[House Report 117-658]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
117th Congress } { Report
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
2d Session } { 117-658
_______________________________________________________________________
RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE CONSTITUENT ENGAGEMENT AND CONSTITUENT
SERVICES, BOLSTER HOUSE TECHNOLOGY, AND SUPPORT CONGRESSIONAL
OPERATIONS
__________
R E P O R T
__________
THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE
MODERNIZATION OF CONGRESS
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
__________
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
December 21, 2022.--Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on
the State of the Union and ordered to be printed
_________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
39-006 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
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
----------
House of Representatives,
Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress,
Washington, DC, December 21, 2022.
Hon. Cheryl L. Johnson,
Clerk, House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Dear Ms. Johnson: I present herewith the Select Committee
on the Modernization of Congress' report of recommendations to
improve constituent engagement and constituent services,
bolster house technology, and support congressional operations.
Sincerely,
Derek Kilmer,
Chair.
117th Congress } { Report
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
2d Session } { 117-658
======================================================================
RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE CONSTITUENT ENGAGEMENT AND CONSTITUENT
SERVICES, BOLSTER HOUSE TECHNOLOGY, AND SUPPORT CONGRESSIONAL
OPERATIONS
_______
December 21, 2022.--Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on
the State of the Union and ordered to be printed
_______
Mr. Kilmer, from the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress,
submitted the following
R E P O R T
I. PURPOSE AND SUMMARY
The Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress
(Select Committee or Committee) has been charged with the
important responsibility of recommending improvements to the
U.S. House of Representatives to help members of Congress and
their staff better serve the American people. During the 116th
Congress, the Select Committee passed 97 recommendations to
make Congress a more efficient and effective institution. These
recommendations addressed many issues within the Select
Committees jurisdiction and were detailed in the Committee's
Final Report for the 116th Congress (H. Rept. 116-562).
On July 29, 2021, the Select Committee met and issued its
sixth set of recommendations focused on increasing staff
capacity, diversity, and inclusion, and expanding accessibility
to Congress for staff as well as the public. On December 8,
2021, the Select Committee met and issued its seventh set of
recommendations focused on enhancing civility and
collaboration, bolstering the effectiveness of the
congressional support agencies, and promoting the collection
and use of impartial data and analysis in the policymaking
process. On July 19, 2022, the Select Committee met and issued
its eighth set of recommendations focused on congressional
oversight capacity, district operations, congressional office
operations, the legislative process, and congressional
continuity.
The Select Committee met on September 29, 2022, to pass its
ninth package of recommendations. The recommendations broadly
focus on constituent engagement, constituent services, House
technology, and congressional operations. The recommendations
address issues the Select Committee took up in public hearings,
member meetings, and discussions with stakeholders.
II. BACKGROUND AND NEED FOR RECOMMENDATIONS
Improving constituent engagement and constituent services,
bolstering House technology, and supporting congressional
operations will improve the way Congress works on behalf of the
American people. The Select Committee identified the following
specific issues to be addressed with recommendations:
1. Constituent casework data and trends are currently
only captured by individual offices, which provides no
insight into wider trends that might be occurring in
casework services provided across House offices.
2. Congressional offices may not be aware of and may
find it difficult to access and utilize new and
innovative outreach best practices and methods that
could help them respond to and more effectively engage
with their constituents. Individual member offices
sometimes work with and utilize information from civic
organizations that model those practices, but knowledge
sharing is often limited, and proper impact assessments
and expert guidance on the latest methods and practices
would aid more widespread adoption.
3. Currently, the only way for the public to provide
feedback and input through official House websites is
through a private email to their member of Congress or
a committee, which ideally, and commonly, results in an
email response. While messages can be sent via social
media as well, many constituents use official websites
to voice concerns or ask for assistance. To meet the
modern expectation of customer service platforms,
constituents may expect more dynamic ways to voice
their opinion, provide input, and receive information.
4. Member offices receive a high volume of calls,
emails, social media messages, and letters from
constituents. While offices do the best they can to
respond in a timely manner, the technology available to
assist staff and members with that process has not kept
pace with other state-of-the-art tools utilized in the
private sector for customer service and response.
