U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

1 

36–771 

" ! HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 116TH CONGRESS

1st Session 

C.P. 116–1 

2019

[COMMITTEE PRINT] 

RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE 

TRANSPARENCY IN THE 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

R E P O R T 

THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE 

MODERNIZATION OF CONGRESS 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

MAY 23, 2019.—Ordered to be printed 
(II) 

SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE MODERNIZATION OF CONGRESS 

DEREK KILMER, Washington, Chair 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

EMMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri 

SUZAN DELBENE, Washington 

MARK POCAN, Wisconsin 

MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania 

TOM GRAVES, Georgia, Vice Chair 

ROBERT WOODALL, Georgia 

SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana 

RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois 

DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington 

WILLIAM TIMMONS, South Carolina 

COMMITTEE STAFF

ALLIE NEILL, Staff Director 

JAKE OLSON, Deputy Staff Director 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

MAY 23, 2019 

page 

I. PURPOSE AND SUMMARY 1 

II. BACKGROUND AND NEED FOR RECOMMENDATIONS 1 

III. HEARINGS 2 

IV. RECOMMENDATIONS 3 

V. COMMITTEE CONSIDERATION AND VOTES 4 

116TH CONGRESS CP: 116–1. " ! HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 1st Session 

RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE TRANSPARENCY IN 

THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

MAY 23, 2019.—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 has 

been charged with the important responsibility of recommending 

improvements to the U.S. House of Representatives to ultimately 

better serve the American people. These initial recommendations 

propose to improve transparency and ease public access to legislative information in the U.S. House of Representatives. While legislative information is public, it is often not made available in a format that allows the public to easily review and understand this information. These recommendations address such transparency and 

access problems and encourage the continuous coordination and 

public posting of new legislative information. 

II. BACKGROUND AND NEED FOR RECOMMENDATIONS 

Over the past decade, there has been a significant push to make 

congressional data more accessible to the American public in an 

interactive and understandable way. Transparency increases accountability and ultimately improves the way Congress serves the 

people. 

The Select Committee identified the following issues to be addressed with recommendations to improve transparency: 

1. The House currently uses four different formats to write and 

view legislation, which creates inefficiencies in the process. 

Maintaining, converting, and reconverting between multiple 

formats requires costly custom software, risks errors, and 

hinders transparency. Adopting U.S. Legislative Markup 

(USLM)—one of the four formats currently used and the recognized standard—throughout the lawmaking process creates a 

more coherent system for members and staff; simplifies drafting; allows for instant comparison of proposed bills to current 

law; provides transparency; and, allows for changes made by 
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amendments to be automatically reflected in bills once they are 

approved. 

2. In 2017, new rules adopted by the House encouraged greater 

transparency and access to legislative documents. These rules 

called for additional tools for members, staff, and the public to 

clearly see how proposed legislation could change our laws 

throughout the legislative process. This initiative, known as 

the Posey Comparative Prints Project, has already completed 

Phase 1, and is on track to meet their Phase 2 and Phase 3 

deadlines. However, the Select Committee has identified possible areas of concern including making sure that (1) resources 

are available to develop and maintain the application for 

House-wide use, and (2) resources are available to train and 

support staff using the comparative print application. Ensuring 

that the Clerk’s Office is ready to handle these anticipated 

challenges is key to a smooth transition to implementing the 

comparative print program, and ensuring the public can easily 

view and understand proposed changes to our laws. 

3. Filing and finding lobbyist disclosures should be straightforward and simple. A Congress-wide unique identifier for lobbyists would eliminate the problem of misspelled names, or the 

same person having registrations under different first names 

(example: Mike/Michael) causing confusion. By assigning 

unique identifiers, the Clerk’s Office would clarify and simplify 

the lobbying registration and disclosure process, while making 

the filing process simpler. 

4. Over the last few decades, Congress has increasingly failed 

to regularly update the authorization of federal agencies and 

programs. As a result, the management of wide expanses of the 

federal government has shifted to the executive branch, and 

many programs and departments operate on autopilot without 

meaningful congressional input. Making agency and program 

reauthorization dates public provides members, staff, and the 

public with easy-to-access information about the current status 

of executive branch programs and the committees that are responsible for authorizing those programs. 

5. Figuring out how members of a committee or its subcommittees voted on any bill or issue before the committee or its subcommittees can be difficult. Each committee sets its own procedures for making this information publicly available. The information is public, yet it’s not easy to access by most Americans. 

Some subscriber services collect and provide this information 

to paying subscribers. But for the average person—and even 

for members and staff not on the committee—this information 

is difficult and time-consuming to collect. Publishing committee 

votes in a centralized location improves transparency and access to this information for the public at-large. 

III. HEARINGS 

The Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress held a 

hearing titled, ′′Opening up the Process: Recommendations for 

Making Legislative Information More Transparent′′ on May 10, 

2019. The Select Committee received testimony from: 

* Daniel Schuman, Policy Director, Demand Progress 
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* Joshua Tauberer, Founder, GovTrack.us 

* Robert Reeves, Deputy House Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives 

* Frances Lee, Professor, University of Maryland 

IV. RECOMMENDATIONS 

The Select Committee made the following five recommendations 

to address the problems identified (see II. BACKGROUND AND 

NEED FOR RECOMMENDATIONS). The Select Committee supports: 

1. Adopting one standardized format for drafting, viewing, and 

publishing legislation to improve transparency and efficiency 

throughout the lawmaking process. 

Specifically . . . Develop a plan for the adoption of U.S. Legislative Markup (USLM) throughout the lawmaking process. The 

plan would incorporate a timeline for use by the House Legislative Counsel, members’ offices, leadership, and committees. 

Such an approach would help members, staff, and the American public have access to changes, visualizations, and analysis 

of legislative text. Printing and publishing processes would 

also be made more efficient. 

2. 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. 

Specifically . . . The Clerk’s Office is on track to meet their 

Posey Comparative Print Project Phase 2 (August 2019) and 

Phase 3 (3rd quarter 2020) deadlines. The main issues of concern are making sure that (1) resources are available to develop and maintain the application for House-wide use, and (2) 

resources are available to train and support staff using the 

comparative print application. Support would include ensuring 

that the Clerk’s Office is ready to handle these anticipated 

challenges to implement the comparative print program. 

3. Modernizing the lobbying disclosure system to improve the 

filing process and more easily find and track individual disclosures. 

Specifically . . . Direct the Clerk of the House and Secretary 

of the Senate to update the lobbying disclosure system in general and generate a Congress-wide unique identifier for lobbyists and disclosing that identifier to the public as structured 

data as part of the lobbying disclosure downloads. 

4. Developing a centralized, electronic HUB that would list all 

federal agency and program reauthorization expiration dates, 

by committee. 

Specifically . . . Congress has increasingly failed to regularly 

update the authorization of federal agencies and programs. 

Centralizing agency and program reauthorization dates provides members, staff, and the public with easy-to-access information about the current status of executive branch programs 

and the committees that are responsible for authorizing those 

programs. 
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5. Developing a centralized, electronic HUB of committee votes 

that would be accessible via House.gov and in machine readable format. 

Specifically . . . Figuring out how a committee or its subcommittees voted on any bill or issue before the committee or 

its subcommittees can be prohibitively difficult. Each committee sets its own procedures for making this information 

publicly available. The information is public, yet it’s not easy 

to access by most Americans. Centralizing committee vote data 

in one place enhances transparency and ensures ease of access 

for the public. 

V. COMMITTEE CONSIDERATION AND VOTES 

CONSIDERATION

On May 23, 2019, 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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