    [House Hearing, 117 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

           CONGRESS AND TECHNOLOGY: MODERNIZING THE INNOVATION CYCLES

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

               SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE MODERNIZATION OF CONGRESS

                                     of the

                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                                 JUNE 23, 2022

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 117-20

                                   __________

      Printed for the use of the Select Committee on the Modernization of
                                    Congress

                 [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                      Available on via http://govinfo.gov

                                 _________

                     U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

    48-596                   WASHINGTON : 2022

               SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE MODERNIZATION OF CONGRESS

                        DEREK KILMER, Washington, Chair

    ZOE LOFGREN, California              WILLIAM TIMMONS, South Carolina,
    EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri              Vice Chair
    ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              BOB LATTA, Ohio
    DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota             RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois
    NIKEMA WILLIAMS, Georgia             DAVE JOYCE, Ohio
                                         GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
                                         BETH VAN DUYNE, Texas

                                COMMITTEE STAFF

                         Yuri Beckelman, Staff Director
                    Derek Harley, Republican Staff Director

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                               OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                       Page

    Chairman Derek Kilmer
        Oral Statement...............................................     1
    Vice Chairman William Timmons
        Oral Statement...............................................     2

                                   WITNESSES

    Mr. Stephen Dwyer, Senior Advisor, House Majority Leader Steny
        Hoyer
        Oral Statement...............................................     4
        Written Statement............................................     7
    Mr. Reynold Schweickhardt, Senior Advisor, Lincoln Network
        Oral Statement...............................................    12
        Written Statement............................................    14
    Ms. Melissa Dargan, Co-Founder & CEO, TourTrackr
        Oral Statement...............................................    24
        Written Statement............................................    26
    Discussion.......................................................    28

           CONGRESS AND TECHNOLOGY: MODERNIZING THE INNOVATION CYCLE

                                  ----------

                            THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2022

                      House of Representatives,
                                Select Committee on the
                                     Modernization of Congress,
                                                       Washington, D.C.
        The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:02 a.m., in Room
    210, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Derek Kilmer [chairman
    of the committee] presiding.
        Present: Representatives Kilmer, Cleaver, Perlmutter,
    Phillips, Williams, Timmons, and Davis.
        The Chairman. Okay. The committee will come to order.
        Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a
    recess of the committee at any time. I now recognize myself for
    an opening statement for 5 minutes, probably shorter.
        So a few weeks ago at our hearing on pathways to service,
    there was some interesting discussion around the concept of
    small wins. There is a natural tendency in Congress to focus on
    hitting legislative home runs, but small wins can provide a
    sense of great accomplishment, and over time, they can
    accumulate into big wins.
        Let me give an example. In the 116th Congress, this
    committee recognized a need for a specialized group of
    technologists, designers, and others to support the House's
    internal and public-facing operations. And we recommended
    establishing the Congressional Digital Services Task Force.
    Passing the recommendation was a small win. The next step was
    demonstrating its worth. Leading by example and practicing what
    we preach is a big part of this committee's ethos. There is
    real value in showing that it is possible to actually do the
    things that we are recommending, and this is why the committee
    decided to pilot the first ever Congressional Digital Service
    Program.
        In the spring of 2020, the committee brought on board four
    digital service fellows and appointed them to various House
    offices to help with existing efforts to modernize Congress.
    The fellows successfully contributed to a number of
    modernization projects, including digital signatures, the
    eHopper, and various constituent management systems. These
    small wins resulted in the creation of an official House
    Digital Service earlier this year. I would certainly classify
    this first of its kind effort in Congress as a big win.
        There are a couple of reasons for sharing this story. The
    first is that it is a great example of how it is entirely
    possible to accomplish big things by taking a small-wins
    approach. That is especially important when it comes to IT
    modernization. Incremental improvements made consistently over
    time can lead to transformational change.
        The second is that it demonstrates Congress' desire and
    willingness to address its own institutional shortcomings. We
    know that Congress has a lot of catching up to do when it comes
    to technological innovation. These issues are complicated and
    require the kind of expertise that Congress has traditionally
    lacked. The House Digital Service will help identify pain
    points and develop solutions so that Members and staff can
    better serve the American people.
        This is an especially important point to keep in mind as we
    discuss various IT challenges today. There is a tendency to
    view Congress' technological shortcomings as insurmountable,
    but they are not.
        And the third is that it proves what is possible when
    outreach and listening are built into the process. The
    committee didn't develop the idea of the House Digital Service
    out of thin air. We spent a lot of time listening to Members
    and staff talk about their IT challenges and a lot of time
    listening to institutional and technology experts talk about
    solutions.
        So I think that kind of example matters, and I am thrilled
    that the CAO's office has built outreach into its process for
    standing up the House Digital Service. They are meeting with
    digital directors to better understand what the technology
    trends, challenges, and needs are across the House, and they
    are doing listening sessions with Member offices to learn more
    about common IT obstacles.
        I look forward to hearing what recommendations the experts
    joining us today have for ensuring that Congress is equipped to
    take full advantage of the latest technological innovations.
    And given the process I just described, I am also really
    interested in hearing your thoughts on strategies for getting
    Congress focused on tech modernization.
        So, with that, let me welcome if Vice Chair Timmons has an
    opening statement.
        Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        We have been doing this for 3.5 years, and I cannot believe
    you didn't use your line that Congress is an 18th century
    institution using 20th century technology to solve 21st century
    problems. This might be the only hearing he didn't use that in
    the opening. So I think it is a very appropriate hearing to
    mention that.
        I have been here 3.5 years. One of the first hearings we
    had on the Modernization Committee I brought my pager.
    Literally they gave me a pager when I got sworn in. I still
    have it in my office. Apparently, we have to pay for it, and I
    guess I have been paying for it for 3.5 years. We have got to
    look into that. I am not sure if I actually have to pay for
    that; but if I do, we might have to give it back. I don't think
    anybody uses the pagers these days.
        Mr. Dwyer, your apps you have created are incredible. Dome
    Watch is awesome. Dome Directory is fantastic. Before we
    started the hearing, I was mentioning to him that I literally
    was working with an app development company to try to create
    Dome Directory. And then I happened upon it I guess shortly
    after it came out, and I was like, that is a great idea. I had
    it first but couldn't actually implement it. So I can't wait to
    hear other things you are working on and other things that you
    think we can do to make this place more efficient.
        I spend a lot of time thinking about the calendar and the
    schedule and overlapping obligations while we are here, and I
    do think that creating a committee calendar that deconflicts or
    at least just shows committee chairmen and chairwomen what the
    conflicts are to create at least an option that would have the
    least conflicts possible, maybe including some kind of block
    scheduling to allow different committees to deconflict. That
    involves us being here more. We can't be here 65 days in a year
    and be able to get all of our work done. It inherently
    overlaps, and then we only spend 5 minutes in committees
    reading things that have been prepared for us as opposed to
    learning from one another's ideas and collaborating and
    legislating.
        So I do want you all to touch on time and things that you
    think we can use technology to become more efficient.
        I think the Dome Directory app facilitates relationship
    building, and I just want to point that out. Generally
    speaking, it is really hard to know your colleagues when you
    have 435 of them. It is just challenging to know who everybody
    is and what committees they serve on, and it has been very
    helpful.
        I use Congress in Your Pocket, which is $500 out of your
    MRA, and your entire team gets to use it. And I have found that
    that has been very helpful in understanding who serves on what
    committees, what their position is on the dais, and just--it
    makes you more competent as a legislator because you know your
    colleagues and you can easily assess where they are from and
    what they are working on.
        So technology has the ability to make us better at our job,
    and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on things that we
    can recommend to make this place work better. And thanks for
    being here.
        With that, I yield back.
        The Chairman. I know I missed some of the formal technical
    stuff I was supposed to read. So, with that, the committee will
    use its rules that allow for more flexible hearing format that
    encourages discussion and the civil exchange of ideas and
    opinion. In accordance with clause 2(j) of House rule XI, we
    will allow up to 30 minutes of extended questioning per
    witness. And, without objection, time will not be strictly
    segregated between the witnesses which will allow for extended
    back-and-forth exchanges between members and the witnesses.
        Vice Chair Timmons, I will manage the time to ensure that
    every member has equal opportunity to participate.
    Additionally, members who wish to claim their individual 5
    minutes to question each witness pursuant to clause 2(j)(2) of
    rule XI will be permitted to do so following the period of
    extended questions.
        Okay. So, with that, I would like to welcome our three
    witnesses who are here to share with us their expertise on
    technology in Congress. Witnesses are reminded your written
    statements will be made part of the record.
        Our first witness is Stephen Dwyer. Mr. Dwyer serves as
    senior advisor to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. He will be
    focused on technology policy and digital strategy. He is the
    chief architect and manager of Dome Watch and Dome Directory,
    the popular apps used to closely follow the House floor and
    identify Members of Congress.
        Mr. Dwyer, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

