Tag: Congressional Ops

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Accountability and Oversight, Appropriations, Modernization, Rules, Appropriation Tracking, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

What Items Are Due to Congress: August 2021

By DanielSchuman August 2, 2021 25 min read

Congress regularly requests reports on strengthening Congress but there’s no central place to keep track of what they’ve requested. To help keep track of things, we built a public spreadsheet that maintains a catalog of projects, broken down by item due, entity responsible, and due date. The catalog covers reforms and requests ordered by the […]

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Accountability and Oversight, Appropriations, Congressional Security, Ethics and Influence, Modernization, Appropriation Tracking, First Branch Forecast, Blog posts

Forecast for April 12, 2021

By DanielSchuman April 12, 2021 11 min read

Welcome to the First Branch Forecast, your weekly look into the Legislative branch and government transparency. (Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here.) TOP LINE Welcome back, Congress. Send me a final out-of-office email so that I know you missed me. Biden’s $1.5 trillion skinny budget was finally submitted to Congress on Friday. It would increase […]

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Reports & Analysis

Who Steers the Ship in the 117th Congress? An Examination of House Steering and Policy Committee Membership

By DanielSchuman December 3, 2020 8 min read

House Democrats and Republicans use internal party committees to control major aspects of the legislative process, including choosing who gets to serve on legislative committees. Who serves on these committees and how are they chosen? Read on. (If this seems familiar, we looked at internal party committee makeup for the 116th Congress here). Under the […]

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Modernization, Reports, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

November Update: What Items are Due in the Modernization Committee Resolution

By DanielSchuman November 4, 2020 10 min read

In early March, the House passed H.Res 756, adopting modernization recommendations of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. The resolution included 29 recommendations that were unanimously reported by the Fix Congress Committee in 2019. The resolution called on legislative support offices to start a number of projects and report back on how to […]

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Congressional Workplace Fairness and Inclusion, Reports, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

A Brief Recent History of Unionization in Congress

By DanielSchuman September 29, 2020 3 min read

Working conditions for Congressional staff have recently been prominent in the news. News stories recount staff shamed by their offices for wanting to wear masks in the face of COVID-19 or being unnecessarily forced into their offices. Congressional staff are also significantly underpaid compared to their Executive branch (or historical) counterparts; their health insurance has […]

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Rules, Reports, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

Select Recommendations for Updating the House Rules 117th Congress

By DanielSchuman September 9, 2020 9 min read

Introduction Demand Progress released 129 recommended updates to the Rules of the House of Representatives and separate orders the House should adopt for the 117th Congress as part of an August 20, 2020 report. The report is the culmination of months of work, reflects significant engagement with experts on Congress, and addresses ten major thematic […]

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Modernization, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

September Update: What Items are Due in the Modernization Committee Resolution

By DanielSchuman September 1, 2020 8 min read

In early March, the House passed H.Res 756, adopting modernization recommendations of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. The resolution included 29 recommendations that were unanimously reported by the Fix Congress Committee last year. The resolution calls on legislative support offices to start a number of projects and report back on how to […]

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Rules, Reports, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

House Rules: How Committees Operate

By DanielSchuman August 25, 2020 2 min read

Each House committee has rules that dictate how the committee will function. These rules govern how many members must be present to take an action (i.e., quorum requirements), subpoenas, and other actions. The committees are (theoretically) the workhorses of Congress — legislation, reports, budgets, appropriations, and oversight all originate in committees.  Committee rules exist under […]

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Rules, Reports, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

What’s the Difference? Senate Committee Quorum Rules and Procedures

By DanielSchuman August 25, 2020 7 min read

Despite the longstanding warnings from the Capitol attending physician and D.C. health official extending the stay-at-home order from May 15 to June 8, the Senate chose to return to Washington DC on May 4 for regular business. This includes voting on voting on nominations on the Senate floor as well as holding various committee proceedings. […]

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Modernization, Reports, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

House Advances Franking Modernization Bill

By DanielSchuman August 4, 2020 1 min read

The House passed a bill last week designed to bring the Franking Commission into the 21st century. The Communications Outreach Media and Mail Standards Act, or COMMS Act (H.R.7512), extends the commission’s authority to regulate mass communications (i.e., to 500 people or more) by Members and Members-elect. The commission’s authority has historically been limited to […]

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Appropriations, Appropriation Tracking, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

116th Congress Update: How Senate Committees Get Their Money

By DanielSchuman July 23, 2020 6 min read

(This is an update of a 2019 article on how Senate Committees are funded. It has been updated for the 116th Congress.)  UPDATED TRENDS IN SENATE COMMITTEE FUNDING How do Senate committees get their funding and how has funding changed over the last 25 years? We crunched the numbers for you and here are the […]

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Appropriations, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

116th Congress Update: How House Committees Get Their Money

By DanielSchuman July 23, 2020 5 min read

(This is an update of a 2019 article on how House Committees are funded. It has been updated for the 116th Congress.) Committee funding in the House of Representatives is accomplished through a somewhat quirky process. Appropriators in the House Legislative Branch Appropriations Committee set a top dollar amount for the committees — they appropriate […]

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