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.

NOTE: It has been brought to our attention by LegisStorm that our list of staffers who became a lobbyist has a number of errors caused by false positives resulting from our process of matching staffer names with lobbyist names. We are investigating. Any reporting based on this post should be double-checked by contacting the offices involved.

The revolving door is alive and well in Washington. In less than three years, at least 377 House staffers employed in personal and committee offices have left Capitol Hill to become registered lobbyists, a Sunlight Foundation analysis of U.S. House disbursement data and federal lobbying records finds.

More than two in five former House staffers who registered as lobbyists went to one of Washington’s many lobbying firms. One in five went to lobby for a for-profit corporation, and another one in five went to lobby for a business or trade association. In other words, corporate America is capturing the lion’s share of former Hill staffers’ expertise. A large number also represent state and local governments and universities in their work for lobbying firms.

These lobbyists come from all rungs of the House hierarchy. The 377 staffers who left to lobby included 50 legislative assistants, 32 chiefs of staff, 26 legislative directors, and 22 staff assistants.

Many lobbyists came from committees as well. The Committee with the clearest path to K Street was the Financial Services Committee, where nine of 71 staffers (12.7%) went off to lobby within two years, followed closely by Judiciary (9.0%) and Oversight and Government Reform (8.7%).

Congress’s loss is the private sector’s gain. When House offices lose staffers who have built up experience and relationships in Congress, private interests gain both their policy knowhow and their political networks. Meanwhile, the House offices often find themselves relying on the expertise of their former staffers who are now in the employ of private interests.

Recently, we noted that the average House office had a retention rate of 64.2% over a two-year period. Although the majority of departing staff do not move to K Street, 377 staffers is still a significant number.

For a complete list of all the staffers who registered to lobby, what office they worked in, and where they went to lobby, click here.

WHERE STAFFERS GO ON K STREET

More than 80% of former Hill staffers who leave to lobby take jobs at Washington lobbying firms (41.5%), individual corporations (21.3%) and business and trade associations (19.1%).

By comparison, fewer than one in ten go to work for a non-profit advocacy group. Only a single former House staffer went to work for a labor union, though a few do represent unions as part of their work with Washington lobbying firms. Some (5.1%) went to work for occupational associations, such as the American Dental Association or the International Association of Fire Chiefs; another nine went to work for institutions, mostly universities.

It's important to emphasize that this analysis is limited to registered lobbying. If former House staffers joined advocacy organizations but did not register as lobbyists, they will not show up in these tabulations.

Figure 1. Where staffers who become lobbyists go to lobby

graphic by Ali Felski

If we look at the employment destinations by position in the House, we can see some different career paths. While 56.2% of chiefs of staff who became lobbyists joined Washington lobbying firms, only 30.8% of legislative directors and 23.1% of legislative assistants who registered as lobbyists did so for a lobbying firms

Legislative directors who go downtown are about equally likely to wind up in a lobbying firm, a corporation, or a business or trade association. Legislative assistants are most likely to wind up in a business or trade association.

Non-profit advocacy, meanwhile, did not attract a single chief of staff, but it did attract two of the 26 legislative directors going to lobby and five of the 52 legislative assistants.

Generally, work in a lobbying firm offers individuals the opportunity to make the most money, though it also generally requires the most work. Some individuals prefer the stability or predictability of a corporation or a trade association, where one does not have to shift between multiple clients and does not have to hustle for new business.

Figure 2. Where staffers who become lobbyists go to lobby, by position

graphic by Ali Felski

REPRESENTATION BY SECTOR

What types of interests do these former staffers represent? In order to answer this question, we added up the number of lobbying contracts that mentioned these staffers.  State and local governments top the list, with 295 contracts, followed closely by pharmaceutical companies at 263, education (mostly universities) at 261, computers/internet at 226, and electric utilities at 192.

Table 1. Sectors former House staffers represent

Certainly, there are different ways to cut these numbers. Telephone utilities, for example spent $253 million on contracts that included these lobbyists, as compared to state and local governments, which spent $38 million, although there were many more contracts involving state and local governments.

