in one place. It requires that they be published online by GPO in bulk, in open formats, and in a timely fashion, so that people can easily learn about the work of the federal government. The legislation would not require any additional appropriation, and would bring much needed transparency and coordination. It has already passed the Committee on Oversight and Government reform, was introduced in the Senate, and is awaiting action by the House.

Avoiding decreasing funding levels for the House of Representatives and certain legislative support agencies below the subcommittee proposal. Funding for the House has already diminished by at least 10% over the last two years. This raises the concern that congressional staff may become more susceptible to influence from lobbyists, and that support entities (like GPO, the Clerk, and the Library of Congress) that have transparency roles will be less able to fulfill their missions.

Publishing the House Expenditure Reports in a data-friendly format such as CSV. The quarterly reports contain all spending by the House of Representatives, and are currently published online as a PDF. Starting in 2009, then Speaker-Pelosi began publishing House Expenditure Reports online, which was a significant step forward in making them available, as they had only been published in giant books. Unfortunately, publishing columns of data in a PDF does not allow for the data to be analyzed. Simply put, we're only halfway to House spending transparency. The Sunlight Foundation goes through significant effort to scrape the data from the PDFs and put them into spreadsheets, but this should really be done by the House. It would increase accuracy and timeliness -- and so long as the House releases the information, it should do so in the most useful way possible.

by Daniel Schuman and Cassandra LaRussa

Despite significant strides towards improving public access to legislative proceedings, nearly a quarter of House hearings cannot be watched online despite recently instituted House rules – with the Appropriations Committee as the biggest offender, with 70 percent of its hearings unavailable on the Internet.

The Sunlight Foundation tracked 200 House hearings over 20 days to determine whether they were webcast live, plus 407 hearings from January 17 to April 2 to determine whether video from the proceedings were archived online. Twenty-five percent (489 of 200) of the hearings were not live-streamed, and 22 percent (91 of 407) were not archived on committee websites.

While these numbers, at first glance, indicate broad non-compliance with House rules, in reality, nearly all committees did a good or excellent job of live-streaming and archiving their videos online. The major offender was the House Appropriations Committee, which is at the heart of today's debate about the budget and is responsible for writing the chamber's spending bills.

Of the 489 hearings that were not live-streamed, 47 were Appropriations Committee hearings (Armed Services was the other one*and Foreign Affairs were the other two). Similarly, of the 91 hearings that did not have video archived on the committee website, 74 were Appropriations Committee hearings.

In short, the House Appropriations Committee is keeping the public in the dark.

The House's Online Video Rule

In January 2011, the House of Representatives adopted new rules requiring that video coverage of hearings be available online. "To the maximum extent practicable, each committee shall --- (a) provide audio and video coverage of each hearing ... in a manner that allows the public to easily listen to and view the proceedings; and (b) maintain the recordings of such coverage in a manner that is easily accessible to the public."

This was part of Speaker Boehner's commitment to open up the legislative process to the public. He explained that "the internet offers new opportunities to open the halls of Congress to Americans in every corner of our nation."

Live webstreams and video archives are a way to bring Congress closer to the people. The privately-run cable network C-SPAN cannot cover every hearing, and it's unreasonable to expect people to travel to DC to be in attendance. Combined with cutbacks in newsroom staffs around the country, less prominent issues are unlikely to be covered by local media.

Appropriations in the Dark

Unfortunately, the Appropriations Committee has often declined to video-record its proceedings. Last year, I described a hearing on the House's budget that was not televised and was held in a room so small few people could attend. This February, I took photos at another hearing to show the public what they were missing (and that making a recording would be relatively painless).

When we spoke with the Appropriations Committee's press office last year about recording its proceedings, we received the following response:

Whenever logistically possible, the main committee room - which is equipped with webcast and video capabilities - is used for hearings and mark-ups.

The Committee schedules rooms for hearings and mark ups based upon many factors, including but not limited to: space availability, accessibility for members and the public, physical proximity to the house floor to accommodate voting schedules, and room size. Committee hearing rooms are also used for a variety of other purposes such as meetings and briefings. In addition, we allow any credentialed media organization to tape and/or record our open hearings and mark-ups, no matter which room is being used.

With 70 percent of its hearings offline, the Committee's practice appears to diverge from the House's requirement of publishing video online to "the maximum extent practicable." Nearly all other committees manage to put their proceedings online. Appropriators have a large hearing room that has cameras pre-installed. Were the committee to choose to meet in the Capitol building, it could request coverage from the House Recording Studio or meet in one of the new hearing rooms in the Capitol Visitor's Center.

