[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




       CONGRESS AND TECHNOLOGY: MODERNIZING THE INNOVATION CYCLES

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               before the

           SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE MODERNIZATION OF CONGRESS

                                 of the

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                             JUNE 23, 2022

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-20

                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Select Committee on the Modernization of 
                                Congress




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           SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE MODERNIZATION OF CONGRESS

                    DEREK KILMER, Washington, Chair

ZOE LOFGREN, California              WILLIAM TIMMONS, South Carolina,
EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri              Vice Chair
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              BOB LATTA, Ohio
DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota             RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois
NIKEMA WILLIAMS, Georgia             DAVE JOYCE, Ohio
                                     GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
                                     BETH VAN DUYNE, Texas

                            COMMITTEE STAFF

                     Yuri Beckelman, Staff Director
                Derek Harley, Republican Staff Director   
                
                
                
                
                
                
                
                
                
                
                
                
                
                
                
                
                
                
                
                
                
                            C O N T E N T S

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                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page

Chairman Derek Kilmer
    Oral Statement...............................................     1
Vice Chairman William Timmons
    Oral Statement...............................................     2

                               WITNESSES

Mr. Stephen Dwyer, Senior Advisor, House Majority Leader Steny 
    Hoyer
    Oral Statement...............................................     4
    Written Statement............................................     7
Mr. Reynold Schweickhardt, Senior Advisor, Lincoln Network
    Oral Statement...............................................    12
    Written Statement............................................    14
Ms. Melissa Dargan, Co-Founder & CEO, TourTrackr
    Oral Statement...............................................    24
    Written Statement............................................    26
Discussion.......................................................    28

 
       CONGRESS AND TECHNOLOGY: MODERNIZING THE INNOVATION CYCLE

                              ----------                              


                        THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2022

                  House of Representatives,
                            Select Committee on the
                                 Modernization of Congress,
                                                   Washington, D.C.
    The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:02 a.m., in Room 
210, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Derek Kilmer [chairman 
of the committee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Kilmer, Cleaver, Perlmutter, 
Phillips, Williams, Timmons, and Davis.
    The Chairman. Okay. The committee will come to order.
    Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the committee at any time. I now recognize myself for 
an opening statement for 5 minutes, probably shorter.
    So a few weeks ago at our hearing on pathways to service, 
there was some interesting discussion around the concept of 
small wins. There is a natural tendency in Congress to focus on 
hitting legislative home runs, but small wins can provide a 
sense of great accomplishment, and over time, they can 
accumulate into big wins.
    Let me give an example. In the 116th Congress, this 
committee recognized a need for a specialized group of 
technologists, designers, and others to support the House's 
internal and public-facing operations. And we recommended 
establishing the Congressional Digital Services Task Force. 
Passing the recommendation was a small win. The next step was 
demonstrating its worth. Leading by example and practicing what 
we preach is a big part of this committee's ethos. There is 
real value in showing that it is possible to actually do the 
things that we are recommending, and this is why the committee 
decided to pilot the first ever Congressional Digital Service 
Program.
    In the spring of 2020, the committee brought on board four 
digital service fellows and appointed them to various House 
offices to help with existing efforts to modernize Congress. 
The fellows successfully contributed to a number of 
modernization projects, including digital signatures, the 
eHopper, and various constituent management systems. These 
small wins resulted in the creation of an official House 
Digital Service earlier this year. I would certainly classify 
this first of its kind effort in Congress as a big win.
    There are a couple of reasons for sharing this story. The 
first is that it is a great example of how it is entirely 
possible to accomplish big things by taking a small-wins 
approach. That is especially important when it comes to IT 
modernization. Incremental improvements made consistently over 
time can lead to transformational change.
    The second is that it demonstrates Congress' desire and 
willingness to address its own institutional shortcomings. We 
know that Congress has a lot of catching up to do when it comes 
to technological innovation. These issues are complicated and 
require the kind of expertise that Congress has traditionally 
lacked. The House Digital Service will help identify pain 
points and develop solutions so that Members and staff can 
better serve the American people.
    This is an especially important point to keep in mind as we 
discuss various IT challenges today. There is a tendency to 
view Congress' technological shortcomings as insurmountable, 
but they are not.
    And the third is that it proves what is possible when 
outreach and listening are built into the process. The 
committee didn't develop the idea of the House Digital Service 
out of thin air. We spent a lot of time listening to Members 
and staff talk about their IT challenges and a lot of time 
listening to institutional and technology experts talk about 
solutions.
    So I think that kind of example matters, and I am thrilled 
that the CAO's office has built outreach into its process for 
standing up the House Digital Service. They are meeting with 
digital directors to better understand what the technology 
trends, challenges, and needs are across the House, and they 
are doing listening sessions with Member offices to learn more 
about common IT obstacles.
    I look forward to hearing what recommendations the experts 
joining us today have for ensuring that Congress is equipped to 
take full advantage of the latest technological innovations. 
And given the process I just described, I am also really 
interested in hearing your thoughts on strategies for getting 
Congress focused on tech modernization.
    So, with that, let me welcome if Vice Chair Timmons has an 
opening statement.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    We have been doing this for 3.5 years, and I cannot believe 
you didn't use your line that Congress is an 18th century 
institution using 20th century technology to solve 21st century 
problems. This might be the only hearing he didn't use that in 
the opening. So I think it is a very appropriate hearing to 
mention that.
    I have been here 3.5 years. One of the first hearings we 
had on the Modernization Committee I brought my pager. 
Literally they gave me a pager when I got sworn in. I still 
have it in my office. Apparently, we have to pay for it, and I 
guess I have been paying for it for 3.5 years. We have got to 
look into that. I am not sure if I actually have to pay for 
that; but if I do, we might have to give it back. I don't think 
anybody uses the pagers these days.
    Mr. Dwyer, your apps you have created are incredible. Dome 
Watch is awesome. Dome Directory is fantastic. Before we 
started the hearing, I was mentioning to him that I literally 
was working with an app development company to try to create 
Dome Directory. And then I happened upon it I guess shortly 
after it came out, and I was like, that is a great idea. I had 
it first but couldn't actually implement it. So I can't wait to 
hear other things you are working on and other things that you 
think we can do to make this place more efficient.
    I spend a lot of time thinking about the calendar and the 
schedule and overlapping obligations while we are here, and I 
do think that creating a committee calendar that deconflicts or 
at least just shows committee chairmen and chairwomen what the 
conflicts are to create at least an option that would have the 
least conflicts possible, maybe including some kind of block 
scheduling to allow different committees to deconflict. That 
involves us being here more. We can't be here 65 days in a year 
and be able to get all of our work done. It inherently 
overlaps, and then we only spend 5 minutes in committees 
reading things that have been prepared for us as opposed to 
learning from one another's ideas and collaborating and 
legislating.
    So I do want you all to touch on time and things that you 
think we can use technology to become more efficient.
    I think the Dome Directory app facilitates relationship 
building, and I just want to point that out. Generally 
speaking, it is really hard to know your colleagues when you 
have 435 of them. It is just challenging to know who everybody 
is and what committees they serve on, and it has been very 
helpful.
    I use Congress in Your Pocket, which is $500 out of your 
MRA, and your entire team gets to use it. And I have found that 
that has been very helpful in understanding who serves on what 
committees, what their position is on the dais, and just--it 
makes you more competent as a legislator because you know your 
colleagues and you can easily assess where they are from and 
what they are working on.
    So technology has the ability to make us better at our job, 
and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on things that we 
can recommend to make this place work better. And thanks for 
being here.
    With that, I yield back.
    The Chairman. I know I missed some of the formal technical 
stuff I was supposed to read. So, with that, the committee will 
use its rules that allow for more flexible hearing format that 
encourages discussion and the civil exchange of ideas and 
opinion. In accordance with clause 2(j) of House rule XI, we 
will allow up to 30 minutes of extended questioning per 
witness. And, without objection, time will not be strictly 
segregated between the witnesses which will allow for extended 
back-and-forth exchanges between members and the witnesses.
    Vice Chair Timmons, I will manage the time to ensure that 
every member has equal opportunity to participate. 
Additionally, members who wish to claim their individual 5 
minutes to question each witness pursuant to clause 2(j)(2) of 
rule XI will be permitted to do so following the period of 
extended questions.
    Okay. So, with that, I would like to welcome our three 
witnesses who are here to share with us their expertise on 
technology in Congress. Witnesses are reminded your written 
statements will be made part of the record.
    Our first witness is Stephen Dwyer. Mr. Dwyer serves as 
senior advisor to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. He will be 
focused on technology policy and digital strategy. He is the 
chief architect and manager of Dome Watch and Dome Directory, 
the popular apps used to closely follow the House floor and 
identify Members of Congress.
    Mr. Dwyer, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENTS OF MR. STEPHEN DWYER, SENIOR ADVISOR, HOUSE MAJORITY 
LEADER STENY HOYER, WASHINGTON, DC; MR. REYNOLD SCHWEICKHARDT, 
   SENIOR ADVISOR, LINCOLN NETWORK, WASHINGTON, DC; AND MS. 
   MELISSA DARGAN, CO-FOUNDER & CEO, TOURTRACKR, SEATTLE, WA

