[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA? INNOVATIVE
APPROACHES TO FIXING CONGRESS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE
MODERNIZATION OF CONGRESS
OF THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 28, 2022
__________
Serial No. 117-22
__________
Printed for the use of the Select Committee on the Modernization of
Congress
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via http://govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
48-591 WASHINGTON : 2022
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
----------
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Chairman Derek Kilmer
Oral Statement............................................. 1
Vice Chairman William Timmons
Oral Statement............................................. 2
WITNESSES
Dr. Lee Drutman, Senior Fellow, New America
Oral Statement............................................. 3
Written Statement.......................................... 6
Dr. Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor,
Harvard University
Oral Statement............................................. 8
Written Statement.......................................... 10
Mr. Joe Mariani, Research Manager, Deloitte Center for Government
Insights
Oral Statement............................................. 14
Written Statement.......................................... 16
Dr. Kevin Kosar, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Oral Statement............................................. 24
Written Statement.......................................... 27
Hon. John Larson, Representative, First District of Connecticut
Oral Statement............................................. 33
Written Statement.......................................... 35
Discussion....................................................... 38
WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA? INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO FIXING CONGRESS
Thursday, July 28, 2022
House of Representatives,,
Select Committee on the
Modernization of Congress,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:01 a.m., in Room
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Derek Kilmer
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Kilmer, Williams, Timmons, and
Latta.
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. And I now recognize myself
for 5 minutes for an opening statement.
No pressure on any of our witnesses today, but I have been
looking forward to this hearing for about 3 years. When this
committee was first formed in 2019, we were given one year to
do our work, and I wanted to make sure that we found a way to
showcase some out-of-the-box approaches to fixing Congress, and
the plan was to do a big ideas hearing at the end of the year.
But as the end of the year approached, the committee received
an extension through 2020, so we decided to push the big ideas
hearing back. Then a few months into 2020, COVID came along and
upended everything. Big ideas was put on hold while the
committee focused its attention on pressing issues like
continuity of congressional operations and remote work
procedures. Fortunately, the committee was once again extended,
this time through the end of the 117th Congress. So here we are
at long last.
I share that background because I want to make clear that
this hearing has been part of the committee's plan since day
one. So let me explain.
A big part of making Congress work better for the American
people involves focusing on tangible solutions. We have so far
held 37 public hearings and passed 171 recommendations aimed at
doing just that. The committee's structure requires bipartisan
agreement, and we have worked hard to find common ground on
some tough issues.
But in addition to focusing on what seems doable, we need
to think big. We should be open to creative problem-solving and
considering ideas that fall outside of our comfort zones.
I say this because Congress is not a static institution.
The legislative branch is supposed to reflect the diverse use
of this country, and as our society and politics evolve, so
should our willingness to address the problems that made
Congress less effective than it should be. New problems demand
new solutions.
Our Founding Fathers designed an amazing system of
government that has lasted well over 200 years, but if it were
perfect, there would be no need for the 27 constitutional
amendments that have been ratified since 1791. None of those
amendments would have passed if citizens and policymakers
weren't willing to think big and take risks.
So the good news is not all big ideas require
constitutional amendments. There are plenty of innovative
solutions to the big and small challenges Congress faces. And
today we are joined by a panel of big thinkers who are going to
share with us their ideas for making Congress work better for
the American people.
The committee will use its rules that allow for a more
flexible hearing format that encourages discussion and the
civil exchange of ideas and opinions. So 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 and I will manage the time to ensure
that every member has equal opportunity to participate and,
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 questioning.
All right. With that, I would like to invite Vice Chair
Timmons to share some opening marks as well.
Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am really looking forward to today's discussion on out-
of-the-box approaches to improving how Congress works for the
American people. As you mentioned, this has been on the agenda
for quite awhile, so I am really glad we are finally getting to
it. We have got 6 months left, and we are hoping to get some
more done.
And allow me to, again, quote the chairman who often likes
to say, There are no bad ideas in the ideas room. It is
entirely in the spirit that we invite our witnesses here today.
A lot of the work on this committee has rightly been focused on
improving the nuts-and-bolts operations of Congress. As we have
seen, there is a lot of work to be done there. However, I
appreciate that we can also spend time today exploring bigger,
bolder ideas for reforming Congress for the benefit of the
American people.
Before I move on, I want to thank the witnesses for joining
us. I know this committee has heard from several of you before
on other issues, and we appreciate the work and thought all of
you continue to put into improving the institution.
Today we are going to hear about five very different ideas
for fixing Congress. Some of them, such as extending the size
of the House or extending House terms, asked us to grapple with
some of the same arguments the Founders did. And I will say
here, as a conservative, I believe the Founders knew exactly
what they were doing. Our system of self-government, of
constitutional checks and balances, and federalism is the best
the world has ever seen. And I think we must tread very
carefully when examining any ideas that might require amending
the Constitution.
At the same time, our committee has always been well served
by our willingness to explore every idea presented to us for
strengthening Congress, which the Founders saw as the first
among coequal branches, so that we can improve the way we serve
the American people. If we are going to assess what is best for
the future of our public, we should first do a better job
understanding where the system we have today came from. I am
hopeful our witnesses will be able to provide helpful
historical context on the Founders' vision to inform our
discussions.
I also note that another topic we will be discussing today,
AI and machine learning, in the legislative process is a big
idea that is something we should prepare for. As they say, the
future is now, and we should do everything we can to prepare
and ensure Congress is at the forefront of technology and civic
spaces. I would particularly like to talk about the calendar
and the schedule and how machine learning and AI can solve the
problems we have been grappling with for the last couple of
years.
Really appreciate you all being here. Look forward to the
conversation.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Well, I now would like to welcome our five expert
witnesses, including one of our colleagues. Because we have a
bigger panel than usual, I will ask witnesses to keep their
oral remarks to about 3 minutes, and then we will have plenty
of time to discuss all of the testimony once we move to a
period of extended questions.
Witnesses are reminded your written statements will be made
part of the record.
Let's kick things off with Lee Drutman. Dr. Drutman is a
senior fellow at New America studying political reform. He is
also a lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University and regular
contributor to 538. Prior to New America, he was a senior
fellow at the Sunlight Foundation. He's the author of
``Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty
Democracy in America.'' He earned his bachelor's in political
science from Brown and his Ph.D. in political science from the
University of Cal, Berkeley.
Dr. Drutman, you are now recognized for 3 minutes.
STATEMENTS OF DR. LEE DRUTMAN, SENIOR FELLOW, NEW AMERICA,
WASHINGTON, DC; DR. DANIELLE ALLEN, JAMES BRYANT CONANT
UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, MA; MR.
JOE MARIANI, RESEARCH MANAGER, DELOITTE CENTER FOR GOVERNMENT
INSIGHTS, CHICAGO, IL; DR. KEVIN KOSAR, SENIOR FELLOW, AMERICAN
ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, DC; AND THE HONORABLE JOHN B.
LARSON, MEMBER OF CONGRESS, WASHINGTON, D.C.
STATEMENT OF LEE DRUTMAN
Mr. Drutman. Well, thank you.
What a great honor to be here. Chairman Kilmer, Vice Chair
Timmons, and members of the Select Committee on the
Modernization of Congress, I really appreciate this opportunity
to participate in the big ideas hearing.
So one big idea is increasing the size of the House of
Representatives and making it bigger. Well, maybe it is not
that big of an idea actually, since it is something that we did
in this country for the first 120 years. So let's get into that
history.
In 1790, when the U.S. House of Representatives first met,
there were only 65 members, each with approximately 30,000
constituents. Of course, the U.S. had only 13 States, and the
country was much smaller populationwise. But because this was
to be the people's House, framers envisioned Representatives
with close connections to their constituents and districts
small enough to make that representation meaningful.