A LOOK AT WHO GOES TO BECOME A LOBBYIST

Among the staffers who left, about two-thirds (243) previously worked in member personal offices. Of these individuals, 60.5% (147) came from Democratic offices, as compared to 39.5% (96) from Republicans. Much of this disparity, however, has to do with the fact that the Democrats lost 63 seats in the 2010 mid-term elections, putting hundreds of Democratic staffers out of work.

Among the 147 Democratic staffers who left to become lobbyists, 63 (43%) worked for members who were defeated or retired in 2010.Of member staffers-turned-lobbyists, 32% (77) came from offices where members were defeated or retired; the remaining 68% (166) worked for members who are still in office.

Table 2. Partisanship and member status of staffers turned lobbyists

three members of Congress sent at least four staffer to the ranks of registered lobbyists since 2009: Michael A. Arcuri (D-NY, 5), Adam Putnam (R-FL, 4), and Laura Richardson (D-CA, 4). Arcuri and Putnam are no longer in Congress. Both Arcuri and Richardson were on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Putnam was on the Financial Services Committee.  Table 3 shows the members at least three staff  who became lobbyists.Almost 40% (177) of the House offices in 2009 had at least one staffer become a lobbyist by 2011, and 11% (49) sent at least two individuals to become lobbyists. 

Table 3. Members with highest rates of staff going to lobby

COMMITTEES

Some committees are more likely to generate future lobbyists than others. Perhaps not surprisingly, the House committee with the highest percentage of former staffers going to lobby was the Financial Services Committee, where nine of 71 staffers (12.7%) went off to lobby. The Financial Services Committee handled the Dodd-Frank bill, which will continue to generate major lobbying activity for years as financial regulatory agencies work their way through the approximately 400 rulemaking the bill calls for. The Judiciary (9.0%) and Oversight and Government Reform (8.7%) had the next highest rates. Appropriations sent the most individuals to lobby (11, out of 145 staffers)

Table 4. Rate of staffers becoming lobbyists, by committee/leadership offices

POSITIONS

Certain positions were more likely to lead to future work as a lobbyist than others. The 377staffers employed in the House in 2009 who left to lobby included 50 legislative assistants, 32 chiefs of staff, 26 legislative directors, and 22 staff assistants.Of the 25 most common staff titles, the titles most likely to lead to staffers becoming lobbyists within the 2-year period were “Counsel” (11.2% became lobbyists), “Legislative Director” (8.9% became lobbyists), and “Legislative Counsel” (8.8% became lobbyists). Eight percent of both the chiefs of staff and the deputy chiefs of staff employed in mid-2009 became lobbyists. Interestingly, as we noted in our recent analysis of House operating budget cuts, salaries for "Counsel" positions had suffered the most between 2009 and 2011, down 5.8%. There is probably some connection.

Table 5. Rate of staffers becoming lobbyists, by selected positions

CONCLUSIONS

The revolving door continues to spin. Since July 2009, almost 400 individuals employed as House staffers at the time have left to become registered lobbyists, primarily working for lobbying firms, corporations, and business associations.In many respects, Congress continues to operate as a farm team for future lobbyists. Staff build up contacts and policy and political expertise. Then they often go “downtown” and cash in, taking their expertise and networks with them.

Though a certain flow of personnel from Congress to K Street is inevitable, Congress ought to do more to hold onto experienced staff. Recently, we explored retention rates among House staff, and we found that offices that paid their staff more had slightly higher retention rates, though Hill salaries lag behind private sector comparisons.When staff leave to lobby, their former offices must find somebody new and usually less experienced. And offices who lack staff with policy expertise and political relationships often must rely more on outside lobbyists, who are only too happy to fill the gap.For a complete list of all 378 staffers, what office they worked in, and where they went to lobby, click here.

METHODOLOGY AND DATA

These results are based on a comparison of House disbursement data from the third quarter of 2009 with public lobbying records. One challenge in conducting this analysis is that we are matching on names, and sometimes individuals register as lobbyists under different name permutations than they were listed on the Hill. We do our best to correct for this, but there are limitations. We also note that because certain names are more common than others, there is always the possibility of false positive matches.

