Budget Hearing – U.S. House of Representatives

I'll turn on my mic. This subcommittee will come to order. The subject of today's hearing is fiscal year 2027 budget request for the United States House of Representatives. I'd like to thank Ranking Member Espaillat, committee members and our House officers, Mr. McCumber, Mr. McFarland and Ms. Binsted. Ms. Binsted, we welcome you to your first appearance before this subcommittee and we appreciate your willingness to serve as our acting chief administrative officer. We're also joined today by Mr. Matthew Berry, the House General Counsel, Ms. Christen Stevenson, the newly appointed House Inspector General, congratulations Ms. Stevenson, Mr. Brian Lindsey, the Law Revision Counsel and Mr. Warren Burke, the Legislative Counsel. I would like to begin by thanking each of you and your dedicated staff for the long hours and committed service you provide to this institution. I know my colleagues share my appreciation for your work you do to keep this House operating safely, effectively and efficiently. Thank you again for joining us today and I look forward to hearing your testimonies and learning more about your budget priorities for fiscal year 2027. I now recognize my ranking member Ranking Member Espaillat for his opening remarks.

Thank you, Chairman and thank you all for being here with us today. You make things run here and we appreciate that. And as the ranking member representing New York's 13th Congressional District, one of the most diverse districts in the country and chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, I want to begin by expressing my appreciation for the work that each of you do on behalf of the House and millions of people we represent. I want to begin by expressing my sincere appreciation for the work of each of your offices and on behalf of of this House. Whether it is the official reporters ensuring the accuracy of our proceedings, the office of the Legislative Counsel helping us translate ideas into law, or the many technology and support teams keeping the institutions running, your contribution matters. I want to thank you because sometimes I speak in Spanish on the floor and I think they understand me and at least they get I get the translation. And I know you understand me. They make a real difference in how...

I don't want to.

I that I could understand. I think this morning you felt that way, right?

I don't remember.

[Laughter.] They make a real difference in how effectively we serve our constituents. And Mr. McFarland, thank you for what you do. You're always there for us, especially we want to thank you and your team in standing up and strengthening House member security programs. This is so important for all of us now and I am grateful that you're able to support the members and I only hear great things from the members about you. So thank you for what you do. I'm grateful we are able to support and expand these efforts and we were able to do that in fiscal year 2026. Protecting those who protect democracy is not a partisan issue, it is a bipartisan issue and we look forward to ensuring that we do the best we can in fiscal year 2027. Thank you, I yield back.

Thank you, Mr. Espaillat. In addition to the Clerk, Sergeant at Arms and Acting Chief Administrative Officer, the testimonies for the House officials have been submitted for the record and members are welcome to ask questions of the House officials in addition to our three main witnesses. Mr. McCumber, your full testimony has been submitted for the record and you are now recognized to provide a summary of your written testimony.

Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member Espaillat and members of the subcommittee. I want to begin by expressing sincere appreciation for your support over the last year, which reflects confidence in our mission and we do not take it for granted. We are requesting $51,789,000 for FY 27, 5.71 percent above our FY 26 budget. This request sustains our ability to serve with excellence, strengthen transparency and modernize key operations while remaining disciplined stewards of taxpayer dollars. Over the last year, your support has enabled measurable progress in four areas: data and transparency, modernizing legislative operations, accessibility and cost savings and expanded committee and member services. First, advancing legislative data and transparency. Information is only helpful when it is accurate and when people know it's available. We redesigned the House directory card to include a QR code linking to an updated online directory. We also provided the CAO access to our dynamic data set, authoritative information used to populate Legis-X profiles. We made a targeted effort to promote our services and offered both in-person and on-demand options of the Staffer's Guide to the Clerk's Office course and hosted our first pop-up information table with more planned for this year, including one this Thursday. In coordination with the CAO's House Digital Service team, we assumed responsibility for key House-Cal updates, creating a central authoritative source for scheduling changes in an environment where accurate timing matters. And we continue improving the comparative print suite, including infrastructure improvements and supporting Senate counterparts with their pilot program. Second, modernization of legislative operations. You can now generate and submit constitutional authority statements within the e-Hopper and we implemented a process for you to waive GPO proofreading, reducing processing time and helping legislation appear online more quickly. Soon we expect to release another e-Hopper improvement, an option to add cosponsors using the Quill platform, making cosponsor submissions easier while ensuring accuracy and consent. At the same time, we are steadily modernizing our mission-critical legislative information management system, deploying updates that strengthen daily operations like allowing bulk amendment processing, saving countless staff hours while protecting data quality for official publications and public repositories. We launched a new unified search website and our ongoing work with the Senate on the lobbying disclosure modernization project. We also delivered the highly anticipated legislative drafting study and are excited to work on the next phase. Third, accessibility and cost-conscious innovation. Closed captioning of floor proceedings is a vital service. In January, we launched an AI-based speech-to-text solution in partnership with the CAO, demonstrating high accuracy while saving approximately $500,000 per year, which includes enhancements such as closed captioning in Spanish. Fourth, expanded committee engagement and member services. As you know, we are building a next-generation platform for managing committee business and have already delivered the first module, tracking committee referrals for user acceptance testing, with plans to deliver additional modules to support voting data and tally sheets. In response to member needs, we procured and distributed magnetic phone wallets to simplify management of voting and elevator access cards, an initiative that was very well received. And demonstrating that modernizing even routine processes can meaningfully create efficiencies, we developed an interactive official foreign travel form to replace the static PDF. Finally, we continue our stewardship responsibilities as custodian of House records and overseer of the House collection. We have secured significant donations from descendants of notable figures and in honor of the upcoming completion of the Cannon building, I brought artifacts today relating to the history of the building, including a recently acquired artifact from Speaker Joseph Cannon's family, his walking stick. We are expanding preservation and access through the committee records modernization project, continuing oral history work, including a recently released interview with a former member of this subcommittee, Representative Jennifer Wexton and improving access to popular historical resources like member suite room histories. Looking ahead to FY 27, our request includes a $1.7 million net increase for program changes. The largest increase, $1.3 million, is for strengthening core services with the right staffing by establishing 11 new positions to align directly with mission demand, technology growth and modernization support, increased design and communication needs and sustained archival and curatorial workload that has doubled in the last decade. As we look to the year ahead, there is much to build upon. Guided by our principles of nonpartisan service and institutional excellence, the Office of the Clerk is well positioned to meet the opportunities and challenges ahead. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today and for your consideration of our budget request.

Thank you, Mr. McCumber. I now recognize Mr. McFarland for a summary of your written testimony.

Good afternoon, Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member Espaillat and members of the committee. I appreciate the invitation to appear before you today to testify in support of the fiscal year 2027 budget request for the Office of the Sergeant at Arms, which totals $147,281,000 and 211 full-time equivalents, an increase of $6.675 million or 4.75 percent and five FTEs from the FY 2026 enacted levels. Since becoming Sergeant at Arms three years ago, my focus has been clear: strengthen the security of members and their families while improving the safety of and service to the House community. Over that time, we have made substantial progress on both fronts. We have worked to make members and their families safer through: one, the launch of the member personal security program, which makes available to every member $20,000 per month for protection and security services. Two, the deployment of the mobile duress application to provide members with an additional safety tool when they are away from the Capitol complex. Three, enhancements to the residential security program, strengthening the protections available at members' homes. Four, the launch of the Sergeant at Arms secure member portal, creating a centralized platform where members and their offices can access security resources and services. And five, the establishment of the member cybersecurity program focused on member data privacy, helping members and their families mitigate risk related to personal data exposure. While we are proud of the progress made over the past three years, our focus now is on strengthening these programs while continuing to deliver exceptional service to the House community every day. This includes preparations for the 120th Congress, which are already underway to ensure that new members understand and can easily enroll in our programs from day one. My office is fully committed to delivering top-tier nonpartisan services for members, their families and staff. We recognize the immense responsibility entrusted to us and are dedicated to upholding the highest standards of professionalism and efficiency. I look forward to working with this committee and my fellow House officers here today and I welcome any questions you may have.

Thank you, Mr. McFarland. I now recognize Ms. Binsted for her summary of her testimony.