Now, obviously, the country has grown considerably since
then, and as the country grew for the first 120 years, after
each Census, Congress added more seats to reflect the growing
population. But after the last expansion in 1911, the House
settled on 435, no good reason there, other than they couldn't
agree how to add more seats during what was a somewhat divisive
and polarized time.
Now, as you obviously know, since 1911, the population of
the country has more than tripled, and with women's suffrage
and the enfranchisement of African Americans, the eligible
voting population has increased more than sixfold. But that
number 435 hasn't budged. The average number of constituents
per district today is 760,000, so it is hard to feel heard when
you are one in three-fourths of a million.
Now, we know that the larger the district, the more distant
constituents feel from their Representatives, and vice versus.
Distance breeds distrust and frustration and inadequate
representation. It is not the way the framers intended the
House to operate, and it is just bad for our form of
representative, republican democracy.
The American Academy of Arts and Science report that I
coauthored--nicely printed here, of course--is part of the Our
Common Purpose Project, which I am submitting for the record,
recommends increasing the House by 150 members to a total of
585. This would correspond to the number of seats that have
shifted between the States even as their population has grown
since that 435 cap was stuck upon. And this doesn't have to
happen right now. Probably the ideal timing would be after the
2030 Census, and then once instituted, the number would
continue to expand as the population grows.
So in addition to bringing constituents and Representatives
closer to each other, an expansion, I think, would have some
other benefits. One is it would bring new faces and new ideas
to Washington. Incumbency reelection rates are extremely high.
I guess your constituents love you all, and I can't blame them.
But, you know, over time, that can make Washington start to
feel a little too Washington and keeping some fresh
perspectives out. So the people's House should be close to the
people.
All this could shake things up a bit for sure, but given
how stuck and dysfunctional things seem to be right now, a
little shakeup might be good. It could bring some new energy,
some new creativity to Congress, and even help short-circuit
some of the destructive hyperpartisan polarizations really
undermining our system of government.
And on that front, I do think pairing an increased House
with another of the Academy's recommendations, proportional
multimember districts would go a long way, because with
proportional multimember districts, you would have much more
diversity of perspectives in Congress and it would really
expand beyond the highly polarized binaries of solid Republican
and solid Democratic districts, and that would create, I think,
even more possibilities for new creative problem-solving and I
think also a more committee-oriented Congress.
You know, more broadly, as a scholar of political science
and history, I see that this decade ahead is actually likely to
be a real moment of transformative change in our democracy,
because, I mean, I think it is clear that the status quo is
broken. And, you know, there are those who want to burn it all
to the ground, but, you know, I at least, and I think you all,
want to restore and renew the promise of liberal, republican
democracy in America. And, you know, I am 100 percent convinced
that we are going to need some big, bold ideas to make that
work and to innovate and modernize towards a brighter future
for this country.
So I look forward to working with you all to achieve some
of these innovations.
[The statement of Mr. Drutman follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Drutman.
Our next witness is Danielle Allen. Dr. Allen is a
professor and director of the Center for Ethics at Harvard
University. She is a political theorist who studies democratic
theory, political sociology, and the history of political
thought. She is widely known for her work on justice and
citizenship in ancient Athens and modern America and is a
member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is the
author of, among other things, ``From Voice to Influence:
Understanding Citizenship in the Digital Age.'' Dr. Allen
earned her first Ph.D. in classics from the University of
Cambridge and her second Ph.D. in government from Harvard
University.
Doctor, doctor, you are now recognized for 3 minutes.
STATEMENT OF DANIELLE ALLEN
Ms. Allen. Also known as square. That is what you get for
that, doctor, doctor.
Good morning, Chair Kilmer. Thank you for the invitation.
Vice Chair Timmons, Representative Latta, it is an honor to be
with all of you, and thank you so much for your commitment to
self-government.
You have heard my background. I have also had the honor of
being a co-chair for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Commission on the practice of democratic citizenship, but I
want to share a little bit more about myself for context, where
my views come from.
I grew up in southern California in a family that prized
civic engagement. On my mom's side, my great-grandparents
helped fight for women's right to vote, and my great-
grandmother was president of the League of Women Voters in
Michigan in the thirties. And on my dad's side, my granddad
helped found one of the first NAACP chapters in northern
Florida.
So as a matter of both family inheritance and personal
conviction, I bring a deep belief to this hearing in the value
to all people of the chance to participate in self-government
as free and equal citizens.
I speak, therefore, from personal conviction but also speak
today on behalf of the Academy's commission. The American
Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded in 1780, before the
Constitution and by the same people who led the Revolution. It
was founded to secure for the new Nation the knowledge,
resources needed for the daring experiment in self-government.
In 2018, the Academy convened a bipartisan commission to
address the widespread sense that our constitutional democracy
is in crisis. In 2020, we issued our report, Our Common
Purpose. You have heard about it, a fair bit of it. And the
report makes the case that improvement of civic culture and of
political institutions must go hand-in-hand if we are going to
secure the health of our constitutional democracy.
So my core message is that tweaking how Congress operates
is not enough to restore the strength of the first branch of
government. A healthy Congress can grow only out of the soil of
a healthy civic culture. So investment in our civic well-being
through civic infrastructure is investment in the health of
Congress.
Civic infrastructure consists of the local places,
programs, and people that encourage all residents of
municipalities and regions to interact, find common ground, and
solve problems together. We currently underinvest in this
infrastructure, and underinvestment shows up in isolation,
disengagement, mistrust, and contention, instead of
participation and collaboration.
Against this backdrop, residents in local communities, just
like my great-grandparents and grandparents, are seeking to
turn the tide. In Inman, South Carolina, local government,
business people, and community residents have collaborated on a
revitalized downtown with a new public library and physical
infrastructure to better support connections among residents
and visitors.
In Lexington, Kentucky, the nonprofit CivicLex builds civic
health through accessible coverage of local government meetings
and programs for residents and relationship-building activities
and resident engagement in local government.
The Citizens Campaign from New Jersey educates local
residents in techniques of no-blame problem-solving, and
participants form civic trusts, as they call them, nonpartisan,
community-based civic associations that search for successful
policies that work in other communities that might be adopted
in their own. Local communities need a vote of confidence from
national investment.
In our report, we recommended the creation of a trust for
civic infrastructure, a new national organization for grant
making, knowledge sharing, public education, and research and
evaluation to strengthen civic capacity and connectivity in
local communities. A pilot trust is currently forming with
private support, but the scope and scale of needed investments
means civic infrastructure should also be a priority for the
national budget.
Future members of your body need a chance to learn the
practices of democratic citizenship in rich schools of
democracy at the local level. When local communities know how
to bridge divides and engage residents in productive
collaborations, we will be on our way to securing a healthy
political culture nationally. This will improve your working
conditions.
Only with innovation can we pass on to future generations
our valuable inheritance of constitutional democracy in better
shape than we currently find it.
So, again, we thank you for your willingness to renovate
our constitutional democracy.
[The statement of Ms. Allen follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Allen.
Our next witness is Joe Mariani. Did I get that right?
All right. Mr. Mariani is the technology and innovation
leader at the Center for Government Insights at Deloitte
Services LP. His research focuses on the intersection of
culture and innovation in both commercial businesses and
government organizations. Previously, he worked as a science
teacher at St. Anselm's Abbey School, and served as an
intelligence officer with the U.S. Marine Corps. Mr. Mariani
earned his bachelor of arts in philosophy from the University
of Chicago and his master's of arts from Dartmouth College.
Mr. Mariani, you are now recognized for 3 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JOE MARIANI
Mr. Mariani. Thank you, Chair Kilmer, Vice Chair Timmons,
members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to
testify today.
As you heard, I am Joe Mariani, and I lead research into
emerging technologies for Deloitte Center for Government
Insights. And I have come to that role with a broad range of
experience, from Marine Corps intelligence officer to high
school science teacher, from consultant to the government to
commercial technology researcher. So today's task of kind of
mining the breadth of industry and academia for the big ideas
that can help transform government is exactly what gets me out
of bed in the morning.
