Congress is working on the federal government’s spending plan for Fiscal Year 2021. How will spending levels compare to the past? Here are the top line numbers for the last fifteen years. Here’s the upshot:
It can be hard to ascertain the specifics of U.S. Capitol Police activity; to make it easier we created a map reflecting almost a year and a half of arrest incidents reported by the department. Check out the map embedded below (or online here) to see where Capitol Police officers were most active between January […]
Late last year, Congress passed the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill for FY 2020, starting the clock on dozens of Leg. Branch projects and reports across several legislative agencies. In January, our team reviewed requests from the Leg. Branch approps bill, broke them down by entity, and organized each of the deadlines. All requests are organized […]
This morning, House Rules Committee Democrats introduced a resolution (H. Res 965) that would provide for some remote deliberations for House committees and on the floor. Accompanying that resolution was a Dear Colleague from the Rules Committee that explains how the resolution would work, a one-page explainer, and a statement from the Democratic members of […]
Congress is beginning to innovate around how it deliberates in committees and on the floor. These changes are driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has made in-person meetings unsafe and unwise, although many of the proposed modifications require rules changes. We have seen various terms used to refer to how Congress could deliberate — e.g. […]
Congress has been mostly absent as the country fights against the COVID-19 pandemic. Even before the pandemic began, many lawmakers, outside organizations, and former Members of Congress encouraged the legislative branch to instantiate remote deliberations and voting measures in the event of an emergency. We created a timeline of many of the recent key events […]
The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a fantastic report last week analyzing the constitutional rules governing quorum requirements to coincide with last week’s virtual hearing on Continuity of Senate Operations and Remote Voting in Times of Crisis. If you’re not a policy wonk who finds quorum requirements inherently interesting, consider this: Determinations around remote […]
Chair Yarmuth of the House Budget Committee partnered with House and Senate chairs (Chair Lowey of House Appropriations, Chair Maloney of House Oversight and Reform and Senate Appropriations Vice Chair Leahy) to introduce the bicameral (but not bipartisan) Congressional Power of the Purse Act (H.R.6628).
CONTINUITY OF CONGRESS: House of Representatives Activity on remote proceedings for the past week fills two pages on our ongoing timeline. Sunday was not a day of rest, as the New Dems Coalition sent a second letter to House Leadership, urging them to bring a remote voting resolution to the floor no later than May […]
Last year the House released a valuable report on staff pay, benefits, and diversity. We took a look at the data to answer the question, are better pay and benefits really correlated with staff staying on board? The short answer is yes. We’ll be releasing a series of short articles focusing on different variables and […]
Congressional staff are generally overworked and underpaid. Talented employees with vast institutional knowledge are eventually forced to choose between Congress and a sustainable lifestyle; the result is a Legislative Branch brain drain with employees leaving for better paying jobs in the Executive Branch or private sector. On top of that, Congress has a diversity problem: […]
Congress must change its rules to temporarily enable Members to vote remotely to ensure continuity of Congress. Where Does Each Member Stand Two Weeks Later? (Update, 04/10/20 11:48am): Two weeks ago, our team compiled a database to keep track of Members in the House and Senate who support emergency remote voting. Support for remote voting […]