    STATEMENTS OF MR. STEPHEN DWYER, SENIOR ADVISOR, HOUSE MAJORITY
    LEADER STENY HOYER, WASHINGTON, DC; MR. REYNOLD SCHWEICKHARDT,
       SENIOR ADVISOR, LINCOLN NETWORK, WASHINGTON, DC; AND MS.
       MELISSA DARGAN, CO-FOUNDER & CEO, TOURTRACKR, SEATTLE, WA

                       STATEMENT OF STEPHEN DWYER

        Mr. Dwyer. Thank you, Chair Kilmer and Vice Chair Timmons,
    for the opportunity to testify today.
        I have had the honor of working for Majority Leader Steny
    Hoyer for nearly 20 years. I have always focused on technology,
    tech policy, digital comms and, most uniquely, working on civic
    technology.
        Leader Hoyer, through his leadership budgets and staff, has
    always prioritized digital tools that benefit Members, staff,
    and the institution of Congress. This often has had the added
    benefit of making Congress more open and transparent. I have
    been fortunate to have had Leader Hoyer's trust in leading many
    of these efforts.
        Our biggest success is the Dome Watch app, which has been
    installed on over 100,000 devices over 7 years. It is heavily
    used by Members, staff, and others who closely follow the
    House. We have another app called Dome Directory.
        We also run a private intranet for Democratic staff called
    DemCom that has been in heavy use for 14 years. It does many
    things that we saw lacking in Congress, like a resume bank,
    staff directory, and a database for internal documents.
        We built other custom systems, including ones for whipping
    votes and measuring Members' reach on social media.
        We have co-hosted, along with Republican Leaders Cantor and
    McCarthy, four official Congressional Hackathons over the past
    10 years. These events have helped foster a community of people
    on and off the Hill who are interested in the digital
    infrastructure of Congress.
        My top recommendation is simply that Congress should better
    prioritize digital technologies across the board. I commend the
    Modernization Committee for doing exactly that over the past
    few years and the institutional offices that have accelerated
    progress of late.
        Like we did with C-SPAN in the eighties, websites in the
    nineties, social media in the early 21st century, we need to
    adopt modern digital tools to improve the functions of
    Congress. This is happening everywhere. Stores and restaurants
    all have online ordering systems. Children's soccer teams use
    apps to manage schedules and messages. But in Congress,
    interactions with the public have improved only incrementally.
        Most businesses today hire programmers, designers, and data
    specialists either directly in-house or through contractors. We
    need to hire more in Congress, and we need to recognize the
    higher pay required for these in-demand skills. This is
    especially true for Congress' work since Congress' work product
    is digital. It is information, laws that greatly impact the
    world and people's lives.
        Congress is decentralized which helps for generating
    innovation. Each office should be encouraged to innovate to
    improve their operations, and the centralized offices, like the
    CAO, should help facilitate and scale any innovation.
        One downside of the decentralized structure is silos. There
    should be more collaboration across the legislative branch.
    Just as the AOC oversees all the physical infrastructure of
    Congress, some or one group should have authority over all the
    digital infrastructure in Congress, something that is currently
    lacking. One possibility is the Congressional Data Task Force,
    which formerly was called the Bulk Data Task Force, a
    recommendation from the Modernization Committee to change their
    name, which was great. I have worked closely with them over the
    years, and they have been very successful at getting different
    silos to work together on foundational issues of improving
    Congress' digital infrastructure. I recommend that they be
    given more direct authority to lead Congress in these areas.
        My other suggestion is the newly created House Digital
    Service that Chairman Kilmer mentioned in his opening remarks.
    It should have a broad mandate to allow it to expand as it
    matures, eventually working on transformative projects that
    transcend the legislative branch, not just in the CAO.
        Hackathons could also help with collaboration. The
    hackathons we have hosted have been more idea-a-thons than
    nontechnical staff, but institutional offices could host more
    traditional hackathons with coders from across the leg branch.
        We should also better coordinate with the Senate. There is
    significant duplication of efforts between the two Chambers on
    things that would not threaten the independence of each
    Chamber. For example, legislative drafting systems could be
    better aligned or combined.
        We should continue to open congressional data. I commend
    the Library of Congress for just this week announcing public
    access to the congression--the Congress.gov API, which should
    happen later this year. More congressional sites like
    clerk.house.gov should follow suit.
        We should do an assessment of mission critical systems that
    have been developed in committee and leadership offices and
    make sure that they be can be supported in the event of a
    change of vendor or leadership of the office. I believe that
    that should include our Dome Watch app and DemCom intranet, as
    well as other systems I am aware of like the GOP Cloak Room
    site and the Rules Committee and NDAA amendment systems.
        All custom systems that are made for the House like those
    systems should be open source by default. This would help other
    State and international legislatures reuse our work and
    collaborate on shared challenges, and it would also ensure that
    we are not locked into a single vendor, saving long-term costs.
        The House cloud approval should be revamped. It is too slow
    and inflexible, in my opinion. For example, my co-witness today
    built an app specializing and managing the congressional tour
    process, but the approval process took too many months and was
    opaque. We should welcome innovators like her.
        We should also create a new process to accept unsolicited
    technology proposals. I often get meeting requests from
    companies that believe their technology is a good fit for
    Congress, but they don't know how or who to present it to.
        Finally, my final recommendation is we should modernize
    constituent communications. This is more of a big idea which I
    was asked to come up with, think of big ideas. So currently,
    the public can only send an email to their Member of Congress,
    which usually results in a generic response. This hasn't
    changed in my nearly 20 years here in Congress. Most people
    would prefer to have their message posted publicly, like on
    social media or an online petition.
        We should build an open platform for constructive
    discussion of bills before Congress. Users could post public
    opinions of bills before Congress. Advocacy groups could post
    en masse. There could be up voting and down voting functions.
    There would have to be content moderation, like with any open
    online platform, but the goal would be respectful civic
    dialogue.
        Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today.
        [The statement of Mr. Dwyer follows:]
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        The Chairman. Thanks, Mr. Dwyer.
        Our next witness is Reynold Schweickhardt. Mr.
    Schweickhardt is a senior advisor at Lincoln Network.
    Previously he served as senior technology advisor at the
    General Services Administration. He has also served as the
    director of technology policy for the Committee on House
    Administration, the strategic advisor on technology and
    cybersecurity for the House's Chief Administrative Officer, and
    as the chief technology officer at the U.S. Government Printing
    Office.
        Mr. Schweickhardt, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

                   STATEMENT OF REYNOLD SCHWEICKHARDT

        Mr. Schweickhardt. Can I get a light here? Hopefully I am
    smart enough to use the technology.
        Chair Kilmer, Vice Chair Timmons, and members of the
    committee, I am pleased to appear today to testify about ways
    to improve the digital capacity of the House of
    Representatives. I will be speaking to structural issues that
    raise the cost of implementing digital initiatives to serve
    Members, staff, civil society groups, and last but certainly
    not least, their constituents.
        Let me give the committee a kudos for another successful
    recommendation with the fully funding of the Modernization Fund
    by the appropriators earlier this week.
        In over 20 years supporting the House and the legislative
    branch, I have collaborated with stakeholders across the House
    of Representatives and the legislative branch, built working
    relationships with executive branch agencies, members of civil
    society, academics, and businesses to increase the
    transparency, effectiveness, and resilience of the House.
        Three key areas to consider are: One, how should technology
    be governed and funded in the House and across the legislative
    branch? There is not a single overwhelming problem but, rather,
    a series of smaller and medium-size issues which cumulatively
    increase costs and impede the pace of technological change.
        A critical step would be creating a method for House-wide
    prioritization of projects to avoid the added costs and delays
    of technologists juggling as many as 10 different projects at
    the same time. Other improvements would include clearly
    chartering the House's technology organizations, consolidating
    control over infrastructure, and allowing for innovative
    acquisition strategies to improve the onboarding of new
    technologies.
        Secondly, what technology products or improved processes
    should be mandated to improve the digital experience of all
    stakeholders? We are thinking automating time-consuming and
    expensive manual processes can improve transparency while
    freeing up funding to continue modernization.
        Regarding the creation of committee hearing documents, we
    estimate that $4 million could be freed up by the automation of
    automatically creating hearing documents.
        Further, I recommend extending the Clerk's Legislative
    Information Management System, or LIMS, to include internal
    committee legislative workflows. The standardized processes
    improve resilience and reduce the number of so-called cuff apps
    supporting committee processes.
        Third, how should the tensions between creativity and
    stability be managed? The use of open source software can be a
    proxy for this discussion, where and when, how should it be
    used. There is also attention between standardization and
    diversity of tools; when should workflows be part of the
    centralized products, such as LIMS; and when is having a
    variety of choices important.
        The House has used open source software for many years. In
    my written testimony, I discuss the different aspects of open
    source utilization and how to structure its use with a full
    range of House tools.
        There is an understandably high standard for the
    reliability and resilience of the legislative process. The use
    of open source should be incorporated into that development
    process using the recommended acquisition flexibilities for
    core House tools.
        On the other hand, consider the oversight process in a
    typical committee where each side and individual Members seek a
    competitive advantage for their views or Steve Dwyer's intranet
    to support Democratic members. A robust strategy to encourage
    innovation in competing tools allows Members to pick the best
    tools for their individual needs.
        Both ethics concerns and regulations regarding the use of
    the Members' representational allowance, or MRA, can limit the
    use of open source software. For example, Members using the MRA
    to create open source software can't supplement other Members'
    MRAs by releasing it for general use. This is a problem which
    could be addressed.
        In summary, these are complex issues with many nuances and
    interdependencies. I am happy to respond to questions or
    participate in further discussions as needed. I look forward to
    working with this committee and continue progress on these
    important issues.
        Thank you, Chair Kilmer. I yield back.
        [The statement of Mr. Schweickhardt follows:]
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        The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Schweickhardt.
        And last but not least, we are joined virtually by Melissa
    Dargan. Ms. Dargan is the cofounder of AppMy, LLC, a company
    that builds digital platforms for government, such as
    TourTrackr.com. She previously served as a staffer for
    Congressman Ed Royce and the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
    She also helped launch the Congressional App Challenge, a
    nationwide initiative that works with Members of Congress to
    develop district-specific challenges for students who are
    interested in technology.
        Ms. Dargan, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