5. There is no standardized or easy process available
for individual committees that may wish to solicit
public comment and evidence on topics that might be
coming before the committee.
6. Congressional offices manage constituent tour
requests across many federal agencies, each with
different processes. Some agencies require constituent
information to be submitted via a spreadsheet, leading
to situations where constituents are emailing their
sensitive personal information to congressional staff,
a process that is not as secure as it could be. The
process of managing requests for multiple agencies on
different days for hundreds of constituents also
requires an inordinate amount of staff time and
attention.
7. The process through which congressional offices
request and obtain a flag flown over the U.S. Capitol
for constituents who request them is cumbersome and not
transparent enough. Specifically, after a flag request
is submitted, a constituent may contact the
congressional office to follow up on their request, but
staff have no insight into where the flag is in the
process and therefore no way to provide their
constituents with an update on the progress. This
regularly results in a poor customer service experience
for constituents. Additionally, flags are delivered to
the House office that made the request when in some
cases it would be more efficient to send the flag
directly to the constituent.
8. Soliciting customer feedback and satisfaction
through surveys or questionnaires is considered a
standard practice in most customer-facing businesses.
While some House offices have deployed similar surveys
to receive feedback and gauge levels of satisfaction
with the constituent services the offices provide,
there is no standard tool or process provided by the
House to help offices that might also wish to do so.
Moreover, there is no data available from other offices
against which members could evaluate and measure their
own office's level of performance on constituent
service satisfaction.
9. When the public visits the Capitol, they learn a
lot about the history, structure, and operations of
Congress, but not always as much about who represents
them, facts about their district, and the various
policy positions of their representative.
10. The Congressional Hackathon, as well as other
technology and innovation initiatives, are currently
member-sponsored events and might not continue if the
members and/or staff who led the initiative depart the
institution over time. Additionally, the current
iteration of the Hackathon is more of an ``idea-a-
thon'' rather than a traditional hackathon where
technical experts work on technology solutions at the
event. Technical experts should work with congressional
leaders as well as other participants.
11. Systems that are widely used or mission critical
could suddenly become unavailable or unusable in the
event of House or committee staff turnover or a change
in leadership, or if a small vendor decides it's not
worth the time or investment of resources to continue
to maintain a tool. When that occurs, the House either
loses functionality or it must allocate new funds to
rebuild that functionality.
12. House-developed digital applications are not
open-source by default. Without developing digital
tools in an open-source environment, the institution
limits the ability of other departments inside the
legislative branch, agencies in state and local
government, and outside civic groups and developers
from building tools that might expand functionality of
the House tool. Additionally, tools not developed in an
open-source environment often are difficult to maintain
if it was built by a vendor who either goes out of
business or who the House no longer has a maintenance
agreement with.
13. While the House and Senate might have different
customer needs and requirements for some tools,
creating entirely different processes for procuring,
approving, and onboarding technologies across chambers
creates unnecessary procurement and functionality
inefficiencies.
14. Potential vendors, especially small ones, often
find the approval process intimidating and difficult to
navigate. There is currently very little information
posted about the process and what potential technology
vendors can expect. Once approved, there is no clear
liaison to help with onboarding. All of this
contributes to making the House a less attractive
option for vendors, and especially small vendors,
interested in developing civic tools for use in the
House.
15. Developing digital tools for House offices can be
difficult and expensive for outside technology vendors,
due in part to the unique rules and requirements for
doing business with the House. As a result, there are
fewer software developers looking to work with House
offices, which can impede or delay offices that are
looking to develop and access new digital tools. As an
example, this was a common problem with the development
of House websites until the institution lowered
development barriers for a group of design firms
willing to learn the House's unique processes and
policies.
16. It is common practice for technology developers
to use pre-written, open-source code to speed the
technology development process. If the code focuses
specifically on technology needs of Congress, then in
some instances the House Ethics Committee may view it
as an attempt to encourage favoritism for the creators.
