Modernizing Public Access to Legislative Data and Information

Innovation and innovation. Thank you. Welcome to order. Uh, I note that a quorum is present. Without objection, the chair may declare a recess at any time. Also without objection, the hearing record will remain open for five legislative days, so that members may submit any materials they wish to be included therein. The title of today's hearing is " Modernizing Public Access to Legislative Data and Information". Last December, the subcommittee held a hearing on the future of constituent engagement, and the big takeaway was that we need to keep pace with the way people communicate outside of Congress, or we risk losing the ability to connect with the people we need to hear from the most. I think that we can all agree that sending form letters and emails to constituents who are using the latest AI tools and technologies doesn't always cut it. We need to meet our constituents where they're at and communicate like they communicate. The good news is that the subcommittee is actively working with House Digital Service to make that happen. Following our hearing in December, the subcommittee secured funding from the Modernization Initiatives account for a major new project that reimagines constituent engagement as dynamic rather than static and stuck in time. The project will pave the way for members to easily access a wide range of innovative and secure technologies for communicating with their constituents across multiple platforms and as the way people communicate evolves so will the technologies and tools available to members I am really excited to see this project get off the ground. At the same time, I know we need to do a lot more to better connect with the people we serve in the people's house. It's one thing for us to reach out to our constituents, but another thing for them to reach out to the House or Congress and find information and answers to their questions. We really need to think about the user journey and what that looks like. They will probably begin with a search engine query that directs them to house dot gov or congress dot gov. But once they get to those sites, is it easy for them to find what they're looking for? Is information presented in a way that makes sense regardless of how much they know or don't about Congress? And are the search tools and the sites powered by AI so that the queries don't have to contain specific words or phrases? I'm afraid the answer to all of these questions is no. Before the hearing today, I spent some time on both sites to get a sense of what constituents would experience. And my overall impression was that they'd likely be overwhelmed with the amount of information on both the home landing pages and frustrated by the search tool capabilities. This is not the experience that we want them to have. You only get one chance to make a good first impression, and so these entryway sites matter a lot. They should be the digital voice of representative democracy, not a long list of hyperlinks. The challenge of figuring out where to find information extends to members and staff as well. There are over six hundred sites within the house dot gov domain, about seventy of which belong to house officers and house support entities. Massive amounts of legislative data and information are spread across these sites, making it difficult to know where to find what you're looking for. And because different sites sometimes have different versions of the same data, figuring out which data to use can also be confusing. If you want the most up-to-date information available, you have to continually monitor and refresh your screen because most of these sites don't have automated real-time alert systems. This means that staff who are tasked with tracking the floor calendar or build status updates are tied to their screens which strikes me as the opposite of efficient. These challenges explain why house staff have taken matters into their own hands and built AI tools that automate these tedious tasks and alert staff of any updates or changes in real time. And as we learned at our recent full committee hearing on CRS and AI use house staff have also built AI tools that summarize bills providing nonpartisan bill analysis find related bills, and much more. The demand is clearly there and staff are not going to wait for the house, the library, or CRS to build the tools they need to do their jobs better. We want to support and encourage these efforts because they help the house stay current in a world where ongoing innovation and change are the norm. We also want to ensure that the house and the library are capable of adapting and innovating in ways that meet current and future user needs. The data and information that various house websites and Congress dot gov maintain are essential to legislative branch functions but the websites risk becoming obsolete as more and more users seek platforms and tools that can perform searches, complex tasks, and analyze quicker and better. There's a lot of opportunity here to reimagine how we make the house and the work that it does make more sense to the American people. I'm looking forward to learning more about current and potential efforts to enhance the public user experience and exploring some innovative ideas for making the digital voice of Congress more meaningful and accessible. At this time, I would like to now recognize the ranking member, Miss Torres, for the purpose of providing an opening statement.