Survey of House Video Sources

We looked at both individual committee websites and the Library of Congress THOMAS website to determine video availability.

We found that committee websites were generally easy to navigate. Specific pages devoted to hearings included a chronological list with links to the archived webcasts, as well as testimony from witnesses and a live-streaming function. This demonstrates a significant improvement based on our past evaluation of committee websites and a serious attempt to address Sunlight’s past suggestions.

The Library of Congress recently began publishing hearing videos on THOMAS at the urging of the House. Unfortunately, the website is very difficult to use and navigate. While recordings are sensibly organized by committee, they are given impenetrable names like "USHR07 Armed Services Committee." Is that a full committee or subcommittee hearing? What is the name of the hearing? Occasionally recordings are titled by the date and time of the hearing, but this is not done consistently. Generally, they are only labeled by "date created," which may or may not be the date the hearing took place. And if multiple hearings took place on the same day, it's difficult to tell them apart.

In reviewing the committee websites against what's available on THOMAS, we found 9 of the 91 videos that were missing from the committees’ websites. The Ways and Means Committee has failed to post 5 videos on its website that are available on THOMAS; the Small Business Committee has missed 2; and the Appropriations Committee and the Budget Committee have each missed one. That still leaves 83 hearing that are not archived online from the time we monitored.

There have been important efforts to fill in the gaps. Carl Malamud and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform have together published online over 1,100 committee hearing videos from 1993 to the present.

The American people have a right to see what their government is doing. In the upcoming months, appropriators in particular will make important decisions about how trillions of dollars are spent. It's time to allow everyone to watch this online in real-time, as promised in the House rules.

 

Methodology: We undertook a best effort to monitor live webcasts of committee hearings between February 27 and March 9 and March 26 to April 2, but we couldn't catch them all. For any webcast that we did not watch as it took place, we called the committee to determine whether one took place.

Because there is no official and complete source for all committee hearings, it's likely that we missed some of the archival hearings. In addition, we only monitored hearings during the first quarter of 2012. Some committees may not have met during that time period. Others may have been particularly active. This research was intended as a snapshot of committee compliance with House rules on making livestreams and video archives available.

Finally, our list of archival video on committee websites is accurate as of the date of review. It’s possible additional video was posted after we completed our survey.

Update: We have been assured by Foreign Affairs Committee that the hearing we identified as not having been webcast was in fact streamed live. The hearing was delayed by a half an hour, so it was not webstreamed at the announced start time, but apparently was available at the delayed start time.

Photo Credit: the test pattern is from Gak on Flickr.

 

 

Written by Policy Fellow Matt Rumsey

The House of Representatives'  internal operations budget was the subject of a Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee hearing this morning. In the last two years, the House's budget was decreased by 10% from its FY2010 level, and it may be set for a further reduction.

Ander Crenshaw (R-FL), chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch, made clear in his opening statement that he expected the eventual budget allocation to be lower for FY 2013 than in previous years. Mike Honda (D-CA), the subcommittee's ranking member, called cuts to the House budget "misguided" and questioned the effect they would have on staff compensation, office operations, and the legislative process. The effect of budget cuts on Congress's ability to do its job was the subject of a 2010 Sunlight Foundation report.

A number of department heads submitted testimony for the hearing. Of particular interest were statements by the Clerk of the House and the Office of Law Revision Counsel that discussed ongoing transparency measures, many of which are crucial for how the public learns about the House's operations.

Karen Haas, Clerk of the House of Representatives, highlighted the Clerk's transparency efforts in her opening statement and written testimony. The Clerk's proposed budget, a 14% decrease from FY 2012, includes funding to continue "deploying new technology as part of a continuing effort to improve the efficiency and transparency of House floor proceedings." Haas touted the launch of docs.house.gov, improvements to HouseLive.gov, and an upgraded interface to track House floor activities on the Clerk's website as successful initiatives. We agree.

The Clerk's transparency plans for FY 2013 include the addition of committee documents to docs.house.gov, improved video streaming services, and an update to the Legislative Information Management System that will complete its modernization. We welcome the further improvements to docs.house.gov, and hope that along with an improved LIS will be better access to legislative information. The Clerk's office is also working with the Senate to develop a web-based filing system for lobbying disclosure information, an improvement which is long overdue.

Haas also cited CBO estimates that the electronic filing and disclosure system mandated by the recently passed STOCK Act would cost $4 million to implement and $1 million every year to manage. This cost was not factored in to the Clerk's budget request. Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-OH) expressed disdain for the legislation and concern over the cost. To be effective, the STOCK Act must be fully funded and enforced.