So for the past 5 years, we have been looking at the
potential impact artificial intelligence, or AI, could have on
government, and from that research we have identified two ways
that we think could help transform the legislative process.
The first is AI as microscope; that is, using AI to assess
the impact of existing legislation. So machine learning or ML
models can accurately find patterns in data without having to
specify ahead of time what those patterns should be. So just as
a microscope can look at a leaf, for example, and find
structures and patterns invisible to the human eye, these
machine learning models can look at programs and find patterns
in their outcomes that may be invisible to humans just because
of the size, scope, or even age of the data. So, for example,
machine learning models have found that patterns in government
R&D investment during World War II have impacted the location
of innovation hubs even to today. And you can use these machine
learning models on more recent policy problems as well.
In Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, researchers have used
machine learning models to help understand which interventions
are most effective at reducing infant mortality. And it is that
ability of machine learning models to predict policy outcomes
that kind of begs the next question, which is, you know, what
if we did something differently? What would change?
And answering that question is exactly our second use of
AI, AI as simulator. So creating an AI simulator for problems
can help policymakers test different approaches in much the
same way that a flight simulator allows pilots to test
different ways of flying an entirely new airplane.
So researchers in Ireland have recently taken advantage of
this to simulate parts of their economy, so they use data from
patents, knowledge flows, other economic trends to simulate how
individual companies and investors might react to different
policies. So, for example, the researchers could examine if
different tax incentives or funding methods would support the
creation of new high-tech small businesses in certain specific
parts of the country.
And using AI in this way to simulate the complex systems
that Congress deals with every day can actually improve the
quality of debate and do so in three key ways. First, it can
articulate the often unspoken assumptions and values that we
all bring to these issues; second, it can uncover the drivers
of particular problems; and, third, it can help us understand
which interventions will be the most effective and at what
cost.
Ultimately, these simulations can help members agree on
what they disagree on. In fact, there is even evidence that
just experimenting with these models alone can help drive
consensus on emotionally charged issues.
Now, using AI in the legislative processes is certainly
going to uncover some unique challenges. New skills, new
security requirements, new business processes will likely be
required. But examples already at work in other industries show
that with the right human machine teaming, AI can help provide
common foundation for debate, encourage consensus, and produce
meaningful results for the American people.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
[The statement of Mr. Mariani follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thanks, Mr. Mariani.
Next up we have got Kevin Kosar. Dr. Kosar is a senior
fellow at American Enterprise Institute, where he studies the
U.S. Congress, the administrative state, and election reform.
Prior to AEI, he was the vice president of research
partnerships at the R Street Institute and was the cofounder of
the Legislative Branch Capacity Working Group. He also served
for more than a decade as an analyst with the Congressional
Research Service. He is the coauthor of the book ``Congress
Overwhelmed: The Decline of Congressional Capacity and
Prospects for Reform.'' Dr. Kosar earned his bachelor of arts
in political science from Ohio State University and his master
of arts and Ph.D. in politics from New York University.
Dr. Kosar, welcome back. You are now recognized for 3
minutes.
STATEMENT OF KEVIN KOSAR
Mr. Kosar. All right. Thank you much, Chairman Kilmer, Vice
Chairman Timmons, and members of the select committee, for
having me here.
And I also appreciated the setup you gave my topic in your
introduction. You referenced rule XI clause 2(j)(2). Kind of
gets to my point. And I think it is also interesting that this
room is located right next to the Energy Committee's room, and
above that is a portrait of the late John Dingell, who had many
famous quips. One of them was that, you know, you can write the
bill, but if I write the rules, I will win. But being John
Dingell, of course, the language was much more salty.
The importance of rules for the legislative process and the
fact that rules on the waiving of the rules ultimately can be
very determinative outputs is, you know, little appreciated I
think outside of Capitol Hill. It is only when you get here and
you start seeing how the wheels turn that you realize how
impactful they are.
So, yes, I am here to--I was called here to talk about
excessive complexity of House rules for moving legislation. You
know, your staff had flagged a committee I had written for The
Hill wherein I decried excessive complexity, particularly
citing the process by which the debt limit was raised by
something like $400 billion or more, which was baffling to even
long-term Congress watchers who follow this stuff. So if it is
baffling to us, I mean, my goodness, how can anybody else in
this country understand what occurred.
Now, I want to say, of course, you know, there is nothing
inherently wrong with complex rules. I mean, you are dealing
with humans who are interacting in, you know, a legislative
chamber. There are a lot of things that can go wrong, and so,
of course, you want to create rules and try to have them work
towards a productive end. But I think what we have seen is,
over time, that the number of rules have built up, and this is
not a phenomenon unique to Congress. All organizations often
face this blight.
I mean, we often decry red tape in government agencies.
What is red tape? Well, it is a surfeit of rules. It is rules
being layered on and aggregating year after year after year and
ultimately creating an incoherent jumble which is exceedingly
difficult to navigate and often can make it difficult for the
organization to do what is expected of it.
You know, ultimately, the rules governing any human actions
within an institution need to serve the ultimate objectives of
the institution. They should embody the shared values of the
institution, and they should be readily understandable by
participants in the enterprise. And I think--you know, I am not
a rules' nerd. There are those over at the Congressional
Research Service where I used to work who are totally nerd out
on the specifics of nerds. But just as somebody who has been
watching Congress for 20 years in this town, it feels to me
that there are clear signs that the rules have grown overly
complex.
You know, the committee here has previously conducted a
deep dive on the budget process, which is just--you know, that
is one slice of legislative process which is rife with arcana--
paygo, 302(b) allocations--and it goes on and on and on. You
know, there are whole fields of expertise nerds who devote
their lives to studying budget process and just budget process
because it is that complex. And then you consider that is just
part of the whole. I mean, my goodness, how is a legislator
supposed to operate in this environment?
The rules--setting aside the budget rules, the rules
governing legislative process are prolix, to put it mildly. You
know, they begin on page 345 of the House Rules and Manual, and
they conclude some 700 pages later. The manual holds rules, you
know, 130 devoted to committee procedures, like you cited; 56
pages address motions and amendments; 86 pages relate to the
aforementioned budget process, and so forth.
You know, as a point of contrast, the great State of Ohio,
its legislative rule book has only 200 pages, and not all 200
are devoted to rules of moving legislation. They are devoted to
other stuff, you know, member conduct and such things.
Do we really need that many rules here compared to the
State of Ohio or perhaps other States? I think it is a fair
question to ask.
And I think, you know, when you talk about rules piling up,
they ultimately are going to come with a cost. Not least, as
alluded to, the more rules an organization has, the fewer
people who can stand up. And, of course, that is going to
create power imbalances. You know, I have referenced the iron
law of oligarchy. There is always somebody at the top of the
organization who knows more things than other people and,
therefore, is able to get their way. Well, that is kind of
inherently problematic if taken to extremes for a
representative legislature where you are all supposed to be
equal and you all have constituencies and States to take care
of.
You know, when--I conducted a study with Timothy LaPira, a
professor, and Lee Drutman, and we surveyed congressional staff
some years ago. We saw some clear evidence that even staff,
whose job it is to help you guys do your work, were struggling
to understand the rules. And we weren't asking arcana. We were
asking some pretty straightforward stuff, and the percentage of
folks who understood it wasn't especially high.
Another cost of the complexity of rules is that, you know,
regular order starts to erode. No longer can you, you know, do
the schoolhouse rock thing where you say, okay, I will
introduce a bill. It is going to get referred to committee or
multiple committees. There will be a committee process. A bill
will emerge from it. It is going to calendar, go to the floor,
et cetera. No, not so much. It doesn't work like that. It is
exceedingly complex.