Additionally, since our data on staff come from the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives, we are dependent on what the House reports. We must in good faith disclose that the underlying data are messy. At best, the data are approximate, and higher levels of confidence in it can only come when the House of Representatives makes a better effort with respect to how it normalizes and releases the data to the public. To dig through the data yourself, visit our House Expenditure Reports Database.

Special thanks to Daniel Schuman and Alison Rowland for their help on this analysis.

UPDATE: Jennifer Taylor, a legislative assistant in Rep. Pingree's office, shares a name with Jennifer Taylor, a lobbyist at Van Scoyoc & Associates, resulting in a false positive. The text of this post has been corrected to reflect this. As noted above, our analysis is limited by the quality of the data published by the House disbursement reports and the Senate Office of Public Records. We regret the error and encourage anyone with clarifying information to contact us.

Tomorrow is a big day for transparency, with the House of Representatives convening a full-day conference on public access to legislative information. (The agenda is online here.) I understand that there are efforts afoot to livestream the proceedings, although I don't have all the details. But there is a hashtag -- #LDTC -- so expect livetweeting and perhaps more conference details as we get closer.

Update: The conference will be webcast live at http://cha.house.gov/about/contact-us/legislative-data-conference.

The House of Representatives has released an agenda for its all-day Legislative Data Conference, set for February 2nd. If you are interested in attending, you can RSVP here.

 House Legislative Data and Transparency Conference Agenda

Today, the House of Representatives announced it will host a full-day conference on public access to legislative information on Thursday, February 2. This is a big deal. It will bring together the people who create and encode legislative materials and the people that use (and transform) that information. This announcement follows on the recent launch of a House transparency portal, which in of itself will change how the public makes use of legislative information.

Entitled "Legislative Data and Transparency," the conference will include discussion of how legislative information is created, how it is made available to the public, what the impact is of current levels of public access, what improved public access would look like from a technological perspective, and the benchmarks to determine and benefits that would come from a truly transparency Congress.

In May 2007, the Sunlight Foundation gathered a coalition of organizations to make recommendations on what an open House of Representatives should look like. While some of the recommendations have been implemented, five years on there's still a lot to do. Deepening communication between those on the "inside" and "outside" will only help to make Congress a more responsive, efficient, and transparent institution.

This conference has been a long time in the making, and I congratulate the often unsung congressional staff who have labored long hours to make it happen, as well as the political leaders who have demonstrated the determination to make this happen. I also must disclose that I've provided advice about what I think the conference should look like.

I hope this serves as a kick-off to many more discussion between those inside and outside Congress about how to fully bring it into the Internet age. RSVP here.

Invitation to Legislative Data and Transparency Conference

When the House returns to work today, it will be a slightly leaner, slightly less technologically cutting-edge body than it was a year ago.

Last January, the House voted 410-13 to slash its operating budget by 5% (or $35 million). A Sunlight Foundation analysis of House disbursement data shows some immediate effects: a loss almost 1,000 salaried staff positions and major cutbacks in computers and office supplies.

House offices will have to do it all over again this year. The 2012 Legislative Branch Appropriations Act cuts funding for the House by another 6.4%. Since compensation accounts for more than half of all House expenditures, expect cuts in both staff and salaries.

These cuts are part of a longer-term decline in congressional staffing and personnel spending. Already, congressional salaries and benefits lag behind their private sector competitors, meaning that offices often have a hard time retaining and attracting top talent. Instead, they must rely increasingly on special interests to help them to do their work. As Congress continues to curtail its own capacity, there is good reason to expect even greater reliance on the 12,242 registered lobbyists in Washington.

To see how the budget cuts have affected House offices so far, we compared House disbursement data for the third quarters of 2009, 2010 and 2011. Here are some key changes since 2009:

• Overall, House offices have cut the number of salaried staff positions by 7.4%, shedding 948 between 2009 and 2011. (This includes both legislative and non-legislative positions.)
• Overall spending on total personnel compensation is down 1.7%. (In the private sector, total compensation has increased by 4.1% during this same period.)
• Offices have cut spending most steeply on office supplies (down 30.7%), equipment (down 46.4%, particularly computers, which are down 62.5%) and franked mail (down 25.8%).
• One area of growth, however, is in public relations. House offices added 32 new “Communications Director” positions between 2009 and 2011.