Grab this from you. Well thank you uh Chairwoman and good afternoon everyone. Today's hearing, modernizing public access to legislative data and information builds directly on this subcommittee's long-standing work to strengthen transparency usability and public trust in Congress. According to the Pew um Research Center, just seventeen percent of Americans say they trust the federal government to do what is right most of the time. That crisis of confidence is rooted not only in partisanship, but in the difficulty the public faces in simply understanding what Congress does and how we do it. My constituents in the Inland Empire work very long hours to put food on the table for their families. In trying to meet sports and you know, that long agenda of being a parent, they want to know what Congress is doing for them to alleviate uh their stress. They want to be able to use twenty-first century technology to get reliable information easily. For many Americans, their relationship with Congress begins on-line. It is simply not acceptable to offer dialogue type service, when the rest of the world is on five G plus. Whether constituents are trying to identify their representative, ask for help for matters related to federal agency, track legislation, read a committed report, or understand how an amendment changes a bill, we must meet them where they are and quickly get them the information that they need. For example, Regular people are not talking about HR numbers. They or the technical names of bills or acronyms. The big ugly bill technical name is an act to provide for reconciliation pursuant to title two of H dot con dot res dot one four. Try finding that. Try finding out how Congress voted on it. And you will click through a page after page after page, and this is a piece of legislation that significantly impacts millions of people, good or bad. They need to be able to find information about this legislation. If you need to know exactly what to search for, you'll likely give up before finding any information. There are six hundred and twenty-five publicly available websites within the house dot gov umbrella alone having so many different places to get information, creates unique challenges. Many Americans simply do not know where the right information lives online, and often end up in a frustrating rabbit hole of clicks. That is unfortunate. People shouldn't feel like they are getting lost in a click spiral to get simple public information about their government. At the same time, the Library of Congress has documented through extensive research on congress dot gov that the public often finds legislative information overwhelming, cluttered, difficult to search, and hard to navigate. Seventy-three percent of survey users reported they could not find what they were looking for and simply gave up. This subcommittee exists to make Congress more functional, more accessible, and more accountable to the public. That mission must include modernizing the digital presence of Congress, and the way the public access legislative information. Across the work conducted by our witnesses, a clear theme emerges. We cannot meaningful meaningfully increase transparency or public trust until we make legislative information easier to find, understand and use. That requires more than cosmetic improvements. It demands modernized data pipelines and machine readable formats, consistent information architecture across Congress' websites, robust research search and discovery tools, and opportunities public dialogue but not chat bots, an accessibility, simple English, and multi-language support that meets the twenty-first century expectations. This is not just a technology conversation. This is a conversation about making sure democracy works for all Americans. It is about strengthening the public ability to follow their government and participate meaningful in the democratic process. Our goal today is to understand what investments, what governance changes, and what modernization strategies will allow Congress to meet the moment and meet the public where they are. I want to once again thank our witnesses for their work, and I look forward to a productive discussion, and I yield back to the chair.

Thank you, Ranking Member Torres, um and I'd now like to introduce you all to our Our first witness is uh Kirsten Goelixen. Miss Goelixen serves as the coordinator of the Congressional Data Task Force, where she works with legislative branch organizations to improve accessibility, coordination, and long-term stewardship of congressional data and information. She is also the director of analysis and quality assurance in the office of the clerk, where he she has served for more than twenty-five years. Our next witness is John Rutledge, the Deputy Chief Information Officer for the Library of Congress. Mister Rutledge serves as a senior advisor to the CIO and the Librarian of Congress on all technology matters. He directs and manages the day-to-day operations of the library's Office of the Chief Information Officer and works to ensure that the library's IT services are aligned with its strategic mission. Mister Rutledge joined the library in twenty fifteen and has been a driving force for IT modernization and centralization. And our final witness is Charlotte Lee. Miss Lee is an award-winning customer experience and human centered design practitioner she's assisted senior government executives from over fifteen federal agencies in designing developing and implementing their plans for digital transformation Miss Lee also serves as an industry advisor to the American Council for Industry Advisory, a non-profit educational organization focused on improving government uh through the innovative application of technology, and a lecture at the University of Virginia's Customer Service Leadership Institute. Thank you so much to the panel of witnesses for being here today. Please remember, because I evidently did not, to press the button in the microphone in front of you um uh to um make sure that the light is on. Uh, when you begin to speak, the timer in front of you will turn green. After four minutes, the light will turn yellow. And when the red light comes on, your five minutes have expired and we ask that you kindly wrap up. And at this time, I would uh ple- be pleased to now recognize Mrs. Gullixen for five minutes for an opening statement.