                   STATEMENT OF STEPHEN DWYER

    Mr. Dwyer. Thank you, Chair Kilmer and Vice Chair Timmons, 
for the opportunity to testify today.
    I have had the honor of working for Majority Leader Steny 
Hoyer for nearly 20 years. I have always focused on technology, 
tech policy, digital comms and, most uniquely, working on civic 
technology.
    Leader Hoyer, through his leadership budgets and staff, has 
always prioritized digital tools that benefit Members, staff, 
and the institution of Congress. This often has had the added 
benefit of making Congress more open and transparent. I have 
been fortunate to have had Leader Hoyer's trust in leading many 
of these efforts.
    Our biggest success is the Dome Watch app, which has been 
installed on over 100,000 devices over 7 years. It is heavily 
used by Members, staff, and others who closely follow the 
House. We have another app called Dome Directory.
    We also run a private intranet for Democratic staff called 
DemCom that has been in heavy use for 14 years. It does many 
things that we saw lacking in Congress, like a resume bank, 
staff directory, and a database for internal documents.
    We built other custom systems, including ones for whipping 
votes and measuring Members' reach on social media.
    We have co-hosted, along with Republican Leaders Cantor and 
McCarthy, four official Congressional Hackathons over the past 
10 years. These events have helped foster a community of people 
on and off the Hill who are interested in the digital 
infrastructure of Congress.
    My top recommendation is simply that Congress should better 
prioritize digital technologies across the board. I commend the 
Modernization Committee for doing exactly that over the past 
few years and the institutional offices that have accelerated 
progress of late.
    Like we did with C-SPAN in the eighties, websites in the 
nineties, social media in the early 21st century, we need to 
adopt modern digital tools to improve the functions of 
Congress. This is happening everywhere. Stores and restaurants 
all have online ordering systems. Children's soccer teams use 
apps to manage schedules and messages. But in Congress, 
interactions with the public have improved only incrementally.
    Most businesses today hire programmers, designers, and data 
specialists either directly in-house or through contractors. We 
need to hire more in Congress, and we need to recognize the 
higher pay required for these in-demand skills. This is 
especially true for Congress' work since Congress' work product 
is digital. It is information, laws that greatly impact the 
world and people's lives.
    Congress is decentralized which helps for generating 
innovation. Each office should be encouraged to innovate to 
improve their operations, and the centralized offices, like the 
CAO, should help facilitate and scale any innovation.
    One downside of the decentralized structure is silos. There 
should be more collaboration across the legislative branch. 
Just as the AOC oversees all the physical infrastructure of 
Congress, some or one group should have authority over all the 
digital infrastructure in Congress, something that is currently 
lacking. One possibility is the Congressional Data Task Force, 
which formerly was called the Bulk Data Task Force, a 
recommendation from the Modernization Committee to change their 
name, which was great. I have worked closely with them over the 
years, and they have been very successful at getting different 
silos to work together on foundational issues of improving 
Congress' digital infrastructure. I recommend that they be 
given more direct authority to lead Congress in these areas.
    My other suggestion is the newly created House Digital 
Service that Chairman Kilmer mentioned in his opening remarks. 
It should have a broad mandate to allow it to expand as it 
matures, eventually working on transformative projects that 
transcend the legislative branch, not just in the CAO.
    Hackathons could also help with collaboration. The 
hackathons we have hosted have been more idea-a-thons than 
nontechnical staff, but institutional offices could host more 
traditional hackathons with coders from across the leg branch.
    We should also better coordinate with the Senate. There is 
significant duplication of efforts between the two Chambers on 
things that would not threaten the independence of each 
Chamber. For example, legislative drafting systems could be 
better aligned or combined.
    We should continue to open congressional data. I commend 
the Library of Congress for just this week announcing public 
access to the congression--the Congress.gov API, which should 
happen later this year. More congressional sites like 
clerk.house.gov should follow suit.
    We should do an assessment of mission critical systems that 
have been developed in committee and leadership offices and 
make sure that they be can be supported in the event of a 
change of vendor or leadership of the office. I believe that 
that should include our Dome Watch app and DemCom intranet, as 
well as other systems I am aware of like the GOP Cloak Room 
site and the Rules Committee and NDAA amendment systems.
    All custom systems that are made for the House like those 
systems should be open source by default. This would help other 
State and international legislatures reuse our work and 
collaborate on shared challenges, and it would also ensure that 
we are not locked into a single vendor, saving long-term costs.
    The House cloud approval should be revamped. It is too slow 
and inflexible, in my opinion. For example, my co-witness today 
built an app specializing and managing the congressional tour 
process, but the approval process took too many months and was 
opaque. We should welcome innovators like her.
    We should also create a new process to accept unsolicited 
technology proposals. I often get meeting requests from 
companies that believe their technology is a good fit for 
Congress, but they don't know how or who to present it to.
    Finally, my final recommendation is we should modernize 
constituent communications. This is more of a big idea which I 
was asked to come up with, think of big ideas. So currently, 
the public can only send an email to their Member of Congress, 
which usually results in a generic response. This hasn't 
changed in my nearly 20 years here in Congress. Most people 
would prefer to have their message posted publicly, like on 
social media or an online petition.
    We should build an open platform for constructive 
discussion of bills before Congress. Users could post public 
opinions of bills before Congress. Advocacy groups could post 
en masse. There could be up voting and down voting functions. 
There would have to be content moderation, like with any open 
online platform, but the goal would be respectful civic 
dialogue.
    Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today.
    [The statement of Mr. Dwyer follows:]
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    The Chairman. Thanks, Mr. Dwyer.
    Our next witness is Reynold Schweickhardt. Mr. 
Schweickhardt is a senior advisor at Lincoln Network. 
Previously he served as senior technology advisor at the 
General Services Administration. He has also served as the 
director of technology policy for the Committee on House 
Administration, the strategic advisor on technology and 
cybersecurity for the House's Chief Administrative Officer, and 
as the chief technology officer at the U.S. Government Printing 
Office.
    Mr. Schweickhardt, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

               STATEMENT OF REYNOLD SCHWEICKHARDT

    Mr. Schweickhardt. Can I get a light here? Hopefully I am 
smart enough to use the technology.
    Chair Kilmer, Vice Chair Timmons, and members of the 
committee, I am pleased to appear today to testify about ways 
to improve the digital capacity of the House of 
Representatives. I will be speaking to structural issues that 
raise the cost of implementing digital initiatives to serve 
Members, staff, civil society groups, and last but certainly 
not least, their constituents.
    Let me give the committee a kudos for another successful 
recommendation with the fully funding of the Modernization Fund 
by the appropriators earlier this week.
    In over 20 years supporting the House and the legislative 
branch, I have collaborated with stakeholders across the House 
of Representatives and the legislative branch, built working 
relationships with executive branch agencies, members of civil 
society, academics, and businesses to increase the 
transparency, effectiveness, and resilience of the House.
    Three key areas to consider are: One, how should technology 
be governed and funded in the House and across the legislative 
branch? There is not a single overwhelming problem but, rather, 
a series of smaller and medium-size issues which cumulatively 
increase costs and impede the pace of technological change.
    A critical step would be creating a method for House-wide 
prioritization of projects to avoid the added costs and delays 
of technologists juggling as many as 10 different projects at 
the same time. Other improvements would include clearly 
chartering the House's technology organizations, consolidating 
control over infrastructure, and allowing for innovative 
acquisition strategies to improve the onboarding of new 
technologies.
    Secondly, what technology products or improved processes 
should be mandated to improve the digital experience of all 
stakeholders? We are thinking automating time-consuming and 
expensive manual processes can improve transparency while 
freeing up funding to continue modernization.
    Regarding the creation of committee hearing documents, we 
estimate that $4 million could be freed up by the automation of 
automatically creating hearing documents.
    Further, I recommend extending the Clerk's Legislative 
Information Management System, or LIMS, to include internal 
committee legislative workflows. The standardized processes 
improve resilience and reduce the number of so-called cuff apps 
supporting committee processes.
    Third, how should the tensions between creativity and 
stability be managed? The use of open source software can be a 
proxy for this discussion, where and when, how should it be 
used. There is also attention between standardization and 
diversity of tools; when should workflows be part of the 
centralized products, such as LIMS; and when is having a 
variety of choices important.
    The House has used open source software for many years. In 
my written testimony, I discuss the different aspects of open 
source utilization and how to structure its use with a full 
range of House tools.
    There is an understandably high standard for the 
reliability and resilience of the legislative process. The use 
of open source should be incorporated into that development 
process using the recommended acquisition flexibilities for 
core House tools.
    On the other hand, consider the oversight process in a 
typical committee where each side and individual Members seek a 
competitive advantage for their views or Steve Dwyer's intranet 
to support Democratic members. A robust strategy to encourage 
innovation in competing tools allows Members to pick the best 
tools for their individual needs.
    Both ethics concerns and regulations regarding the use of 
the Members' representational allowance, or MRA, can limit the 
use of open source software. For example, Members using the MRA 
to create open source software can't supplement other Members' 
MRAs by releasing it for general use. This is a problem which 
could be addressed.
    In summary, these are complex issues with many nuances and 
interdependencies. I am happy to respond to questions or 
participate in further discussions as needed. I look forward to 
working with this committee and continue progress on these 
important issues.
    Thank you, Chair Kilmer. I yield back.
    [The statement of Mr. Schweickhardt follows:]
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    The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Schweickhardt.
    And last but not least, we are joined virtually by Melissa 
Dargan. Ms. Dargan is the cofounder of AppMy, LLC, a company 
that builds digital platforms for government, such as 
TourTrackr.com. She previously served as a staffer for 
Congressman Ed Royce and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. 
She also helped launch the Congressional App Challenge, a 
nationwide initiative that works with Members of Congress to 
develop district-specific challenges for students who are 
interested in technology.
    Ms. Dargan, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