And as you all know and have experienced frequently, you
know, if something does get out of committee, all the rules get
waived. Suddenly it goes into Rules Committee land where
special rules are written, and the thing is handled in ways
that are often surprising and confusing, and it is bundled up
with other stuff.
So, you know, I suggest that, you know, it sounds pretty
rich, but select--one thing I suggested is the select committee
considers establishing a select committee to study the rules in
a bipartisan way and think about ways of simplifying them and
making them better in value, embody the values that you all
want for the institution, one of which I think is legislator
participation in a meaningful way.
It won't be easy. Rules tend to change slowly here, and the
process for changing them inevitably is a majority vote by the
majority party at the start of each Congress, and so that
naturally drifts the rules towards being increasingly partisan
and arcane. But if nothing is done, then the institution is
going to continue to get bogged down in the equivalent of red
tape.
With that, thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Kosar follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thanks, Dr. Kosar.
And our final witness, last but not least, is our
colleague, Representative John Larson. Mr. Larson has
represented Connecticut's First District since 1999. He serves
on the House Committee on Ways and Means, was the chair of the
Subcommittee on Social Security. Mr. Larson is also the former
vice chair and chair of the House Democratic Caucus.
Mr. Larson, welcome. You are now recognized.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JOHN B. LARSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT
Mr. Larson. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Timmons,
Mr. Latta. Great to be here.
And I applaud you for the big ideas that are coming
forward, and I think they are essential to a democracy. There
are many that I would like to explore, and I apologize I got
here a little late, because I am very interested in the
testimony.
And what Kevin was just alluding to, I think part of the
problem, whether it is a Member or staff, is getting acclimated
to Congress, especially for the first time, even if you have
had State legislative background or interests and you may
understand or have a grasp of the legislative process. But it
is different here, and it is compounded by the distance that a
number of people have to travel.
Not everybody has a short trip like you do, Representative
Kilmer, but it is--and the stress that that creates both on the
individual and, I dare say, families as well. We could spend
the day talking about the impact on spouses and families and
how little Congress does with regard to that, to the ongoing, I
think, atrocity that people have to sleep in their own
buildings because of the cost of living here, and they sleep in
the House and shower down in the locker room, you know,
contrary to what public opinion is about what happens to
congressional Members.
So some time ago--and I think I was on House Administration
at the time--I had introduced a bill that said one of the ways
that we could correct this was to have 4-year terms for Members
of Congress, not dissimilar to what the Senate does; have 4-
year terms and then stagger those terms so that there still
would be an election cycle every 2 years, but only half of the
435 Members would be up for election. Why? So that you would
have an opportunity, first and foremost, to learn and acclimate
with regard to the practice.
Two former Presidents, President Eisenhower and President
Johnson, both felt and were astounded at the enormous amount of
pressure that is placed on a Member in the House of
Representatives. And as all of you know too well, you no sooner
get here, and the first thing you are doing, even before you
are sworn in, is down at your respective DCCC or the Republican
Committee to Reelect raising money. And everyone that you meet
in the first days that you are here will all tell you the same
thing: What you have got to do is make sure that you go down
and raise money.
So the brief acclimation that people have, and most of it
off campus at--I remember the trip up to Harvard where we had--
you know, we spent maybe a day-and-a-half, I just think it
requires far more time than that and that people ought to be
allotted the time to make sure that they and their families get
to adjust to the very rigorous schedule that Congress has.
Most people do not understand that the day isn't done for a
Member of Congress after voting is through. For a number of
people when they are here, the fundraising continues, and there
is always your constituent work back in your district as well.
It is a 24/7 job. And to have that election cycle every 2 years
only compounds the problem.
Our colleagues in the Senate, as you all know, you know,
have 6-year terms, and they are staggered so that only a third
of the body is up. Why shouldn't the House have a similar
system, keeping with the tradition of having election every 2
years, but only half the body? And after the first election, it
would work, you know, odd or even numbers, however it would be
determined by the House. People would then have that
opportunity and I believe, therefore, able to focus more
clearly on the task in front of them and to familiarize
themselves with the process, including, as Kevin said, their
staffs as well having that opportunity to fully appreciate,
understand both their colleagues, the process, and
fundamentally how a bill really becomes law up here.
And, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back, and I am happy
to answer any questions, especially from the person voted the
handsomest man in Congress. I don't know how many people know
that, but I just wanted that for the record.
[The statement of Mr. Larson follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. I am really bringing my A game.
Thank you, Chairman Larson.
I now want to 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 me or Vice Chair Timmons.
I want to start actually with Dr. Drutman. So I just want
to think through kind of what the pros and cons of adding more
members to the House are. So last hearing, we focused on
constituent services, and I think it is probably undeniably so
that your capacity to do casework and to address constituent
concerns is probably easier with a smaller district. You know,
at the same time, over the course of the hearings that we have
had, it is striking how many witnesses that we have had who
have spoken about the importance of relationships within the
legislative body, and I can see probably some downside if you
substantially increase the size. It is already hard to have
relationships with 400 and--you know, if you include the
delegates, 440 others other than yourself. You know, that is
tricky.
And so I am just curious if you can talk a little bit about
what is achieved by increasing the number of members and, you
know, if you have got a sense of the puts and the takes.
Mr. Drutman. Yeah. Well, like everything, there is pros and
cons. So, certainly, it does bring members closer to their
constituents if the districts are smaller. I think it has the
potential to make Congress more representative of the people as
a whole if there are more members. But, you know, it does--it
is more members for you all to interact with.
I mean, I guess the question is at--you know, if you go the
proposal that we have put forward in this report, is to add 150
members, so to go from 435 to 585. So that is, you know, more
people to get to know, but, you know, I think Con--I mean, I
think the House has gotten to a point where it is just hard to
get to know everybody, especially if you are only here for, you
know, for 2 years potentially and then you are--because I know
most people are here for longer, but constantly running for
reelection.
So in terms of members getting to know each other, I think
to your point, Congressman Larson, if people spent less time
having to go into their fundraising dens and more time just
hanging out, if folks were here more and not just flying in on
Tuesday and flying out on Thursday and, you know, folks
actually brought their families here and spent more time here,
that would help.
But, you know, I mean, there is certainly a tradeoff. With
size, it is harder to, you know, get to know everybody. But, on
the other hand, you know, when was the last time the House
deliberated as a whole? So I think----
The Chairman. I was even just thinking about like in
committees, right? Already it is a little bit tricky in
committees. And we are lucky we have 12 people on this
committee, so our capacity to actually have dialogue is all
right. You know, if you look behind you, the Armed Services
Committee, really big. Right?
Mr. Drutman. Right. So, I mean, one thing to think about is
also the committee structure, right? I mean, Kevin is talking
about the complexity. And, you know, there is some things a
committee has done with simplification, but there is a lot of
things that Congress has called on to legislate on and think
about and oversee. And I think if you had a larger Congress,
you might have the potential for more committees and
subcommittees, that there just has to be a level of
specialization among Members of Congress, you know, that it is
really hard to be a generalist given all of the things that you
need to be thinking about.
So having a larger member--having more members might allow
for more potential for people to really focus on particular
subcommittees, which, you know, where you could develop some
real expertise. Like, there is a certain amount you have just
got to trust each other and delegate to each other to really
solve some very hard and tricky problems.
The Chairman. Dr. Allen, did you want to weigh in on this?
Ms. Allen. A small footnote. My understanding is that both
the U.K. Parliament and the German Bundestag are larger than
our Congress. Their populations are smaller, of course. So I
think it would be very productive if your committee were to
reach out to them and ask that question about what it means to
operate in a body of that scale.
The Chairman. Go on, Dr. Kosar.
Mr. Kosar. They are both about 700 members.
Just to riff off Lee's point, with respect to oversight, I
mean, 435 members who have to oversee, you know, $6 trillion
worth of spending, there is approximately 180 executive
agencies. You know, as the executive branch has grown in size
and complexity, the number of Members of Congress has not, and
the size of staff has actually declined since the 1980s in the
House. And so you just think about the information of
symmetries there, you know, obviously, adding more members----
The Chairman. Yeah. That is fair.
