Yesterday, Open CRS, a project of the Center for Democracy and Technology (and Sunlight grantee), posted links to 47 newly available Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports.  Included in this latest release by CDT is a report titled “Economic Stimulus: Issues and Policies.”  Uh, that one might be one worth reading. And I gather that another 60 or so reports are going to be posted later today.

CRS is a $100 million funded “think tank” that researches and writes reports for Congressional lawmakers and their staff on current topics as requested by are used to produce them. There are serious and smart analysts there and their reports are well worth reading if you are interested in the hot issues of the day. These reports are all served up on an internal server on the Hill but the public is denied access to them. The only way you can get them in by calling a lawmaker's office to request a copy. (The Catch-22 is, of course, how do you know to ask about a report if its existence isn't publicaly listed someplace.)  OpenCRS gets their copies from various people who choose to 'liberate' them. There is one commerical service that manages someway somehow to get all of them all. This service  charges and arm and a leg.

Sunlight shares CDT's  demand that Congress open up all CRS reports to the public. This is an easy transparency reform that boggles the mind as to why it has not yet been done.

As reports swirl about Members of Congress in transition, it's the perfect time to delve further into the mechanisms of congressional authority. How are Members assigned to committees, to chairmanships, to status as ranking members? How are leadership positions determined? Has it always been that way? This is especially true of the US Senate, where even one chairmanship changing hands can have a domino effect across many other committees.

We're watching as Waxman challenges Dingell, Cantor challenges Blunt, Lieberman faces a loss of a chairmanship, Emanuel leaves a leadership position, and any number of other congressional transitions-in-progress.

Here's a rundown of some of the most relevant CRS reports on these topics, many of which have just been added to OpenCRS.com. All embedded versions are from my issuu.com account.

RS21165: House Standing Committee Chairs and Ranking Minority Members: Rules Governing Selection Procedures, December 27, 2006 (OpenCRS link)

RS20881: Party Leaders in the House: Election, Duties, and Responsibilities, December 08, 2006 (OpenCRS link)

RS20933: Senate Leadership Structure: Overview of Party Organization, December 07, 2006 (OpenCRS link)

RS20930: House Leadership Structure: Overview of Party Organization, July 10, 2003 (OpenCRS link)

RS20499: House Leadership: Whip Organization, February 12, 2002 (OpenCRS link)

RS20887: Senate Leadership: Whip Organization, December 07, 2006 (OpenCRS link)

RS20465: House Committee Organization and Process: A Brief Overview, April 21, 2008 (OpenCRS link)

RL30743: Committee Assignment Process in the U.S. Senate: Democratic and Republican Party Procedures, November 3, 2006 (OpenCRS link)

98-610 GOV: House Subcommittees: Assignment Process, May 11, 2007 (OpenCRS link)

98-367 GOV: House Committees: Assignment Process, February 25, 2008

98-183 GOV: Senate Committees: Categories and Rules for Committee Assignments, October 26, 2006 (OpenCRS link)

98-151 GOV: House Committees: Categories and Rules for Committee Assignments, March 20, 2008 (OpenCRS link)

Sure the temperature is rising in D.C. but it's like Christmas morning for public policy geeks when groups like the non-profit Center for Governmental Studies (CGS) launch something like PolicyArchive.org.

CGS says that the site is the "largest online repository of public policy research in the world." And it's all at your fingertips for free! Before the launch of this, online policy research could be quite burdensome, requiring the researcher to navigate through multiple Web sites that use various formats. CGS' goal is to change all that by collecting policy papers from a "wide range of nonprofit, educational, governmental, private and international think tanks and research organizations" on 306 subtopics. The site currently has available 12,000 policy documents from over 220 think tanks, policy shops and other research organizations. A full listing of contributing sources can be found here.

The site doesn't just upload the reports, they use the best of easy-to-use technology by providing summaries and synopses, indexing, and an internal search engine, among other devises and tools. And this is just the beginning. They have plans for a second version of the site that will include online communities, user ratings and reviews and other neat features.  I see they have only a few reports from the Congressional Research Service, so I hope to connect them with OpenCRS.com. Seems like there's a good synergy there. Very useful stuff.