                  STATEMENT OF MELISSA DARGAN

    Ms. Dargan. Thank you.
    Chair Kilmer, Vice Chair Timmons, and members of the select 
committee, I am honored today to testify.
    Customer-focused innovative technologies have advanced, yet 
many everyday congressional constituent services are managed 
manually. Member offices can benefit from facilitating a more 
transparent and welcoming tech startup ecosystem on Capitol 
Hill for new tech products.
    Like many in this room, I came to Washington, D.C., over a 
decade ago to make a difference. Prior to launching TourTrackr, 
the tour management platform that has helped book over 124,000 
tours and that is used by nearly a hundred Member offices to 
digitally organize constituent tour requests, I started my 
career as a staffer on Capitol Hill, first working for 
Representative Ed Royce's D.C. personal office and then the 
Committee on Foreign Affairs.
    Next, I co-launched the Congressional App Challenge, a 
districtwide competition for middle school and high school 
students that encourages them to learn to code, and inspires 
them to pursue careers in computer science.
    Based on my experience as a former staffer and now tech 
entrepreneur, I am uniquely positioned to identify the 
challenges and opportunities of growth related to tech 
innovation in Congress.
    When I first started on Capitol Hill as a staff assistant, 
I remember processing many constituent services manually. From 
constituent tour requests to flown flag purchases, these 
important responsibilities were tracked using printouts, 
binders, Excel spreadsheets. It was fragmented and inefficient. 
At the time, there were no digital alternatives that the House 
offices were approved to use. So while these tasks seemed easy, 
they were tedious, repetitive, and time-consuming.
    Fast-forward to nearly a decade later, despite the 
advancements made in commercial technology, most House offices 
were still processing administrative work such as tours and 
flags manually, pretty much the same way I was doing it years 
prior. So seeing this market opportunity, I set out to create a 
product that I wish existed during my time, a platform that 
would simplify and digitize the congressional tour process.
    Planning D.C. tours is a great constituent service that 
allows you as Members to connect directly with the people you 
serve when they fly into our Nation's Capital. By developing a 
tech solution, my goal was to allow staffers to improve the 
quality of constituent engagement while minimizing 
administrative tasks, which took an average of about 12 to 20 
hours a week. Thus, staffers would then be freed up to do what 
they came to Washington, D.C., to do--effect change.
    Working on a new startup company already faces hurdles. The 
added House complexities, such as the lack of new vendor 
support and lack of information on navigating how to even sell 
to a congressional office, made establishing a needed tech 
product very difficult, even for someone like me who 
understands how Congress operates. The closed nature of the 
House creates restrictive barriers that ultimately decrease 
competition and prevent new technologies from ever succeeding.
    I respect and understand that the House has high standards 
for new tech approval. Protecting security and personal 
identifiable information are critical to ensure the integrity 
of the institution. That said, upholding these priorities and 
creating a welcoming environment for new tech products can be 
done simultaneously.
    Through my experience, some opportunities for change the 
select committee can investigate include: In the category of 
transparency, for instance, to eliminate information asymmetry, 
there should be a clearly defined process, including feedback 
and tracking, along with outlined requirements that provide a 
roadmap for new tech submissions while maintaining security 
protocols and structures.
    Then in the category of support, to reduce any confusion, 
the House should designate a point of contact for these new 
tech submissions so that submitting entities know where they 
are in the process.
    Lastly, in the category of streamlining, to maximize 
efficiency, the House may want to consider working with the 
Senate to align their approval standards and processes for new 
vendors and especially ones that are already approved in either 
Chamber.
    Thank you for all the work the select committee has done to 
bring innovation to the Halls of Congress. It is my hope that 
these suggestions pave the way for more efficient, creative, 
and innovative solutions that make a difference ultimately to 
improve a Member office operation and constituent services. I 
look forward to answering your questions and to continuing the 
discussion with the select committee.
    Thank you, and I yield back my time.
    [The statement of Ms. Dargan follows:]
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    The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Dargan.
    And I now recognize myself and Vice Chair Timmons to begin 
a period of extended questioning of the witnesses. Any member 
who wishes to speak should just signal their request to either 
myself or to Vice Chair Timmons.
    Let me kick things off. I have one kind of broad question 
that at least two of you spoke to, and then I have one super 
specific question just because it is something that bugs me.
    On the broad question, both Mr. Dwyer and Ms. Dargan 
mentioned some of the challenges onboarding new technology and 
working with outside vendors. I am just hoping you can give us 
some counsel as to--so is there a difference in how the House 
and the Senate approach this? And how does the executive branch 
approach this? Any lessons we can learn in terms of potential 
reforms we might propose that would make this process easier in 
the House?
    Mr. Dwyer. I can start on that. And, Melissa, if you want, 
you can jump in as well.
    I would say the way the House and the Senate deal with 
outside technology vendors is very different. I would say the 
House is actually significantly more open. So my personal 
opinion is that the House should take steps to be further open. 
But if compared to the Senate, we are actually in pretty good 
shape.
    They, for example, have been very hesitant towards cloud 
technologies, which the House was hesitant for a while but 
lately has been more embracing. And, you know, thank goodness 
we did before COVID because we have been using cloud 
technologies a lot.
    But, you know, the executive branch, it is mostly the 
FedRAMP program which we rely upon. You know, Zoom, for 
example, they had to go through and have a FedRAMP version, 
which is approved by the executive branch, and that makes it 
easy for us in the House to say, okay, well, we can approve 
that as well pretty quickly. But there are still, as Melissa 
was talking to, many challenges in the House trying to adopt 
new technologies.
    And my overall top recommendation is that we shouldn't 
treat all, they call it cloud services, the same because they 
are just very different. Some are like Melissa's, very 
specifically made for Congress. And so I think those should be 
given extra attention because they are built for us. And then 
some are just, you know, general use applications from 
companies that don't really know or care much about Congress, 
and so those should maybe--especially when they don't have much 
PII, personally identifiable information, perhaps they don't 
need to have as much scrutiny.
    But those are my thoughts. I am not sure if Melissa has 
additional thoughts.
    Ms. Dargan. Yes. Thanks for addressing the question. I do 
echo what Steve had mentioned initially.
    I will say in terms of the difference between the House and 
the Senate, openness was one that I had noticed with the House 
in even entertaining, initially, cloud services.
    What I will say is some of the similarities with processes 
where it first goes to security, assessment, and then approval 
and authorization by the committee is similar in both Chambers. 
The difference I had experienced was in time of the approval 
process. So what was interesting was, while the Senate was less 
open initially to cloud services, they only took 2.5 months, 
about 7 weeks, to approve TourTrackr, where in the House, it 
took about 34 weeks, 8 months.
    And that is just something I wanted to be able to call out, 
because in a timeframe like that with a small company like 
mine, it could be very difficult for a company who is trying to 
get set up if they have to wait 8 months before even being able 
to have the allowance of operation.
    The other thing I wanted to note in terms of what the 
executive branch does, so some of the agencies, they also have 
programs that support small businesses. They have an office 
like within the SBA where small businesses, women-owned 
businesses, underrepresented businesses can have a support to 
help them through the process to understand how to get through 
and get approved.
    And in the executive branch they also have, I believe it is 
SAM.gov, where there is a list of requested contracts that they 
are hoping to get built or get done that these businesses now 
can refer to and submit proposals for.
    So that may be something to consider on the House side, if 
there are open reqs of items that offices are hoping to be 
built or need help to be built, that companies can submit 
proposals for in order to then be reviewed. And that is just 
something I wanted to make sure I focused on where on the 
executive side they do provide support. There is a whole 
website for small businesses to onramp and onboard, and that 
may be something where small businesses and startups can be put 
together where they have support from Congress.
    The Chairman. I think that is really helpful, something we 
should take a closer look at.
    The other--if my colleagues will indulge me asking the 
specific question that bugs me. You know, one of the challenges 
we have in this place is we are sort of 435 independent 
contractors, each with our own operations, each using often 
different technologies, although there are some similarities.
    You know, where this is particularly problematic is where 
we have failings identifying common themes across the offices. 
So just as an example, during COVID, you know, we were getting 