Thank you. Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to present the CAO's fiscal year 27 budget. Over the past few weeks, I've had the opportunity to meet with many of you to introduce myself and understand your priorities regarding the CAO. Though I was just recently appointed as acting CAO, I've been with the organization for 10 years and served the House in various other capacities for over three decades. I've been a consumer and a provider of CAO's services. In fact, I was here before the CAO was created in 1995. I have seen it evolve and expand over the years. All this to say, I have a deep understanding of and an appreciation for the services CAO employees deliver. The budget request includes funding to maintain CAO's broad range of services, from payroll and benefits to furniture and cabinetry, training and development, counseling, floor and committee broadcasts, food services, child care, to the extraordinary task of building, maintaining and protecting the House's critical IT infrastructure. It also includes funding to support new projects that will improve the House's cyber posture and deliver services that save members money and enhance their operation. In total, the 27 request is for $253 million, an 8.5 percent increase over its 26 enacted level. 80 percent of its increased funding request is for operational sustainment to cover increases associated with personnel, contractors, hardware, software, licenses and more. 20 percent is for new high-priority projects. Included in both sustainment and new project funding are programs and projects critical to the House's cybersecurity posture. To be clear, without exception, protecting members' data is the most consequential responsibility of the CAO. It is evidenced by the fact our IT budget accounts for 55 percent of its entire operating budget. Congress is a target in every sense. It's certainly a top target for the most sophisticated state-backed cyber adversaries. In 2025 alone, there were three billion malicious attacks targeting House websites and 178 million potentially harmful emails. That's almost 30,000 intrusion attempts during this brief statement alone. It is imperative the House invests financially and culturally in cyber defense. We need to constantly reassess our posture and deploy cutting-edge tactics and programs to stay ahead of cybercriminals. As a community, we must all play an active role. That means being educated, alert and proactive. One of our new projects included in the 27 request is the expansion of multi-factor authentication, a major overdue milestone for the House. We have roughly 55,000 desktops, laptops and cell phones used by members and staff here in D.C. and across the country. The dispersed, increasingly mobile nature of our operations creates an endpoint vulnerability. We are currently in the process of installing multi-factor authentication on all mobile devices and, when complete, will deploy to all House computers. Once integrated, members and staff will use easy, significantly more secure authentication methods like facial recognition, touch ID, and push notifications. On the AI front, the CAO has played a central role in the review, authorization, and rollout of multiple AI products and will continue as the technology and the field of providers evolve and expand. But we need to do more than simply facilitate access to off-the-shelf products. The House does not operate like most businesses. We need customization too. Thus, we need a secure cloud environment where new custom AI technologies can safely be tested with House data without exposing it to external risk. Included in our request is funding to build out and test that safe cloud environment. We are also asking for increased funding to obtain a bulk email platform that will reduce costs for member offices and improve email deliverability. We want to build a centralized committee video content platform that would stream live and archived proceedings, reducing the workload for committee staff. Whether it's for an existing or new initiative, all the CAO's requested funding is for members. Over the past year, the CAO successfully deployed valuable training, development, and wellness services utilized by thousands. It made progress on the replacement of the House's payroll and benefit system. It led a major re-compete of the food services contract that resulted in the transition from one House-wide vendor to a diverse group of eight new food vendors. CAO employees take great pride in the work we do, and we will continue to deliver and serve this institution. Again, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the CAO's FY 27 request and for the subcommittee's support of the CAO and its mission.

Thank you, Ms. Binsted. We'll now move begin the question portion of the hearing. I will call on members based on seniority of those present when the hearing was called to order, alternating between the majority and minority, followed by members in order of their arrival. Each will have five minutes, and I now recognize myself. Mr. McFarland, as you shared in your testimony, the House has made significant investments in security within your budget and with the Capitol Police and in physical security. What are your greatest concerns regarding security at this moment, and what can we do to support your efforts?