Okay, thank you, Chairwoman. Thank you, Ranking Member. Um, it's an opportunity to testify today. As you said, I have served the house. Am I, I'm on, right? I'm on? Okay. Great. I served the house for more than three decades. When I began in nineteen ninety-three, legislative information showed up each morning. It was tied in uh twine and it was in big stacks and printed pages. Today, legislative information is available, as we all know, instantly from virtually anywhere. Technology has changed dramatically, as you both said, but our responsibility has not. Congressional information must remain trustworthy, understandable, and available to those who need it. Congress is not only a lawmaking institution, it is one of the nation's most important information institutions. And today, how we organize it, connect it, and deliver that information matters, just as much as the information it's itself. Public access, as you both said, is ultimately about trust, and people should not need expert level knowledge of our procedures, or our structure to understand congressional information. As I prepared today, a colleague mentioned wayfinding. Anyone who has tried to navigate the capital complex, even those of us who've been here for a while, it's difficult. Our digital environment, as you both alluded to, is the same. Every day people try to find their way across our ecosystem of websites to information they need and often they don't even start on a congressional website at all. Instead, they begin with search engines, apps, AI tools, and the like. That means Congress must design two complementary experiences, intuitive journeys for people and tru- intuitive journeys for people and trusted structured data for the digital systems they increasingly rely upon. Both should lead people back to our authoritative congressional information. The quality, structure, and governance of our data matters more than ever. That is why modernization efforts such as the adoption of structured legislative data standards, like United States legislative mark-up, are so important. While these are largely invisible to us and most of our users, they are foundational. Better standards produce better data. Better data produces better systems. Better systems produce better public access. Trustworthy outputs require trustworthy inputs. As Congress considers the future of public access, We should recognize that we are no longer simply publishing static websites. We are publishing information into a digital ecosystem. The early vision behind GPO access and Thomas evolved in today's Govinfo and Congress. Gov repositories, demonstrating the value of sustained investment, stewardship, and collaboration across the legislative branch. We do not need to predict every future technology, and we shouldn't spend years on the perfect plan. But we do need to continue to invest in well-structured data, in a clearer understanding of user needs, and in the institutional capacity to adapt quickly, like you said. My written statement outlines three recommendations. First, WWW dot house dot gov should evolve into a clearer public front door, helping people find the authoritative information without needing to understand the internal organizations of the house or even of the legislative branch. Second, The House should create a more consistent experience across all of our websites, using familiar navigation and design patterns that help people find what they need when they need it. Third, Congress should adapt a data-first strategy, grounded in user research and designed around how people and the systems that they rely upon discover access verify and use our information. These recommendations are not intended to be implemented through a single large modernization effort. They can begin with user research and discovery, continue through forward-looking information architecture and user experience design, and progress through a phased, iterative road map that continuously delivers improvement and value over time. Technology will continue to change. Congress's responsibility to the public will not. Our responsibility is to ensure that wherever someone begins their journey, whether that's on house dot gov, congress dot gov,

Thank you, Miss Gullickson, um, for that insightful information. And now I recognize Mister Rutledge for five minutes for an opening statement.

Uh, thank you, Chairwoman Weiss, Ranking Member Torres, members of the subcommittee, uh, thank you for welcoming the of the Library of Congress at today's hearing. On behalf of everyone in the library's office of the Chief Information Officer, thank you for also recognizing and investing in library technology, so we can better serve the United States Congress and the American people. The library's two most popular web sites, loc.gov and congress.gov, see nearly half a billion page views each year, not counting AI crawlers and bots. For the library, user experience, or UX, is all about those half a billion pair of human eyes locked in on the way we present historical collections and legislative data across these web sites. Good user research helps us understand the people behind these eyes, what they need, what they expect, and how they feel about what they see. This is how the library approaches UX design. We learn why users interacted with our data. These users are members of Congress, quickly checking a bill status in their phone, on their phone in the cloakroom. There are also high school teachers like my brother, who uses Congress dot gov with his students to learn more about the constitution and the legislative process. We have a responsibility to ensure those users and everyone in between get what they need from our web sites.

Mm-hmm.