a lot of calls about postal disruption. And when I was on the 
floor, I would talk to my colleagues and say, man, we are 
really--phones are ringing off the hook about postal 
disruptions. And they would say, oh, yeah, me--our office too. 
Right? And right now, we may have our caseworkers work that 
issue, but there is no way to feed it into any sort of 
institutional learning.
    You know, same thing around challenges with the VA or, 
right now, I mean, I think all of our offices are getting 
overrun with combination of visas and passports. And, you know, 
to me there would be value in exploring some way to use 
probably--I mean, almost assuredly, anonymized data that comes 
from our constituent management systems to spot and address 
trends in the casework so the institution can solve some of 
these problems that usually rest at the agencies.
    So I wanted to just take your temperature on that. Good 
idea, bad idea, something our committee should recommend?
    Go ahead.
    Mr. Schweickhardt. Absolutely. I have given a little bit of 
thought to that issue. The data is held at different CMS 
vendors, and I think that a process where that data is 
extracted and anonymized into a larger pool that could be 
subject to analysis or looking at trends both for constituent 
service and themes for oversight would be very valuable to the 
institution.
    Mr. Dwyer. Yeah. I think it is a great idea, and I think it 
is something that I--I know a lot of the companies that run the 
constituent databases as well, and I think it is something they 
probably would be excited about. You know, I think offices 
could maybe opt in. You know, it wouldn't have to be mandatory, 
and certainly anonymize the data, but I think it would--you 
know, I think we neglect all the information that we get from 
our constituents. If you take it as a whole, I mean, we get 
millions of emails every week from people all across the 
country and, you know, many thousands of casework problems with 
the Federal Government. And, of course, we individually deal 
with them, but I think there should be some more collective 
action, and I think it is a great idea.
    The Chairman. Vice Chair Timmons.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Dwyer, what is your new fancy app you are working on? 
What is your new piece of technology that you are working on?
    Mr. Dwyer. Well, our newest one is--we haven't sent the 
press release on it yet, but Dome Directory 2.0 is live as of a 
few weeks ago, and----
    Mr. Timmons. What is the difference?
    Mr. Dwyer. We added a number of new features. A number of 
them were requested by Mr. Hoyer himself, but he also hears 
from other Members on the floor a lot about it.
    We added--you used to only be able to look at the whole Dem 
Caucus or Republican Caucus. Now you can look by committee. You 
can also look by major caucus, which I think is somewhat unique 
to the app. A lot of people don't have good data on, you know, 
which are the major caucuses and the different roles and 
leadership roles.
    We added a search box right at the top because you used to 
only be able to quiz yourself, but now you can--now you can 
just go find a particular Member. Mr. Hoyer wanted that because 
he often just wants to pull up a person.
    We added three or four different bios for every Member. The 
issue I am most excited about is we added defining votes from 
this Congress, so we picked four or five of the most 
consequential votes for this Congress and we listed them for 
every Member.
    Mr. Timmons. I mean, who owns Dome Directory and Dome 
Watch? Hoyer's leadership?
    Mr. Dwyer. Yeah, the Office of the Majority Leader.
    Mr. Timmons. Okay. And he will give it to whomever if he 
ever does leave Congress?
    Mr. Dwyer. I assume that is the case, yes.
    Mr. Timmons. Okay. That is very interesting.
    The Chairman. I am sorry to interrupt. Can I interrupt real 
quick?
    Mr. Timmons. Yes, sir.
    The Chairman. Mr. Schweickhardt, you said something that if 
you use your MRA to develop an app, you can't share it, so how 
do you guys get around that?
    Mr. Schweickhardt. They are not using MRA. They are using 
leadership funds.
    The Chairman. Okay. Thanks. Sorry to interrupt.
    Mr. Timmons. So the 59th recommendation we made last 
Congress was to create a common committee calendar portal to 
help with scheduling and reduce conflicts. I think this is 
something that could make a big impact on this institution, and 
we are having a tough time getting traction, other--it is being 
worked on.
    Do you all have any thoughts on what we can do to maybe 
move a little quicker?
    Mr. Schweickhardt. One of the challenges with technology in 
committees is there is not a clear LA button to push. It is 
bifurcated between the clerk and the CAO and the committees 
themselves. So I think one of the recommendations is to clearly 
focus who is responsible for legislative product so there is an 
accountable owner.
    I think the other challenge that I alluded to is there is 
no gatekeeper for scheduling projects. So in the CAO, they 
may--teams may be working on 5 to 10 projects, so they tell you 
they are working on your project and they are, but they are 
sort of shuffling things back and forth versus a program 
management kind of functionality that says, what are the three 
things we want to accomplish in the next couple of months; 
let's knock them out, and then let's figure out what the next 
set of important things are.
    Mr. Timmons. With the additional resources we got in the 
modernization account, could we use those to speed it along?
    Mr. Schweickhardt. Absolutely.
    Mr. Timmons. Mr. Dwyer, what do you think?
    Mr. Dwyer. I think the building foundation has been laid. 
Seven or eight years ago now, there was the creation of 
something called doc.house.gov, which is not widely used by the 
public, but it is used internally a lot. I know Reynold worked 
on that. I know the Bulk Data Task Force worked on that a lot.
    For the first time ever, all committees are required to 
post all hearings in one place, and that is where they post it. 
They are also required to post all testimony and documents 
related to every hearing. So----
    Mr. Timmons. Is that done in House rules?
    Mr. Dwyer. I believe that is in House rules is what 
required that and the creation of it.
    Mr. Schweickhardt. Yeah.
    Mr. Dwyer. And, you know, that is another example where the 
House is ahead of the Senate. I hear that their committee 
schedules is not all in one place and their videos--or all the 
committees are not in one place. So I commend the House for 
that.
    So I think that is the foundation. But I think, you know, 
amplifying that, you know, making a more consumer-friendly 
version of that so you can at least see all the conflicts, I 
mean, that is sort of the first step, and I think that could be 
a project for the Modernization Fund.
    Mr. Timmons. Ms. Dargan, what are your thoughts?
    Ms. Dargan. Yes.
    Mr. Timmons. I was asking about trying to deconflict to the 
committee calendar. We made a recommendation to do a common 
committee calendar, and we are still working on it. So do you 
have any thoughts on what could move it along?
    Ms. Dargan. I think both of the panelists who have 
addressed that question have covered it in terms of how to get 
that. And just having worked on the Foreign Affairs Committee 
prior, I will say that that would be a very helpful tool moving 
forward. So whatever the Modernization Committee can do to push 
that, whether it is recommendations or freeing up, you know, 
certain funds to be able to create something like that, would 
be very helpful.
    Mr. Timmons. Okay. One quick last question. This could save 
millions of trees in this institution. I rarely use the 
materials that are printed out. I mean, every time I go to 
Financial Services, there is a stack that thick.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Some of us still use paper.
    Mr. Timmons. Well, we can make it optional. We can make it 
optional. But, I mean, how challenging would it be to go 
paperless as the default, and if somebody wanted paper, they 
could get it?
    Mr. Dwyer. I wholeheartedly agree. We have certainly 
reduced the amount of paper quite a bit. I am sure there is a 
lot more to be done. Now, my expert here worked for a long time 
with the GPO who probably has more strong thoughts on this.
    Mr. Schweickhardt. So I think that, for example, the 
recommendation about automating the production of the committee 
hearing document from docs.house.gov, so extending that allows 
for the creation of electronic document. I think that a lot of 
the costs that are incurred are in the creation of that first 
copy, and then the printing becomes pretty incremental. And as 
Members have become more digitally savvy, I think it is a much 
more practical alternative, with exceptions.
    It is interesting you mentioned the pager in some random 
desk drawer. There was a huge controversy at the time when we 
tried to replace it because there was an equity issue that 
Members needed to have exactly the same notice of a floor vote, 
and if it was coming through email or some other mechanism, 
somebody might be 3 minutes delayed. It was like a horrible 
thing. And as people became more accustomed to how the digital 
world worked, that issue went away, and the pager is rightfully 
in the back of the desk drawer.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    The Chairman. Mr. Phillips.
    Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    It is clear there is a bias against change in this 
institution. But, Mr. Dwyer, I will start with you. In your 
estimation, where is the ideas bottleneck? Is it House Admin? 
Is it leadership offices? Is it the various agencies? But, 
like, what is the crux of this? Who needs to champion at least 
employing technological improvements?
    Mr. Dwyer. Yeah, that is a great question. I think there is 
a lot of ideas out there. I think we need to do a better job of 
sort of collecting them. I think the Modernization Committee 
deserves a lot of credit for collecting all these ideas, but I 
think there needs to be more of a permanent institutional sort 
of way to collect these ideas and to properly evaluate them and 
elevate and prioritize them.