Ralph Seep, the Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives, submitted a budget request equal to his offices' FY2012 appropriation. His statement highlighted recent upgrades to the US Code's online presence and stressed efforts to update the code in a more efficient manner. The FY 2013 request would make it possible for LRC to continue converting to an XML based production system and maintain and make further upgrades to their website. We agree that these improvements are important, as the public deserves timely access to laws as they are codified. More on LRC here.

It is also worth noting that this hearing was not webcast.

Additional Resources:

• Statement of the House Sergeant-At-Arms Paul Irving
• Statement of Chief Administrator Officer Daniel Strodel
• Statement of Kerry Kircher, General Counsel
• Statement of Inspector General Theresa Grafenstine

Image credit to RambergMediaImages.

The future of the House of Representatives' independent ethics watchdog is subject to speculation now that we're again in appropriations season. Last year, despite the calls of transparency advocates and good government experts, Representative Mel Watt led a 100-member strong effort to cut the Office of Congressional Ethics' budget by 40%. There's likely to be a fight again this year. We believe the OCE should be strengthened, not hamstrung.

The Office of Congressional Ethics came into existence in March 2008 after a series of corruption scandals prompted House leaders to explore creating a transparent, outside enforcement entity. While OCE is not as robust as originally contemplated, it plays a crucial role in ethics oversight. OCE reviews allegations of misconduct against Representatives, House staff, and officers, and refers matters to the House Committee on Ethics for further review when it finds there's a substantial reason to believe a violation may have occurred.

OCE's teeth come from the public release of its reports and findings (except in circumstances when neither OCE nor the Ethics Committee find wrongdoing). American Enterprise Institute scholar Norm Ornstein recommended strengthening OCE by giving it the power to issue subpoenas in those rare cases "where an important investigation is being impeded by a key witness's refusal to testify or provide relevant information." Right now, OCE must rely on witnesses voluntarily cooperating. Ornstein also suggests that OCE members or staff be able to provide evidence directly to the Ethics Committee, and not be limited to submitting written reports

We agree, and add that OCE should have the power to lengthen its investigatory window when circumstances warrant. Its existence should be formalized into law, and its funding increased. Speaker Boehner deserves credit for retaining the OCE when Republicans came to power, as does former Speaker Pelosi for its creation, and we hope members of both parties will join together to put it on a firmer footing.

Every time the OCE does its job, it risks offending individual members of Congress. Even so, the vast majority of representatives voted to keep OCE intact last year because it strengthens the House as an institution.

Hearings in the House on legislative branch appropriations are winding down, so now is the time to make ourselves heard to keep the House's independent ethics watchdog on the beat.

Photo credit to H. Michael Karshis

Important government transparency programs would receive a small boost if the President's proposed budget for FY 2013 were enacted. The Electronic Government Fund, which supports Data.gov, the IT Spending Dashboard, and USASpending.gov, among other programs, would increase by $4.2 million in FY 2013, from $12.4 million in FY 2013 2012 to $16.665 million in FY 2013. This is still far less than the $34 million appropriated in FY 2009 and FY 2010, but would make an appreciable difference in supporting or expanding transparency initiatives.

The last few years have been turbulent for this important source of transparency funds, with appropriators essentially zeroing out the fund, then placing its programs on life support, and then finally restoring a small but significant funding level.

Of course, the President's budget proposals have been disregarded in the past, especially with respect to this fund, so we'll have to keep a close eye on appropriators. Hopefully last year's deal will avoid the kind of crisis that necessitated the #savethedata campaign.

The Congressional Justification, a document that explains how the funds will be used that is submitted by GSA to Congress (but apparently is not on the White House website) is available below.

GSA Justification for the Electronic Government Fund for FY 2013

Open government may have won a round, with some of the money that was cut in the previous Congress year's budget*  for the Electronic Government Fund being restored by the 2012 Appropriations Bill (PDF) released this morning. The E-Gov Fund supports programs like Data.Gov, USASpending.gov, the IT Spending Dashboard, mobile apps, and much more. At first glance, the bill does three things:

First, it sets E-Gov funding at $12.4 million. While in FY 2009 and FY 2010 Congress provided $34 million each year to support government transparency programs, in 2011 the amount was cut to $8 million. For FY 2012, the House had proposed a partial-funding restoration to around $16 million, but the Senate had proposed further cuts, reducing the appropriation to somewhere between $5-7 million. It appears that the two chambers have split the difference, arriving at $12.4 million.