The operations of Congress are of general public
interest and ``civic tech'' organizations are creating
and publishing open-source code that could be used for
technology development inside Congress. Current
policies could be unnecessarily preventing Congress
from using pre-written code, something that is common
practice in technology development. Gift and in-kind
rules are designed to prevent the improper use and
acceptance of outside resources, but there should be
opportunities to allow organizations to participate in
the development of civic technology tools that can
improve the legislative process.
17. Institutional offices in the legislative branch
have been able to collaborate successfully through the
Congressional Data Task Force and other bicameral
working groups but have not always been as successful
in setting agreed upon priorities for the development
of digital infrastructure outside of their offices.
18. The House Digital Service does not currently have
a mechanism for receiving input on how they prioritize
projects and needs for their services in a way that is
responsive to stakeholders.
19. The Capitol switchboard, which is currently
operated by the Senate Sergeant at Arms, doesn't allow
call information, like the phone number, to be passed
through during the switch from the call center to a
House office. Committee staff understands that Senate
offices, however, do receive the caller's full phone
number because the call is being transferred
internally. This makes it difficult for House offices
to block or avoid repeated abusive or threatening
callers. It also makes it more difficult to report
threatening callers to Capitol Police. Frustration with
this issue has been reported by numerous offices as a
drain on office time and an emotional tax on staff who
answer calls in an office.
20. The current process for generating hearing
records has many manual components, is time-consuming,
and requires uploading the same information into
multiple systems. The cumbersome process may discourage
committees from submitting a record for printing.
Without a printed official hearing record, there is no
written government source for the committee's
proceeding beyond what may exist online or in the
repository.
21. While technological advancements have been made,
many committees still rely on paper-based processes for
their hearings and markups. Paper might still be
necessary in some cases, but in some instances a
digital solution could be just as effective and
practical, if not more.
22. The demands for legislative drafting services
have increased, and the House has, in turn, focused on
bolstering capacity at the House Office of Legislative
Counsel (HOLC). When congressional staff, especially
new staff, do not fully understand how the HOLC process
works and/or how to best present and frame policy ideas
to begin the drafting process, it can create time
inefficiencies for both the member office and HOLC and
exacerbate the capacity challenges. The issue may be
even more acute at the beginning of a new Congress
which may see an influx of new and/or inexperienced
legislative staff, including staff in roles new to
them.
23. While virtual information sessions are available,
there are few opportunities for members and staff to
meet the people working behind the scenes in the House
of Representatives. Members meet with leadership of
these offices at orientation, but the sessions are
short and do not leave much time for making important
connections or learning about valuable services.
24. Members may contribute substantially to the
development and drafting of legislation but not receive
credit (other than through a press release or other
public acknowledgement). Additionally, it can be hard
to track how much meaningful work members do across the
aisle.
III. HEARINGS
The Select Committee has continued to use its unique
roundtable format for the conduct of its formal hearings. In
addition to the formal hearings, the Select Committee held a
listening session with members of the Fix Congress Cohort which
helped further inform these recommendations. The hearings
included:
``Congress & Technology: Modernizing the
Innovation Cycle'', on June 23rd, 2022. The Select
Committee received testimony from:
Ms. Melissa Dargan, Co-Founder &
CEO, TourTrackr
Mr. Stephen Dwyer, Senior Advisor,
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
Mr. Reynold Schweickhardt, Senior
Advisor, Lincoln Network
``Constituent Services: Building a More
Customer-Friendly Congress'', on July 14, 2022. The
Select Committee received testimony from:
Mr. Matt Lira, Partner, Hangar
Capital
Ms. Anne Meeker, Director of
Strategic Initiatives, POPVOX Foundation
Ms. Nina Olson, Executive
Director, Center for Taxpayer Rights
``What's the Big Idea? Innovative Approaches
to Fixing Congress'', on July 28, 2022. The Select
Committee received testimony from:
Dr. Danielle Allen, James Bryant
Conant University Professor, Harvard University
Dr. Lee Drutman, Senior Fellow,
New America
Dr. Kevin Kosar, Senior Fellow,
American Enterprise Institute
Congressman John Larson (D-CT)
IV. RECOMMENDATIONS
The Select Committee made the following 24 recommendations
to address the problems identified above, adding to the
Committee's 171 prior recommendations made since the beginning
of the 116th Congress (see II. BACKGROUND AND NEED FOR
RECOMMENDATIONS):
Improving Constituent Engagement and
Constituent Services
(1) Recommendation: The House should develop an
optional system to allow offices to share anonymized
constituent casework data and aggregate that
information to identify trends and systemic issues to
better serve constituents.
