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.

Recent calls for technologists to hire lobbyists to educate Washington on internet issues miss a significant part of the big picture. Congress makes bad technology decisions because it has dismantled its ability to evaluate policy issues. While public mobilization and lobbying efforts can affect decision-making through political pressure, lobbying to educate congress on technology issues is like trying to teach a fish to sing.

The congressional technology lobotomy arose from two fateful decisions. First, Congress closed down its specialized office of nonpartisan technology experts in 1995, which provided a comprehensive view of technology issues. Second, it systematically undermined its remaining staff by spreading them too thin, eroding Congress’s ability to dive deeply into an issue.

The Office of Technology Assessment was created in 1972 to equip Congress with “new and effective means for securing competent, unbiased information concerning the physical, biological, economic, social, and political effects” of technology. OTA “was intended to facilitate congressional access to expertise and permit legislators to consider objectively information presented by the executive branch, interest groups, and other stakeholders to controversial policy questions,” in the words of a CRS report. It was a runaway success.

OTA’s small staff of experts (around 140 at its maximum) generated hundreds of reports at the relatively modest cost of $20 million annually. Unfortunately, it was defunded in 1995 as part of a broader effort to make the Congress appear more efficient. Despite repeated calls for OTA’s reinstatement, nothing has filled the void, and policymaking has suffered.

OTA’s defunded left staffers for committees and individual members of Congress to shoulder the increasingly complicated burden of evaluating technology issues. They are ill-equipped for the challenge. Over the last 25 years, congressional staff salaries have remained flat, with staff spread thin over a wide range of issues. With an average House staffer in a policy-role earning between $40-60,000, attracting and retaining top talent is virtually impossible. With a 10.4% cut in Congress' budget over a two year period that's taking place now, prompting layoffs and pay freezes, the lifeblood of smart decision-making is being drained away.

Increasing lobbying on technology issues is an easy, but ultimately insufficient, response to this problem. $92 million was spent for lobbyists representing for tv/movie/music issues in 2011, which is the same amount spent by telecom services and equipment companies. This monetary arms race may level the playing field for the well-to-do, but it hasn’t created good results. And both sides have good reason to manipulate the law to keep out the next wave of entrepreneurs.

Getting citizens involved will make Congress pay attention, but not every issue is a SOPA, where the internet shuts down in protest. Most issues fly below the radar. Only an empowered, capable Congress can make decisions on the many issues that will never lead to a Google doodle or Wikipedia shut-down.

A smarter Congress requires an investment in its staff, which will save us grief in the long term. Funding for Congress, with all of its supporting agencies, will amount to 1/10 of 1% of federal spending projected for 2012. Current spending on Congress is also roughly the same order of magnitude of what will be spent on all lobbying efforts this year. While lobbyists are necessary for industries like technology and telecommunications to express their views, if we want good policymaking, we need to empower Congress to be able to make good decisions. Restoring funding to OTA and reexamining congressional staff pay is the most effective place to start.

Update: A just released analysis from the Center for Responsive Politics looking at SOPA and PIPA-related lobbying efforts in the 4th quarter. "Companies that lobbied on the two bills spent at least $104.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, more than double the $49.3 million they laid out in the previous quarter." The number of lobbyists doubled from 462 to 956.

How much money was directly connected to SOPA and PIPA? CRP says "It's impossible to say...  since the reporting forms don't require that level of detail." Overall, businesses identified as computers/internet spent $125 million on lobbying for 2011, compared to $122 million for tv/movies/internet.

Later today the House of Representatives will consider the Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill for 2012, which if enacted would provide funds for legislative branch operations for the fiscal year starting on October 1st. Several of the 16 amendments expected to be considered during today's hour-long debate have strong transparency implications, as well as one that is not expected to be considered but is worthy of congressional action.

Make CRS Reports Publicly Available

This amendment, offered by Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), would require 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. The amendment unfortunately will not be considered because of House Rules, but it is noteworthy that it was introduced; the amendment would make many CRS products available to the public through Member and committee websites. These invaluable reports help explain policymaking in easy-to-understand terms, and there's no good reason why they aren't already made available to the public.

We and many other organizations have repeatedly called for easy public access to these reports. There have been public discussions on this topic. Bills have been introduced in Congress again and again. (Rep. Quigley and Sen. Lieberman have been particular leaders on this issue.) It's long past time for Congress to make CRS Reports available to the public.

The House Should Defeat The Attempt to Reduce OCE Funding by 40%

Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) is at it again with an attempt to defund the Office of Congressional Ethics, the House's independent ethics watchdog, perhaps because the office investigated him for questionable activity. In 2010, Watt withdrew an amendment that may have adversely affected corporations that just held a fundraiser for him two days prior to a vote, triggering an investigation. (Watt was ultimately held blameless by the often embattled and deeply conflicted House Ethics Committee -- which is different than the independent OCE.)

Watt's amendment would reduce OCE funding by 40%, which is a $620,000 reduction. Not only do we disagree with the cut, in December we called for OCE's (puny) funding to be doubled this Congress and its powers strengthened. Noted congressional scholar Norm Ornstein just published an editorial in Roll Call that urged OCE be strengthened. Now is not the time to back away from the ethics process. This amendment, which is second in line for consideration, should be defeated.

Revive the Office of Technology Assessment

Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) would revive the Office of Technology Assessment by providing $2.5m for its operations in his amendment. This is a smart move. The OTA was a legislative support agency that provided Congress with objective and authoritative analysis of complex scientific and technical issues. After nearly 25 years of service, it was defunded in 1995 as part of a spasm of cost-cutting, which in OTA's case was overzealous. Technology is at the heart of our economy, and Congress needs smart advice from experts now more than ever. This amendment, which the 12th in line for consideration, should be adopted.

Don't Further Reduce GPO's Budget

Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) has offered an amendment that would further reduce the Government Printing Office's budget by $5m. As the report accompanying the bill notes, the amount appropriated to GPO in the legislation is "$22,067,324, or 16.3% below the fiscal year 2011 level and $35,474,000 below the budget request." Considering GPO's key role in making information available to the public, and how drastically its budget is already being cut, this further reduction appears unwarranted. GAO is already set to look into restructuring GPO, per the Committee Report, so these additional cuts are likely premature. Rep. Stutzman's amendment will be considered eighth, and should be defeated.

Other Amendments

There are a number of other noteworthy amendments, but there's two worth highlighting. First, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) would prohibit Members of Congress from using House funds to purchase web ads that advertise Member or Committee websites. We have not yet formulated an opinion on this amendment, but Rep. Flake deserves commendation for continuing to think about the intersection of ethics, money, and new media. His amendment will be considered 11th.

Second, Rep. Erik Paulson (R-Minn.), along with several others, has introduced two amendments that would require legislation and the Congressional Record be distributed to congressional offices electronically and not in printed form, unless requested by the office. While we do not have a recommendation as to passage or defeat, it is great to see thoughtful consideration of how to move the House further into the electronic age. This may be a cost-savings measure, but it also would further the House's embrace of electronic media and would prompt deliberations on how to improve how electronic information is distributed -- both inside Congress and to the public. The Committee on House Administration recently held a hearing on modernizing information delivery in the House.