Mr. Valadao, supporting U.S. Capitol Police and the physical security projects actually sit at the top of my list. I think one thing that I would recommend is that I wish I would see 100 percent participation in all the Sergeant at Arms programs that we provide. We see quite a bit. It's been very useful. Some of the physical security projects, I think, are moving just a little bit slower. I'd like to see them move a little bit faster to enhance the security and also relieve a little bit of the burden off of the U.S. Capitol Police. But given the intel trends that we've seen, cybersecurity is definitely at the top of the list. I've worked very well with Ms. Binsted on creating the cybersecurity program, which we have seen at least half of the members of Congress use our cybersecurity program, which we're very proud of. We'd love to see 100 percent in that. But as we go forward, we're always trying to negotiate with vendors to try to help us out a little bit more, but I'd turn it over to Anne for any anything else that you might see cybersecurity related, if I could, if you want to add on.

By all means. If you want to add on.

Specific to members, I think we're doing a pretty good job. We have the dark web monitoring service that includes all members, any House emails, the names of their offices, committees, and it is also available to them for personal monitoring as well. We currently have very low participation in that, just because I think members want to keep their personal emails and their families' emails to themselves, but it is offered and we're happy to include them in that service.

Thank you. Ms. Binsted, given the CAO reviews and approves AI tools for use in the House as a whole and takes the lead on these internally, what efficiencies has the CAO been able to realize within your own operations and has there been any cost savings?

Yes, we are definitely using AI tools to establish efficiencies. I think one of the, in my opinion, most significant is the 508 accessibility on websites, and we're utilizing that on HouseNet and we're utilizing that across the websites that we host for members, committees, and leadership offices.

All right. Thank you. Mr. McCumber, as you know, in fiscal year 2023, with the goal toward building greater efficiencies and timeliness into drafting of legislation, the committee requested a collaborative legislative drafting report. We appreciate your office taking on a leading role in working collaboratively with Legislative Counsel to complete the report. Can you please share with us the findings and recommendations in the new report and the recommendations for a path forward?

Certainly. Thank you for the question. And collaboration with the Office of Legislative Counsel, we've recently released that report as you mentioned, and it calls for first establishing some clear in Legislative Counsel their internal operations with communication to their stakeholders, members, committees on what to expect. The project itself will then turn towards a portal that will allow members, staff to be able to log in and see the status of their request, whether it's been assigned to attorney, whether a draft has been returned. And we, after all of the 64 interviews and thousands of lines of transcript, one of the big things that we think will relieve a lot of the pressure is just knowing where the status of their request is. And then eventually it'll lead, the goal is to have it lead to a lightweight editor, web-based editor where instead of relying on Leg Counsel to go in and update a date, perhaps this is something that a member staffer could log in and do without compromising the ownership of the draft or the legal language definitions of the draft. And I'd certainly welcome any additional from the Leg Counsel who was intimately involved in that project.

All right. Thank you. My time's expired, and I now recognize Ranking Member Espaillat for his five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, the cyber threats that you mentioned are extensive, right? And I want to know what are the significant, the most significant House vulnerabilities that you see and that you're working to address?

I think one of the most significant risks to the House is shadow IT, where staff is using non-authorized products within the House network. That's one of the greatest risks, in my opinion. And then we have tools and would like to get more tools to establish the zero trust for cyber activity.

Thank you. And I know that you all of you have been working, you know, on cyber-related and IT-related efforts. Is there any effort to coordinate everybody and to have everybody in the same loop? I mean, so that nothing happens that the other side, the other entity's not aware of.

Yes, we would definitely like to coordinate all of our systems within the CAO's cybersecurity monitoring network.

Is that part of your request, your your fiscal request?

We have not included that in the request to this point, but have talked to your staff about having an amendment to include some of those.

Okay. Very good. I look forward to speaking to you about it. And thank you. I yield back.

Thank you, Mr. Espaillat. Now I'll move on to Mr. Moore for his five minutes.

Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all so much for being here. I've spoken to probably each of you individually ahead of this hearing and just over time. And Mr. McFarland, I've probably known for 20 years at this point when I was staff. So thank you all so much for being here. I wanted to follow up on something just from last year for you, Mr. McFarland. And I talked to the I talked to the Architect of the Capitol about parking spots and specifically for expectant mothers. And he suggested that I direct that question to you since your office manages parking. I know there are some existing parking spots like this, but what is the current status of creating parking spots for expectant mothers?