Specifically. . . To provide data that is trackable and
comparable, the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) should first
develop a system of standardized casework categories and
tracking standards--developed and refined in collaboration with
caseworkers--and establish-House-wide unified analytics to
identify casework trends and potential problem areas.
Anonymized data could be collected and shared through an
application programming interface (API) developed by the CAO.
The CAO could then aggregate this data to produce a
comprehensive dashboard or report that is made available to
offices. The system should be optional and available on an opt-
in basis for offices that wish to share and receive casework
data. By aggregating data and utilizing unified analytics to
identify casework trends and potential problem areas and making
that information available to House offices and committees, the
House could view a wider landscape of constituent concerns,
better anticipate potential problem areas and backlogs, and
identify issues that may need to be addressed through a policy
change or other federal intervention.
(2) Recommendation: The House should provide offices
with information related to outside organizations and
resources available to assist members and committees
that wish to enhance outreach efforts or utilize new
tools for constituent communication and engagement.
Specifically . . . At a May 2022 roundtable on civic
engagement, the Committee heard from various organizations and
researchers about best practices and new tools for fostering
and improving constituent engagement. These tools and methods
for engagement could help members better understand issues
faced by constituents, the range of different views and
concerns, and potential solutions. For example, outside
organizations could assist members and committees with hosting
deliberative town halls with a statistically representative
group of constituents. Information on organizations that can
provide assistance and support could be available through the
Congressional Member Leadership Development Program. Guardrails
should be established for the information provided to ensure
there is no undue influence by outside organizations. In
addition, outside organizations must be vetted and approved by
the Committee on House Administration and information must be
provided in accordance with House Ethics guidelines.
(3) Recommendation: The House should study and
present options for developing a public-facing
interactive platform for constituents to offer their
opinions and feedback on pending legislation.
Specifically . . . To provide more of an opportunity for
public engagement and input, Congress should evaluate the
feasibility and practicality of developing of a new public-
facing constituent engagement interactive platform, and present
potential options. Options could include but not be limited to
making Congress.gov more interactive and establishing a
separate public-facing site to allow users to submit opinions
that will be publicly visible on pending legislation or offer
ideas for new legislation. Interactivity could include upvoting
and downvoting, dynamic and collaborative bill drafting tools,
the ability to link comments to more context written by LoC
staff, among others. This would not supplant current
communication methods, such as emails and webforms, but rather
would be an additional option for comments that would be made
public. The interface could point to Congress.gov's background
information about proposals and legislation, further enabling
constituents to formulate and communicate their views to
Congress. A platform could also allow the public to sign up for
automatic email alerts when issues they care about are acted
upon.
(4) Recommendation: The House Digital Service should
evaluate and onboard industry leading correspondence
technology tools and platforms to enable offices to
improve the quality and substance of constituent
correspondence.
Specifically . . . Technology is available that can assist
offices in improving the quality and substance of constituent
correspondence. By adopting new intelligent tools, House
offices can enhance the process of sorting and tagging
constituent letters, improve the quality of responses by
utilizing AI, more efficiently process and reply to comments
that arrive through social media, and track constituents'
satisfaction with the responses they receive. Improved
constituent correspondence technology and tools can help
offices respond to constituents more quickly and efficiently,
and in potentially new ways. In addition, automating the
repetitive aspects of correspondence can also free up staff to
spend more time on other projects.
(5) Recommendation: The House should study and
present options for developing a platform for
committees that want to solicit public comment and
evidence on topics that might be coming before the
committee.