    But, yeah, I think we just need to create the processes to 
collect those. I think, again, the Modernization Committee 
shows that, you know, once you create that process, you get a 
whole lot of very good ideas. So I think at every level, Member 
office, committee level, leadership, institutional offices, I 
think there is a lot of good ideas.
    I would say, on the institutional offices, I think there is 
a lot of ideas, but they often are afraid to share them. They 
are just more risk averse. And so I think if we could somehow 
give them a little more authority to sort of improve things, 
rather than I think often they feel that their job is just to 
keep the status quo flowing.
    Mr. Phillips. But who is the ``we''? Is it the Speaker of 
the House? Is it majority leaders, minority leaders? Is it the 
chair of House Admin? Who needs to kind of inspire it other 
than the ModCom?
    Mr. Dwyer. I think in technology, unfortunately, there 
isn't much of a lead. I mean, I think House Administration 
provides leadership, as does individual leadership offices. But 
I think a lot of it goes to the different institutional offices 
for a lot of the technologies here on the Hill, and they are 
just very sort of disjointed, you know, where you have got the 
CAO, you have got the Clerk, you have got the Library. And I 
think we really need more authority across all of them.
    In my prepared testimony, I recommend the Bulk Data Task 
Force, which is now the Congressional Data Task Force, which I 
think is--if they had more authority, they could sort of do 
more good things. But I do think it is a lack of leadership, 
that is correct.
    Mr. Phillips. If I could just ask one more of you too. I 
loved your recommendation about an open public discussion forum 
for bills. Take us through just quickly, if you would, you 
know, how that might--how that would work, you know, from 
inceptionalization to actual implementation, based on the 
status quo. You know, how could we approach that?
    Mr. Dwyer. Sure. Thank you. It is just that, you know, 
right now, as was largely the case when I started in Congress 
nearly 20 years ago, if you want to weigh in on legislation 
before Congress, you just have to send your Member an email, 
and then you might get a response, often weeks later, and it is 
usually kind of canned, and so that is sort of a frustrating 
process often; not always but often.
    And the idea is just that, nowadays, when people take time 
to write an opinion on something, they usually want it posted 
publicly. I mean, that is just what they expect in the age of 
social media. And so I think because we haven't created a 
system like this--so the system I envision is just an open 
platform of all bills, try to structure the conversation, try 
to keep it focused on legislation and policy.
    There would--of course, like any open online system, there 
would need to be content moderation, which is difficult. But I 
still think, you know, you could have simple functions like up 
voting and down voting. It wouldn't have to always be messages. 
It could just be support or nonsupport on different bills and 
stuff. And I just think it could--it would be a large project, 
but I think it could be very constructive in the long run.
    Mr. Phillips. Could it be attached to congress.gov or 
something--is that----
    Mr. Dwyer. That is what I imagine, yes.
    Mr. Phillips. Okay.
    Mr. Dwyer. I certainly would use the database----
    Mr. Phillips. Yeah.
    Mr. Dwyer [continuing]. For congress.gov for all the 
current bills to try to structure the conversation.
    Mr. Phillips. All right. I yield back. Thanks for your--oh, 
yeah. Please, Mr. Schweickhardt.
    Mr. Schweickhardt. In terms of what is limiting progress, I 
think that I would--with the many silos comes turf----
    Mr. Phillips. Uh-huh.
    Mr. Schweickhardt [continuing]. And there is a tendency to 
negotiate around those sort of perceived immovable objects.
    When docs.house.gov was mandated in House rules, one of my 
jobs at House Administration was to manage the implementation 
and the creation of it, and there was a committee that didn't 
think that they would be subject to those rules, not to get 
into oversight versus appropriations differences. And with the 
support of the Speaker's Office and negotiation to understand 
the business process in appropriations, managed to create an 
all-encompassing solution.
    And so I think that I would point to the silos and someone 
or some organization that could be House Administration, could 
be the leadership, really arbitrate those differences----
    Mr. Phillips. Okay.
    Mr. Schweickhardt [continuing]. And say, I understand that 
is in your turf or in your charter, but we are going to look at 
this from an institution wide perspective and make a better 
solution.
    Mr. Phillips. I appreciate it. Thank you both.
    The Chairman. Mr. Davis.
    Mr. Perlmutter. He just got here.
    The Chairman. Sorry. Did you have a question?
    Mr. Perlmutter. No.
    The Chairman. Okay.
    Mr. Davis. You know, Ed----
    The Chairman. We call----
    Mr. Davis [continuing]. Seniority on this, even this select 
committee matters, and I----
    The Chairman. Perlmutter is the ideas bottleneck actually.
    Mr. Davis. He clearly is. I call it Bronco's fan----
    Mr. Cleaver. Yeah.
    Mr. Davis [continuing]. Inertia.
    Quit triggering me, Ed. Quit triggering me.
    Anyway, look, I want to thank Chairman Kilmer and Vice 
Chair Timmons for recognizing me before Mr. Perlmutter today.
    Reynold, I don't want to ruin your reputation by saying 
this, but you have been a longtime friend of mine, and I have 
just appreciated the work that you have done to make this 
institution as technologically limited advanced as we are 
today. I mean, that is like moving a Herculean effort forward 
trying to get an institution to change, and you have been part 
of that process to make that happen.
    Mr. Schweickhardt. Thank you.
    Mr. Davis. But--and it is great to see you back here in the 
House office buildings again, and I certainly hope you don't go 
away.
    He is the guy, if you want to know any institutional 
technologic--technology issues, he is the one to turn to.
    And then also--and this is where my questions are, 
Reynold--is you mentioned the newly launched House Digital 
Service, and you mentioned--you recommended its expansion, 
right? I wasn't here earlier. Have you already gone over that 
process at all?
    Mr. Schweickhardt. [Nonverbal response.]
    Mr. Davis. Okay. You also highlight the House's 
institutional issue of not having a central body to prioritize 
those technology products. That was something Mr. Dwyer just 
mentioned.
    I actually happen to think House Administration should be 
the clearinghouse for solving those problems, but--and I was 
reminiscing with former Chairman Harper just about an hour and 
a half ago about how it was awesome to make sure we dealt with 
furniture issues, transparency issues when it came to spending.
    And now House Administration is dealing with H.R. 1. We are 
dealing with more legislative issues. This has become more of a 
legislatively or leadership-appointed authorizing committee. 
And that, to me, is a big change. And, frankly, I think it puts 
what this ModCom committee is trying to accomplish by making 
the House as an institution move forward--I think it puts that 
on the back burner. And that has to change, in my opinion.
    Do you see that, Reynold, and do you have any 
recommendations for what we should do going into the future on 
House Administration?
    Mr. Schweickhardt. So certainly as a longtime House 
Administration Committee staffer, I have to support the role of 
House Administration in these processes. If you look to the 
Canadian Parliament, they have a long-serving chief technology 
officer. He--I think he is getting ready to retire. And so 
there was continuity in a technology strategy and a technology 
roadmap.
    And so my testimony, I talked about the difference between 
sort of stability and innovation and how to manage that 
tension. And I think that there is a role to sort of herd the 
cats in terms of keeping the innovation from disrupting the 
institution.
    We need more innovation. By the way, that is not a, you 
know, keep the door shut. But, you know, how to manage that in 
an effective way.
    I think some of the listening sessions that have taken 
place to understand what are the needs of different job roles; 
what is a legislative counsel versus a staff assistant versus a 
scheduler; you know, what are their challenges in, you know, 
supporting the Member and the institution----
    Mr. Davis. Well, you----
    Mr. Schweickhardt [continuing]. Are important.
    Mr. Davis. Your time on House Administration mirrored my 
time as a staffer too for Congressman Shimkus, and I can tell 
you, today, the access to training, the access to products, the 
access to technology is much, much more ubiquitous than it was 
when I started in the nineties and worked throughout the early 
2000s.
    But we have got a--we have got a problem and an issue that 
this committee, I know, has debated and House Administration 
has not debated enough. What is your suggestion on how do we 
find that balance between the House and the CAO trying to 
develop technology when there might be that technology that we 
could get off the shelf and maybe work it into our security 
apparatus? What is that fine line?
    Mr. Schweickhardt. So I think that--so there is two kinds 
of technology, right? There is the--everyone in the world needs 
Zoom, and the House needs to use Zoom as well. So what are 
those nonproprietary technologies or nonlegislative-specific? 
And then there is the, what do we need to have developed, like 
Melissa's application, that no one else in the world needs to 
use?
    I think one of the missing pieces is how to leverage the 
energy and the enthusiasm of the civic tech community. There is 
a lot of people who want to support the legislative process, 
that want to strengthen the first branch of government. And 
some of the ethics concerns, some of the acquisition concerns 
prevent that from happening.
    If you look at the executive branch with challenge.gov, 
they have different statutory authority to use contests and 
challenges. You know, build me a better airplane, and I will 
