[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CONGRESS AND TECHNOLOGY: MODERNIZING THE INNOVATION CYCLES
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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
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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
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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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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.]