As we have strained to keep up with the growth and potential of our Congressional Committees Project, we have encountered great success. We have a fabulous wiki page, and most Congressional Committees have been claimed, with some already having detailed committee-specific wiki pages created by their adopters.
Google "congressional committees project," or "adopt a committee," and we're first. Google the name of the committee I've cited above, and that webpage is the ninth entry--and we've existed for only a few weeks.
The potential for this project is staggering. Distributed congressional oversight has the potential to change the way that we're conscious of our legislature and its processes, but only if we're aware of and engaged with the limitations on our views into our Congress.
I've been researching the degree to which committees are transparent organizations. Since our ability to meaningfully monitor the actions of our congressional committees increases in proportion to our ability to see into their inner workings, I have decided to share what I've found so far about committee transparency, that we might more effectively ask for greater access to committee transcripts.
At polisigh's insistence, I've been reading an old version of "Congressional Prcedures and the Policy Process," by Walter J Oleszek, which has been invaluable thus far, since I have no political background, aside from years of Daily Kos readership and volunteering for Jim Webb's Phone from Home Service.
One of the first things I picked up is that
The jurisdiction, or policy mandate, of Congress's standing (permanent) committees is outlined in the House and Senate rules... Rules also prescribe the standards that committees are expected to observe during their policy deliberations. These include quorum requirements, public notice of committee meetings and hearings, and the right to counsel for witnesses. (p. 8, Fifth Edition)
Tracking from here, I was able to find the House and Rules Manual (for the 110th Congress) and the Standing Rules of the Senate.
Within these rules can be found some specific passages germane to the availability of committee transcripts. First I found this on p. 153:
In the House it is entirely within rule and usage for a committee to
conduct its proceedings in secret (IV, 4558-4564; see also clause 2(g)
of rule XI), and the House itself may not abrogate the secrecy of a
committee's proceedings except by suspending the rule (IV, 4565).
That looks pretty discouraging at first, except that it provides only for the option of secrecy, which could, of course, be occasionally necessary. Continuing, we have:
Under clause 2 of rule XI, all hearings and business meetings
conducted by standing committees shall be open to the public, except
when a committee, in open session, by record vote, with a majority
present, determines to close the meeting or hearing for that day for the
reasons stated in that clause.
That's much better. The general standard set by the house rules is for transparency, with the option of secrecy.
So the default for any house committee is transparency. How about the Senate? Here we go:
(e) Each committee shall prepare and keep a complete transcript or electronic recording adequate to fully record the proceeding of each meeting or conference whether or not such meeting or any part thereof is closed under this paragraph, unless a majority of its members vote to forgo such a record.
So I guess the same is true of the Senate committees: the default leans toward transparency, unless some circumstance necessitates secrecy. From the Senate webpage, in their rules section:
(b) Each meeting of a committee, or any subcommittee thereof, including meetings to conduct hearings, shall be open to the public, except that a meeting or series of meetings by a committee or a subcommittee thereof on the same subject for a period of no more than fourteen calendar days may be closed to the public on a motion made and seconded to go into closed session to discuss only whether the matters enumerated in clauses (1) through (6) would require the meeting to be closed, followed immediately by a record vote in open session by a majority of the members of the committee or subcommittee when it is determined that the matters to be discussed or the testimony to be taken at such meeting or meetings
This sentence ends with a large list of situations in which Senate meetings may be closed to the public. It then continues...
© Whenever any hearing conducted by any such committee or subcommittee is open to the public, that hearing may be broadcast by radio or television, or both, under such rules as the committee or subcommittee may adopt.
and then later...
(e) Each committee shall prepare and keep a complete transcript or electronic recording adequate to fully record the proceeding of each meeting or conference whether or not such meeting or any part thereof is closed under this paragraph, unless a majority of its members vote to forgo such a record.
Ok. So far we understand that first, the default of the Senate and the house is that committee hearings are transparent, and that, in at least the case of the Senate, committee transcripts are both permitted to be broadcast (although not explicitly online), and that verbatim transcripts are required to be kept. In the Senate (as described above, and in the House too..
(e)(1)(A) <<NOTE: 794. Required records.>> Each committee shall keep
a complete record of all committee action which shall include--
(i) in the case of a meeting or hearing transcript, a
substantially verbatim account of remarks actually made during the
proceedings, subject only to technical, grammatical, and typographical
corrections authorized by the person making the remarks involved; and
(ii) a record of the votes on any question on which a record vote
is demanded.
What about the availability of these transcripts? On the Senate Webpage I found this...
Web Access
Many committees post witness testimony on their Web sites shortly after a hearing takes place. However, the transcripts are generally the prepared statements submitted by each witness, so they will not contain the question-and-answer portion. You can find committee Web pages through the main Senate and House Web sites and on THOMAS. Most committees organize their hearing transcripts by date, and sometimes by subcommittee. Generally, testimony is only available for witnesses who submitted their statements electronically.
Looks like a pretty big hole, huh? Committee transcripts are to be made verbatim in both the Senate and the House, unless secrecy is necessary (understandably). Our ability, as citizens, to find these transcripts? Very Limited. That quote gives links to the Library of Congress and to the GPO. They may get copies of the transcripts, eventually.
The next paragraph on that senate page suggests that individual committees often publish their transcripts and make them available to interested parties. Looking in the House Committee on Agriculture website, I found this...
The House Committee on Agriculture publishes an official printed hearing record of each of the hearings it holds, commonly referred to as the transcript of the hearing. The printed hearing record contains a verbatim transcript of the event, along with supporting materials that were part of the official hearing record.
Pursuant to clause 2(e) (4) of rule XI of the rules of the House of Representatives, public hearing records of the committee are also published in electronic form. The printed hearing record remains the official version.
Official transcripts take 3 to 6 weeks before they are finalized and posted to this page. Limited copies of printed versions of the hearing are available from the Committee on Agriculture.
That's somewhat helpful, if you're a historian. To those interested in actually keeping tabs on what their Senators and representatives are saying, so that they may potentially have some effect on the proceedings, we may as well not be there at all.
So that's what I've found today. Looks to me like a good first request for our congresspeople is that they establish standards for timely publication of committee transcripts, hopefully online, so that interested observers can have a meaningful view of what is happening in committee.
Let me know what you think! Know something I don't? Please let us know! It seems to me that some of the best places to focus our questions would be Senator Reid and Representative Pelosi, and also perhaps the Clerk of the House.
Also, if you're interested in helping to watch committees (everybody has a favorite, no?) then head on over to our wiki page and sign up! (even if it's taken--there is plenty of room for cooperation in this project).