give the one who builds the best airplane the contract and the 
money. It speaks to some of these issues that were discussed 
earlier in terms of having a defined process that is open and 
transparent in terms of how we do that.
    So I think, going back to acquisition and competition, I 
mean, one of the problems, I think--you know, my opinion today 
with challenges is, if you have a contest and you--you know, we 
will give you a dollar for the winner, you get into, you know, 
ethics concerns and so on.
    The Library of Congress has authority to provide funding, 
which they have used to work on congress.gov. But the House 
seems to lack that same authority to say, I will give you 
$5,000 for the world's best, you know, constituent 
communication widget.
    And Steve, I think, may have some thoughts.
    Mr. Dwyer. Yeah. If I could just say it is a good point, 
sir, that you made on, like, whether to build or buy. And I 
think you certainly want to buy if you can, if there is a--you 
know, there is no reason to build something that already 
exists. But I think we are somewhat unique.
    Now, we are not entirely unique. You know, there is a--a 
bunch of other State legislatures that do a lot of the same 
things we do and international. But, yeah, the TourTrackr app 
is a good example.
    Another good example is, you know, the Senate recently 
developed in-house a really nice, clean, new app for--it is 
called Quill. It is for managing letters and signatures. And 
that saved--I mean, our office, that saved us so much time this 
appropriations season compared to previous seasons. Great 
efficiency gain.
    Mr. Davis. Did you say the Senate developed something 
before the House?
    Mr. Dwyer. Yeah. And it is----
    Mr. Davis. Interesting.
    Mr. Dwyer [continuing]. Very rare that a tool is being--a 
bicameral tool is now in use in both Chambers in the same way.
    Mr. Davis. That is great.
    Mr. Dwyer. It is a great example of nobody else really has 
the same letter, signature problem that we do with 535 
signatures that we always have to, you know, jumble on 
different letters, so----
    Mr. Davis. Well, I appreciate your testimony, both of you.
    Thank you, Chair Kilmer. And I would seriously like to sit 
down. This is a very leadership-driven operation here.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Bingo.
    Mr. Davis. And I have--you know, I was very supportive of 
the legislative branch modernization fund, but I have some big 
concerns with how that money is being utilized right now with 
an overwhelming amount going to the Approps Committee and to 
the CAO. And I would love to sit down with you and your boss to 
talk about some of these concerns, if that would work out too.
    Mr. Dwyer. Of course.
    Mr. Davis. Thank you.
    Thanks. I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Mr. Cleaver.
    Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just this whole issue 
of technology is one that I am--I appreciate the committee 
leadership bringing to us.
    I want technology to be my servant, my--but there seems to 
be an effort for--you know, afoot to make it our god, and--not 
at this committee hearing. But, I mean, you know, I have a 6-
year-old grandson who is constantly trying to teach me, you 
know, how to use this phone app that I had no business getting, 
because all the stuff on here, I don't--my 6-year-old knows 
everything.
    So I have some apprehensiveness about just going all the 
way in as it relates to technology. However, every office 
probably has a contract with a technology person, somebody 
that--IT comes in and they--the computers go down, the printers 
go down. And I am just--and we probably pay, you know, maybe as 
much as--we all probably have contracts, you know, probably 20 
to 50 may be the range, maybe even more than that.
    And so if we are spending that kind of money, technology 
is, in some ways, becoming, you know, ahead of us--you know, it 
changes every night. I get mad at this phone, because it says 
essentially, stupid, I told you I am not going to function 
unless you update me, and, you know, but--but do you--at least 
those of you who were around--have been around here, believe 
that maybe each office needs to have not just a contract, but 
somebody in there, just like a LA or regular member of our 
staffs at all times, who not only could, you know, help with 
the, you know, problems in the office, but also next-step 
technologies?
    I mean, we--you know, here in Congress, we are in a 
situation where we have to catch up. This is not like making a 
decision about, you know, just another move. We are talking 
about catching up.
    So given--what--if we had the dollars in our MRA, do you 
think that this would be--it would be a good idea for Members 
of Congress to have a technology person in-house?
    Mr. Dwyer. I certainly think so, sir. I think it is a great 
idea. I think that is happening more and more. I think there is 
just so much more that they need to do, even versus 5, 10 years 
ago when I was in the congressional office.
    You know, a lot of that is in digital communications. Every 
office needs to, you know, not just take a bunch of pictures 
and post them on Twitter and Facebook, but they have to do more 
technical Facebook Lives. They have got to take their boss 
live. And there is a lot of technical tasks that didn't exist 
many years ago.
    And so I think, you know, we have been recommending, within 
the Democratic Caucus, you know, the use of the title 
``digital,'' so digital aide or digital manager. And those 
people should be technical people, so not just communications 
specialists online, but also are competent with many different 
technical tasks.
    I think data is also critical for every office.
    Mr. Cleaver. Uh-huh.
    Mr. Dwyer. Every office, when they communicate with their 
constituents, they are using complicated databases in targeting 
and such. And those are technical tasks that require--and I 
think having someone in-house is good, because they can sort of 
do all sorts of these different tasks for you, including more 
basic IT support as well.
    And so I think that is absolutely needed, that we can't 
just think of traditional congressional staff of, you know, 
political science and history majors, but also more technical 
staff, I think, are helpful all around.
    Mr. Schweickhardt. If I could add, sir, I agree with 
Steve's comments. A complementary aspect of that is to continue 
to standardize core IT so the person you are paying for 
doesn't--isn't figuring out how to make the computer get 
updated but, rather, that is something that the CAO should 
manage, so that the space where you have a technical advisor or 
digital advisor is, as Steve said, on communications. And I 
think on analytics, increasingly, you know, what did the 
executive branch or the industry or the trade association, they 
provide you a set of information to support their positions, 
there is many resources, but I think someone in the office who 
is in support of, you know, your positions to do data analytics 
and say, this is true, this isn't, you ought to ask them this 
question because, would be very helpful.
    Mr. Cleaver. Ms. Dargan.
    Ms. Dargan. I will add to that. For individual offices--and 
this is touched upon earlier--silos, right? So if each 
individual office has their own staffers and they come up with 
innovative solutions that other offices could benefit from, 
this is where it is going to be important to also have 
something that is a way in which these digital individuals can 
all communicate, because I know from personal experience, one 
issue that an office can experience, other offices have 
experienced in the past as well.
    And if everybody is coming up with their own way in which 
to tackle it starting from scratch, it is--it can be 
inefficient and ineffective. And I would say, if the office 
decides to have an individual digital person, there should 
also--the House should find a way to be able to bridge these 
silos so that one issue that gets resolved in one office, there 
can be an easy way to implement that in others.
    And I--whether that is an open forum, whether that is a way 
that they can all communicate, I think there should be a way to 
bring these silos together as well on a holistic level, because 
that will help close some of these gaps.
    Mr. Cleaver. Thank you.
    The Chairman. Mr. Perlmutter.
    Mr. Perlmutter. So that sort of leads into the question 
that I was going to have, starting with you, Ms. Dargan. Just 
listening to this, it is sort of an age old problem of 
centralized versus decentralized. And, you know, you call us 
silos, but we are offices. We are individual offices and we 
kind of do things on our own.
    But we need to have better networking and conversation. And 
it could be about technology. It certainly could be--you know, 
we did a big veterans pinning thing for, you know, Vietnam 
vets, and we started it, and nobody really knew about it, but 
then it--the word spread. I mean, there are good things that 
any offices could use. So we have to have a better networking 
process, I think.
    But my question is a broader one, which is sort of a 
procurement/acquisition kind of issue. When you are a small 
business and you want to, you know, introduce your product to 
my office or to the Congress as a whole, to the CAO, what is 
the process? I don't even know. I mean, I am going to show my 
ignorance right here.
    Ms. Dargan. Well, thank you for posing the question. It--in 
the House side, the way that a startup would pitch even a 
product would be the Member office would have to support and 
turn in a document into the CAO asking for that startup and 
that product to be reviewed.
    This was something, when I initially first started in 
actually getting approval, didn't even realize myself, because 
there was no information publicly known of how I could even get 
approved or that I needed approval in the beginning.
    And so a Member office would have to support a startup or a 
vendor and submit documentation to the CAO. The CAO security 
team will then review the product to ensure that security 
assessment and risk assessment is done appropriately and that 
the technology is safe and secure for Member offices to use.
    Once that is approved in the CAO side, it gets sent to CHA, 