Dr. Drutman [continuing]. And then I want to bring Vice
Chair Timmons in the conversation--can you speak a little bit
about how this would work? You know, how would adding seats to
the Chamber and reapportionment work?
And you made kind of passing reference to maybe not using
single-member districts but having a different approach. I was
hoping you could say a little bit more about that.
Mr. Drutman. Yeah. So, you know, I think in addition to
increasing the size of the House, we ought to think about
increasing the size of districts to go from single member to
proportional multimember districts, three to five members per
district.
And I think one of the challenges in this moment of our
politics is, you know, things have become so deeply divided.
Hyperpartisan polarization is real. It is a tremendous problem,
and there is just a tremendous amount of gamesmanship that is
going on in trying to crush the other side.
I mean, I am watching in horror as I see the DCCC putting
money to elect the most extreme Republicans. But within the
single-member district with a zero-sum winner-take-all
election, you win by disqualifying the other side. And one way
to disqualify the other side is to have their side be the most
extreme. Now, that is, I think, an incredibly dangerous and
dumb game, but it is the logic of our single-member system and
the binary choice that it forces.
Now, imagine, you know, if you have three- or five-member
districts, you know, it is not zero-sum. It is not winner take
all anymore. You have a diversity of representatives who
represent the larger diversity of that district. I mean, you
all represent very diverse districts. And, you know, I mean,
you--I know you work very hard to try to represent all of your
constituents, but ideologically, valueswise, you know,
demographically, there is some constituents who it is hard for
you all to represent, even if we did increase the size of the
house and, thus, reduce the size of the district.
So I think if we had proportional multimember districts
where three or five members represented a district and split up
the district and represented different constituents and
different perspectives, we would have less of this binary zero-
sum that is really destroying the ability of Congress and our
government to work. You would see more conservative Democrats,
more liberal Republicans, maybe some, you know, new parties,
new perspectives represented, and you combine that with
increasing the size of the House, I think you create a Congress
that is just much more representative of the diversity and
pluralism in this country and I think much better able to work
out some complex compromises, because everything is not, you
know, we have got to crush the other side because they are
evil. And that is the mindset that I think is really
overwhelming the ability of this Congress to function, and it
is terrifying where this is leading, to me.
The Chairman. Vice Chair Timmons.
Did you want to weigh in?
Mr. Larson. Well, I just wanted to make a comment about
that. I think the biggest threat that we face in our democratic
republic--and I apologize for not catching all the testimony.
But when Mr. Kosar was talking about the rules, the House has
already passed over 400-plus bills that sit in the Senate, and
they haven't voted on a one of them, and that was a practice
both under Harry Reid and is still a practice--I would say
Mitch is far more successful about it.
But for a member of the House, and whether you are a
Democrat or a Republican, the committee chairs and that whole
process has been neutered by a Senate rule. Nothing in the
Constitution that says that you need 60 votes to pass a bill,
nothing in the Constitution that says a filibuster is
constitutionally authorized. It may be, some would argue, a
tradition. But this isn't Mr. Smith goes to Washington. This is
people simply in their room saying--calling a culture vote, and
no House bill moves in the United States Senate.
And you can argue that even the last two bills that the
House has voted on from the Senate, major bills, the
infrastructure bill and most recently the so-called gun
violence bill, never went through a public hearing in the
House, never was vetted, and came from the other body.
And it is alarming how much this has happened and becoming
part of the norm, instead of what is called regular order.
These things used to be sorted out in what is called a
conference committee. There are very few people in Congress
today that can even recall what a conference committee is. But
that is where the so-called issue of hyperbipartisanship got
resolved within those committees of conference when there was
disagreement.
But the House is now at an enormous disadvantage because of
a Senate rule. And, frankly, the media pays no attention to it.
Seventy percent of the bills that pass the House that sit over
in the Senate are bipartisanly passed. So this notion that we
are bipartisanly always at one another's throats simply isn't
true. On the major issues where there are philosophical,
ideological, and regional differences, that has always been the
way it has been throughout history, and rightfully so.
But a democratic majority, whether it is Republican or
Democrat, needs to govern. And it can't be minority rule and
ruled by culture vote, or what they call Rule 22. We are
sending over something I would like to submit for the record,
an op-ed on the new catch-22 is rule 22.
The Chairman. Ba-dump. Thank you.
Vice Chair Timmons, go ahead.
Mr. Timmons. Thank you. Thank you.
Representative Larson, I actually like your idea about the
4-year term, and I want to give you something to think about. I
don't know the answer to it. How would you deal with
redistricting?
Mr. Larson. That is a great question. I mean----
Mr. Timmons. It gets really tricky.
Mr. Larson. Well, it does, and it depends--and, of course,
redistricting is something that is left up to the States.
Mr. Timmons. But if half the members have 4-year terms and
they are alternating, then someone would be in the middle of
their term poss--I mean, I guess you could do it State by
State, so certain States would get reelected at----
Mr. Larson. Right.
Mr. Timmons. Anyway, something to think about.
Mr. Larson. Well, in terms of, yes, what would that mean if
you went--I get the question. What would it mean if you went,
say, odd and even districts? You know, how would that break
down in terms of who is up for election in that 2-year cycle?
And----
Mr. Timmons. When you redraw the lines, it would get really
tricky. But something to think about.
I am going to talk about the calendar and the schedule, and
you are going to fix this; I feel it. Welcome to the party.
So the variables are this: 435 Members of Congress serve on
an average of 5.4 committees and subcommittees. We have 20
standing committees, 5 select committees, around--I am just
guessing--75 subcommittees. So there is a hundred people that
have authority to schedule hearings and markups, and we just
run around all the time.
In 2019, we had 65 full days. Generally speaking, we don't
have hearings or markups outside of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., so that
is 520 hours. But in those 520 hours, we have to have
conference and caucus meetings, constituent meetings, floor
votes, committee meetings, subcommittee meetings, and
fundraisers.
So we have to be here more. We need more time, but we are
only getting--like, the best schedule I can come up with, which
is not going to get adopted, has 104 days, full days, which is
not going to happen. If we get 80, we will be lucky.
Can AI fix this to where we just deconflict it a little
bit?
Mr. Mariani. I won't promise that it can fix it. The good
news is what you are describing is basically just an
optimization problem, right? Like, there is a ton of data, and
we need, within these defined parameters, find the optimal
solution. And the good news is that is exactly the type of
thing that AI is really good at, right? We talk about human
machine teaming because AI's strengths are exactly what humans
are weak at, and humans' strengths are exactly what AI is weak
at.
So this problem that you are speaking of, we have so much
data and so many variables and we can't just crunch all those
numbers; that is exactly where AI can help. When we start to
talk about contextual variability and emotion and value
judgments, that is where humans are significantly better. We
need to bring them together. But scheduling, AI can help.
Mr. Timmons. The biggest challenge is committee and
subcommittee meetings are generally left to the chair, and they
don't want to be told what to do. And floor votes are left to
the majority leader, and he is not going to listen to anybody.
That is what he gets to do.
So can you factor that in? How do you factor in--can we do
an optimization without being directive? Can we make suggestive
optimizations?
Mr. Mariani. Sure, absolutely. And the other way to do it
is kind of what--that second model that we talked about that is
kind of like AI as simulator, you can sort of set the
parameters of the system. You know, hey, here are all the rules
that are in play, here is kind of what we want to accomplish,
and then allow people to kind of play around it. So you could
have, you know, different players in that model, the different
committee chairs and different other folks that need your time
to play around with that. And from that, you can create one,
two, three, maybe even a few optimum models that then human
judgment can choose between because, say, hey, we don't want to
work on Christmas Eve or something. So, yeah, absolutely.
