The Senate and the House are out for recess but we are still in session. AT THE TOP Want to fix Congress? We’re hiring! We’re looking for a policy manager and a policy analyst to focus on strengthening Congress. Please apply or tell your friends! A beta whistleblower portal is live on Oversight.gov; it instructs whistleblowers regarding who to contact to blow the whistle or request […]
CONGRESS IN BRIEF • Only 36 (working) days are left for Congress to pass all 12 spending bills, so why is McConnell pressing pause on the approps process? More below. • 90% of House offices either don’t pay their interns or — more likely — failed to announce they have paid internships in job postings on their websites. • The […]
HOUSE OPERATIONS Technology staff hiring faces huge challenges, according to House Clerk Cheryl Johnson and House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving. At this past week’s House Admin hearing, both agencies said they struggle with hiring and retaining IT personnel, a topic that came up several times. The House officers identified insufficient resources to pay staff, the […]
THE TOP LINE The House adopted the most transparent and open rules in my lifetime and by a huge bipartisan majority created a Select Committee on Modernizing Congress. There was a little kerfuffle over Pay-Go and a few surprise votes. More below. The shutdown continues even as the House passed two approps bills that Sen. McConnell refused to bring […]
THE TOP LINE Decades of institutional deterioration has left lawmakers in the dark on technology. The Lincoln Network’s Zach Graves told the tale in ten charts. (We helped). Bookmark it and visit Future Congress for more. The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced six judicial nominations while the Senate was in recess in a further destruction of institutional norms. Nomination hearings during recess […]
THE TOP LINE The Committee on House Administration is the focus of several conversations. — 30 good government organizations asked House Admin to send the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act to the floor before the recess. The Committee voted to report the measure three months ago but has not actually reported the bill as part of a […]
In an unusually strongly worded letter, today Demand Progress and twelve civic organizations warned President Obama that his legacy on transparency issues is in danger. After identifying serious failings on the part of the administration — including its efforts to undermine FOIA legislation, federal spending transparency legislation, and the stalling of its ethics agenda — the organizations issued this warning: […]
Disclosures about the National Security Administration’s (NSA) surveillance programs have prompted a discussion on whether the person who released that information, Edward Snowden, could properly be deemed a whistleblower. The word whistleblower is important because it frames how we think of him and what should become of him. By definition, whistleblowers are people who “expose wrongdoing within […]