americalabs.org
Progressive institutionalist with an interest in modernizing Congress and strengthening our democracy. Bluesky is my penance for working at an org that once encouraged Congress to tweet.
Like what you see? More at https://firstbranchforecast.substack.com/
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Check out "GAO faces nearly 50% budget cut, less oversight of withheld funds in budget plan" by @jheckman.bsky.social
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If you go back to FY 1994 it's a *very* different world.
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That's very nice work! I have the line items going back to ~1990 for leg branch in a spreadsheet. Happy to share.
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??? What are House members offering a war powers resolution that's different from the war powers resolution already offered in the House.
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Being a crook and a creep should be a disqualification.
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You can read about those controversies and more, starting with official corruptions, on his Wikipedia page.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_...
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That candidate worked to give control of the state senate to Republicans, collected more than a million dollars in political donations from people /families of those he appointed, lied about it, used state resources to force staff to draft his book (and was ordered to repay $5.1m in profits).
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Apologies to Mr. Golden. We already have a winner. This is the kind of decision that Congress gets to make.
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3. Time to thumb through "the Best and the Brightest."
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I have not. Will check it out.
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Hmmm, now that I think about it -- I'd just call the House and Senate historians. :)
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You could also do the inverse. Pull up the end of session committee reports (the activity reports) in the House and they'll show who was on the committee.
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Going back for a sec, you'll note the congress dot gov APIs do return unique IDs for committees and *I think* subcommittees
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To make the request of the congress dot gov team, here's their github repo. github.com/LibraryOfCon...
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For recent data (last 30 years?), GovTrack may be able to pull the data. I don't think the congressdotgov API has this, although you could put in a request for them to add it to their API.
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There is some good news. Members have unique IDs (called bioguides) and that data goes back to the beginning. Committees and subcommittees are traced backwards through the THOMAS numbers (to an extent) and through SUDOC (to an extent). Subcommittees would be harder ofc.
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It can get tricky because (1) people aren't necessarily on a committee the whole Congress and (2) committees in the House are not continuing bodies (and change names, jurisdictions, etc.).
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Oh, this is a really good and interesting question. There is data on some of this, but it depends on when (what range) you want it from and the format in which you want it. I can provide some pointers, but the best person to ask is KG at the Congressional Data Task Force. Email & i can connect.
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I wrote this this weekend on some of the issues.
firstbranchforecast.substack.com/p/protecting...
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You should not rely on the Capitol Police statistics as they are misleading. Glad to discuss it further.
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Oh, wow! I've been printing out my own versions of this. Glad to see it in print!
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Are you prepared to fast forward?
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Excellent, excellent choice.
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firstbranchforecast.substack.com/p/sen-padill...
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He would have to be on the floor to object.
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The best time to call up a resolution would have been yesterday. The next best time is Monday.
www.democrats.senate.gov/2025/06/12/s...
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I suspect there are at least 3 Republican senators that would support a resolution condemning the assault and arrest of a senator who was carrying out his oversight duties.
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It's also notable that the police stood in the way of the videotaping of Padilla as they forced Sen. Padilla to the ground and handcuffed him as they repeatedly stated "no recording is allowed here."
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I think it might. Also-- it would be interesting to see who would object, if anyone.
A well-written resolution that is focused and on topic would be hard to oppose.
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They don't know who they're admitting to their press conferences? They don't know what the RM of their oversight committee looks like?
There's a visitor log for entry into the building. And a calendar for meeting with officials.
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Of course, the House could also consider a resolution to address the manhandling and arrest of Sen. Padilla at the hands of DHS. I would imagine that @hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social or really any member of the House could get something together pretty quickly.
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It would be great to see @schumer.senate.gov exercise his leadership to draft and introduce a condemnatory resolution of the manhandling and arrest of Sen. Padilla and calling it up immediately under UC.
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For those paying attention, press conferences are the generally accepted forum where people like the DHS Secretary answer questions.
Sen. Padilla, for what it's worth, is the ranking member of the Judiciary subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Safety.
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I hope so, too. Your ability to teach important ideas about media accountability -- and turn them into a meme -- make it a lot easier for me to talk about lapses is coverage for things I care about (like a strong Congress and independent press).
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Not unless they arrest themselves.
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Next time I see you I'll get you a new congressional data coalition sticker
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It has been a pleasure learning from you -- both what you have taught and how you taught it. Thank you.