Second, it preserves the E-Gov Fund as an independent funding source. The E-Gov Fund has always existed as a stand-alone entity, but this year, the Senate (and later the House) proposed combining it with the Federal Citizen Services Fund. Doing so would raise important legal questions, but also increase the likelihood that one program would leach funds out of the other. By keeping the funds separate, the bill would help ensure that E-Gov funds are used for their statutory purposes outlined in the Electronic Government Act of 2002: " to improve the methods by which Government information, including information on the Internet, is organized, preserved, and made accessible to the public."

Third, it provides for an important measure of transparency. Because some funds spent by GSA are not controlled by statute or the GSA Administrator -- a concern sometimes raised that E-Gov Fund spending is left to the administration's discretion -- a broad provision in the bill may have been inserted to address that issue. Sec. 528 imposes a reporting requirement on GSA to "describe each program, project, or activity that is funded by appropriations to GSA but is not under the control or direction, in statute or in practice, of the Administrator of General Services." (It is unclear whether this requirement has existed in appropriations from previous years.)

Of course, this is not a done deal. The bill we're looking at appears to be the negotiated agreement between the House and the Senate, although I've seen a report indicating that negotiations may still be ongoing. Even if it is not finalized, Senator Carper and Representative Issa deserve a lot of credit for fighting for these important transparency programs, as do our coalition partners (like OMB Watch) and thousands of people around the U.S. who have called on congress to #savethedata. While $12.4 million is far less than was available just a few years ago, it should be enough to keep these key programs alive and allow for a slow but steady rate of innovation.

• Updated to reflect that the money was cut by the current Congress, but for the previous fiscal year.

Why is Congress trying to make it harder to see where private jets are flying?

Deep in the embattled FAA funding bill is a provision that would make it far more difficult to track private jet flights.

It's very difficult to see a legitimate interest in rolling back public access to the flights of private aircraft, especially when tracking aircraft provides key information for investigative journalism. Add to that concern the $5 Million in disclosed private trips that Members of Congress have accepted this year (despite attempts to ban privately funded travel), and a grim picture emerges. (And those are just the trips we know about.)  Exactly who is Congress protecting with this pro-secrecy provision?

Section 119A of S. 1596:

SEC. 119A. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, none of the funds made available under this Act or any prior Act may be used to implement or to continue to implement any limitation on the ability of any owner or operator of a private aircraft to obtain, upon a request to the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, a blocking of that owner's or operator’s aircraft registration number from any display of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Aircraft Situational Display to Industry data that is made available to the public, except data made available to a Government agency, for the noncommercial flights of that owner or operator.

h/t Daniel Morgan.

   

Update:  For those wondering what kind of reporting is made possible through jet disclosures:

The Guardian, Mundane bills bring CIA's rendition network into sharper focus

New York Times, For Perry, Private Jets Have Been Key to Public Job

St. Petersburg Times, Who's on all those private jets up above Tampa Bay?

McClatchy, Who owned drug plane that crashed in Mexico?

ABC News, FAA Missing One-Third of U.S. Aircraft Registrations

Update 2:

Another one: Common Blog, Who was at the Koch Corporate Caucus in Vail, Colo.?

 

From the stream of news coming from Congress about the budget, one might think that committee meetings and legislation on federal spending would be easily accessible online. That's often not true.

For example, the legislative text for four major appropriations bills are not yet online despite their apparent approval by both the full Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday and the relevant subcommittees prior to that. The four missing Senate bills are: Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2012; Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012; Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2012; and Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2012. The public's only chance to see the legislation is after all the important decisions have been made. By comparison, the House generally makes legislation considered by committees available to the public prior to votes.

None of the Senate committee reports for these bills are available online, either, except for the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, which is on THOMAS. The reports explain the decisions by appropriators and often provide significant guidance on how money will be spent.

Senate Appropriators do release streaming audio of subcommittee markups, although the audio feed isn't always reliable. The House, by contrast, will live stream video of its markups, but only when the committee finds it convenient; it often does not broadcast meetings at all. This goes against the spirit -- and likely the letter -- of the new House Rules passed by the 112th Congress.

Unfortunately, the best way to look at the legislation and reports in a timely way is often by using expensive private news services. Congress owes the public a better explanation of what it's doing.

Yesterday's Legistorm report on congressional staffers-turned-lobbyists provides more support for the theory that Congress is turning over its work to special interests. It adds to a mountain of evidence that includes an expanding pay gap between House staff and their private sector equivalents, fewer policy staff in Congress, and significant new cuts in staff positions and pay.

Looking at a decade's worth of data, Legistorm found that "5,400 people have been both lobbyists and received paychecks as staff from the legislative branch in the past decade." The report adds that it's likely that at least 2,900 former staffers are currently lobbying, with 605 current congressional staff having served as lobbyists in the past decade. These numbers are likely low, both because the number of federally registered lobbyists does not include many people who lobby and data available for the study was incomplete (missing "perhaps hundreds of potential staffer-lobbyist matches.")

