In a heartening development for anyone who cares about Congress as an institution, today the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee agreed by voice vote to an amendment offered by Rep. Farr (D-CA) to increase funding for member personal offices by 1.5%. This modest increase will help provide funds that can be used to give staff […]
Today the House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee debated two amendments that would make Congressional Research Service reports more equitably available to the public. The effort to release the reports was led by Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) and Rep. Scott Rigell (R-VA). Here is the bill considered by the committee and the committee report. We submitted testimony to the committee with […]
The Department of Justice is one of the most enigmatic federal agencies. Entrusted with enormous power, it can be a tremendous champion for the public good. But with great power — as the axiom says — comes great responsibility, and the Justice Department twists and turns away from public scrutiny that assesses its behavior. Congress ultimately bears the responsibility […]
For the fifth year in a row, today members of the Congressional Data Coalitionsubmitted testimony to House Appropriators on ways to open up legislative information. The bipartisan coalition focused on tweaking congressional procedures and releasing datasets that, in the hands of third parties, will strengthen Congress’ capacity to govern. The testimony took note of notable successes: We […]
How to make sense of the President’s spending proposal. Today is the day the White House sends the President’s budget to Congress. The proposal — dead on arrival — is an unintelligible mishmash of happy talk, legislative language, and columns of data. Buried in the pablum is something useful: explanations of what the government does. Imagine, if you can, a plain language […]
On Friday, the House of Representatives passed the best legislative branch appropriations bill since Republicans took power in 2010. Unlike many prior appropriations bills, which often undermined the House’s capacity to govern through deep budget cuts, this legislation contained provisions to strengthen the House and set the stage for further improvements. In addition, it was created […]