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New Dataset on FY2022 Congressionally Directed Spending
Here’s an interesting dataset to bookmark. After a 10-year moratorium on earmarks, the House Appropriations Committee recently released PDF tables of fiscal year 2022 congressionally directed spending projects. But those PDFs aren’t actually usable for any sort of deeper data analysis. So the Congress Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center has just released the Congressionally Directed Spending FY2022 Dataset. It’s a database of all the FY22 “Final Funded Projects” in H.R. 2471, with some additional member data included (the original tables often only include last name). Check out the Congress Project’s blog post for more on how they extracted and cleaned the data. Good work by the Bipartisan Policy Center!
McCaskill amendment to H.R. 195 set to gut Congressional printing. Act now!
The Federal Register is the official journal of the federal government of the United States that contains government agency rules, proposed rules, and public notices. There’s a particularly damaging bill, H.R. 195: Federal Register Printing Savings Act of 2017, winding its way through Congress, having already passed the House, reported out of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and is pending action and vote on the Senate floor. If passed, the bill — “To amend title 44, United States Code, to restrict the distribution of free printed copies of the Federal Register to Members of Congress and other officers and employees of the United States, and for other purposes” — would restrict the printing of copies of the Federal Register only to Members of Congress and Government officials.
What’s even worse, FGI sources say that Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) is set to propose an amendment to HR 195 that would eliminate the printing not only of the Federal Register, but of copies of congressional hearings, committee reports, and bills, resolutions, and amendments in both the Senate and the House.
If enacted, the amendment would prohibit the printing of these legislative documents for the use of both the Senate and the House. The dollar value of hearings, reports, and bills represents approximately 33%, or $26.3 million, of GPO’s total Congressional Publishing Appropriation of $78.5 million for FY 2018. As a result, the amendment would increase the cost of other congressional printing that remains with GPO, since GPO’s mandatory overhead costs — such as its Office of the Inspector General, police security, and other costs, which will still have to be recovered — will have to be spread over a smaller revenue base.
FDLP libraries needing access to print copies of hearings, reports, and bills for their patrons, including those in Missouri, won’t get them automatically anymore. Instead, the FDLP will have to requisition their printing, and the program will have to absorb all printing costs, which will result in a reduction of other services unless the appropriation for the Public Information Programs of the Superintendent of Documents is increased.
CONTACT SENATOR MCCASKILL NOW AND TELL HER TO KILL HER AMENDMENT AND VOTE NO! ON HR 195. And if you’re not from Missouri, please contact your Senators, ESPECIALLY those on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs!!
There was some very positive discussion about Title 44, Chapter 19 at last week’s DLC meeting. And nearly 1000 people have signed our petition in support of Title 44 and the FDLP (have you?!). But the FDLP community needs to be vigilant that positive FDLP updates to title 44 Chapter 19 do not provide cover for damaging movements of privatization and commercialization of govt information provision and GPO funding in other parts of title 44. Budgetary and operational impacts on GPO other than on chapter 19 — like HR 195! — can directly affect the FDLP program, libraries and public access just the same.
CRS reports set to become public!
I can’t believe it’s finally happened, but today the House Appropriations Committee voted to “allow public access to all non-confidential CRS reports” as part of the FY 2018 Legislative Branch Appropriations bill. We’re one step closer to having public access to CRS reports! A bipartisan group of 40 nonprofit organizations (including FGI!) and 25 former CRS employees have been banging on Congress to do this, and the House today finally listened!
The issue of public access to Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports has been something for which librarians have advocated for at least 20 years. It’s been an uphill battle because some in Congress and the Library of Congress have long viewed CRS reports — which provide non-partisan analysis of important policy issues before Congress — as “privileged communication” between Congress and the CRS. And because of this narrow thinking about *public domain* government information, Libraries and the public have been forced to pay for these reports from private publishers, subscribe to expensive databases for access or find them serendipitously on the web.
Here is the appropriations report language:
“Public Access to CRS Reports: The Committee directs the Library of Congress’s Congressional Research Service (CRS) to make available to the public, all non-confidential reports. The Committee has debated this issue for several years, and after considering debate and testimony from entities inside the legislative branch and beyond the Committee believes the publishing of CRS reports will not impede CRS’s core mission in any impactful way and is in keeping with the Committee’s priority of full transparency to the American people. Within 90 days of enactment of this act CRS is directed to submit a plan to its oversight committees detailing its recommendations for implementing this effort as well as any associated cost estimates. Where practicable, CRS is encouraged to consult with the Government Publishing Office (GPO) in developing their plan; the Committee believes GPO could be of assistance in this effort.”