Having inside connections is a big help to the bottom line for staffers-turned-lobbyists, according to two research papers. Lobbyists who are connected to members of Congress get paid more than those who are only experts. In addition, lobbyists who worked for a US Senator "suffer a 24% drop in revenue -- around $177,000 -- when their ex-employers leave office." In Washington, who you know is more important than what you know.

That influence is only magnified when Congress cannot effectively evaluate claims made by lobbyists. Unfortunately, Congress has been shrinking its pool of experienced staff for over two decades. According to my review of data going back to 1979, "there are fewer House staff and fewer legislative support agency personnel now that at any time in the recent past." House personal office, committee, and leadership staff are at 87% of their 1979 levels. Committee staff alone are at 62% of their 1979 levels, having eliminated 755 positions. Major legislative support agencies have suffered tremendous losses, and are at 65% of their 1979 staffing levels. GAO, the investigative arm of Congress that looks at the public purse, is at 60% of its 1979 staffing level; CRS is at 80%. While government has grown more complex, there are fewer congressional staff to provide oversight, and they cannot help but rely upon the army of lobbyists whose influence has expanded to fill the vacuum. It's no wonder that $3.51 billion was spent on lobbying in 2010.

The reduced congressional capacity to handle influence has an effect on decision-making. For example, a recent look at lobbying during the financial crisis found that mortgage-lending companies that lobbied prior to the financial crisis engaged in riskier lending practices and were more likely to be bailed out.

With these institutional factors at play, it's no surprise that staff are leaving to go to the private sector. A review of two decades of staff salary surveys shows that the leading factors that drive out staff are unpredictable work hours and low pay. The high turnover rate and youthful median staff age puts Congress at a disadvantage when dealing with the Executive branch or the private sector.

This trend is only going to accelerate. The House Appropriations Committee has adopted what it called "the largest ever two-year reduction for the legislative branch." For upcoming fiscal year 2012, which starts on October 1, the House Appropriations Committee has endorsed a 6.46% cut to the House of Representatives, which on top of the FY 2011 cuts decreases the House's budget by 10.4% over two years. By way of example, the amount of money available to each personal office for a Member of Congress will be reduced by around $90,000. Since most office costs are fixed and staff pay is already effectively frozen, this likely will translate into staff reductions and pay cuts. Put another way, if you add up all spending for the legislative branch, including expenditures for security, all the support agencies, the visitor center, and so on, the proposed 2012 budget is $4.38 billion. By contrast, the total federal budget is $3.82 trillion. That's a small amount of money when compared to its responsibility to set the direction for the entire government.

Tomorrow, the Senate Appropriations Committee will markup its Legislative Branch Appropriations bill, determining how much pain to mete out to Senate personal, committee, and leadership offices. At the same time, it will determine whether to agree to the House's huge cuts to the Government Printing Office (16%), the Library of Congress (8%), Government Accountability Office (6.4%), and other important legislative support agencies. The future of many staff now includes earlier retirement, furloughs, and a bare minimum of resources.

All of these problems are compounded by Congress's lack of introspection about the work that it does and our inability to track these exertion of influence by special interests. It's true that there are important ongoing legislative efforts to close these lobbying disclosure loopholes, most notably the Lobbyist Disclosure Enhancement Act, and a broad consensus about what to do about lobbying. And there are some efforts to make more congressional information publicly available, so that the public can figure out what's going on. Unfortunately, we are far from where we need to be if we want an effective Congress that capably balances its dual roles as policymaker and agent of the people.

Congress will shed significant legislative capacity if the budget bill approved earlier today by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch becomes law. The legislative branch faces a $227 million (or 6.39%) cut from FY 2011, with the brunt borne by GPO (16% cut) and the Library of Congress (8% cut). These two entities have significant responsibilities for making government information available to the public.

It's likely that there will be fewer congressional staff (or they will earn less money) if the $84 million (or 6.46%) cut to the House of Representatives goes through. Added to the FY 2010 budget, money for the House of Representatives has decreased by 10.4% in two years, making it more likely that competent staff will leave Congress for greener pastures with lobbying firms and think tanks.

The bill also includes an unfortunate provision that prevents the Library of Congress from publishing (or preparing for publication) any publication without prior approval. As I testified previously, this provision has been twisted by CRS into a justification for not releasing its reports to the public. A coalition of organizations wrote a letter to appropriators in April that asked them to refrain from including that provision in this year's bill. (More on CRS's future here).

The legislation still need to be approved by the full House Appropriations Committee, the Senate, and signed by the president.