Mr. Timmons. What business would we hire to help with that?
I mean, we have been trying to create a committee calendar--a
unified committee calendar just so people can just see. We are
not trying to use AI to fix anything. We just want to make it
so you can actually tell what you are doing when you are doing
it as opposed to just picking time out of thin air and being
like, oh, interesting. You know, 90 percent of the subcommittee
actually has another committee meeting at the same time. That
is not great. Let's maybe do it an hour later, an hour earlier.
So we can't even figure out a way to get a unified
committee calendar, no less optimize it. So do you know anybody
that does this?
Mr. Mariani. Yeah. I think the good thing is, you know,
these types of optimization problems, you know, kind of as we
talked about, they can be found kind of across government,
across industry. So there is lots of folks that have expertise
in applying these, creating them, and feeding them to the
context.
I think to your point, the challenge is, hey, everyone out
there has experience adopting AI protocols and using them
potentially at scale. How do you then cross that with the
unique context of having those technological tools work in
Congress?
And I think what we are starting to see is, you know, as we
heard from some of the other examples, other legislatures,
other parliaments starting to take those first tentative steps
and using AI, small scale processes. South Africa has an AI-
enabled personal assistant that gets kind of at what you are
talking about. You know, members can ask it questions, and it
will automatically respond back about, you know, here is the
content in a bill or, hey, here is the time and conference room
you need to get to in the next 2 minutes.
So those types of things are already out there, and they
are discovering some of those unique challenges of using AI in
a legislative context.
Really, I think to your question, the challenge is learning
from both, so learning from those examples in industry where
they are already doing this stuff, you know, how do you do this
at scale, and then learning from those small scale proofs of
concept that are out there in, you know, South Africa, the
Netherlands, Brazil, about what are the unique requirements to
do this in a legislative context.
Mr. Timmons. Thank you.
Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Allen. Again, small footnote. Every college and
university has this problem, and we have methods for solving
it. So I would recommend calling a major public university and
asking them how they----
Mr. Timmons. Middle schools also do it.
Ms. Allen. True. But the relevant scale, the relevant scale
that you need, you know. And, yes, there are optimization
tools. So I think you would easily find something usable.
Mr. Timmons. One real quick followup.
Dr. Drutman, ignoring the policy considerations around
having another 150 Members of Congress and the staff and all
that stuff, my biggest question is just space. Where do they
go? Like, we can't put another 150 people on the floor. I mean,
I guess we could build another House Office Building.
Mr. Drutman. Yeah. Right. I mean, you have got that parking
lot south of----
Mr. Timmons. Okay.
Mr. Drutman. And some beautiful parks.
Mr. Timmons. It is overwhelming to think about adding
another 150 members.
Mr. Drutman. Right. I mean, you know--but also, people work
from home more now. I mean, it is post-pandemic, we have sort
of figured out remote work a little bit, I mean, not that it
can all be remote. But I think you can build another office--
there is space south of the three existing office buildings. I
mean, I hate to lose those beautiful parks, but, you know----
Mr. Timmons. You know, it is interesting, our first year,
one of our early hearings, somebody suggested moving the
Capitol to Nebraska. So we could maybe couple moving the
Capitol to Nebraska with that. I am just kidding.
Mr. Drutman. I mean, sure. There is plenty of land there. I
mean, it would be in the middle of the country.
Mr. Timmons. I think the chairman would appreciate that.
Mr. Drutman. Yes.
Mr. Timmons. But thank you.
I.yield back.
The Chairman. Mr. Latta.
Mr. Latta. Well, thanks, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Vice
Chairman, for today's hearing, and to our witnesses. And this
is kind of--it is interesting, the hearing that we are having
today.
First of all, people are agreeing with me. First of all, I
can make this very simple. You know, we always talk about
schedules. We did it in the Ohio legislature. This is not
rocket science. On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays when we had
session, we started at a certain time in the senate. If they
said we are starting at 11:30, start at 11:30. Next day we are
going to be in session on the floor at 1 o'clock, we were on
the floor. Next day 1:30. The other thing is you weren't
allowed to run committee hearings during session. Very simple.
So, you know, I have advocated these things, so it is good
to hear these things come up. The other thing that is also good
to hear come up I advocated is this. Our committee sizes are
too large. And the other thing is that if you go back 50, 60
years ago, members didn't serve on two, three, four committees.
They served on one and became experts on that committee.
So, you know, we can simplify things from people always
being broken up where they need to be at a certain time by
simplifying the process. And so I will just throw my two cents
in there real quick.
But, Mr. Kosar, you know, one of the things that I think
you mentioned, you know, about the--you were talking about the
executive branch and how large it has got and Congress hasn't
kept up. I think part of the problem is Congress has just
abdicated its power to the executive so you don't have to take
the blame. You know, it is just like, we have done it, you guys
take care of it, and it is out of our hands now. So how do we
pull that back in to start saying we are going to start
bringing that power back to the House, back to the Senate so
that the executive doesn't have it?
Because, again, you know, I can remember as a kid--my dad
was here from 1959 to 1989, but I can remember driving down
Independence Avenue, where these office buildings are today,
they were Quonset huts left over from World War II. Look at
photographs. That is what we had. It is amazing that this
government operated at a much smaller scale than we have today.
But how do we bring that back?
Mr. Kosar. Well, as a person on the right, certainly I
would suggest that Congress consider doing something to pare
back the size of the executive branch. I mean, do we really
need all 180 agencies? It has been a long time since I think I
have seen any sort of concerted effort to do some sort of,
like, let's put together a bipartisan list and let's start
zeroing things out. Maybe hold a vote at the start of each
Congress and hold hands and jump together. It can be done
through a legislative procedure, an expedited one, or something
like that. That would put incentives in the right direction
and, you know, make the job a little more manageable.
You know, I think that there also is--you know, the
information asymmetries are so immense. I don't think the House
did itself any favors in growing government but then reducing
the number of staff over the past 40 years. I think technology
can help make up for it. I think this is where AI is very
interesting.
You know, when committees get together and study a problem,
you know, 3, 4 years later, very few people on the committee
are still there, many of the staff have left, and what you have
is a bunch of printed hearing volumes. And that knowledge is
just fading from memory because you guys are all working on new
stuff. And being able to manage that knowledge, especially so
new members can come in and get up to speed fast and get a
sense of what really, you know, are the options and what should
be done, what are the problems, I think that is part of the
mix.
The basic incentive, like, you know, James Madison thought
that the legislature would be the most powerful entity of all
in the three branches. You know, the ability to exercise power,
power of the purse, power over the law, he thought that would
be absolutely irresistible to members. I think he would be
baffled by the fact that members, as you note, frequently just
delegate authority. They delegate authority up towards
leadership and they delegate authority over towards the
executive branch and, therefore, have grown this massive
administrative state.
So some of this is going to be an attitudinal change, but I
think also the kind of difficulty that the individual member
has in exerting his or her will, like, why put in the work to
try to reign in an agency or change policy if your bill is not
going to get out of committee, if it is not going to get called
for a vote, and if the Senate is going to sit on it.
Empowering members to get stuff done I think has to be part
of the equation.
Mr. Latta. Let me--just a real quick followup for you. You
know, you are also talking about, you know, our rules and
procedures has gotten pretty well out of hand. Do we just go
back to just a manual?
Mr. Kosar. No. I think we have to go a little bit beyond
that. I think there are some--you know, some of these
specializations, I think, are valuable. I think perhaps, you
know, when you are talking about a trade treaty or certain
other specified areas, having an expedited procedure can be
valuable. But, certainly, the whole corpus needs to be paired
back. I mean, you have got rules that are on the books, but not
even used. Calendar Wednesday has been around for how long?
When was the last time it has been a vote? Fifty years ago, but
it is in the book, theoretically it can be invoked?
Congress even--Don Wolfensberger told me that Congress had
picked up a new rule at the start of last January, and
regularly it waives the rule.