Specifically . . . With committee buy-in, the House could
establish a website that allows all committees to solicit
public comment before upcoming hearings and markups, or it
could develop a plug-in for committees to use on their existing
website. Committees could selectively solicit public comments
based on the topic or business before the committee. Like an
executive agency comment period, the site could allow for
comments and uploading documentation relevant to the
committee's interest. Depending on the committees' preferences,
Committees could keep comments private, or they could be
presented publicly and made part of the record as is done for
agency comments. A study will address the feasibility and
practicality of developing a platform and ensure there is
committee buy-in to develop and use such a platform.
(6) Recommendation: The House should develop an
efficient and secure tool for coordinating constituent
tour requests.
Specifically . . . The House should develop a portal and/or
plug-in for tour requests that allows constituents to securely
submit their personal identifiable information (PII) and allow
staffers to easily track and manage constituent requests for
tours of the Capitol, White House, and other federal entities
open for public tours. The CAO should assess industry standard
technology tools or develop new digital solutions to
standardize the tour request process.
(7) Recommendation: The House should develop a more
efficient process for tracking and managing constituent
flag requests.
Specifically . . . The House should develop a portal for
flag requests that allows users to see where a flag is in the
process, encompassing all stages within the Architect of the
Capitol's Flag Office, House Mailing Services, and the House
Office Supply Store. By creating a system like an online
``pizza tracker,'' House staffers would be able to see where
the flag is in the current process. House Mailing Services
should also provide the option to either mail flags directly or
send them back to personal offices, an option that the
Committee understands currently exists only for Senate offices.
(8) Recommendation: The House should develop and
provide offices with optional tools for surveying and
tracking their constituent's `customer service'
experience.
Specifically . . . The House should offer a standard
Customer Experience (CX) package for offices to utilize where
at the end of an interaction between a member office and a
constituent, there is an opportunity for constituents to
provide feedback about their overall experience. In developing
tools for tracking satisfaction, the House should look to the
private sector for best practices. The tool should be optional
for offices and provide customized options for offices to
measure various aspects of the customer/constituent service
experience. Offices could also opt in to allow their customer
service response data to be aggregated into an anonymized
report to enable them to compare their own office's performance
with other offices, and with a House-wide performance ``base-
line'' on customer service. The report could be supplemented
with survey data obtained through Congressional Staff Academy
courses related to constituent services. Collecting information
on the constituent service experience can help offices gain a
better understanding of how to meet constituent expectations
and to identify areas in which to make improvements in service
delivery.
(9) Recommendation: Future upgrades to the Capitol
Visitor Center should allow for a more personalized and
interactive tour that allows constituents to better
understand who their representatives are and how their
opinions are reflected in House votes.
Specifically . . . For example, an electronic device
assigned to a visitor could allow them to learn specifically
about their member and district by simply tapping their device
on the display. In addition, it could enable them to
participate in live polls (without voting repeatedly) and see
how their vote matches up with how the House voted on an issue
and how every other visitor to the center voted on the issue.
Another example would be to create a Member Wall like the one
in the European Parliament Parlamentarium that would pull up
basic facts about each member, their committee assignments
(potentially with live information about committee hearings),
and member positions on key issues. Implementation of this
recommendation would require an in-depth examination of how to
address possible privacy and IT security concerns and a
feasibility assessment of infrastructure and staffing
requirements.
Bolstering House Technology
(10) Recommendation: Congress should institutionalize
and expand technology education and innovation
initiatives such as the Congressional Hackathon.
Specifically . . . The Congressional Hackathon and other
technology and innovation-related events and initiatives in the
House would benefit from being institutionalized and be
expanded to bring together technical staff from throughout the
legislative branch to brainstorm and work on technical
solutions collaboratively. Additionally, institutional support
would encourage more of the legislative branch agencies, like
CRS/CBO/GAO, to participate.
(11) Recommendation: The House should develop an
onboarding process to institutionalize congressional
technology that has reached a mature development stage,
is widely used, or is considered mission critical.