In 2011, offices did the relatively easy stuff: skimping on office supplies and new computers, and letting some staff go. That leaves the harder stuff: more serious cutting of salaries and staff.

According to a Congressional Management Foundation survey, “the consensus is that the cumulative two-year cut of 11.4% will require the large majority of offices to make painful cuts that will be felt by virtually all staff."

This will have consequences. With each cut to salary and staff, and each reduction in office resource budgets, it becomes that much more challenging for the House to do its job. As staff struggle with declining resources and scramble to work harder to compensate for lost positions, they become that much more dependent on outside lobbyists to help them.

Table 1. Changes in aggregate House expenditures (arranged by 2009 expenditure size)

STAFF REDUCTIONS IN FORCE

Breaking down the salaries by title, we can see where on the totem pole offices are cutting. Among the 20 unique position titles that account for the most combined expenses, “staff assistants” suffered most significant reduction, a loss of more than 200 positions, from 1,245 to 1,038 (down 16.6%). The number of “professional staff member” positions also declined at almost the same rate, from 205 to 176 between 2009 and 2011, down 14.1%. “Part Time Employees” are also down substantially, from 506 to 427 (down 15.6%).

On the side of growth, the fastest growing position in the House is “Communications Director.” Despite the cuts, the House actually added 32 new communications directors between third quarter of 2009 and third quarter of 2011, going from 232 to 264 positions (an increase of 13.8%). It is, however, worth noting that the number of press secretaries decreased at the same time by 12 (down 6.6%, from 183 to 171 positions), so some of the new communications directors may be press secretaries who got a new title.

Other big increases were in the position of “Scheduler” (up 12.6%, from 143 to 161 positions), “District Director” (up 8.2%, from 291 to 315 positions) and “Legislative Director” (up 7.4%, from 309 to 332 positions). Interestingly, the number of “Constituent Services Representatives” is up 6.8% (from 205 to 219) while the number of “Caseworkers” is down 5.5% (from 307 to 290).

Table 2. Changes in staffing force, by position (for 20 most expensive positions by total expenditures, arranged from biggest decline to biggest gain)

STAFF PAY

For those who managed to keep their jobs on the Hill, the average salary actually increased by 3.7% since 2009.

Chiefs of staff are doing quite well. Their average compensation rose 5.8%, from $120,276 to $127,280 a year (estimated from third quarter compensation), topped only by individuals in the somewhat ambiguous role of “special assistant,” who have seen their compensation rise by 8.5% during this period (from $42,464 a year to $46,084 a year).

Major positions where the average salary declined more than five percent are “Counsel” (down 5.8%), “Deputy District Director” (down 5.7%), and “Legislative Correspondent” (down 5.4%).

Where salaries declined, it may likely be as a result of new, less experienced staffers who will work for less replacing older, more experienced staffers who commanded more money.

Table 3. Changes in salary, by position (for 20 most expensive positions by total expenditures, arranged from biggest decline to biggest gain)

It is worth noting, however, that personnel benefits were up 5.8% between 2009 and 2011, from $64 million to $68 million. Most of the growth there, however, is in health insurance costs (up 12%) and retirement costs (up 4%). These are costs that congressional offices typically have less control over.

SUPPLIES AND EQUIPMENT

The biggest cuts came from spending on equipment (down 46.4%), supplies (down 30.3%) and franked mail (down 25.8%). The decrease in spending on franked mail is probably not cause for concern. Members are using more and more e-mail and social networking to reach out to constituents anyway.

More than half of the equipment budget goes to computers, and  this is where offices have really skimped. The computer budget is down 62.5% from 2009, from $14.1 million to $5.3 million. At a time when so much work is conducted electronically, increasingly out-of-date equipment will put staff at an ever-increasing disadvantage.

In the category of “supplies and materials,” the top three expenses are office supplies, medical supplies and publications and reference materials. Office supply budgets are down 20% (from $6.5 million to $5.3 million), publication and reference material budgets are down 25% (from $2.2 million to $1.7 million). Medical supplies are down slightly (from $2.8 million to $2.7 million).