where then CHA then does the final authorization. And if it--
and if the product or company gets authorized at the end, then 
it can be approved on an approval list where Member offices can 
now use this technology.
    So there are multiple steps, and it all starts with a 
Member office needing to submit a company to be reviewed 
initially. There is no open proposal where I could submit 
something myself and say, Hey, I know that this is a problem. I 
have spoken to other offices. Can I submit TourTrackr, for 
instance, to be reviewed by the CAO directly? I would have to 
first get a Member office to support me, and then have them 
submit that--that documentation and information in order for me 
to be reviewed or even looked at.
    Mr. Perlmutter. So you can't go straight to the CAO?
    Ms. Dargan. Currently, I was unable to, and I don't believe 
there was a process to do that, because I was told I needed a 
Member office to support and turn in the documentation to even 
get me through the door.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Is that the same for the Senate?
    Ms. Dargan. In the Senate, a Senate office had to also 
champion a vendor. And for them, though, their process is a 
Senate office sends a risk assessment to be reviewed by the 
Senate Sergeant of Arms. Then the Senate Sergeant of Arms 
reviews the risk assessment, provides their assessment to the 
Rules Committee. And then the Senate office also has to write a 
letter to the Rules Committee asking to use official funds, 
assuming that the risk assessment was approved and passed.
    So it is very similar in that it has to go through, first, 
a risk assessment on both Chambers, and then it also has to go 
through approval by a committee. On the House side, it is CHA, 
and on the Senate side, it is Rules.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you.
    Mr. Timmons. Just want to mention that we----
    Ms. Dargan. Thank you.
    Mr. Timmons [presiding]. If we had a common committee 
calendar, then the chairman would still be here, and he 
wouldn't have to be out. I will----
    Mr. Phillips. Just saying.
    Mr. Timmons. Mr. Phillips.
    Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    My question is about tech talent. I know that Congress is 
not exactly a hotbed of tech talent right now. For all of you, 
do you see a way that we can become a little bit more of an 
attractive institution for that kind of talent? I know it can 
be hard to compete economically with compensation, but how 
might we reposition ourselves and actually make it cool to 
serve the country with tech skills in Congress?
    Mr. Schweickhardt. Yes, sir. I think that--you know, I had 
an opportunity to speak with a group of tech Congress fellows 
and, you know, they are very impressive. They are very 
accomplished. And so I think, from a rotational method, that 
there are people who are concerned about democracy in this 
institution who will step away from higher salaries and 
contribute.
    What is lacking is building kind of that core capability. 
You know, people like Steve are kind of unique of having, you 
know, led technology strategy for Mr. Hoyer----
    Mr. Phillips. Uh-huh.
    Mr. Schweickhardt [continuing]. For 20 years.
    I would just say, I think that money is certainly part of 
it, but it is also the ability to get something done. You know, 
these are motivated people. If you hired--you know, if you had 
a Formula One driver fellow and you give her a golf cart, she 
is not going to go as fast and far as she does around the 
track, probably not going to stay very long, because it is not 
very satisfying to be here.
    So I think that whole ecosystem are--you know, am I using 
modern tools? Are there modern methods? Is there the political 
will or the process to be effective and make change, all 
contribute to making the place, I think, more attractive.
    Mr. Phillips. Culture. Culture.
    Mr. Dwyer.
    Mr. Dwyer. Sure. I think it is a great question. I think we 
could look to the executive branch for some inspiration. I 
think, you know, this is something that President Obama worked 
on and something that President Trump continued through their 
initiatives like the U.S. Digital Service and 18F at GSA. They 
created different flexible employment models like they did--
yeah, I think they started with like 6 month and 12 months tour 
of duty. You know, say you are a Silicone Valley engineer but 
you are a little tired with your job and--but you want to help 
your country, you want to serve your country.
    Mr. Phillips. Like a sabbatical.
    Mr. Dwyer. Yeah, a sabbatical sort of thing. And I think 
they realized that those--those were often pretty short, 
because a lot of these--even the smaller projects, you know, 
you have really got to dive into for perhaps longer than a 
year. So I think they have expanded to 2- and 4-year tours of 
duty.
    But they also found that a lot of those people ended up 
staying. You know, a lot of those people really do love more of 
a mission-focused work and get excited by the work and then--so 
after their tour of duty ends, they actually are able to work 
inside the agency.
    So I think that is a good model that we should look to----
    Mr. Phillips. Appreciate that.
    Mr. Dwyer [continuing]. In the legislative branch.
    Mr. Phillips. Ms. Dargan.
    Ms. Dargan. I--I would echo that. Like, the innovation 
fellows were part of the executive branch's initiative where it 
was a short stint at first, and then what you could do is 
either elongate, but it gave these individuals who possibly had 
an interest in civic public service a taste of what it is like. 
And what is great is they have the tech background. Getting 
them in for maybe a 6-month, a year, 2-year stint gives them 
the ability to at least give back.
    And in a number of cases--I mean, I know a number of 
innovation fellows. They ended up staying in government and 
transitioned away from the private sector because they felt 
that this was a fulfilling mission. They were put on projects 
that had end dates and deliverables and actual results. So, to 
them, it was also fulfilling because they delivered something 
that was used by the government at the end.
    So I would say, if you think about it a little bit, it is 
like the Teach for America model, right? But it is, Hey, come, 
take that sabbatical, work in Congress for a year or two. It 
gives them the ability to get a little bit of a flavor of what 
it is like to work in public service, especially if they were 
curious.
    Mr. Phillips. Uh-huh.
    Ms. Dargan. But it wouldn't be necessarily such a huge 
shift and change if they wanted to go back.
    The other part of it, I would say, is recruiting, because 
when I went to business school, I remember a number of these 
programs and organizations would come to our recruiting events. 
If something like this were to be, you know, launched within 
Congress, it would be important to get the word out and be able 
to recruit these individuals who you would want to target to 
come over, whether that is the companies and going to them and 
pitching this kind of idea, or going off to like engineering 
programs in the various schools to let them know about this 
opportunity. The biggest thing in the pipeline as well is 
making sure you get the word out and recruiting the right 
people.
    Mr. Phillips. Great recommendations.
    Mr. Schweickhardt. I am glad to----
    Mr. Phillips. Yes, sir?
    Mr. Schweickhardt. One thought, sir.
    Mr. Phillips. Yes.
    Mr. Schweickhardt. Today, the General Services 
Administration is recruiting a chief technology officer for a 
limited term appointment, exactly in this model. Dave Shive, 
the CIO, is engaged in extensive social media outreach. I think 
they have a session next week where they are going to have an 
open meeting for anyone who is considering applying for the 
position.
    So sort of following up on Melissa's comments, they are 
very intentionally building an entire recruitment--advertising 
and recruitment campaign to bring in a world-class technologist 
for GSA.
    Mr. Phillips. Outstanding. Okay. Thank you.
    The Chairman. [Presiding.] I wanted to ask about the use of 
open source. Can you speak a bit about the benefits of 
requiring new technology created for the House to be open 
source? Have you seen any examples of government or 
congressional tools being built using open source?
    And I guess I also want to get a sense of, are there ethics 
concerns under current ethics rules when it comes to 
individuals within the House using open source code and problem 
posting forums like GitHub?
    Mr. Schweickhardt. Yeah. If I could start. You know, in my 
written testimony, it talked about a couple different use cases 
here, and I talk about the Congressional Art Competition, where 
there is not a lot of concern about the makers of Tempura, 
Inc., or something, you know, having--using art competition as 
a leverage point into Congress.
    When we set up the Congressional App Challenge, when I was 
at House Administration, the Ethics Committee was very--at that 
time, the staff of the Ethics Committee was very concerned 
about sort of undo influence of big tech and, you know, how to 
limit those--limit that impact. They provided some verbal 
guidance about the use of open source, but never, to my 
knowledge, issued anything in writing to sort of lay out that 
process.
    And so, you know, the House has been a longtime user of 
sort of generic open source technology bringing--you know, 
making--sort of incorporating those functions. I think that an 
acquisition--one of the reasons I suggest an acquisition 
authority is you can explicitly have a sort of market-based 
competition that recruits open source developers.
    I think the more--the point that would be very useful, if 
we could get to it, is how to have an ongoing kind of 
codevelopment collaboration with civic technologists, you know, 
maybe through the congressional--sorry--the House Data Task 
Force. It is still sort of burned into my brain, the old name--
but some mechanism that arbitrates or sets up a framework. 
``Arbitrate'' is not the right word. Sets up a framework for 
that kind of participation.
    The Chairman. Is there something that impedes that right 
now?
    Mr. Schweickhardt. I think it is inertia, and I think there 
is ethics concerns about that.