Specifically . . . Systems like the Dome Watch app, DemCom
intranet, GOP Cloakroom amendment / vote tracker as well as
committee amendment systems are widely used or considered
mission critical. These systems were developed by Leadership or
committee offices and are ``owned'' by those individual
offices. As such, they could become unavailable or unusable as
staff departs and offices change. House Information Resources
(HIR) and House Digital Service, after consultation with other
institutional offices, should develop standard criteria for
mature technology and a standard process for onboarding them
with the appropriate institutional office. There should also be
a process in place, with appropriate oversight, for ``off-
ramping'' technologies that may have become obsolete or are no
longer utilized or effective. Additionally, custom software
tools are often built by software developers that numerous
offices use but fall out of favor because the developer doesn't
have an incentive to continue to maintain or upgrade that tool.
The House could benefit by having a process for procuring the
source code and building on top of the base tool, rather than
building a similar mission critical tool from scratch.
(12) Recommendation: House-developed digital
applications should be made open source by default.
Specifically . . . Technology developed with House
resources should, by default and when appropriate, have code
that is published publicly under a structured open-source
license. Open-source software is computer software that is
released under a license in which the copyright holder (in this
case the House) grants users the rights to view, use, study,
change, and distribute the software and its source code for
usage and further development by other entities. Open-source
licensing can be structured in ways that are beneficial to the
House, and, if necessary, be revoked. A sample agreement would
require that the House also be able to use free of cost any
tools developed to expand functionality for the underlying
digital tool. An open-source system will make it easier to
improve functionally and maintain House-built tools in addition
to preventing vendor lock-in.
(13) Recommendation: The House and Senate should work
to align more of their technology standards and
processes.
Specifically . . . Through a bicameral working group, the
House and Senate should seek to align technology standards and
processes, where feasible. Enterprise-wide systems used by both
chambers (for example, Microsoft Office Suite) should be
aligned to facilitate collaboration between the chambers.
Currently, House and Senate offices are not able to communicate
over MS Teams. Ideally, approval by one chamber should allow
for expedited, or even immediate, approval by the other
chamber. Both chambers should use one system of Communicating
with Congress (CWC), the tool that processes constituent mail,
which would be easier and cheaper for both chambers and for the
advocacy organizations. Aligning more technology standards and
processes, including procurement and onboarding processes, will
save money, allow offices to work more efficiently, make it
easier for outside groups and vendors working with Congress,
and improve collaboration across the chambers.
(14) Recommendation: The House should provide more
public information to potential technology vendors and
streamline the vendor approval and onboarding process.
Specifically . . . The House should publish a page on their
website for potential developers of digital tools similar to
the ``Steps to Becoming a Web Vendor'' that exists on the
House's website. While the House has a process for working
specifically with vendors, it should continue to improve the
process and establish a clear liaison or point of contact that
works with outside vendors once they are approved. In addition,
the vendor application should be posted publicly along with
information explaining the application and approval process,
recommended best practices, and FAQs. Any streamlining of the
vendor approval process should ensure a competitive process
that secures the best quality products and services at the best
possible price. Providing more information publicly about the
process and helping small vendors navigate it could attract
more technology startups and encourage the development of new
tools that innovate and improve House operations.
(15) Recommendation: The CAO should develop an
Established Delivery Partners program for digital
solution vendors that regularly work with the House.
Specifically . . . By creating an ``Established Delivery
Partners'' (EDP) process and list, the House can make it easier
and quicker for experienced vendors to clear administrative
hurdles to deliver digital tools to House clients. Vendors in
included in this process would understand House Rules and
possess a proven track record of developing tools successfully
and meeting the House's security protocols. As the CAO develops
and utilizes EDPs, it should be careful to ensure it remains a
competitive process that is continually open to new entrants
and does not, through institutional inertia, become an
exclusive group and thus a potential obstacle to accepting new
vendors and technologies. The intention is to ease
administrative and approval burdens when a vendor has
demonstrated repeatedly that they understand and follow House
Rules and protocols. Having an established list of approved
software developers will ensure that House offices are able to
better scope potential projects, receive more accurate costs
estimates, and develop and receive tools in a timelier manner.
(16) Recommendation: The House should review current
policies and, where appropriate, allow opportunities
for congressional use of software and its underlying
code that is developed by outside civic technology
organizations.