AI has changed the technology landscape faster than any of us have expected. On one hand, our systems are being stressed in new ways. In a single twenty-four hour window last month, our human verification check on Congress dot gov blocked approximately ninety-eight percent of incoming requests as non-human traffic. However, AI is also giving the American people access to more information than ever before. But authenticity and objectivity matter. And people know they can depend on congress dot gov to meet those standards. I'd like to outline lessons learn lessons we have learned from the past and how we are engaging in thorough and thoughtful user research in the present so we can further democratize access to information and and the legislative process in the future. In the mid-nineteen nineties, Congress tasked the library with getting legislative data online. We achieved this mission through two web sites, Thomas for the Public and the Legislative Information System, or LIS, for the Congress. Ultimately, two sites with different designs and approaches led to a digital disconnect and confusion between the members of Congress and their constituents. With congressional support, we built a new system, Congress dot gov, which launched to the public in September of twenty twelve with an updated design, modern infrastructure, mobile-friendly access, and new search capabilities. But we didn't stop there. New features, including committee schedules and videos, publicly available CRS reports, bulk data download, and an API are now drawing more users to the site than ever before. Today, Congress dot gov is more than the sum of Thomas and LIS. It's the viewfinder that brings into focus mo- multiple modern data flows from across the legislative branch, alongside library resources from CRS and the Law Library of Congress. With this, with this expansion work complete, now is the time to turn our focus to making Congress. dot. Gov as intuitive and user-centered as possible. The library follows established user-centered design principles and a repeatable five-phase process for conducting user research. First, we discover. This involves researching and gathering everything we know from users, stakeholders, and data. Next, we define where we need users to inform requirements and constraints. Then, we ID eight. This leads us to the prototype stage, where we get to visualize what we what the product will look like. And then finally, we validate, with user testing. We'll often return to the ID eight stage to improve and advance our ideas, based on what we heard in testing. Over the last year, we completed um the discover phase by conducting one-on-one interview s- sessions with public participants. This research showed us once again that Congress. Gov is a valued and trusted resource. We are now in the final stages of the defined phase of our UX process. Our priorities as derived from the discover phase are updating the design and enhancing Congress. Gov search. We plan to have a prototype of the updated Congress. Gov interface to validate with congressional users no later than the end of this calendar year. Additionally, two items within the library's fiscal twenty twenty-seven budget request, the AI enterprise platform and the web application delivery request will directly support long-term goals for Congress dot gov. The AI enterprise platform will enable experimentation with and implementation of AI-based tools and enhancements across the library, including Congress dot gov. One idea we are actively exploring is how the popular Ask a Librarian feature on loc.gov, uh coupled with AI tools could further enhance the Congress.gov search experience. In closing, as we move through the user design process, we welcome the continued partnership with this co- subcommittee. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify and I look forward to answering your questions.

Thank you so much, uh, Mr. Rutledge. And finally, I recognize Ms. Lee for five minutes for an opening statement.

Chairman Weiss, Ranking Member Torres, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear today. I'm grateful for the privilege of representing my brilliant peers who have shaped these ideas and the future generation who will who are digitally native and will never walk these halls. I grew up a few miles from here, translating government, its forms, offices and systems, for my father, a Baptist minute preacher who spoke no English. and for the community center for people experiencing homelessness in the shadows of this dome. It is where I first asked where power comes from and why some have it while others do not. A lifetime of sitting with that question, my belief holds that in America, power comes from engaged people. In this country, any informed person with an idea and the support of like-minded peers can influence change for their community and country. So it falls to those who serve the public to keep access to information equal, and evolving with technology so that the social contract stays strong. So I offer this subcommittee one key takeaway. The challenge is how the house meets people where they are by demonstrating representation by showing, speaking, and listening to the public. Democracy requires dialogue and dialogue strengthens trust. In twenty eighteen, I was invited to help make it easier to unders help make the legislative drafting process easier to understand. My expertise is in designing systems that are intuitive and solve the needs of users. There I learned that a bill is never just a bill, it is a complex negotiation of intent and outcome that work by amending layers of existing law for an individual to track these changes across thousands of pages of code is nearly impossible without specialized help. That is a difference between availability and access. The tools that interpret data into useful information often sit behind paywalls. So staffers, lobbying firms, and everyday constituents hold unequal levels of access to the same public data. The rise of AI changes the playing field. AI generated answers now reach a billion people a month. Search, how does this bill I heard about on a podcast affect my benefits? An AI generates answers from the b- the blogs, the press, and trade association websites. It would be far better if the answers came from the authoritative sources from inside the house. Even inside the house where information is available, we haven't built the intuitive layers that help members and staff flatten the learning curve to become productive immediately. because nothing has been designed around the natural churn of the house every two years. Both examples illustrate where technology designed around human-centered measures can be used to close the gap in representation. Fortunately, the house has demonstrated that it can build technology around the needs of members and staff with the compared print suite. I envision the next phase of the digital people's house feeling like a visit to the Library of Congress. Or really, any library. Engaging with Congress online should feel the way a librarian remembers the book the children loved, and also helps investigate a reporter. Personalized enough to understand why I am here, and to send me off knowing what comes next. We have the tools and expertise today to design that secure personalized experience on top of ongoing digitization of congressional data. To do this, the North Star should be to build an engaging place that shows context. Speaks the truth and is designed to listen. Show, speak, and listen. To show, design for their user and their journey. Stop treating the digital house as a collection of static pages organized by each office and map it to the actual needs of the people it serves. An educator, a journalist, and a constituent are on entirely different missions. The digital infrastructure should guide each along their path with clarity and context at every step. To speak, be the primary trusted source of truth wherever dialogue is happening. The house's authoritative information, the law, records, and statuses should be structured and accessible enough to be cited accurately wherever people already discuss policy. In an era when AI assistance is sure to turn into AI agents, silence is not neutral. Invest in modern, well-documented APIs and clear, neutral explanation layers so that trusted data surfaces truth reliably in the public square. To listen, commit to feedback loops. No institution can serve a public it has difficulty listening to. Build structured bounded channels to acknowledge, process, and respond to the signals coming from the people and users, meaning light touch, honest communication that manages expectations that build trust for a healthy democracy to run on. I'll leave you with the question I most want us to answer together. How might Congress use technology to assert its place as the authoritative source of truth and representation? The answer ensures that a p- teacher in Portland, Oregon, a veteran in Portland, Maine, and people from every district have access to the information that encourage engagement, and that the house continues to lead, not follow, in using information and technology to strengthen the institution and the processes over which it presides. Thank you. I look forward to your questions and the work ahead.