                      STATEMENT OF MELISSA DARGAN

        Ms. Dargan. Thank you.
        Chair Kilmer, Vice Chair Timmons, and members of the select
    committee, I am honored today to testify.
        Customer-focused innovative technologies have advanced, yet
    many everyday congressional constituent services are managed
    manually. Member offices can benefit from facilitating a more
    transparent and welcoming tech startup ecosystem on Capitol
    Hill for new tech products.
        Like many in this room, I came to Washington, D.C., over a
    decade ago to make a difference. Prior to launching TourTrackr,
    the tour management platform that has helped book over 124,000
    tours and that is used by nearly a hundred Member offices to
    digitally organize constituent tour requests, I started my
    career as a staffer on Capitol Hill, first working for
    Representative Ed Royce's D.C. personal office and then the
    Committee on Foreign Affairs.
        Next, I co-launched the Congressional App Challenge, a
    districtwide competition for middle school and high school
    students that encourages them to learn to code, and inspires
    them to pursue careers in computer science.
        Based on my experience as a former staffer and now tech
    entrepreneur, I am uniquely positioned to identify the
    challenges and opportunities of growth related to tech
    innovation in Congress.
        When I first started on Capitol Hill as a staff assistant,
    I remember processing many constituent services manually. From
    constituent tour requests to flown flag purchases, these
    important responsibilities were tracked using printouts,
    binders, Excel spreadsheets. It was fragmented and inefficient.
    At the time, there were no digital alternatives that the House
    offices were approved to use. So while these tasks seemed easy,
    they were tedious, repetitive, and time-consuming.
        Fast-forward to nearly a decade later, despite the
    advancements made in commercial technology, most House offices
    were still processing administrative work such as tours and
    flags manually, pretty much the same way I was doing it years
    prior. So seeing this market opportunity, I set out to create a
    product that I wish existed during my time, a platform that
    would simplify and digitize the congressional tour process.
        Planning D.C. tours is a great constituent service that
    allows you as Members to connect directly with the people you
    serve when they fly into our Nation's Capital. By developing a
    tech solution, my goal was to allow staffers to improve the
    quality of constituent engagement while minimizing
    administrative tasks, which took an average of about 12 to 20
    hours a week. Thus, staffers would then be freed up to do what
    they came to Washington, D.C., to do--effect change.
        Working on a new startup company already faces hurdles. The
    added House complexities, such as the lack of new vendor
    support and lack of information on navigating how to even sell
    to a congressional office, made establishing a needed tech
    product very difficult, even for someone like me who
    understands how Congress operates. The closed nature of the
    House creates restrictive barriers that ultimately decrease
    competition and prevent new technologies from ever succeeding.
        I respect and understand that the House has high standards
    for new tech approval. Protecting security and personal
    identifiable information are critical to ensure the integrity
    of the institution. That said, upholding these priorities and
    creating a welcoming environment for new tech products can be
    done simultaneously.
        Through my experience, some opportunities for change the
    select committee can investigate include: In the category of
    transparency, for instance, to eliminate information asymmetry,
    there should be a clearly defined process, including feedback
    and tracking, along with outlined requirements that provide a
    roadmap for new tech submissions while maintaining security
    protocols and structures.
        Then in the category of support, to reduce any confusion,
    the House should designate a point of contact for these new
    tech submissions so that submitting entities know where they
    are in the process.
        Lastly, in the category of streamlining, to maximize
    efficiency, the House may want to consider working with the
    Senate to align their approval standards and processes for new
    vendors and especially ones that are already approved in either
    Chamber.
        Thank you for all the work the select committee has done to
    bring innovation to the Halls of Congress. It is my hope that
    these suggestions pave the way for more efficient, creative,
    and innovative solutions that make a difference ultimately to
    improve a Member office operation and constituent services. I
    look forward to answering your questions and to continuing the
    discussion with the select committee.
        Thank you, and I yield back my time.
        [The statement of Ms. Dargan follows:]
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        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8596A.017