Specifically . . . The House Committee on Ethics and the
Committee on House Administration should review and provide
public-facing, written guidance on Congress's potential use and
publishing of open-source technology. The guidance should
address whether offices can communicate publicly about the
development of a website, whether congressional offices can use
open-source software published in a public repository, whether
congressional offices can publish open-source code developed
internally using official resources, and whether congressional
offices can provide comments and feature requests to open-
source projects developed by others concerning ideas for
further improving the software. Clear guidelines could enable
civic tech organizations to develop and make improvements to
code that the House might use and should ensure opportunities
for technology sharing and collaboration remain competitive and
remain available to all otherwise qualified civic tech
entities. The Ethics Committee and other committees of
jurisdiction should review and update gift rules to allow
appropriate collaboration between congressional offices and
civic tech organizations and allow for collaborative technology
prize competitions. The House could publish data standards and
common identifiers (for example, member unique ID) a as well as
more API information to allow civic tech organizations and
academics to, in a standard fashion, work with the data
Congress produces. Reviewing and updating rules and policies
and/or providing additional clarity, where appropriate, can
help Congress better utilize and share open-source civic
technology to improve the public's access to and understanding
of Congress.
(17) Recommendation: The House should establish a
high-level working group to prioritize and coordinate
the maintenance and development of House digital
infrastructure.
Specifically . . . The House should establish a coordinated
working group comprised of leadership offices, relevant
committees, support offices, and outside advisors to discuss,
coordinate, and prioritize major technology projects in the
House and implementation of the Select Committee's
recommendations. The working group should represent both the
majority and minority parties in the House. The working group
should be charged with bringing together members and relevant
staffers from member offices, committees, and support agencies
to identify pain points in congressional technology and plan
out what areas need attention. This working group can identify
and evaluate technology that can support lawmaking, oversight,
constituent engagement and overall operations for the
institution and serve as a central clearinghouse for
information and expertise about technology. The House
Technology Working Group should consult widely, gathering input
from relevant stakeholders and experts and using data to assess
technology for the chamber. By bringing together staff from
across the institution, and from the outside, the working group
provides a new--and needed--forum for identifying shared
technology challenges and assessing new tools. The working
group should make clear and actionable recommendations that
would advance congressional technology.
(18) Recommendation: The House should create a
Digital Service Advisory Board to help plan and
prioritize the work of the House Digital Service.
Specifically . . . The Board should include a wide variety
of senior congressional administrative staff representing
various departments and with technical knowledge. A board will
help ensure that the HDS has broad buy-in to their objectives
and is prioritizing systems that customers identify. The HDS
should develop a transparent but nimble process for selecting
projects. This could be modeled on the Digital Strategy Board
that helps govern the UK's Parliamentary Digital Service.
(19) Recommendation: The Capitol switchboard should
be updated to allow call information to be passed
through to House offices.
Specifically . . . The Capitol switchboard should allow
call information, like the phone number, to be passed through
during the switch from the call center to a House office. The
House has made improvements and offices can now identify when a
call is coming in through the switchboard, which can be helpful
for a Capitol Police investigation but is not helpful for
blocking disruptive and threatening callers.
(20) Recommendation: The GPO should create and offer
a standard process for automating committee hearing
records.
Specifically . . . The GPO, working with the Clerk, should
establish a standard but optional process that automatically
generates and compiles a draft hearing record using documents
uploaded into the committee repository (e.g., testimony,
transcript, votes, and other documents). This process will
require compatibility between document formats used by
committees and the format used at GPO. For years GPO has been
working on this compatibility and has developed XPUB to
modernize the process. To ensure all hearing records are
accounted for, the committee clerk must mark the hearing record
`closed' before GPO begins to compile the record. Automating
the process for compiling and submitting hearing records to GPO
will reduce time and cost burdens and encourage the printing of
committee hearing records. An official printed record lasts in
perpetuity and enhances transparency and public availability of
hearing information.
(21) Recommendation: The House should work with
committees to develop optional tools that allow them to
continue to migrate away from the use of paper
documents during committee meetings.
Specifically . . . The Committee on House Administration
could develop procedures and make resources available to
members and committees to ensure that all future committee
business is ``digital by default.'' Members or committees that
still wish to operate based on paper could still opt-in to the
paper-based system. The costs of digital tools necessary for
committee business would be borne by committees.