Read DemandProgress’ press release for more background.
GAO adds 2020 census to its high risk list
The U.S. Constitution — Article I, Section 2, clause 3, as modified by Section 2 of the 14th Amendment — requires a population census every 10 years for apportioning seats in the House of Representatives. However, in the wake of US Census Bureau Director John Thompson’s abrupt resignation in May — which garnered a rash of editorials and news articles decrying his resignation at this critical time! — and the Trump administration and GOP-led Congress failing to fully fund the 2020 effort, the 2020 census could be “heading for a train wreck” as Terri Ann Lowenthal, the former co-director of the Census Project, put it so succinctly.
Accordingly, the Government Accountability Office has added the 2020 US census to its high risk list. Issues which raised the threat level for GAO include cancelled field tests for 2017, critical IT uncertainties, information security risks, and “unreliable” cost estimates which do not “conform to best practices.”
Strap in folks, we’re in for a bumpy couple of years for the census. If you have a Senator on the Senate Appropriations Committee or Representative on the House Appropriations Committee, please contact them early and often and ask — nay plead! — that they fully fund the US Census Bureau in order to complete the constitutionally mandated decennial census.
For more background on the US census, see this CRS Report “The Decennial Census: Issues for 2020.”
Every 2 years at the start of a new Congress, GAO calls attention to agencies and program areas that are high risk due to their vulnerabilities to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement, or are most in need of transformation. The 2017 update identified 3 new High Risk areas and removed 1 area. The update is available below.
Hurry! Action alert on continued funding for ACS and US Census!!
Care about the US Census and American Community Survey? Of course you do! That being the case, it’ll behoove you to contact your Senators ASAP about a couple of draft amendments coming out in the discussion about the FY2017 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations bill. The Census Project has the details:
TO CENSUS PROJECT STAKEHOLDERS: Time-sensitive Action Alert
The U.S. Senate has started consideration of the FY2017 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations bill. We learned today of two amendments that seriously threaten planning for the 2020 Census, as well as the American Community Survey and other important Census Bureau programs, such as the 2017 Economic Census.
(1) Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) will offer an amendment to add questions on citizenship and legal status to the 2020 Census form. The senator’s stated purpose for collecting this information is to exclude undocumented residents (and perhaps all non-citizens; he has used the terms interchangeably in the past) from the state population totals used for congressional apportionment, which are derived from the decennial census (Article I, sec. 2, of the Constitution).
This amendment is a serious threat to a fair and accurate census. Please see our Talking Points, below, for reasons why the Senator’s goal is unconstitutional and how adding these questions to the form would create a “chilling effect” during the census in communities throughout the country and would undermine years of careful planning and preparation for the 2020 Census, now only a few years away.
(2) Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE) will offer an amendment to cut the Census Bureau’s funding level by $148 million, essentially wiping out ANY funding “ramp up” for the 2020 Census. With final testing and key design decisions scheduled for 2017, failure to provide any funding increase over FY2016 would force the Bureau to abandon most (if not all) plans to modernize the census; it would have to fall back on the 2010 Census design, at an additional cost of $5+ billion (with a “b”!). Alternatively, the Census Bureau would have to eliminate the American Community Survey and/or 2017 Economic Census, which provides the baseline data for all key national economic indicators, such as GDP. Please see our fact sheet on “Why Full Funding Matters” for talking points (and feel free to share it directly with Senate offices). (The Fischer amendment does not propose a funding reduction to pay for another program in the bill, but simply as a cost-saving measure, so it should be easier for Senators to oppose it.)
We urge your organizations to contact your Senators ASAP and ask them to oppose Vitter Amendment #4687 and Fischer Amendment #4711 to the FY2017 Commerce, Justice and Science (CJS) Appropriations bill (S. 2578), for the reasons outlined in the talking points and fact sheet.