        The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Dargan.
        And I now recognize myself and Vice Chair Timmons to begin
    a period of extended questioning of the witnesses. Any member
    who wishes to speak should just signal their request to either
    myself or to Vice Chair Timmons.
        Let me kick things off. I have one kind of broad question
    that at least two of you spoke to, and then I have one super
    specific question just because it is something that bugs me.
        On the broad question, both Mr. Dwyer and Ms. Dargan
    mentioned some of the challenges onboarding new technology and
    working with outside vendors. I am just hoping you can give us
    some counsel as to--so is there a difference in how the House
    and the Senate approach this? And how does the executive branch
    approach this? Any lessons we can learn in terms of potential
    reforms we might propose that would make this process easier in
    the House?
        Mr. Dwyer. I can start on that. And, Melissa, if you want,
    you can jump in as well.
        I would say the way the House and the Senate deal with
    outside technology vendors is very different. I would say the
    House is actually significantly more open. So my personal
    opinion is that the House should take steps to be further open.
    But if compared to the Senate, we are actually in pretty good
    shape.
        They, for example, have been very hesitant towards cloud
    technologies, which the House was hesitant for a while but
    lately has been more embracing. And, you know, thank goodness
    we did before COVID because we have been using cloud
    technologies a lot.
        But, you know, the executive branch, it is mostly the
    FedRAMP program which we rely upon. You know, Zoom, for
    example, they had to go through and have a FedRAMP version,
    which is approved by the executive branch, and that makes it
    easy for us in the House to say, okay, well, we can approve
    that as well pretty quickly. But there are still, as Melissa
    was talking to, many challenges in the House trying to adopt
    new technologies.
        And my overall top recommendation is that we shouldn't
    treat all, they call it cloud services, the same because they
    are just very different. Some are like Melissa's, very
    specifically made for Congress. And so I think those should be
    given extra attention because they are built for us. And then
    some are just, you know, general use applications from
    companies that don't really know or care much about Congress,
    and so those should maybe--especially when they don't have much
    PII, personally identifiable information, perhaps they don't
    need to have as much scrutiny.
        But those are my thoughts. I am not sure if Melissa has
    additional thoughts.
        Ms. Dargan. Yes. Thanks for addressing the question. I do
    echo what Steve had mentioned initially.
        I will say in terms of the difference between the House and
    the Senate, openness was one that I had noticed with the House
    in even entertaining, initially, cloud services.
        What I will say is some of the similarities with processes
    where it first goes to security, assessment, and then approval
    and authorization by the committee is similar in both Chambers.
    The difference I had experienced was in time of the approval
    process. So what was interesting was, while the Senate was less
    open initially to cloud services, they only took 2.5 months,
    about 7 weeks, to approve TourTrackr, where in the House, it
    took about 34 weeks, 8 months.
        And that is just something I wanted to be able to call out,
    because in a timeframe like that with a small company like
    mine, it could be very difficult for a company who is trying to
    get set up if they have to wait 8 months before even being able
    to have the allowance of operation.
        The other thing I wanted to note in terms of what the
    executive branch does, so some of the agencies, they also have
    programs that support small businesses. They have an office
    like within the SBA where small businesses, women-owned
    businesses, underrepresented businesses can have a support to
    help them through the process to understand how to get through
    and get approved.
        And in the executive branch they also have, I believe it is
    SAM.gov, where there is a list of requested contracts that they
    are hoping to get built or get done that these businesses now
    can refer to and submit proposals for.
        So that may be something to consider on the House side, if
    there are open reqs of items that offices are hoping to be
    built or need help to be built, that companies can submit
    proposals for in order to then be reviewed. And that is just
    something I wanted to make sure I focused on where on the
    executive side they do provide support. There is a whole
    website for small businesses to onramp and onboard, and that
    may be something where small businesses and startups can be put
    together where they have support from Congress.
        The Chairman. I think that is really helpful, something we
    should take a closer look at.
        The other--if my colleagues will indulge me asking the
    specific question that bugs me. You know, one of the challenges
    we have in this place is we are sort of 435 independent
    contractors, each with our own operations, each using often
    different technologies, although there are some similarities.
        You know, where this is particularly problematic is where
    we have failings identifying common themes across the offices.
    So just as an example, during COVID, you know, we were getting
    a lot of calls about postal disruption. And when I was on the
    floor, I would talk to my colleagues and say, man, we are
    really--phones are ringing off the hook about postal
    disruptions. And they would say, oh, yeah, me--our office too.
    Right? And right now, we may have our caseworkers work that
    issue, but there is no way to feed it into any sort of
    institutional learning.
        You know, same thing around challenges with the VA or,
    right now, I mean, I think all of our offices are getting
    overrun with combination of visas and passports. And, you know,
    to me there would be value in exploring some way to use
    probably--I mean, almost assuredly, anonymized data that comes
    from our constituent management systems to spot and address
    trends in the casework so the institution can solve some of
    these problems that usually rest at the agencies.
        So I wanted to just take your temperature on that. Good
    idea, bad idea, something our committee should recommend?
        Go ahead.
        Mr. Schweickhardt. Absolutely. I have given a little bit of
    thought to that issue. The data is held at different CMS
    vendors, and I think that a process where that data is
    extracted and anonymized into a larger pool that could be
    subject to analysis or looking at trends both for constituent
    service and themes for oversight would be very valuable to the
    institution.
        Mr. Dwyer. Yeah. I think it is a great idea, and I think it
    is something that I--I know a lot of the companies that run the
    constituent databases as well, and I think it is something they
    probably would be excited about. You know, I think offices
    could maybe opt in. You know, it wouldn't have to be mandatory,
    and certainly anonymize the data, but I think it would--you
    know, I think we neglect all the information that we get from
    our constituents. If you take it as a whole, I mean, we get
    millions of emails every week from people all across the
    country and, you know, many thousands of casework problems with
    the Federal Government. And, of course, we individually deal
    with them, but I think there should be some more collective
    action, and I think it is a great idea.
        The Chairman. Vice Chair Timmons.
        Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Dwyer, what is your new fancy app you are working on?
    What is your new piece of technology that you are working on?
        Mr. Dwyer. Well, our newest one is--we haven't sent the
    press release on it yet, but Dome Directory 2.0 is live as of a
    few weeks ago, and----
        Mr. Timmons. What is the difference?
        Mr. Dwyer. We added a number of new features. A number of
    them were requested by Mr. Hoyer himself, but he also hears
    from other Members on the floor a lot about it.
        We added--you used to only be able to look at the whole Dem
    Caucus or Republican Caucus. Now you can look by committee. You
    can also look by major caucus, which I think is somewhat unique
    to the app. A lot of people don't have good data on, you know,
    which are the major caucuses and the different roles and
    leadership roles.
        We added a search box right at the top because you used to
    only be able to quiz yourself, but now you can--now you can
    just go find a particular Member. Mr. Hoyer wanted that because
    he often just wants to pull up a person.
        We added three or four different bios for every Member. The
    issue I am most excited about is we added defining votes from
    this Congress, so we picked four or five of the most
    consequential votes for this Congress and we listed them for
    every Member.
        Mr. Timmons. I mean, who owns Dome Directory and Dome
    Watch? Hoyer's leadership?
        Mr. Dwyer. Yeah, the Office of the Majority Leader.
        Mr. Timmons. Okay. And he will give it to whomever if he
    ever does leave Congress?
        Mr. Dwyer. I assume that is the case, yes.
        Mr. Timmons. Okay. That is very interesting.
        The Chairman. I am sorry to interrupt. Can I interrupt real
    quick?
        Mr. Timmons. Yes, sir.
        The Chairman. Mr. Schweickhardt, you said something that if
    you use your MRA to develop an app, you can't share it, so how
    do you guys get around that?
        Mr. Schweickhardt. They are not using MRA. They are using
    leadership funds.
        The Chairman. Okay. Thanks. Sorry to interrupt.
        Mr. Timmons. So the 59th recommendation we made last
    Congress was to create a common committee calendar portal to
    help with scheduling and reduce conflicts. I think this is
    something that could make a big impact on this institution, and
    we are having a tough time getting traction, other--it is being
    worked on.
        Do you all have any thoughts on what we can do to maybe
    move a little quicker?
        Mr. Schweickhardt. One of the challenges with technology in
    committees is there is not a clear LA button to push. It is
    bifurcated between the clerk and the CAO and the committees
    themselves. So I think one of the recommendations is to clearly
    focus who is responsible for legislative product so there is an
    accountable owner.
        I think the other challenge that I alluded to is there is
    no gatekeeper for scheduling projects. So in the CAO, they
    may--teams may be working on 5 to 10 projects, so they tell you
    they are working on your project and they are, but they are
    sort of shuffling things back and forth versus a program
    management kind of functionality that says, what are the three
    things we want to accomplish in the next couple of months;
    let's knock them out, and then let's figure out what the next
    set of important things are.
        Mr. Timmons. With the additional resources we got in the
    modernization account, could we use those to speed it along?
        Mr. Schweickhardt. Absolutely.
        Mr. Timmons. Mr. Dwyer, what do you think?
        Mr. Dwyer. I think the building foundation has been laid.
    Seven or eight years ago now, there was the creation of
    something called doc.house.gov, which is not widely used by the
    public, but it is used internally a lot. I know Reynold worked
    on that. I know the Bulk Data Task Force worked on that a lot.
