_-- Public Policy Network - Posting to PUBPOL-L --_
This should be of interest. I assume that a lot of PUBPOL-L users
have made use of Congressional Research Service materials as workers,
researchers, or interns in Congress. It would be nice to see that
useful information on the Internet for broader use.
Steven Clift
Public Policy Network
----------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 09:57:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: James Packard Love <[log in to unmask]>
To: Multiple recipients of list <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Sign-on for CRS Reports on the Internet
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Info-Policy-Notes - A newsletter available from [log in to unmask]
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INFORMATION POLICY NOTES
July 14, 1997
Sign-On for Congressional Research Service Reports
Gary Ruskin taken the lead on this sign-on letter. It asks the
U.S. Congress to provide the public with access to congressional Research
Service Reports on the Internet. These are very useful reports that
members of Congress often use as material for speechs or columns. There
have been efforts since 1991 to get these online. Gary think we have a
real shot at this now. The following is a letter to House Oversight
Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA) and Senate Rules Committee Chairman
John Warner (R-VA). If you are willing to add your name, send the
following data to:
[log in to unmask]
BY Tuesday, July 29, 1997.
Name ___________________________________________________
Title (optional) _______________________________________
Affiliation (optional) __________________________________
Address _________________________________________________
City, State, Zip (very important) _______________________
e-mail address __________________________________________
The letter follows:
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Honorable William Thomas, Chairman
Committee on House Oversight
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Honorable John Warner, Chairman
Committee on Rules
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
RE: Placing Congressional Research Service
Reports and Products on the Internet
Dear Chairmen Thomas and Warner:
On June 25th, the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress
appointed a task force consisting of Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS)
and Representative Vern Ehlers (R-MI) to recommend whether some
Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports and products should
be made available to the public via the Internet. We are
concerned that the appointment of a task force will simply delay
placing CRS products on the Internet.
As Chairmen of the internal administrative committees of the
House of Representatives and Senate, each of you has the
authority at present to place CRS products on the Internet. Many
of these CRS products are currently available to members of
Congress and their staffs on an internal congressional intranet.
We are writing to urge you to place all generic CRS products on
the Internet, which would improve citizens' ability to identify
and obtain them.
The Congressional Research Service is a taxpayer-funded
research organization within the Library of Congress, with an
annual budget of nearly $63 million. It is a research arm of the
U. S. Congress, staffed by hundreds of talented independent issue
experts who prepare valuable reports and information products,
including CRS Reports, Info Packs, Issue Briefs, and Audio
Briefs. During fiscal year 1996, CRS prepared more than 1,000
new written research products for the Congress.
But Congress distributes few CRS products via the Internet.
Citizens cannot obtain most CRS products directly. Instead, we
must engage in the burdensome and time-consuming process of
requesting a member of Congress to send CRS products to us.
Often, citizens must wait for weeks or even months before such a
request is filled. This barrier to obtaining CRS products serves
no useful purpose, and harms citizens' ability to participate in
the congressional legislative process.
Instead of waiting for a member of Congress to send CRS
products, citizens may purchase them from a commercial vendor.
For example, Penny Hill Press charges an annual subscription rate
of $190 per year plus $2.75 per CRS report plus 2.5 cents per
page. Nonsubscribers pay $47 for up to five CRS reports.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) has repeatedly supported
placing congressional materials on the Internet. On November 11,
1994, in a speech to the Washington Research Group Symposium, he
promised that "we will change the rules of the House to require
that all documents and all conference reports and all committee
reports be filed electronically as well as in writing and that
they cannot be filed until they are available to any citizen who
wants to pull them up. Thus, information will be available to
every citizen in the country at the same moment it is available
to the highest paid Washington lobbyist."
Despite Speaker Gingrich's speech more than 2 1/2 years ago,
most CRS products are available electronically only to members of
Congress and their staffs. On June 5, 1997, CRS Director Daniel
Mulhollan boasted in testimony to Senate Appropriations
Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch that "the CRS Home Page
makes available online exclusively to congressional offices all
CRS issue briefs and numerous reports....Through our Home Page
the Congress has integrated access to a wide range of products
and information. This service is now readily accessible
electronically to Members and staff 24 hours a day." But not to
citizens.
Nothing in the statutory charter of the CRS, or any other
federal law or House or Senate rule, prevents Congress from
placing these CRS products on the Internet. No change in federal
law, nor House nor Senate Rule is required to place CRS products
on the Internet. Neither the Joint Committee on the Library, nor
the Senate Rules Committee, nor the House Oversight Committee
need approve placing CRS products on the Internet. This is an
internal administrative matter. Both Chairman Thomas and
Chairman Warner separately have the authority to place CRS
products on the House and Senate World Wide Web sites.
Although the 105th and 104th Congresses have made an effort
to place some congressional documents on the Internet, many
important Congressional materials are still not available on the
Internet, including most committee prints and discussion drafts
of bills, chairman's marks, voting records in a non-partisan
database, most transcripts of hearings, financial disclosure
reports, texts of committee and floor amendments, transcripts of
committee mark-ups, franked mass mailings, lobbyist disclosure
reports, Statements of Disbursements of the House, and Secretary
of the Senate reports.
In his House and Senate testimony, CRS Director Mulhollan
highlighted the benefits that the CRS provides to new members of
Congress. He noted that CRS "offer[s] assistance tailored to
the unique needs of new Members." Many of those needs are for
general briefing materials on substantive and procedural matters.
Such briefing materials could be of great use to citizens as
well. James Madison aptly described the need for such public
information when he wrote that "A popular government, without
popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a
Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge
will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their
own Governors, must arm themselves with the power that knowledge
gives."
The Congressional Research Service produces some of the
best research in the federal government. We believe that
taxpayers ought to be able to read the research that we pay for.
We urge you to place these valuable CRS products -- including CRS
Reports, Info Packs, Issue Briefs, and Audio Briefs -- on the
Internet.
Sincerely,
Gary Ruskin, Director, Congressional Accountability Project
James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology
Lori Fena, Executive Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Shabbir J. Safdar, Co-founder, Voters Telecommunications Watch
Audrie Krause, Executive Director, NetAction
Lucinda Sikes, Staff Attorney, Public Citizen Litigation Group
Kim Alexander, Executive Director, California Voter Foundation
cc: Honorable Conrad Burns
Honorable Thad Cochran
Honorable Vernon Ehlers
Honorable Newt Gingrich
Honorable Ted Stevens
Honorable Rick White
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Steven L. Clift - [log in to unmask]
Minneapolis, Minnesota - 612-824-3747
http://freenet.msp.mn.us/people/clift/ - Home Page
http://www.e-democracy.org - Minnesota E-Democracy
http://www.hhh.umn.edu/PUBPOL/ - Public Policy Network
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