Thank you, Miss Lee, um for those opening statements and thank you to all of our witnesses again for being here. We'll now move to questions for the witnesses, beginning with myself and followed by Ranking Member Torres, and if our additional committee members can be present uh as well. Without objection, the five minute rule is waived. As you can see in this particular subcommittee, I think it is much more effective to have dialogue. Um and that is why we are um in a round table format and setting rather than at the dais. Um but being that being said, um while the terminal will be turned off, I do ask that you please keep your responses brief. Any member wishing to be recognized should signal the request to the chair. And I now recognize myself uh for the purpose of questioning the witnesses. Um to Miss Golikson, uh today and at our recent hearing on AI, uh how CRS is using AI, We heard about staff who were using AI to turn great ideas into effective tools that help them do their jobs better. In your testimony, you noted that the challenge is not a lack of ideas, but figuring out effective pathways for those ideas to be evaluated and turned into actual tools and systems that can be supported over time. And I think for me, one of the things I think about is doing all of this in a timely way is also incredibly important, uh, given the rate of change. So what is the biggest barrier to creating these pathways, and does it come down to capacity and funding?

Yes. Yes. That's my short answer. Yes, uh, we have a lot of ideas, and I do think we need to create more, um, ways to collect those ideas and then decide who's gonna evaluate them. My idea is to create an, a repeatable innovation cycle. So one that we evaluate those ideas, we test them quickly, we route them to the right tech team, not only the right tech team here in the house,

Yeah.

but if we have a tech team across the ledge branch, either at the library or at GPO, maybe we need a partner with the senate. So, route them to the right tech team, invest in what works, and scale, like you said, quickly. I think the biggest barrier from where I'm standing is who's gonna, who's gonna do it, who's collecting those ideas and how we're gonna do it. As you know, the CAO has put up that great vendor site, so that's great, but how do we get the, we have so many staff who want, have great ideas, how do we get them to do it here? Um, I don't wanna, adv- I'm not advocating for more bureaucracy, like you said.

Thank you.

And then I do wanna say that you're absolutely right, capacity, velocity, and um funding also matter. Um, one of the challenges we have is the congressional calendar, the needs that you all need as members and your requests don't always match with the fiscal calendar so um the MIA funding and no year funding have been really flexible in some of the projects I've been um involved in so I'd continue to to find where that that right balance is.