        For the first time ever, all committees are required to
    post all hearings in one place, and that is where they post it.
    They are also required to post all testimony and documents
    related to every hearing. So----
        Mr. Timmons. Is that done in House rules?
        Mr. Dwyer. I believe that is in House rules is what
    required that and the creation of it.
        Mr. Schweickhardt. Yeah.
        Mr. Dwyer. And, you know, that is another example where the
    House is ahead of the Senate. I hear that their committee
    schedules is not all in one place and their videos--or all the
    committees are not in one place. So I commend the House for
    that.
        So I think that is the foundation. But I think, you know,
    amplifying that, you know, making a more consumer-friendly
    version of that so you can at least see all the conflicts, I
    mean, that is sort of the first step, and I think that could be
    a project for the Modernization Fund.
        Mr. Timmons. Ms. Dargan, what are your thoughts?
        Ms. Dargan. Yes.
        Mr. Timmons. I was asking about trying to deconflict to the
    committee calendar. We made a recommendation to do a common
    committee calendar, and we are still working on it. So do you
    have any thoughts on what could move it along?
        Ms. Dargan. I think both of the panelists who have
    addressed that question have covered it in terms of how to get
    that. And just having worked on the Foreign Affairs Committee
    prior, I will say that that would be a very helpful tool moving
    forward. So whatever the Modernization Committee can do to push
    that, whether it is recommendations or freeing up, you know,
    certain funds to be able to create something like that, would
    be very helpful.
        Mr. Timmons. Okay. One quick last question. This could save
    millions of trees in this institution. I rarely use the
    materials that are printed out. I mean, every time I go to
    Financial Services, there is a stack that thick.
        Mr. Perlmutter. Some of us still use paper.
        Mr. Timmons. Well, we can make it optional. We can make it
    optional. But, I mean, how challenging would it be to go
    paperless as the default, and if somebody wanted paper, they
    could get it?
        Mr. Dwyer. I wholeheartedly agree. We have certainly
    reduced the amount of paper quite a bit. I am sure there is a
    lot more to be done. Now, my expert here worked for a long time
    with the GPO who probably has more strong thoughts on this.
        Mr. Schweickhardt. So I think that, for example, the
    recommendation about automating the production of the committee
    hearing document from docs.house.gov, so extending that allows
    for the creation of electronic document. I think that a lot of
    the costs that are incurred are in the creation of that first
    copy, and then the printing becomes pretty incremental. And as
    Members have become more digitally savvy, I think it is a much
    more practical alternative, with exceptions.
        It is interesting you mentioned the pager in some random
    desk drawer. There was a huge controversy at the time when we
    tried to replace it because there was an equity issue that
    Members needed to have exactly the same notice of a floor vote,
    and if it was coming through email or some other mechanism,
    somebody might be 3 minutes delayed. It was like a horrible
    thing. And as people became more accustomed to how the digital
    world worked, that issue went away, and the pager is rightfully
    in the back of the desk drawer.
        Mr. Timmons. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        The Chairman. Mr. Phillips.
        Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        It is clear there is a bias against change in this
    institution. But, Mr. Dwyer, I will start with you. In your
    estimation, where is the ideas bottleneck? Is it House Admin?
    Is it leadership offices? Is it the various agencies? But,
    like, what is the crux of this? Who needs to champion at least
    employing technological improvements?
        Mr. Dwyer. Yeah, that is a great question. I think there is
    a lot of ideas out there. I think we need to do a better job of
    sort of collecting them. I think the Modernization Committee
    deserves a lot of credit for collecting all these ideas, but I
    think there needs to be more of a permanent institutional sort
    of way to collect these ideas and to properly evaluate them and
    elevate and prioritize them.
        But, yeah, I think we just need to create the processes to
    collect those. I think, again, the Modernization Committee
    shows that, you know, once you create that process, you get a
    whole lot of very good ideas. So I think at every level, Member
    office, committee level, leadership, institutional offices, I
    think there is a lot of good ideas.
        I would say, on the institutional offices, I think there is
    a lot of ideas, but they often are afraid to share them. They
    are just more risk averse. And so I think if we could somehow
    give them a little more authority to sort of improve things,
    rather than I think often they feel that their job is just to
    keep the status quo flowing.
        Mr. Phillips. But who is the ``we''? Is it the Speaker of
    the House? Is it majority leaders, minority leaders? Is it the
    chair of House Admin? Who needs to kind of inspire it other
    than the ModCom?
        Mr. Dwyer. I think in technology, unfortunately, there
    isn't much of a lead. I mean, I think House Administration
    provides leadership, as does individual leadership offices. But
    I think a lot of it goes to the different institutional offices
    for a lot of the technologies here on the Hill, and they are
    just very sort of disjointed, you know, where you have got the
    CAO, you have got the Clerk, you have got the Library. And I
    think we really need more authority across all of them.
        In my prepared testimony, I recommend the Bulk Data Task
    Force, which is now the Congressional Data Task Force, which I
    think is--if they had more authority, they could sort of do
    more good things. But I do think it is a lack of leadership,
    that is correct.
        Mr. Phillips. If I could just ask one more of you too. I
    loved your recommendation about an open public discussion forum
    for bills. Take us through just quickly, if you would, you
    know, how that might--how that would work, you know, from
    inceptionalization to actual implementation, based on the
    status quo. You know, how could we approach that?
        Mr. Dwyer. Sure. Thank you. It is just that, you know,
    right now, as was largely the case when I started in Congress
    nearly 20 years ago, if you want to weigh in on legislation
    before Congress, you just have to send your Member an email,
    and then you might get a response, often weeks later, and it is
    usually kind of canned, and so that is sort of a frustrating
    process often; not always but often.
        And the idea is just that, nowadays, when people take time
    to write an opinion on something, they usually want it posted
    publicly. I mean, that is just what they expect in the age of
    social media. And so I think because we haven't created a
    system like this--so the system I envision is just an open
    platform of all bills, try to structure the conversation, try
    to keep it focused on legislation and policy.
        There would--of course, like any open online system, there
    would need to be content moderation, which is difficult. But I
    still think, you know, you could have simple functions like up
    voting and down voting. It wouldn't have to always be messages.
    It could just be support or nonsupport on different bills and
    stuff. And I just think it could--it would be a large project,
    but I think it could be very constructive in the long run.
        Mr. Phillips. Could it be attached to congress.gov or
    something--is that----
        Mr. Dwyer. That is what I imagine, yes.
        Mr. Phillips. Okay.
        Mr. Dwyer. I certainly would use the database----
        Mr. Phillips. Yeah.
        Mr. Dwyer [continuing]. For congress.gov for all the
    current bills to try to structure the conversation.
        Mr. Phillips. All right. I yield back. Thanks for your--oh,
    yeah. Please, Mr. Schweickhardt.
        Mr. Schweickhardt. In terms of what is limiting progress, I
    think that I would--with the many silos comes turf----
        Mr. Phillips. Uh-huh.
        Mr. Schweickhardt [continuing]. And there is a tendency to
    negotiate around those sort of perceived immovable objects.
        When docs.house.gov was mandated in House rules, one of my
    jobs at House Administration was to manage the implementation
    and the creation of it, and there was a committee that didn't
    think that they would be subject to those rules, not to get
    into oversight versus appropriations differences. And with the
    support of the Speaker's Office and negotiation to understand
    the business process in appropriations, managed to create an
    all-encompassing solution.
        And so I think that I would point to the silos and someone
    or some organization that could be House Administration, could
    be the leadership, really arbitrate those differences----
        Mr. Phillips. Okay.
        Mr. Schweickhardt [continuing]. And say, I understand that
    is in your turf or in your charter, but we are going to look at
    this from an institution wide perspective and make a better
    solution.
        Mr. Phillips. I appreciate it. Thank you both.
        The Chairman. Mr. Davis.
        Mr. Perlmutter. He just got here.
        The Chairman. Sorry. Did you have a question?
        Mr. Perlmutter. No.
        The Chairman. Okay.
        Mr. Davis. You know, Ed----
        The Chairman. We call----
        Mr. Davis [continuing]. Seniority on this, even this select
    committee matters, and I----
        The Chairman. Perlmutter is the ideas bottleneck actually.
        Mr. Davis. He clearly is. I call it Bronco's fan----
        Mr. Cleaver. Yeah.
        Mr. Davis [continuing]. Inertia.
        Quit triggering me, Ed. Quit triggering me.
        Anyway, look, I want to thank Chairman Kilmer and Vice
    Chair Timmons for recognizing me before Mr. Perlmutter today.
        Reynold, I don't want to ruin your reputation by saying
    this, but you have been a longtime friend of mine, and I have
    just appreciated the work that you have done to make this
    institution as technologically limited advanced as we are
    today. I mean, that is like moving a Herculean effort forward
    trying to get an institution to change, and you have been part
    of that process to make that happen.
        Mr. Schweickhardt. Thank you.
        Mr. Davis. But--and it is great to see you back here in the
    House office buildings again, and I certainly hope you don't go
    away.
        He is the guy, if you want to know any institutional
    technologic--technology issues, he is the one to turn to.
        And then also--and this is where my questions are,
    Reynold--is you mentioned the newly launched House Digital
    Service, and you mentioned--you recommended its expansion,
    right? I wasn't here earlier. Have you already gone over that
    process at all?
        Mr. Schweickhardt. [Nonverbal response.]
        Mr. Davis. Okay. You also highlight the House's
    institutional issue of not having a central body to prioritize
    those technology products. That was something Mr. Dwyer just
    mentioned.
        I actually happen to think House Administration should be
    the clearinghouse for solving those problems, but--and I was
    reminiscing with former Chairman Harper just about an hour and
    a half ago about how it was awesome to make sure we dealt with
    furniture issues, transparency issues when it came to spending.
        And now House Administration is dealing with H.R. 1. We are