Sir, we we usually take our our cue from the Committee on House Administration on parking spots, but as it relates to that, we work great with them and they're a great partner. If there is certain spots that we think that we need to do, we're happy to take that that task to hand and actually start fulfilling that. There are some spots that are taken that are reserved that are really close, but we can definitely look at spots that we can try to have a good a good location for them to be next to an elevator or next to an entrance.

Yeah, that'd be great if that's something we could expand or work on. Just, you know, we've had several members who've had babies while they've been serving here or staff or otherwise, and want to make that as easy as possible. And so to that point, if there's anything the committee can do to help your office make the complex more family-friendly for members or staff and visitors, is there anything that we could do to help with that, this committee specifically?

Sir, I think everything that you're doing right now helps us out with our with the families. One thing that we'd like to see a little bit more as we talk about expanding our security programs, we'd like to offer a little bit more to members' families, not just the spouses, but as we we get this mobile duress off the ground, we would like to see a little bit more resources being used to help out anybody that might have additional family members that they would like to put into the program.

All right. I appreciate that. Ms. Binsted, obviously we met and spoke a little bit about this, but I wanted to follow up with you on our conversation about Quill. My team and I have found that it is pretty unworkable, and I understand that it was kind of rolled out a little hastily during COVID to allow offices to continue to work together when folks were not on Capitol Hill. Would you commit to working with me and the committee to seeing if there's a way to either improve this product or work to find a commercial off-the-shelf solution that would work better for members and staff? Is that something you think you could do?

Yes, definitely.

All right, that's it, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Moore, and I now recognize Mr. Quigley for his five minutes of questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. McFarland, I appreciate all you and your office and the Capitol Police are doing to keep us safe. You outlined many of the programs you're doing. We appreciate and applaud them. When we talk with other with our colleagues, one of those gaps out there that's hard to get a handle on, I'm not sure to the extent your office can play a role, but it's security when we're in D.C. and we're in and about the city living scattered throughout the throughout the district. Your thoughts on that and what programs might exist or possible solutions to the risk that's out there.

Sir, I'll let you know right now, I think the very first thing would be definitely the mobile duress program does help out if you're outside Capitol grounds. Some of the other instances that I'm looking at is we have a great new tool that's getting ready to come online probably in September called our common operating picture, which will actually give us a location of where certain members are so that we in the D.C. area, but not only D.C. but actually back home in the districts as well. So it gives us a nice blueprint of actually what's going on where you are so if there is an incident that happens near your home, we can alert you of those instances.

Not where we are at the moment, but where we typically live.

Yes, correct.

And maybe where some people typically eat.

We can do that too if you have that mobile duress button, it can it can go within 50 yards of exactly where you are. And I know that speaking personally from hitting the button and saying I was at a liquor store, but I was actually at a grocery store, I'm just letting you know now, so but yes.

Right next to Teletie. Yeah, that's right. I appreciate that. Ma'am, a question about casework. A lot of things get us here, but what keeps us here is how well we serve our constituents. And I know you are doing things that help staff deal with this. I'm giving you a chance to tell us all about Case Compass if you could. And I know you asked for you could tell us a little bit about it, but your office asked for feedback. I'm curious what the response was on that too.

Yeah, we have about 16 offices participating in the pilot program for Case Compass where we're aggregating the constituent data. Recently, they deployed a dashboard so that your offices can very easily see what some of the trends might be. So I don't know what your office's response was specifically to participating, but yeah, we're very excited about it and so as part of the...

But the response so far has been?

The response has been positive. And the dashboard added to that.

And any additions to it or tweaking that you see coming?

I think we can always make additions and always tweak the system based on feedback.

And who's going to maintain it once it's in full force and?

We will be maintaining it.

You have the resources to do that currently or is this the subject for next year?

It probably will be the subject for next year, but we currently have the resources to manage the pilot program.

Very good. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Thank you, Mr. Quigley. I now recognize Ms. Maloy for her five minutes of questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Binsted, thank you for following up with me on the questions that I asked you last year. So I don't have very many questions this time. But I want to focus mostly with all three of you on cybersecurity. So the Sergeant at Arms tells me that CAO is the most important agency in Leg Branch for mitigating cybersecurity risks. I don't know if he was just trying to pass the buck or if that's true.