This is a very bipartisan committee and as such we are just gonna go back and forth

Yes, thank you. Our constituents are mutually frustrated as we are. Um, Miss Gullixson and uh Mister um Rutledge, when when my constituents call my office, um it's after they are completely frustrated, either non-responsive, agency, and they're trying to find information. Um, they don't have a bill number, um, if they're looking for information on a bill, they, they're simply heard and can't remember, you know, everything that they heard, but they have an idea of what it is. Um, it's simply what they wanna know is how do I find information in your website? Um, what is Congress actually doing to improve my quality of life. Uh right now the honest answer is that it takes real digging. You almost need a PHD in how to find information on, you know, Congress, you know, dot gov. Um so we need to be more transparent and accountable to them. Are there any opportunities that you see to develop features on Congress dot gov that would track members' voting record. Uh, amendment or appropriation tracking as easily as someone could check a flight status. I mean, nowadays I could text my flight number to myself

Mm-hmm.

and get updates on that status of that flight. How is it that they can do that and we can't do that?

You wanna Well, it's insane. I mean from from the library's perspective on Congress dot gov, we can put the data up as quick as we can get it. Um and right now we get data updates every fifteen minutes. Um we can certainly increase their frequency,

Okay.

it's we're just reliant on on our data partners to provide that information uh to us, so if the data's available, we can get it up.

So, explain to me how that works when oftentimes we're taking, let's say tonight we have eight thirty votes, but sometimes we have after midnight votes, does that mean that your folks are keeping up with, oh my goodness.

Absolutely, absolutely ma'am.

Yeah.

So the data flow goes from the clerk's office, um our floor staff, the so the floor staff you interact with on the floor, they are doing real time data entry, electronic voting system is involved, that data is going into machine readable formats, what sometimes what we call an API, and it sends it over to congress dot gov like John said every fifteen minutes. and they're being able to um then make it available. I think one of the challenges is then how's that user experience?

Mm-hmm.

If we have the data, then how do we find it?

Who translates it?

We don't need to translate it, the machine does it.

Yeah, okay.

We have a great team of engineers that make it happen.

And are there plans then to have the interactive calendar, um that could be integrated within each individual member um house dot gov website?

Yes, um digital the house of digital services is working on house scale and we continue to work with them to where the clerk's office is feeding some of that some of that data to them but continuing to work with them how we can service that on member websites and on congress dot gov and on the clerk's website.

Lastly, just when do you expect that to happen?

I can I get back to you on that cuz I don't know the time frame for implementation.

Sure. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, uh, recognizing as myself, uh, I think there's a couple pieces of that that I may wanna extrapolate on, and that is, um, it seems as though there are a lot of hands in the pie, if you will. Um, is there a way to streamline that so that the functionality is a little bit smoother and easier? Uh, is there either technology or, uh, ways that that can be improved upon that you could see?

I think there's a there's a lot of purpose behind how our data flows, right? Cuz we're bicameral. So we need to make sure that the Senate state is over on Congress. I have to tell the whole story. Um, we are in the clerk's office, we are working on improving our data transfers to the library and we have the ongoing projects to continually update and modernize everything. Um, I do think that um We have good foundations to do this work and we just need to continue to invest and, I certainly, we have some great ideas to optimize our, what we're doing already. Um, so not anything immediate, but continuing to, to continue to the work that we're already doing in the foundational work.

Thank you. I know that, um, once the next major redesign of Congress stuff dot gov begins, um, it'll be important to not only get input, public input, uh member and and legislative staff input, um but one of the things I worry about is time. Um so m- so two part question, when was the last time that Congress dot gov or house dot gov has been has had a complete refresh? Is t- is twenty twelve the last time that we've actually seen something sort of new and innovative? And then to follow up with that, if we're going to do a redesign of uh these sites, what's a timeline that you

So we've actually already started the redesign of Congress dot gov. We actually began it last year. Uh we held um a couple of rounds of interviews, uh one starting in November of twenty twenty five um with fifteen congressional and public um users. Uh and again in March of twenty twenty six again with fifteen public and congressional users.

When you say public and congressional users,

Uh

can you extrapolate who that is?

Um different demographics on the on the public side, so educators for example, researchers for example, uh congressional staff, different types of congressional users. Um we can certainly provide the demographics if you're interested afterwards.

I was just curious like who you're actually reaching out to um to get insight.

Yeah yeah. We typically get users on the public side through Congress talk of public forum.

That's great.

Mm.

Um after today's hearing my brother's very interested by the way in being one of those people um which I'm certainly wanna help him connect with the team. Cuz I didn't know that before this hearing happened. Um but uh through those two um rounds of sessions, by the way your opening statement hit the nail on the head in terms of their feedback,

Mm-hmm.

right, the search is is complicated in terms of the results that come back, the s the s sites, uh the web pages are cluttered, right, it's difficult to find the data,

Very.

especially on broad search terms.