    dealing with more legislative issues. This has become more of a
    legislatively or leadership-appointed authorizing committee.
    And that, to me, is a big change. And, frankly, I think it puts
    what this ModCom committee is trying to accomplish by making
    the House as an institution move forward--I think it puts that
    on the back burner. And that has to change, in my opinion.
        Do you see that, Reynold, and do you have any
    recommendations for what we should do going into the future on
    House Administration?
        Mr. Schweickhardt. So certainly as a longtime House
    Administration Committee staffer, I have to support the role of
    House Administration in these processes. If you look to the
    Canadian Parliament, they have a long-serving chief technology
    officer. He--I think he is getting ready to retire. And so
    there was continuity in a technology strategy and a technology
    roadmap.
        And so my testimony, I talked about the difference between
    sort of stability and innovation and how to manage that
    tension. And I think that there is a role to sort of herd the
    cats in terms of keeping the innovation from disrupting the
    institution.
        We need more innovation. By the way, that is not a, you
    know, keep the door shut. But, you know, how to manage that in
    an effective way.
        I think some of the listening sessions that have taken
    place to understand what are the needs of different job roles;
    what is a legislative counsel versus a staff assistant versus a
    scheduler; you know, what are their challenges in, you know,
    supporting the Member and the institution----
        Mr. Davis. Well, you----
        Mr. Schweickhardt [continuing]. Are important.
        Mr. Davis. Your time on House Administration mirrored my
    time as a staffer too for Congressman Shimkus, and I can tell
    you, today, the access to training, the access to products, the
    access to technology is much, much more ubiquitous than it was
    when I started in the nineties and worked throughout the early
    2000s.
        But we have got a--we have got a problem and an issue that
    this committee, I know, has debated and House Administration
    has not debated enough. What is your suggestion on how do we
    find that balance between the House and the CAO trying to
    develop technology when there might be that technology that we
    could get off the shelf and maybe work it into our security
    apparatus? What is that fine line?
        Mr. Schweickhardt. So I think that--so there is two kinds
    of technology, right? There is the--everyone in the world needs
    Zoom, and the House needs to use Zoom as well. So what are
    those nonproprietary technologies or nonlegislative-specific?
    And then there is the, what do we need to have developed, like
    Melissa's application, that no one else in the world needs to
    use?
        I think one of the missing pieces is how to leverage the
    energy and the enthusiasm of the civic tech community. There is
    a lot of people who want to support the legislative process,
    that want to strengthen the first branch of government. And
    some of the ethics concerns, some of the acquisition concerns
    prevent that from happening.
        If you look at the executive branch with challenge.gov,
    they have different statutory authority to use contests and
    challenges. You know, build me a better airplane, and I will
    give the one who builds the best airplane the contract and the
    money. It speaks to some of these issues that were discussed
    earlier in terms of having a defined process that is open and
    transparent in terms of how we do that.
        So I think, going back to acquisition and competition, I
    mean, one of the problems, I think--you know, my opinion today
    with challenges is, if you have a contest and you--you know, we
    will give you a dollar for the winner, you get into, you know,
    ethics concerns and so on.
        The Library of Congress has authority to provide funding,
    which they have used to work on congress.gov. But the House
    seems to lack that same authority to say, I will give you
    $5,000 for the world's best, you know, constituent
    communication widget.
        And Steve, I think, may have some thoughts.
        Mr. Dwyer. Yeah. If I could just say it is a good point,
    sir, that you made on, like, whether to build or buy. And I
    think you certainly want to buy if you can, if there is a--you
    know, there is no reason to build something that already
    exists. But I think we are somewhat unique.
        Now, we are not entirely unique. You know, there is a--a
    bunch of other State legislatures that do a lot of the same
    things we do and international. But, yeah, the TourTrackr app
    is a good example.
        Another good example is, you know, the Senate recently
    developed in-house a really nice, clean, new app for--it is
    called Quill. It is for managing letters and signatures. And
    that saved--I mean, our office, that saved us so much time this
    appropriations season compared to previous seasons. Great
    efficiency gain.
        Mr. Davis. Did you say the Senate developed something
    before the House?
        Mr. Dwyer. Yeah. And it is----
        Mr. Davis. Interesting.
        Mr. Dwyer [continuing]. Very rare that a tool is being--a
    bicameral tool is now in use in both Chambers in the same way.
        Mr. Davis. That is great.
        Mr. Dwyer. It is a great example of nobody else really has
    the same letter, signature problem that we do with 535
    signatures that we always have to, you know, jumble on
    different letters, so----
        Mr. Davis. Well, I appreciate your testimony, both of you.
        Thank you, Chair Kilmer. And I would seriously like to sit
    down. This is a very leadership-driven operation here.
        Mr. Perlmutter. Bingo.
        Mr. Davis. And I have--you know, I was very supportive of
    the legislative branch modernization fund, but I have some big
    concerns with how that money is being utilized right now with
    an overwhelming amount going to the Approps Committee and to
    the CAO. And I would love to sit down with you and your boss to
    talk about some of these concerns, if that would work out too.
        Mr. Dwyer. Of course.
        Mr. Davis. Thank you.
        Thanks. I yield back.
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        Mr. Cleaver.
        Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just this whole issue
    of technology is one that I am--I appreciate the committee
    leadership bringing to us.
        I want technology to be my servant, my--but there seems to
    be an effort for--you know, afoot to make it our god, and--not
    at this committee hearing. But, I mean, you know, I have a 6-
    year-old grandson who is constantly trying to teach me, you
    know, how to use this phone app that I had no business getting,
    because all the stuff on here, I don't--my 6-year-old knows
    everything.
        So I have some apprehensiveness about just going all the
    way in as it relates to technology. However, every office
    probably has a contract with a technology person, somebody
    that--IT comes in and they--the computers go down, the printers
    go down. And I am just--and we probably pay, you know, maybe as
    much as--we all probably have contracts, you know, probably 20
    to 50 may be the range, maybe even more than that.
        And so if we are spending that kind of money, technology
    is, in some ways, becoming, you know, ahead of us--you know, it
    changes every night. I get mad at this phone, because it says
    essentially, stupid, I told you I am not going to function
    unless you update me, and, you know, but--but do you--at least
    those of you who were around--have been around here, believe
    that maybe each office needs to have not just a contract, but
    somebody in there, just like a LA or regular member of our
    staffs at all times, who not only could, you know, help with
    the, you know, problems in the office, but also next-step
    technologies?
        I mean, we--you know, here in Congress, we are in a
    situation where we have to catch up. This is not like making a
    decision about, you know, just another move. We are talking
    about catching up.
        So given--what--if we had the dollars in our MRA, do you
    think that this would be--it would be a good idea for Members
    of Congress to have a technology person in-house?
        Mr. Dwyer. I certainly think so, sir. I think it is a great
    idea. I think that is happening more and more. I think there is
    just so much more that they need to do, even versus 5, 10 years
    ago when I was in the congressional office.
        You know, a lot of that is in digital communications. Every
    office needs to, you know, not just take a bunch of pictures
    and post them on Twitter and Facebook, but they have to do more
    technical Facebook Lives. They have got to take their boss
    live. And there is a lot of technical tasks that didn't exist
    many years ago.
        And so I think, you know, we have been recommending, within
    the Democratic Caucus, you know, the use of the title
    ``digital,'' so digital aide or digital manager. And those
    people should be technical people, so not just communications
    specialists online, but also are competent with many different
    technical tasks.
        I think data is also critical for every office.
        Mr. Cleaver. Uh-huh.
        Mr. Dwyer. Every office, when they communicate with their
    constituents, they are using complicated databases in targeting
    and such. And those are technical tasks that require--and I
    think having someone in-house is good, because they can sort of
    do all sorts of these different tasks for you, including more
    basic IT support as well.
        And so I think that is absolutely needed, that we can't
    just think of traditional congressional staff of, you know,
    political science and history majors, but also more technical
    staff, I think, are helpful all around.
        Mr. Schweickhardt. If I could add, sir, I agree with
    Steve's comments. A complementary aspect of that is to continue
    to standardize core IT so the person you are paying for
    doesn't--isn't figuring out how to make the computer get
    updated but, rather, that is something that the CAO should
    manage, so that the space where you have a technical advisor or
    digital advisor is, as Steve said, on communications. And I
    think on analytics, increasingly, you know, what did the
    executive branch or the industry or the trade association, they
    provide you a set of information to support their positions,
    there is many resources, but I think someone in the office who
    is in support of, you know, your positions to do data analytics
    and say, this is true, this isn't, you ought to ask them this
    question because, would be very helpful.
        Mr. Cleaver. Ms. Dargan.
        Ms. Dargan. I will add to that. For individual offices--and
    this is touched upon earlier--silos, right? So if each
    individual office has their own staffers and they come up with
    innovative solutions that other offices could benefit from,
    this is where it is going to be important to also have
    something that is a way in which these digital individuals can
    all communicate, because I know from personal experience, one
    issue that an office can experience, other offices have
    experienced in the past as well.
        And if everybody is coming up with their own way in which
    to tackle it starting from scratch, it is--it can be
    inefficient and ineffective. And I would say, if the office
    decides to have an individual digital person, there should
    also--the House should find a way to be able to bridge these
    silos so that one issue that gets resolved in one office, there
    can be an easy way to implement that in others.
