The Best-Kept Secret of the Secret Congress
On this, the final day of the 117th Congress, I want to pay tribute to a remarkable bit of institution-building that occurred during it. The time is ripe for commendation. There is a growing recognition that, for all the chaos and conflict on Capitol Hill, a “secret” or “shadow” Congress operates behind the scenes to get things done for the American people.
The secret Congress is populated by pragmatic work horses, not performative show horses. Over the past two years, they have produced a raft of landmark legislation, almost all of it on a bipartisan basis. Stellar examples include the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Chips and Science Act, the Respect for Marriage Act, and reform of the 1887 Electoral Count Act.
For two congresses now, one group of House lawmakers has exemplified the commendable ethos of the secret Congress–but with a twist. The members of the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress have worked not to make public policy but rather to strengthen the institution that makes it – the People’s House. We will benefit from their labor.
The 202 recommendations made by the Committee during the 116th and 117th congresses span several critical areas, as reflected in chapter headings from its final report:
“Recruiting, empowering, and retaining an experienced, skilled, and diverse congressional staff”
“Building a more civil and collaborative Congress”
“Strengthening lawmaking and oversight capacity”
“Building a Modern Congress” (technology systems and talent)
“Modernizing the Workplace”
“Modernizing District Offices”
The Committee's meticulous tracking shows that 45 of its recommendations have been fully implemented, 87 are partially implemented works in progress, and the remaining third await action. Among the most consequential of the changes has been the establishment of a new process for congressionally-directed spending, aka “earmarks,” enabling renewal of their legitimate and beneficial use by lawmakers.
Among the many other prosaic but nonetheless essential improvements already implemented are establishing a one-stop human resources hub for House staff, decoupling staff and member compensation to allow for increases in staff salaries; making congressional websites accessible to people with disabilities; and providing congressional district offices with access to secure wi-fi.
Having accomplished much, the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress has wrapped up its work. This is not a surprise; as a select committee, it was always meant to be a temporary body. Responsibility for overseeing implementation of its recommendations and the ongoing work of modernization will pass to a new subcommittee of the Committee on House Administration, which has the jurisdiction and wherewithal to move the remaining work forward, bringing more heft to the push.
Keys to Success
How did the Select Committee manage to succeed in its institution-building amid a polarized era notorious for making such work difficult? Four factors contributed to its remarkable productivity.
Bipartisan appetite for change. Just like the rest of us, people who work in Congress bear the brunt of any outdated and dysfunctional aspects of their workplaces. For more than a decade, representatives and staff on both sides of the aisle have pushed for changes. The resolution establishing the Select Committee at the start of the 116th Congress passed with overwhelming support, by vote of 418-12. Subsequently, the Select Committee honored its bipartisan origins by limiting its recommendations to those enjoying unanimous or super-majority support among its intentionally balanced membership of six Democrats and six Republicans. The quick take up of its work highlights the extent to which the Committee has been pushing on an open door.
“Good carpenters” as leaders. Former House Speaker Sam Rayburn observed that “any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.” The Select Committee was fortunate to have good carpenters as leaders. First and foremost was Chair Derek Kilmer (D-WA), who brought his deft inter-personal touch, a management consultant’s tool kit, and a passion for getting things done to his role. Vice Chairs Tom Graves (R-GA) and William Timmons (R-SC) brought constructive and complementary dispositions and great teamwork to their leadership roles alongside Kilmer in the 116th and 117th congresses, respectively. The creative and pragmatic vision these three leaders cast for their Committee set the tone for its work.
Innovative ways of working. Kilmer’s mantra has been that, if you want things to work differently in Congress, you need to do things differently. Breaking the mold, the Committee held bipartisan planning retreats at the start of each congress. Kilmer and Graves made a key decision early on: to have one integrated budget and staff instead of dividing them up along party lines. Committee members sat interspersed “in the round” in hearings, alongside each other and witnesses rather than in partisan groupings looking down from a dais. The hearings were free-flowing conversations rather than pre-allocated five-minute bursts of talking points. Committee leaders engaged citizens in an innovative digital town hall. The Committee deliberated on and offered its recommendations on a rolling basis, when they were ripe, in more actionable small batches. Then they transparently kept track of whether and how the recommendations were being implemented. All this may not seem breath-taking, but relative to how congressional committees normally work, it is fresh and heady stuff.
Sustained support from civil society. The Select Committee relied heavily on a coalition of policy advocates, practitioners, and scholars from across the ideological spectrum who joined forces in what they and the Committee came to call the Fix Congress Cohort. Participants in the cohort stood shoulder-to-shoulder with committee members throughout their work, informing their deliberations and hearings, facilitating their bipartisan retreats, providing staff secondments, serving as sounding boards, and helping other members appreciate the wisdom of their recommendations.
I should disclose that I am not a completely objective observer of the stellar contributions made by these nonprofit organizations. The Hewlett Foundation’s U.S. democracy program, which I directed up until March of last year, supported most of the organizations that comprised the Fix Congress Cohort. (We did so alongside our partners at the Democracy Fund, one of the few other funders willing to invest in bolstering governing institutions).
That said, you don’t have to take the word of an appreciative funder on the importance of the Cohort. As Kilmer and Timmons noted in the Committee’s final report,
“The ecosystem of congressional reform experts and organizations that coordinated around the Committee to actively support its work was instrumental to the Committee’s formation, its renewal, and its success in generating and passing recommendations…This kind of constructive engagement between reform committees and advocacy groups is historically rare, particularly because the engagement was fully bipartisan.”
The 118th Congress that convenes tomorrow is, like its predecessors, going to be messy and cantankerous on the surface. We are returning to split party control between the House and Senate, always a combustible mix. The new GOP House majority will be hard-pressed to wrangle and keep several wayward members of its majority in the fold. The feathers have already started to fly.
But beneath the fuss, we can expect stalwart lawmakers in the secret Congress to carry on working on our behalf without a lot of drama. They will do so in an institution that has become more resilient and better equipped to carry out its responsibilities as the first branch of our government. And for that, we are indebted to the leaders and members of the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress.