Supporting Congressional Operations
(22) Recommendation: The House should provide
resources to support HOLC's continuing efforts to
expand education and proactive outreach to members and
staff.
Specifically . . . The House should provide HOLC with
resources to add a Director of Outreach and Education or assign
additional non-attorney staff to an outreach and education team
at HOLC that would be solely focused on proactive outreach to
member and committee offices, serve as the office's ``eyes and
ears'' to answer questions and identify possible concerns, and
to focus on ways to continually improve the office's
educational and informational materials and offerings to ensure
staff, in particular new staff, are fully informed on the
HOLC's role and processes. The Committee understands the focus
of the OLC is on legislative drafting services and would not
want this effort to take away from the resources that should be
geared toward improving that core drafting function. This
person could have office space in the Capitol that is welcoming
to staff, and the space could be used for legislative drafting
collaboration between members, staff, and attorneys at HOLC.
The HOLC attorneys interact daily and directly with members
and committee offices and staff to provide the legislative
drafting support and assistance they need. Therefore, customer
service is an integral part of what HOLC attorneys do, and each
attorney in the office, by definition, plays an important and
much needed customer-facing role. Over the past several years,
HOLC has expanded its educational and informational outreach to
provide members and staff with the resources necessary to work
most effectively and efficiently with offices to turn members'
policy ideas into effective legislative text. For example, in
collaboration with the Congressional Staff Academy (CSA), the
Office is currently offering a Legislative Counsel 101 (Leg
Counsel and You) and a Legislative Counsel 201 (Working with
Legislative Text) course. The Committee also understands the
HOLC plans to establish open house opportunities for House
staff to meet with the Office to share questions, goals, ideas
for improvement, and concerns. Finally, the CAO Coach Program
in April 2022 hired a Legislative Coach specializing in
mentoring legislative staff and has partnered with HOLC to
offer legislative staff tips and tricks. The Committee strongly
supports these efforts, because when legislative staff is fully
informed on the HOLC drafting process and understands how they
can provide a workable policy idea to begin the drafting
process, workflow and efficiency improve.
(23) Recommendation: At the beginning of a new
Congress, House business support offices and agencies
should hold an ``Open-House'' to provide members and
staff the opportunity to personally meet with
institutional offices and staff and learn about the
services they offer.
Specifically . . . An in-person ``Open-House'' would raise
the awareness of these offices and what they do. It could also
improve the working relationships with member offices by
providing a personal touch and the opportunity to meet the
people they may otherwise only interact with over the phone,
via email, or virtually. Many offices already hold an open
House or information session, but these are not coordinated
with each other.
(24) Recommendation: The House should permit
legislation to have two members of Congress serve as
first sponsors, provided that members are affiliated
with different political parties.
Specifically . . . A second primary sponsor designation for
a member of a different party would incentivize bipartisanship
by giving a member who substantively helps in the crafting and
passage more credit than a co-sponsor designation, which often
only reflects support for the legislation. This recommendation
does not call for a change to the standing rules of the House
but rather envisions a special order to pilot the idea for a
single Congress. There is some precedent for having more than
one member be the sponsor of a bill. The 104th Congress adopted
a special rule to allow the first 20 bills introduced in the
House (H.R. 1 through H.R. 20) to have more than one member
listed as a first sponsor. The committee understands that
operational challenges may arise if implementation diverges
from the precedent of the 104th Congress.
V. COMMITTEE CONSIDERATION AND VOTES
Consideration
On September 29, 2022, the Select Committee held a Business
Meeting, a quorum being present, and reported favorably the
recommendations herein contained in this report.
Votes
In compliance with clause 3(b) of rule XIII of the Rules of
the House of Representatives, there were no recorded votes
taken on these recommendations. The recommendations herein
contained in this report were adopted by voice vote, two-thirds
being in the affirmative. A motion by Chair Derek Kilmer of
Washington to report these recommendations to the House of
Representatives was adopted by voice vote, two-thirds being in
the affirmative.
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