Both, ma'am, both. [Laughter.]

But how do you identify threats and correct them? Cybersecurity threats specifically.

Well, we have a security operations center and other entities that are monitoring our network 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So we have good tools, good staff, good contractors. And it's incredibly impressive operation. I actually brought our CIO, former CISO with me today because he has been giving me a crash course on cybersecurity since I became acting CAO. And I knew it was impressive before and I have an even deeper appreciation for what our office does to protect our network now.

So I'm going to ask all three of you this question. So she's in the hot seat first, you guys can prepare yourselves. Because women multitask well and think on our feet well, but are there any best practices that you would recommend members and or staff, like cyber hygiene, whatever we can do to reduce the risk so you have less to manage?

Yes, cyber hygiene is always going to be incredibly important. We have very significant IT policies that really help I think staff and members understand what the restrictions are for our network and why they're there. And so like I mentioned before, shadow IT creates a tremendous vulnerability to our network. So the more we can educate our the staff, the members, the better off we are.

Okay. Mr. McFarland, any best practices you want us to know about?

Definitely take your cybersecurity training. That's number one. Beat you to the punch.

If we don't, we get reminded quite a bit.

If you don't, you get reminded quite a bit. I've heard from my friends who didn't get theirs done on time. I would I would definitely say that, but also that if you travel outside the United States, definitely talk to either the CAO or my office of House Security to talk about the threats and the that happen overseas with your electronic personal electronic devices when you travel. They're quite extensive and nothing to go in here, but definitely I would ask for that training as well.

Okay. Mr. McCumber?

And I would have nothing new to add to either of that. So take the cybersecurity training and then the cybersecurity email reminders that are sent out are helpful. It's a nice reminder of all the threats that are out there. So just pay attention and do what you're supposed to do. Yeah.

Okay. I will go back and tell my staff to do what they're supposed to do. Mr. McFarland, you talked in your testimony about how you're tracking nationwide threats now. And I know when we had sheriffs from Utah here last year and they got to come see how you do that, that was really educational for them. I think they were excited to see that and now they know how to interact with your office better. But tracking nationwide threats is an expansion of your mission. What do you think the appropriate scope of the Sergeant at Arms responsibilities should be in a modern time where we're all traveling and there's so much cyber threat? In one minute.

Thanks. [Laughter.] All right. You know, we've we've partnered we've actually helped out with Capitol Police trying to get a handle on a lot of the threats threats that happen. They've expanded their program and as chairman of the Capitol Police Board, we have I have seen personally that they have created this personal intelligence operations center that intakes all the threats that come in. There's some work that still needs to be done. They're expanding their their mission, but we have to be very cognizant of the fact that we don't want to expand too much. We want to make sure, you know, we keep it within their boundaries of what they can do. But I do think that the partnerships that we have with the local law enforcement and the fact that we've actually had these memorandum of understanding with the local law enforcement have really helped out significantly. And that's some of the money that's come right directly from the Legislative Appropriations Subcommittee, which we're grateful for, that we can we'll be able to provide a service to members of Congress back home in their districts by reimbursing the local law enforcement agencies that are there that can do things while we can't be everywhere at once.

Okay. Thank you. And I am out of time, so I will yield.

Thank you, Ms. Maloy. I now recognize Mr. LaLota for his five minutes of questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Happy St. Patrick's Day everybody. Our whole panel's wearing green. We even have a McCumber and a McFarland here on St. Patrick's Day and...

We should be drinking, sir, I'm just letting you know. [Laughter.]

Amen. Amen. I'm a little bit Irish. Can we invite Mr. Burke, I assume some with an Irish background too to the to the table, Mr. Chairman? I understand he's the chief legislative counsel. Thanks for joining us too, sir. I have a couple questions in your area.

And I'll say you're correct, the Burkes moved to the United States from Ireland in 1832. So that's exactly correct.

Got here a little before the Italians got here. I know my history too. I think that the Clerk in his testimony referenced a study on the Office of Legislative Counsel. Are you familiar with that study?