I mean as a member of Congress when I'm trying to search to see if I if I have actually co-signed a bill it's it's a lot harder to find the data.

Mm-hmm.

incredibly complicated

Yeah. And if you

uh and that shouldn't be the case right

Yeah and if you don't understand the legislative process that's also somewhat complicated cuz the site has geared towards more towards a member of Congress or a staff member versus the public it's not geared towards constituents. Um and the site has evolved in terms of its user interface ever since it was launched in twenty twelve, but it's just been adding more content right it's been very content rich uh in fact grown congress.gov from about a million items to two million items over that period of time.

But the interface hasn't changed.

But the interface has just become more cluttered, if you will, um not in terms of modernizing the look and feel. We started that effort last year and we're continuing it now. Uh as I talked about in my opening statement, we're in the second phase of our five phase process. We're gonna start the ID eight phase here in just a couple weeks. Um and we plan to have um the validation phase done, which means more engagement, feedback, um actual um prototype where you can click and actually experience it and get feedback completed by the end of this year, right? Which means we wanna have a completely redesigned Congress dot gov up next year. So completely in production, whole new site experience, we want it to be intuitive, we want it to be engaging, and we wanna offer a personalized experience next year. That's our target. And honestly I'm hoping that by the Congress dot gov public forum in September we have something to show then. So, knock on wood,

My fingers are crossed.

fingers are crossed too.

Well, I I think that's really exciting news, uh given that you're you're exactly right, you can see that there's been a lot of content added to the site, but it hasn't been structured in a way that's easy to actually navigate for your average user including your member of Congress. And so, um, I appreciate the the update on that and my only, I think, concern

I think that that is a system right now where we are innovating moving forward but it's takes so long to adopt policies, that by then by the time we do it it's already

Mm.

a whole new way of doing things. Um members of Congress are very creative in legislating and how they go about legislating and some are very successful in that, whether it's through an amendment or they introduce a a bill that gets folded in a much larger um package, for example, moving through the appropriation process, a constituent following a bill that I introduce that gets added to um to that. In that process, they lose total information about that bill, and they will not be able to get any updates on that on that bill. So that thread really ends when that bill is transferred. Um is there a way to make it easier to go on congress dot gov? And follow a bill all the way from inception to i- even when it gets added into a must-pass piece of legislation, how do you continue to follow it?

Yeah, I think that's one of the primary goals in terms of updating the bill tracker that is part of the feedback that the team received

Mm-hmm.

through those two rounds of of um forms that we that we met with. Um the bill tracking process is is complicated, in fact it seemed like it was confusing to some users. Um in terms of where a bill was in its particular process, so that is one of the key goals we wanna achieve in the redesign.

As well as uh if you vote yes in committee but no on the floor because suddenly it changed in um the rules committee then your vote it the bill might show

Mm.

that you only voted you know yes or no and doesn't really give any feedback. It doesn't have any different text.

Yeah.

It doesn't have any different text. Yeah.

Yeah.

Actually can I add some context? So around the same time we were doing um all the comparative print, I was working with um was it demand progress? Um to actually do bill tracker, we called it bill map, um and I think it was handed over to the Library of Congress.

Mm-hmm.

Um and it was somewhat integrated, but I do have existing research that does it, and really it seems like a behemoth of a problem, but really if you think about it, all you have to really decide is is this person entering with informa like what is the person entering pre-existing? I do I know my member, do I know my issue, right? Like there's different ways to categorize what someone might know or want when you first get there. And then talking about the temporal context of it is very,

Mm-hmm.

very hard. And that's the part I think that we can collaborate more on, which is that there is an an ability to see what is current and what is related to it. But I think that there has been, I I wanna say on that there is r evidence of that work and I would love to share that so that we can expedite the process.

And I c- I can back that up that we definitely have had meetings with the staff of the subcommittee in the library on um specifically ModComm recommendation one twenty which is to show your work better and I know that

Mm-hmm.

um we have a commitment to get some of those features out so we can talk about them at the congress dot gov form so you can go to your member profile page. and see where a bill might have been incorporated in a larger bill, and that's a the bill that you sponsored. So we've been actively working on that um this year which is um very much related to what Charlotte has said, and so excited about that work. The other thing that I'm gonna squeeze in here cuz we're having a discussion,