        And I--whether that is an open forum, whether that is a way
    that they can all communicate, I think there should be a way to
    bring these silos together as well on a holistic level, because
    that will help close some of these gaps.
        Mr. Cleaver. Thank you.
        The Chairman. Mr. Perlmutter.
        Mr. Perlmutter. So that sort of leads into the question
    that I was going to have, starting with you, Ms. Dargan. Just
    listening to this, it is sort of an age old problem of
    centralized versus decentralized. And, you know, you call us
    silos, but we are offices. We are individual offices and we
    kind of do things on our own.
        But we need to have better networking and conversation. And
    it could be about technology. It certainly could be--you know,
    we did a big veterans pinning thing for, you know, Vietnam
    vets, and we started it, and nobody really knew about it, but
    then it--the word spread. I mean, there are good things that
    any offices could use. So we have to have a better networking
    process, I think.
        But my question is a broader one, which is sort of a
    procurement/acquisition kind of issue. When you are a small
    business and you want to, you know, introduce your product to
    my office or to the Congress as a whole, to the CAO, what is
    the process? I don't even know. I mean, I am going to show my
    ignorance right here.
        Ms. Dargan. Well, thank you for posing the question. It--in
    the House side, the way that a startup would pitch even a
    product would be the Member office would have to support and
    turn in a document into the CAO asking for that startup and
    that product to be reviewed.
        This was something, when I initially first started in
    actually getting approval, didn't even realize myself, because
    there was no information publicly known of how I could even get
    approved or that I needed approval in the beginning.
        And so a Member office would have to support a startup or a
    vendor and submit documentation to the CAO. The CAO security
    team will then review the product to ensure that security
    assessment and risk assessment is done appropriately and that
    the technology is safe and secure for Member offices to use.
        Once that is approved in the CAO side, it gets sent to CHA,
    where then CHA then does the final authorization. And if it--
    and if the product or company gets authorized at the end, then
    it can be approved on an approval list where Member offices can
    now use this technology.
        So there are multiple steps, and it all starts with a
    Member office needing to submit a company to be reviewed
    initially. There is no open proposal where I could submit
    something myself and say, Hey, I know that this is a problem. I
    have spoken to other offices. Can I submit TourTrackr, for
    instance, to be reviewed by the CAO directly? I would have to
    first get a Member office to support me, and then have them
    submit that--that documentation and information in order for me
    to be reviewed or even looked at.
        Mr. Perlmutter. So you can't go straight to the CAO?
        Ms. Dargan. Currently, I was unable to, and I don't believe
    there was a process to do that, because I was told I needed a
    Member office to support and turn in the documentation to even
    get me through the door.
        Mr. Perlmutter. Is that the same for the Senate?
        Ms. Dargan. In the Senate, a Senate office had to also
    champion a vendor. And for them, though, their process is a
    Senate office sends a risk assessment to be reviewed by the
    Senate Sergeant of Arms. Then the Senate Sergeant of Arms
    reviews the risk assessment, provides their assessment to the
    Rules Committee. And then the Senate office also has to write a
    letter to the Rules Committee asking to use official funds,
    assuming that the risk assessment was approved and passed.
        So it is very similar in that it has to go through, first,
    a risk assessment on both Chambers, and then it also has to go
    through approval by a committee. On the House side, it is CHA,
    and on the Senate side, it is Rules.
        Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you.
        Mr. Timmons. Just want to mention that we----
        Ms. Dargan. Thank you.
        Mr. Timmons [presiding]. If we had a common committee
    calendar, then the chairman would still be here, and he
    wouldn't have to be out. I will----
        Mr. Phillips. Just saying.
        Mr. Timmons. Mr. Phillips.
        Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        My question is about tech talent. I know that Congress is
    not exactly a hotbed of tech talent right now. For all of you,
    do you see a way that we can become a little bit more of an
    attractive institution for that kind of talent? I know it can
    be hard to compete economically with compensation, but how
    might we reposition ourselves and actually make it cool to
    serve the country with tech skills in Congress?
        Mr. Schweickhardt. Yes, sir. I think that--you know, I had
    an opportunity to speak with a group of tech Congress fellows
    and, you know, they are very impressive. They are very
    accomplished. And so I think, from a rotational method, that
    there are people who are concerned about democracy in this
    institution who will step away from higher salaries and
    contribute.
        What is lacking is building kind of that core capability.
    You know, people like Steve are kind of unique of having, you
    know, led technology strategy for Mr. Hoyer----
        Mr. Phillips. Uh-huh.
        Mr. Schweickhardt [continuing]. For 20 years.
        I would just say, I think that money is certainly part of
    it, but it is also the ability to get something done. You know,
    these are motivated people. If you hired--you know, if you had
    a Formula One driver fellow and you give her a golf cart, she
    is not going to go as fast and far as she does around the
    track, probably not going to stay very long, because it is not
    very satisfying to be here.
        So I think that whole ecosystem are--you know, am I using
    modern tools? Are there modern methods? Is there the political
    will or the process to be effective and make change, all
    contribute to making the place, I think, more attractive.
        Mr. Phillips. Culture. Culture.
        Mr. Dwyer.
        Mr. Dwyer. Sure. I think it is a great question. I think we
    could look to the executive branch for some inspiration. I
    think, you know, this is something that President Obama worked
    on and something that President Trump continued through their
    initiatives like the U.S. Digital Service and 18F at GSA. They
    created different flexible employment models like they did--
    yeah, I think they started with like 6 month and 12 months tour
    of duty. You know, say you are a Silicone Valley engineer but
    you are a little tired with your job and--but you want to help
    your country, you want to serve your country.
        Mr. Phillips. Like a sabbatical.
        Mr. Dwyer. Yeah, a sabbatical sort of thing. And I think
    they realized that those--those were often pretty short,
    because a lot of these--even the smaller projects, you know,
    you have really got to dive into for perhaps longer than a
    year. So I think they have expanded to 2- and 4-year tours of
    duty.
        But they also found that a lot of those people ended up
    staying. You know, a lot of those people really do love more of
    a mission-focused work and get excited by the work and then--so
    after their tour of duty ends, they actually are able to work
    inside the agency.
        So I think that is a good model that we should look to----
        Mr. Phillips. Appreciate that.
        Mr. Dwyer [continuing]. In the legislative branch.
        Mr. Phillips. Ms. Dargan.
        Ms. Dargan. I--I would echo that. Like, the innovation
    fellows were part of the executive branch's initiative where it
    was a short stint at first, and then what you could do is
    either elongate, but it gave these individuals who possibly had
    an interest in civic public service a taste of what it is like.
    And what is great is they have the tech background. Getting
    them in for maybe a 6-month, a year, 2-year stint gives them
    the ability to at least give back.
        And in a number of cases--I mean, I know a number of
    innovation fellows. They ended up staying in government and
    transitioned away from the private sector because they felt
    that this was a fulfilling mission. They were put on projects
    that had end dates and deliverables and actual results. So, to
    them, it was also fulfilling because they delivered something
    that was used by the government at the end.
        So I would say, if you think about it a little bit, it is
    like the Teach for America model, right? But it is, Hey, come,
    take that sabbatical, work in Congress for a year or two. It
    gives them the ability to get a little bit of a flavor of what
    it is like to work in public service, especially if they were
    curious.
        Mr. Phillips. Uh-huh.
        Ms. Dargan. But it wouldn't be necessarily such a huge
    shift and change if they wanted to go back.
        The other part of it, I would say, is recruiting, because
    when I went to business school, I remember a number of these
    programs and organizations would come to our recruiting events.
    If something like this were to be, you know, launched within
    Congress, it would be important to get the word out and be able
    to recruit these individuals who you would want to target to
    come over, whether that is the companies and going to them and
    pitching this kind of idea, or going off to like engineering
    programs in the various schools to let them know about this
    opportunity. The biggest thing in the pipeline as well is
    making sure you get the word out and recruiting the right
    people.
        Mr. Phillips. Great recommendations.
        Mr. Schweickhardt. I am glad to----
        Mr. Phillips. Yes, sir?
        Mr. Schweickhardt. One thought, sir.
        Mr. Phillips. Yes.
        Mr. Schweickhardt. Today, the General Services
    Administration is recruiting a chief technology officer for a
    limited term appointment, exactly in this model. Dave Shive,
    the CIO, is engaged in extensive social media outreach. I think
    they have a session next week where they are going to have an
    open meeting for anyone who is considering applying for the
    position.
        So sort of following up on Melissa's comments, they are
    very intentionally building an entire recruitment--advertising
    and recruitment campaign to bring in a world-class technologist
    for GSA.
        Mr. Phillips. Outstanding. Okay. Thank you.
        The Chairman. [Presiding.] I wanted to ask about the use of
    open source. Can you speak a bit about the benefits of
    requiring new technology created for the House to be open
    source? Have you seen any examples of government or
    congressional tools being built using open source?
        And I guess I also want to get a sense of, are there ethics
    concerns under current ethics rules when it comes to
    individuals within the House using open source code and problem
    posting forums like GitHub?
        Mr. Schweickhardt. Yeah. If I could start. You know, in my
    written testimony, it talked about a couple different use cases
    here, and I talk about the Congressional Art Competition, where
    there is not a lot of concern about the makers of Tempura,
    Inc., or something, you know, having--using art competition as
    a leverage point into Congress.
        When we set up the Congressional App Challenge, when I was
    at House Administration, the Ethics Committee was very--at that
    time, the staff of the Ethics Committee was very concerned
    about sort of undo influence of big tech and, you know, how to