WE ALSO ANTICIPATE THAT OTHER ANTI-CENSUS AND ACS AMENDMENTS COULD ARISE DURING CONSIDERATION OF THE CJS BILL. Therefore, please use the opportunity to ask Senators to OPPOSE ALL AMENDMENTS THAT REDUCE THE FUNDING LEVEL FOR THE CENSUS BUREAU (the CJS bill already cuts the Administration’s budget request for the Census Bureau!) AND THAT UNDERMINE THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY, INCLUDING AMENDMENTS THAT WOULD MAKE RESPONSE VOLUNTARY. (For Talking Points on that issue, see our fact sheet about the importance of the ACS).
While the timing of these and other amendments is uncertain due to a filibuster of the CJS bill on gun control issues, the Senate could consider these amendments at any time, so we urge you to reach out to your Senators as soon as possible.
Thank you for your continued support of a fair and accurate 2020 Census and comprehensive ACS!
June 10, 2016
SUPPORT A FAIR AND ACCURATE 2020 CENSUS!
OPPOSE VITTER AMENDMENT #4687 TO ADD
CITIZENSHIP/LEGAL STATUS QUESTIONS TO THE CENSUS FORM
(FY2017 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations bill – S. 2578)The Vitter amendment seeks to achieve a purpose that is clearly unconstitutional. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution clearly states that apportionment of the House of Representatives is based on a full count of all residents in each state, regardless of citizenship or legal status.
Republican and Democratic Administrations alike have concluded that excluding undocumented residents and/or non-citizens from the state population totals used for congressional apportionment would be unconstitutional.The 14th Amendment was enacted, in part, to repeal the provision in Article I that counted slaves as only three-fifths of a person for apportionment purposes. The Vitter amendment evokes this shameful legacy.
The 14th Amendment clearly contemplates that all persons will be counted in the decennial census for apportionment purposes, without regard to eligibility to vote. In fact, many population groups that could not (women; African Americans; Native Americans) or cannot (children; noncitizens; incarcerated persons or those who do not have voting rights by virtue of a felony conviction) vote have always been counted in the census for purposes of congressional apportionment and redistricting.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently confirmed by a vote of 8 – 0, in Evenwel v. Abbott, that the Constitution envisions that members of Congress will represent the interests of all residents of a congressional district, regardless of a person’s eligibility to vote. The same principle applies to the apportionment of seats in Congress that is the basis for redistricting.
The Vitter amendment would put the accuracy of the 2020 Census at risk in every State and every community.
The decennial census has never included questions about citizenship or legal status. (The American Community Survey, the modern version of the census long form, includes a question on citizenship status only.)
Every census since the first enumeration in 1790 has included citizens and non-citizens alike.
Asking about immigration status in the Census is unnecessarily intrusive and will raise concerns among all respondents – both native-born and immigrant – about the confidentiality and privacy of information provided to the government. This will have a chilling effect and keep many residents from responding, jeopardizing the accuracy of the census in every State and community.
Congress allocates roughly $450 billion annually in federal program funds to states and localities, for a range of vital services, based on census data. An inaccurate census will skew the fair distribution of program funds for the next decade.The Vitter amendment would disrupt 2020 Census planning at a pivotal point, undermining years of research and testing and likely increasing census costs significantly.
The Census Bureau is completing a multi-year research and testing phase of the 2020 Census. By next year, it must finalize all major design elements and prepare for an end-to-end readiness test in early 2018.
Adding new questions on citizenship and legal status would require the Bureau to go back to the drawing board on questionnaire design and testing — such a requirement would threaten its ability to be ready to conduct the 2020 Census on time. But robust testing would be essential, given the probable chilling effect of adding these questions to the form.
Furthermore, the Census Act requires the Census Bureau to submit topics to be included in the 2020 Census by April 1, 2017 — a milestone the Bureau approaches only after years of careful testing and evaluation of questions. The Vitter amendment essentially would require the Bureau to conduct a census using an untested questionnaire, a sure recipe for disaster and an inaccurate result.
The results of many years of painstaking research and testing for the 2020 Census would no longer be reliable, because adding new questions on citizenship and legal status would undoubtedly affect response rates, outreach and advertising strategies, and other important elements of the nation’s most complex peacetime activity. Congress will have wasted hundreds of millions of dollars already spent to plan the 2020 Census, and the cost of the census will rise significantly as the Bureau tries to evaluate untested questions with little time to spare and then count millions of people who will be more reluctant to participate because of the new queries.For more information: Terri Ann Lowenthal, Senior Advisor, The Census Project (TerriAnn2K@aol.com).
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