Table 4. Changes in expenditures on equipment and supplies and materials, major categories

While these may be reasonable areas to cut, these reductions are not necessarily sustainable. At some point, House staffers are going to need new computers and some office supplies. Yet with more cuts still ahead, it’s unclear where the money will come from.

Most offices could weather a lean year on supplies and equipment. But as anybody who has worked on the Hill knows, offices are far from luxurious. In a world in which more and more activity is conducted electronically, to fall behind technologically puts congressional staff behind the curve. Furthermore, with another round of cuts coming, it’s going to be hard for the House to catch up.

Now House offices have to cut another 6.4%. That will likely mean fewer staff, less support, probably lower salaries and more outmoded technology. Congress will likely be forced to rely more on interns, and almost certainly more on lobbyists.

A NOTE ON THE DATA

Our data come from the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. That means we are dependent on what the House reports. The biggest challenge in aggregating the data is that different House offices classify expenses in different ways. This is most obvious with job titles. Even when we standardized the title names by collapsing all synonymous abbreviations, we still wound up with 2,600 unique position titles over the three years. Though we are confident that our data captures the larger patterns, we must in good faith disclose that the underlying data are messy. At best, the data reveal general trends, and higher levels of confidence in it can only come when the House of Representatives makes a better effort with respect to how it normalizes and releases the data to the public. To dig through the data yourself, visit our House Expenditure Reports Database.

This morning, the House of Representatives took a tremendous step into the 21st century when the Committee on House Administration unanimously adopted "Standards for the Electronic Posting of House and Committee Documents & Data."

Taking effect on January 1, 2012, the resolution instructs the Clerk of the House to maintain a single website where the public can access all House bills, amendments, and resolutions for floor consideration in XML. In addition, committees will be encouraged to post their documents on that site in XML whenever possible -- and searchable PDFs when not -- with the expectation that mandatory publication requirements in XML will soon be imposed. The House will also store video of hearings and markups, and work to implement standards "that require documents to be electronically published in open data formats that are machine readable," thereby enabling transparency and public review.

In a statement, Committee on House Administration Chairman Dan Lungren said “With the adoption of these standards, for the first time, all House bills, resolutions and legislative documents will be available in XML in one centralized location. Providing easy access to legislative information increases constituent feedback and ultimately improves the legislative process. ”

Three cheers to Chairman Dan Lungren, Ranking Member Bob Brady, members of the committee, and its staff for moving this important issue forward. As was discussed at the recent #hackthehouse conference, as well as in our longstanding Open House Project Report (pdf), there's a lot more to do, but this is a major stride towards implementing Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor's pledge to " publicly releasing the House’s legislative data in machine-readable formats." The Senate could do well by following this example, as could legislative support agencies like the Library of Congress and GPO.

Standards for the Electronic Posting of House and Committee Documents & Data

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.

Finding out who to talk to in a congressional office isn't always easy. But today we're pleased to announce that we've updated our free House of Representatives Staff Directory to include information for the 1st quarter of 2011. You can search by staff name, title, state, or party -- or browse by member, committee office, or other office -- and learn more about who is helping make Congress work. You can also download your search results into a spreadsheet file.

The information is drawn from the House Statement of Disbursements and other publications by the House Clerk's office. The directory helps us illustrate the point that publishing public information online allows for creative mixing of that data to serve an important public need. In this case, knowing who's at the other end of the phone line.

By the end of the year, the Senate will be publishing its Statement of Disbursements online, and we hope to build a Senate staff directory using that information as well. We'll keep working on the Directory, so keep checking back for more info.

The House Appropriations Committee will markup the Financial Services Appropriation Bill, which sets funding levels for the Electronic Government Fund, this Thursday at 9:30 in 2359 Rayburn. This follows on last week's subcommittee vote to partially restore e-gov funding to around $13m for FY 2012 from $8m in FY 2011, which is far less than the $34m appropriated in FY 2010 and 2009. Unlike that hearing, this one is expected to be webcast.

Assuming the legislation passes the House Appropriations Committee, which it is likely to do, it will go to the House floor for a vote, and then to the Senate. It's likely that the Senate will not adopt the legislation in its current form.