Mr. Latta. It is a problem.
Mr. Mariani, quick question. I am the rank on
Communications Technology, right across here at Energy and
Commerce, and we are talking about all the AI, and one of the
things--of course, we have had a lot of questions about, in the
past, about how algorithms are set, especially when we are
talking about AI.
How would you make sure that those algorithms are correct,
that they are not biased to one side or the other?
Mr. Mariani. Sure, absolutely. And the short answer is, I
think, everyone involved at every step of the process has a
role in ensuring that those AI models are accurate and
equitable. And that starts even before the models are made. It
starts with selecting and collating the data to make sure it is
accurate and clean, and kind of most important for equity, too,
kind of fit for purpose, because you can gather one data set in
one context and it can be a representative and, you know, not
biased one way or the other. But if you use it to answer a
different question in a different context and all of a sudden,
it can accidently introduce bias.
Those types of controls and governance processes, then,
need to extend into the next phase where you are making the
model and using it. And focusing on transparency and those
steps is probably the most important so you can identify kind
of what are the model weights, what are the variables, what are
the assumptions that we are using.
And then even into Members yourself, to make sure that when
you are using the outputs, that you have kind of the literacy
of how those models work so you can understand kind of their
left and right lateral limits, because, you know, AI is a
powerful tool, but it is not an infallible oracle. Really, it
is just more of a decision aid for yourself, and probably also
unique to the legislative context, and also having enough
knowledge to be able to communicate to constituents how those
models are being used so you can build their trust in
confidence in how AI is being used as well.
Mr. Latta. Two more questions, if I could, Mr. Chairman?
Thank you very much.
Dr. Allen, you know, in your testimony, again, you are
talking about--we always are trying to figure out at home,
across the whole country, how to get people back engaged but,
you know, a lot of people, they are pulling themselves in. You
know, they stay home. They are in front--you know, it is just
like years ago when--I am not going to date myself, but I am
going to say this, but when you could go to the corner store
and pick up a cassette tape and you are going to take it home
and watch a movie. The theaters all said, nobody is ever going
to do that. Nobody is ever going to stay home and watch it on
their own TV, this movie. Well, they were all proven wrong.
And we see more and more where people now--it is always--
you know, they just keep pulling things back. They are not out
there communicating with one other. A lot of neighborhoods, you
never see your neighbors until spring. You know, everybody just
kind of disappears for 6 months.
So I guess my question is, is that, you know, we want to
get people actively involved again in the political process,
which our Founders wanted us all to be. How do we get these
people reengaged? You know, it is just like disengaging
themselves from, you know, their phones. You know, like--it is
a different piece of legislation, 94 percent of all accidents
that occur on the road today are driver error. And most of it--
I rode with the highway patrol not too long ago in Ohio, and it
is because of people playing with their what? Their phones.
So how do we get people reengaged in this?
Ms. Allen. I really appreciate the question. I think we all
have direct experiences of the sort of disconnection that
people are living with and then the negative psychological and
behavioral consequences that flow from that. The good news is
that there really are people in communities across the country
who know how to pull people back.
At the end of the day, social connection is rewarding, it
is empowering, it supports mental health and well-being. And so
when people have an opportunity to participate again, they tend
to come back. So they don't just participate once. But in order
for that to work, you need those, in effect, civic
entrepreneurs who are going to put in the time and energy to
build the context, to issue the invitation, to follow up with
people and so forth.
And that is what we have historically had a habit of
investing in, and that habit has fallen away. So if you look at
the sort of earliest history of the country, take Massachusetts
in the colonial period, 1600s even, you know, the State
government, such as it was, sort of colonial assembly insisted
that every town put resources into a school. That was sort of
really the beginning of public school, and you can think of
that as the first example of civic infrastructure. And the
purposes were civic. They, you know, were economic too, but
actually civic first.
And then throughout the late 19th century, early 20th
century, we had these extraordinary philanthropists. You know,
Andrew Carnegie and so forth, who built libraries all over the
country, and he was not alone. Our contemporary billionaires do
not invest in civic infrastructure in the same kind of way, and
that is something that we should all recognize. And even the
question of what can Congress do to incentivize private
philanthropy back into supporting these local-level civic
entrepreneurs is really important.
So the short message is that people are out there who know
how to pull people back into connection, but they are not
getting support in the way that they have historically gotten
in this country.
Mr. Latta. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I know I have gone over my time, but I have
so many other questions. But thank you very much for your
indulgence.
The Chairman. I wanted to follow up with Mr. Larson. I
don't think there is anything magic about 2 years. I think
there is a sense, though, that maybe the intent of the Founders
was to make sure that we were closer to our constituents, more
accountable to our constituents. I imagine that might be a
pushback against extending the length of the term. I just want
to get your sense of how would you respond to that.
Mr. Larson. Well, actually, you are absolutely right, the
Founding Fathers had a major debate over this because they
thought it should be 1 year. And the idea was that in a
democracy, they wanted to make sure you had one chamber that
was close to the people and that the people elected every year.
And that is the concept. And I think actually Eisenhower and
Johnson used almost the exact same phrase that you did: There
is nothing magic about 2 years.
But the idea of staggering them would, I think, also help
create competition upstream for those that are in the House but
don't have to necessarily give up a seat in order to run for a
governorship or run for the United States Senate. But the
primary goal here is, I think both Johnson and Eisenhower
recognized, people really need to understand the responsibility
and role. And to do that in a 2-year period, obviously it has
been done, but when you complicate that with both the need to
raise money and the family concerns that that has on spouses
and children, it just seems to me to be a far more humane way
to go about this business that we are in and allow both for
greater understanding, camaraderie, and, I think, a better
legislation in the final run.
The Chairman. Dr. Kosar, I want to get your sense--I have
been struck over the course of this committee's existence that,
I guess, by two dynamics related to the rules. One, we have a
bunch of rules that we don't actually follow, right? There is
just a ton of underbrush, right?
I have been here nearly 10 years. I don't think we have
done calendar Wednesday, right? But it is in the rules, right?
There is all of these rules that we consistently waive, and
Lord knows that the budget and appropriations process, we
have--in that instance, there is laws that govern that process
that by and large we don't follow either.
I guess I am just curious your sense of, has there--can you
point to an example of either another--a parliament or a State
legislature that has done this process that you are suggesting
that has successfully kind of cleared that underbrush and kind
of Control-Alt-Delete on the rules and refreshed it?
Mr. Kosar. Unfortunately, no. And I think, you know, in
part when you look at State legislatures, I don't think they
have had the kind of kudzu problem that the House has had where
things have gotten so out of control so rapidly. Their
pairings, I think, are more modest, incremental changes, but
things didn't get out of control. Things got out of control
here, and now we have, you know, each Congress, you know,
little tweaks of the rules but no fundamental revisiting,
because it is just not part of the process.
But, you know, I certainly would love to see and, again,
this may be where our friends at Congressional Research Service
or NCSL, National Council of State Legislatures, could partner
up to work together, and just lay the House rules next to the
rules of four States where we have well-functioning
legislatures and just compare.
The Chairman. Yeah. Well, I also--I guess I find myself
thinking, your recommendation of whether it be another select
committee or continuing the work of this select committee, to
do a deeper dive into this. I am just curious how much you
think that actually fixes stuff. You know, we had a year of
people testifying in front of this committee, well, we should
get back to regular order.
And, you know, I came out of a State legislature where
every bill was taken up under an open rule, where if you had an
amendment that was at all germane to the bill, you could offer
it, it would be debated, and it would be voted on.
In my experience in the State legislature, that was abused
probably five, maybe six times for gotcha politics. You know,
the notion of doing that here is laughable, right? Like, it
would be used for gotcha politics at every angle, and that is
not a rules problem; that is a culture problem, right?
So I am just curious how much you think we should invest in
a deep dive into rules change in light of that dynamic?