I am, the legislative drafting study.

I'm told that it includes over 64 hours of confidential interviews and produced recommendations for improvements, drafting tools, systems, and collaborations.

That's right.

What did that study confirm about the way legislative drafting works today and where you believe the system could have improvements?

Well, one thing it confirmed which I am quite proud of and so want to emphasize is the high quality of the drafts that my office is producing and the confidence that House staff generally have in those drafts. But there's also I think there's room for improvement in terms of the intake process. That's why there's this proposal to establish a portal. I think this could be is quite exciting from the perspective of my office. It could be helpful in multiple ways in terms of allowing offices to keep track of the drafts, have a single spot where they can go and see.

Great, let's talk a little more about that in a second. I want to get a couple more questions in. My understanding is Leg Counsel got about 23,000 requests for bill drafts or amendments.

That's right, and that's only the first 13 months of this Congress.

And how do you prioritize that? I'm going to give you a little bit my experience. I'm not one of those members who sends a gazillion things to your office. I think we asked you to draft a couple of dozen every year and if my math works out, I'm way under that average. And nevertheless, I feel like it takes a while to get my draft back. And that's not a criticism on the good and hard work that you and your folks do. 23,000 is a big number. What is your system do to prioritize the requests that come in? Are you doing a first in, first out? Are you doing it by seniority of members, committee assignments? How do you manage the flow in towards you of all those requests?

You're absolutely right that with 23,000 requests we do as a matter of survival have to come up with a prioritization scheme and generally first in, first out is one of the very most important factors, but another equally important factor is how far along is the request in the legislative process. So if we're talking about conference versus floor versus committee versus introduction and then if it's coming from leadership, if it's coming from committee, we consider that a stand-in for where is it at this stage.

Putting leadership and committee chairs aside, is first in, first out the most equitable way to deal with all that volume in your opinion? It's not in mine by the way. As somebody who doesn't request all that much, I don't want to be at a disadvantage with my time when it comes to, like I said, I put a couple of dozen requests in. If somebody's putting in hundreds, is it equitable that somebody who puts in hundreds has the same level of priority compared to somebody who puts in so much fewer?

I see your point about all things being the same, then no, it would not be equitable to give the same amount of deference. One other thing I would add though is that that stage in the legislative process is very important. I mean if it was an amendment for a rules deadline, if it was a conference agreement, really that should come first.

And who makes that judgment call on that prioritization?

The attorney or attorney team handling the request.

In consultation with leadership or committees or on your own?

No, we don't. As you mentioned, 23,000 requests, I don't think leadership would want to be hearing from us 23,000 times.

They sometimes hear from the members on feedback like this. Given our four and a half minutes of dialogue, do you think that there is a more equitable way than first in, first out of addressing these requests?

The problem, I'm not going to say that there's not a more equitable way, but there are competing interests here that are always in tension. It's part of our, it's really what you're describing is actually one of the most challenging aspects of our job, weighing the heavy workload, especially with the quick turnaround times that we're always asked to produce with prioritization and how do we do it? And yes, it is something we're always working, we're always happy to work to continue to improve, but I don't know that I have a better answer for you than the traditional one.

I hope that our teams can work together to implement a better solution. I think there is a temptation among some memberships to force a solution on you. I would hope that you might be able to present a better one to us before we force one on you, sir.

I'd be happy to work with you on that. Yes, sir.

Just do who you like more. My time's expired.

Thank you. And there are no further questions. I know Mr. Espaillat asked for a quick to make a quick statement.

Yes. Thank you, Chairman. I just wanted to thank Mr. McCumber for the closed captions that you did. Thank you for that effort and also I look forward to working with the CAO on your bulk mail, your bulk email service. I think hopefully you can drive down costs and more constituents could get our information. And Mr. McFarland, thank you also. I look forward to talking to you about security clearance issues. Thank you so much.

I'd like to thank Mr. McCumber, Mr. McFarland, and Ms. Binsted and all of our House officials for being here today and our members for taking some time to be here as well. Members may submit additional questions for the record. This committee stands adjourned.