Last week the House Select Committee on Modernization unanimously approved a bipartisan package of recommendations to improve transparency in the legislative branch.
The Select Committee was formed in the House Rules adopted by the 116thCongress on January 4, 2019. The committee is led by Chairman Derek Kilmer (D-WA) and Vice Chairman Tom Graves (R-GA). They are tasked with investigating, studying, making findings, holding public hearings, and developing recommendations on modernizing Congress. The recommendations can be on rules to promote a more modern and efficient Congress; procedures; policies to develop the next generation of leaders; staff recruitment, diversity, retention and compensation and benefits; administrative efficiencies including travel and outside services; technology innovation; and the work of the House Commission on Congressional Mailing Standards.
The five recommendations approved by the committee include:
- Adopting one standardized format for drafting, viewing, and publishing legislation to improve transparency and efficiency throughout the lawmaking process.
- Providing resources to finish legislation comparison project on schedule and train staff to vastly improve the American public’s ability to understand how amendments change legislation, and the impact of proposed legislation to current law.
- Modernizing the lobbying disclosure system to improve the filing process and more easily find and track individual disclosures.
- Developing a centralized, electronic HUB that would list all federal agency and program reauthorization expiration dates, by committee.
- Developing a centralized, electronic HUB of committee votes that would be accessible via House.gov and in machine readable format.
The Select Committee does not have legislative jurisdiction, so all recommendations they make will be written into a report and sent to the respective committees of jurisdiction for next steps. The Select Committee plans to offer additional recommendations throughout the remainder of the year.