    limit those--limit that impact. They provided some verbal
    guidance about the use of open source, but never, to my
    knowledge, issued anything in writing to sort of lay out that
    process.
        And so, you know, the House has been a longtime user of
    sort of generic open source technology bringing--you know,
    making--sort of incorporating those functions. I think that an
    acquisition--one of the reasons I suggest an acquisition
    authority is you can explicitly have a sort of market-based
    competition that recruits open source developers.
        I think the more--the point that would be very useful, if
    we could get to it, is how to have an ongoing kind of
    codevelopment collaboration with civic technologists, you know,
    maybe through the congressional--sorry--the House Data Task
    Force. It is still sort of burned into my brain, the old name--
    but some mechanism that arbitrates or sets up a framework.
    ``Arbitrate'' is not the right word. Sets up a framework for
    that kind of participation.
        The Chairman. Is there something that impedes that right
    now?
        Mr. Schweickhardt. I think it is inertia, and I think there
    is ethics concerns about that.
        One of those concerns is about the tasking of outside
    entities. So it is like, you know, you have--Steve, you know,
    this product he wrote, this Dome product, is really great, but
    we need these 27 enhancements to it, and he does it for free,
    and the institution uses it for free. Is that an appropriate
    scenario?
        So a lot of these things are fact based, you know, the fact
    pattern. But there are those fact patterns that would raise
    issues, I think.
        The Chairman. Go ahead, Mr. Dwyer.
        Mr. Dwyer. Sure. I think it is a good question. I think,
    you know, the House uses lots of open source software. I mean,
    most--a good example is most House websites that are run by the
    CAO are done in a system called Drupal, which is a very
    worldwide, popular, open source website software for managing
    websites and creating websites.
        And the way it works at being open source software is that
    all that code is available for free on the internet, and it
    creates a very healthy feedback loop where lots of people are
    making fixes to the code and lots of people are suggesting
    fixes to the code and bugs with the code and reporting bugs.
    And so it is just a large online community that sort of works
    on a group project, which is just a system of code that makes
    good websites.
        I think the Ethics Committee concerns, in my opinion, are a
    little overblown. I--I have seen an Ethics paper on this from
    probably 4 or 5 years ago. I don't think that they are actively
    working on it. I could be wrong. I don't know. But I think that
    there was some concern that, you know, through that open
    feedback loop, where people do just ask for things, like, hey,
    it would be great if this--if your feature that you made had
    these features, and they often do it. But they do that not just
    for Congress, they do that for anyone. If they just think it is
    a good idea, they do it.
        So I think, you know, Ethics is worried that this could be
    some loophole for big tech to come in and see the needs for us
    and give us a large gift by making a bunch of software, but I
    don't think that that is much of a risk. I think the
    traditional use of open source is just a collaborative
    something, and I don't think that violates the spirit of the
    gift rule, which is what Ethics was concerned with.
        The Chairman. Ms. Dargan, do you want to take a swing at
    that pitch or----
        Ms. Dargan. I believe my fellow panelists have covered most
    of it, and I agree in terms of what they say with the ethics
    concerns. I also think, with open source, prior when I was on
    the Hill, there was this notion that it would, you know,
    affect, like, risk assessment or what that would mean.
        But what I will say is, when you have looked at open source
    examples, the building of extra features, if there was a
    concern of any risk, this is where, in the House side, the CAO
    would come--come up and have the ability to review any
    additional pieces that were built off to ensure that it is safe
    for any Member office to use. And that would just be a process
    that would also be needed to put in--to be established.
        The Chairman. Let me hit one final topic on my end. I don't
    know if any of my colleagues have any additional questions.
        Mr. Schweickhardt, you actually spoke to the issue around
    sort of the siloing of technology development across the
    Congress. There are different support offices involved, like
    CAO and AOC and the Office of the Clerk. So how do we encourage
    more collaboration in technology development, and how do we
    encourage the CBO and the GAO and the GPO technology
    development teams to collaborate as well?
        Mr. Schweickhardt. So I think that, you know, my
    recommendation has been to look at the scope and chartering of
    those existing technology organizations. I mean, to be clear,
    they collaborate today but just has friction as part of that
    process, so they are a little less productive. It is one of a
    death of a thousand cuts.
        The House is unique, as far as I know, in national
    parliaments in having multiple institutional IT organizations
    in a single chamber. Some organizations, like the UK
    Parliament, in fact, has a single CIO for both the House of
    Lords and the House of Commons, but that is probably a bridge
    too far for us.
        So I think that looking at consolidating that institutional
    IT into a single organization would have the most impact but is
    the most difficult. If that is not possible, consolidating into
    the Clerk's IT organization for legislative functions. So, you
    know, House Office of Leg Counsel, you know, has some IT
    functions--they are relatively small--both for the efficiency
    of putting them together, but also from a charter point of
    view, you know, Clerk owns all legislative IT regardless of
    where it is, so you know who is responsible for it.
        Mr. Dwyer. Yeah. I think it is a good question. I think it
    is a problem that there isn't authority over all these
    different--because these different silos do very large things.
    I mean, you have to--the CAO manages all the communications
    with the public and all the websites of Members of Congress.
    The Clerk handles all the voting and the internal operations of
    the floor and the websites related to that. The Library and GPO
    handle more of like the historical records. And nobody's really
    in charge of how they all interact.
        So I want to go back to the Congressional Data Task Force.
    It is one of the few areas where I have seen them interact very
    well, and that--you know, it is now 10 years now they have been
    working together. But I do think, you know, like the UK model,
    like of having a single person that had authority over them
    or--that is just my remarks. You know, maybe the task force has
    authority over all of them to sort of embolden them to make
    some more large changes and deal with the silo problem.
        Mr. Schweickhardt. We--one of the things--one of the things
    we did at House Administration, working with the Appropriations
    Committee, was try to create a single--a process for the
    cybersecurity initiatives of the different IT organizations and
    to create a common assessment, so that the appropriators could
    look on an apples-to-apples basis on the level of IT risk in
    the different organizations across the leg branch, which really
    all--many--most of those organizations, except for the AOC, are
    part of the legislative workflow. They are part of that supply
    chain to get a bill to the President's desk.
        That was a very intensive effort. So I think that, you
    know, solving that--one of the broader aspects of those
    different IT organizations is worthwhile, but it is one of
    those things where incremental progress is probably more
    achievable than a--you know, than a grand solution.
        Mr. Dwyer. Can I just add, the--back to the task force
    model, it was unique that the House rules that created it said
    that they must meet regularly and they must, like at least once
    a year, I believe, you know, meet with the public to discuss
    their progress. And so I think just--so having some structure,
    force the silos to meet with each other regularly, just to make
    rules about that, and to meet with the public, the users of
    this information at the end of the day, I think is a----
        The Chairman. Is that the place to do it? Is the task force
    the place to do it rather than having a position, right, like
    CIO with dotted line relationships to all the technologists in
    these various agencies?
        Mr. Dwyer. I think either is possible, but I think the
    authority kind of--it doesn't exist right now, but should be
    created and either a person or a group like the task force.
        Mr. Schweickhardt. I would agree with that.
        The Chairman. Ms. Dargan is nodding her head. I don't know
    if you have anything else you want to add.
        Ms. Dargan. [Nonverbal response.]
        The Chairman. Okay. Any other questions from my colleagues?
        Go ahead, Mr. Cleaver.
        Mr. Cleaver. One kind of parochial--maybe a question.
    What--if you guys will take a guess. What would be an entry
    level salary for a technologist in--considering you guys are
    probably familiar with how the pay is over here, but just a
    guess.
        Mr. Dwyer. Yeah. I would say I have some experience in
    this--in the House Democratic Caucus pushing a digital
    specialist, for example, who, you know, aren't necessarily
    coders or designers or engineers, which is more technical and
    have higher-level degrees that are more in demand. But, you
    know, I think because it is a new position in a lot of offices,
    it often is pretty junior, but I still think it is a great
    start. And so I think, you know, most of the staffers with
    ``digital'' in their title are being hired, you know, above the
    normal staff assistant type position but not much above. But I
    think, you know, if they are able to prove their worth, I think
    they often have their salaries rise pretty quickly within
    offices, that I have seen.
        Mr. Cleaver. Okay. Thank you.
        Mr. Chairman, I just realized we have four members of this
    committee on Financial Services, including Mr. Timmons, and we
    have Jay Powell today, so that is why I think some of it--where
    a couple of members are going.
        The Chairman. Well, I am glad you are here. I am glad you
    are both here.
        So, with that, I would like to thank our witnesses in
    particular for being here, and for their testimony today, and
    thank our committee members for their participation, even with
    Financial Services conflicts.
        As always, I want to thank our staff for putting together a
    terrific hearing. I think the insights we got here definitely
    sort of cohere to some specific recommendations that our
    committee can make, so thank you for that.
        And to our stenographer, thanks for--I am sorry we talked
    so fast.
        Without objection, all members will have 5 legislative days
    within which to submit additional written questions for the
    witnesses to the chair which will be forwarded to the witnesses
    for their response. I ask our witnesses to please respond as
    promptly as you are able.
        Without objection, all members will have 5 legislative days
    within which to submit extraneous materials to the chair for
    inclusion in the record.
        And, with that, this hearing is adjourned.
        Thanks, everybody.
        [Whereupon, at 10:26 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]