    One of those concerns is about the tasking of outside 
entities. So it is like, you know, you have--Steve, you know, 
this product he wrote, this Dome product, is really great, but 
we need these 27 enhancements to it, and he does it for free, 
and the institution uses it for free. Is that an appropriate 
scenario?
    So a lot of these things are fact based, you know, the fact 
pattern. But there are those fact patterns that would raise 
issues, I think.
    The Chairman. Go ahead, Mr. Dwyer.
    Mr. Dwyer. Sure. I think it is a good question. I think, 
you know, the House uses lots of open source software. I mean, 
most--a good example is most House websites that are run by the 
CAO are done in a system called Drupal, which is a very 
worldwide, popular, open source website software for managing 
websites and creating websites.
    And the way it works at being open source software is that 
all that code is available for free on the internet, and it 
creates a very healthy feedback loop where lots of people are 
making fixes to the code and lots of people are suggesting 
fixes to the code and bugs with the code and reporting bugs. 
And so it is just a large online community that sort of works 
on a group project, which is just a system of code that makes 
good websites.
    I think the Ethics Committee concerns, in my opinion, are a 
little overblown. I--I have seen an Ethics paper on this from 
probably 4 or 5 years ago. I don't think that they are actively 
working on it. I could be wrong. I don't know. But I think that 
there was some concern that, you know, through that open 
feedback loop, where people do just ask for things, like, hey, 
it would be great if this--if your feature that you made had 
these features, and they often do it. But they do that not just 
for Congress, they do that for anyone. If they just think it is 
a good idea, they do it.
    So I think, you know, Ethics is worried that this could be 
some loophole for big tech to come in and see the needs for us 
and give us a large gift by making a bunch of software, but I 
don't think that that is much of a risk. I think the 
traditional use of open source is just a collaborative 
something, and I don't think that violates the spirit of the 
gift rule, which is what Ethics was concerned with.
    The Chairman. Ms. Dargan, do you want to take a swing at 
that pitch or----
    Ms. Dargan. I believe my fellow panelists have covered most 
of it, and I agree in terms of what they say with the ethics 
concerns. I also think, with open source, prior when I was on 
the Hill, there was this notion that it would, you know, 
affect, like, risk assessment or what that would mean.
    But what I will say is, when you have looked at open source 
examples, the building of extra features, if there was a 
concern of any risk, this is where, in the House side, the CAO 
would come--come up and have the ability to review any 
additional pieces that were built off to ensure that it is safe 
for any Member office to use. And that would just be a process 
that would also be needed to put in--to be established.
    The Chairman. Let me hit one final topic on my end. I don't 
know if any of my colleagues have any additional questions.
    Mr. Schweickhardt, you actually spoke to the issue around 
sort of the siloing of technology development across the 
Congress. There are different support offices involved, like 
CAO and AOC and the Office of the Clerk. So how do we encourage 
more collaboration in technology development, and how do we 
encourage the CBO and the GAO and the GPO technology 
development teams to collaborate as well?
    Mr. Schweickhardt. So I think that, you know, my 
recommendation has been to look at the scope and chartering of 
those existing technology organizations. I mean, to be clear, 
they collaborate today but just has friction as part of that 
process, so they are a little less productive. It is one of a 
death of a thousand cuts.
    The House is unique, as far as I know, in national 
parliaments in having multiple institutional IT organizations 
in a single chamber. Some organizations, like the UK 
Parliament, in fact, has a single CIO for both the House of 
Lords and the House of Commons, but that is probably a bridge 
too far for us.
    So I think that looking at consolidating that institutional 
IT into a single organization would have the most impact but is 
the most difficult. If that is not possible, consolidating into 
the Clerk's IT organization for legislative functions. So, you 
know, House Office of Leg Counsel, you know, has some IT 
functions--they are relatively small--both for the efficiency 
of putting them together, but also from a charter point of 
view, you know, Clerk owns all legislative IT regardless of 
where it is, so you know who is responsible for it.
    Mr. Dwyer. Yeah. I think it is a good question. I think it 
is a problem that there isn't authority over all these 
different--because these different silos do very large things. 
I mean, you have to--the CAO manages all the communications 
with the public and all the websites of Members of Congress. 
The Clerk handles all the voting and the internal operations of 
the floor and the websites related to that. The Library and GPO 
handle more of like the historical records. And nobody's really 
in charge of how they all interact.
    So I want to go back to the Congressional Data Task Force. 
It is one of the few areas where I have seen them interact very 
well, and that--you know, it is now 10 years now they have been 
working together. But I do think, you know, like the UK model, 
like of having a single person that had authority over them 
or--that is just my remarks. You know, maybe the task force has 
authority over all of them to sort of embolden them to make 
some more large changes and deal with the silo problem.
    Mr. Schweickhardt. We--one of the things--one of the things 
we did at House Administration, working with the Appropriations 
Committee, was try to create a single--a process for the 
cybersecurity initiatives of the different IT organizations and 
to create a common assessment, so that the appropriators could 
look on an apples-to-apples basis on the level of IT risk in 
the different organizations across the leg branch, which really 
all--many--most of those organizations, except for the AOC, are 
part of the legislative workflow. They are part of that supply 
chain to get a bill to the President's desk.
    That was a very intensive effort. So I think that, you 
know, solving that--one of the broader aspects of those 
different IT organizations is worthwhile, but it is one of 
those things where incremental progress is probably more 
achievable than a--you know, than a grand solution.
    Mr. Dwyer. Can I just add, the--back to the task force 
model, it was unique that the House rules that created it said 
that they must meet regularly and they must, like at least once 
a year, I believe, you know, meet with the public to discuss 
their progress. And so I think just--so having some structure, 
force the silos to meet with each other regularly, just to make 
rules about that, and to meet with the public, the users of 
this information at the end of the day, I think is a----
    The Chairman. Is that the place to do it? Is the task force 
the place to do it rather than having a position, right, like 
CIO with dotted line relationships to all the technologists in 
these various agencies?
    Mr. Dwyer. I think either is possible, but I think the 
authority kind of--it doesn't exist right now, but should be 
created and either a person or a group like the task force.
    Mr. Schweickhardt. I would agree with that.
    The Chairman. Ms. Dargan is nodding her head. I don't know 
if you have anything else you want to add.
    Ms. Dargan. [Nonverbal response.]
    The Chairman. Okay. Any other questions from my colleagues?
    Go ahead, Mr. Cleaver.
    Mr. Cleaver. One kind of parochial--maybe a question. 
What--if you guys will take a guess. What would be an entry 
level salary for a technologist in--considering you guys are 
probably familiar with how the pay is over here, but just a 
guess.
    Mr. Dwyer. Yeah. I would say I have some experience in 
this--in the House Democratic Caucus pushing a digital 
specialist, for example, who, you know, aren't necessarily 
coders or designers or engineers, which is more technical and 
have higher-level degrees that are more in demand. But, you 
know, I think because it is a new position in a lot of offices, 
it often is pretty junior, but I still think it is a great 
start. And so I think, you know, most of the staffers with 
``digital'' in their title are being hired, you know, above the 
normal staff assistant type position but not much above. But I 
think, you know, if they are able to prove their worth, I think 
they often have their salaries rise pretty quickly within 
offices, that I have seen.
    Mr. Cleaver. Okay. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I just realized we have four members of this 
committee on Financial Services, including Mr. Timmons, and we 
have Jay Powell today, so that is why I think some of it--where 
a couple of members are going.
    The Chairman. Well, I am glad you are here. I am glad you 
are both here.
    So, with that, I would like to thank our witnesses in 
particular for being here, and for their testimony today, and 
thank our committee members for their participation, even with 
Financial Services conflicts.
    As always, I want to thank our staff for putting together a 
terrific hearing. I think the insights we got here definitely 
sort of cohere to some specific recommendations that our 
committee can make, so thank you for that.
    And to our stenographer, thanks for--I am sorry we talked 
so fast.
    Without objection, all members will have 5 legislative days 
within which to submit additional written questions for the 
witnesses to the chair which will be forwarded to the witnesses 
for their response. I ask our witnesses to please respond as 
promptly as you are able.
    Without objection, all members will have 5 legislative days 
within which to submit extraneous materials to the chair for 
inclusion in the record.
    And, with that, this hearing is adjourned.
    Thanks, everybody.
    [Whereupon, at 10:26 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]