Mr. Kosar. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, there is a sick kind
of relationship between the rules and the behavior. And, you
know, there has been this process where, when it comes to the
floor, you know, some bad behavior crops up so the rules get
tightened more.
The Chairman. Yeah.
Mr. Kosar. Bad behavior springs up elsewhere. I mean, it is
almost like dealing with a rebellious child or something like
that. Like, I am going to put more rules on you to stop you
from doing it, and then the buggers figure out a way to get
around it.
The Chairman. Yeah.
Mr. Kosar. You know, they are extremely inventive, and so
you just keep ratcheting and ratcheting. And that is the
dynamic. And I think, no, it is going to require a larger
conversation amongst Members to get people to say, like, do we
want to keep living this way? Is this how we want to be
legislators, or do we want to change the rules in a way--and we
had a bit of that in the class of 1974 when they came over and
took over Congress. They said we are not playing by these
rules. And they just had--you had enough of them making a
cultural demand change, and the rules were changed so that they
could do what they could do.
The Chairman. Dr. Allen, one of the values of my long
commute that Mr. Larson mentioned is the--a lot of time to
read. So I read the Our Common Purpose report. I thought it was
really thoughtful. My recollection was chapter four was the
civic bridge-building chapter. And you spoke to this dynamic
that part of the division that you see in Congress is driven by
division in our communities.
I had this crazy experience this last fall where two things
happened. One, we had a series of attacks on religious
institutions in Tacoma. There was an Islamic center that got
burned to the ground, two Buddhist faith leaders got assaulted
outside their temple, and a church got vandalized all within
the span of 3 weeks. And in the spirit of something good coming
out of something bad, we actually saw an interfaith alliance
sort of spring up and say, hey, we are going to pull together.
Everybody, get them all in the same room, and say that is not
what we are about in this community. And it was actually a
really great event.
Afterwards, one of the faith leaders came up to me and
said, you know, that was really powerful, but if we are going
to do this right, this wouldn't just be a 90-minute exercise;
this would be something that we do on an ongoing basis. And he
said, just out of curiosity, any Federal support for something
like that? And I said, no, not really.
And then literally a month later, I visited a YMCA in my
district, thinking they were going to talk to me about Mike
Quigley's bill, the GYMS Act, because gymnasiums are losing
money. That is not what they wanted to talk about.
They said, all the polarization, all the talks they see,
that you see in Washington, D.C., has shown up in our Y. They
said, we have literally had arguments and fights break out over
pick your red or blue issue.
And they said it has become so bad we have hired a
consultant that is training our staff, training our board in
conflict resolution, and we are going to host this--as you
suggested--you know, we are going to host sort of bridge-
building discussions where we get people to talk to each other
and listen to each other, rather than have The Jerry Springer
Show show up in our YMCA.
And they said, any Federal support for that? And I said,
you know, not really. At least not currently.
And, you know, the report that--Our Common Purpose report
acknowledges that we do support this sort of civic
infrastructure investment through the National Endowment for
Democracy, but that support is to other countries, to
strengthen democracy in other countries.
And so I see--I absolutely see value in this. In fact, Vice
Chair Timmons and I--and we have 10 Democrats and 10
Republicans on a bill to maybe not create a trust, but set up a
pilot program that could accept private philanthropy, and to do
this grant making to local organizations.
I think the question that most commonly comes up is, one,
how do you measure success? And two, why is this an innately
Federal obligation. Right? You know, you mentioned that there
is philanthropists that are supporting this endeavor already.
You know, as I have spoken with colleagues on the floor and
said, hey, do you want to sign on to this, probably the most
common question I get is, why is this something the Federal
Government ought to do?
So can you respond to both of those?
Ms. Allen. Absolutely.
The Chairman. Sorry for the long windup, but I wanted to
give you a sense--I actually do think you are really on to
something because we are seeing it in our communities.
Ms. Allen. No, absolutely. I mean, we are seeing it all
over, and I want to lift up your bill. I think it is the
Building Civic Bridges Act. I think it is very important, so
happy to lend my voice in support of it----
The Chairman. Thanks.
Ms. Allen [continuing]. At whatever appropriate points.
But in brief, I mean, I think there is sort of three really
important points. And I will admit that as our commission
conversations on this started, I was a skeptic about the trust
for civic infrastructure for exactly the reason that you just
articulated, the question of, well, you know, should the
Federal Government be doing this? Should this be really what we
do at a local level anyway? And, you know, I changed my view,
basically, and I came to change my view for a number of
reasons.
The first is just recognizing that our practice of
investing in the infrastructure of democracy in other countries
came at a time historically when we were really building a
strong wall defense against the challenge of communism. And we
have to be honest that at this point in time, the greatest
challenge for democracy on the globe right now is our weakening
democracy. And we need civic strength here at home.
The Chairman. Hear! Hear!
Ms. Allen. We need it as a matter of defending democracy
for the globe. So in that regard, the same motivation that led
to those national investments in the past pertain, but they
pertain here at home.
Now, the challenge, of course, is the question of, you
know, once you think the Federal Government should be involved,
you sort of worry, well, won't that become very partisan in
terms of what kinds of investments there are. And so in that
regard, I think, a way to avoid that problem is really to focus
on a project of seeking to match other investments that local
communities are defining.
So the investments--there should be a sort of broad set of
principles, design principles for the kinds of investments, but
not a kind of blueprint of like here is everything everybody
must do, because local communities need to be able to provide
definition for that to give us the diversity and flexibility
across the country of defining precisely what this
infrastructure should look like.
So then what might be some of those broad design principles
that Congress might be sort of interested in in sort of
matching grant program? One I think is the idea that civic
infrastructure should help ensure that self-government is
operational. Okay. And so what does that mean exactly?
I mean, we expect that with more investment of civic
infrastructure, you should see higher trust, higher
volunteerism, and more effective community problem-solving.
Those are all measurable things. We have some existing data
approaches that do measure them. We could improve on them and
would need to. And one of the things the trust should do would
be to improve precisely the sort of set of indicators being
used to measure whether or not self-government is operational
at that local level.
A second design principle is for all. Self-government for
all. We have another challenge, which is that, insofar as our
civic infrastructure investments have historically been--I
refer to the colonial period where sort of States--the colonial
State of Massachusetts required towns to invest in schools. We
had flag schools(ph) and so forth. We have a situation now
where well-resourced communities are able to invest in civic
infrastructure, and those with lower property tax bases are
just not in the same sort of way.
So there is a need for Congress' investment, again, to sort
of elicit investment in those communities where the issue of
support is more challenged. But, again, I do think it is really
important that this be about drawing out philanthropic dollars
as well, ensuring that community foundations are fully
activated across the whole of their community.
And then what Congress can also assist in is helping people
build bridges across jurisdictional and regional lines, which
is a major challenge right now for people who are trying to
support investments in this space.
And then the last design principle I would point to is
connectedness, another version of bridge building. We have been
able for decades to measure increases in residential
ideological polarization, worsening dynamics of
hypersegregation for low-income communities of color, and
increasing experiences of loneliness and disconnection across
demographic groups, and, honestly, we see those data points
showing up in also things like mass shootings and so forth.
So this is connected to a lot of big stuff in our society.
So just as we can measure all the ways in which those things
have been worsened, those--reversing those dynamics would be
indicators of success for investments in civic infrastructure
around that design principle of connectedness.
The Chairman. That is great.
Vice Chair Timmons.
Mr. Timmons. I guess I am going to throw out another big
idea and just get you all's feedback on it. I think one of the
biggest challenges our society is facing is right here.
Technology, interconnectedness, our inability to interact with
one another. You know, we often talk about whether the
hyperpartisanship in Congress is a Congress problem or a
society problem, and it is probably a little bit of both.
But I think one of the biggest challenges is our inability
to, I guess, digest information, because you get a lot of
information that, previously, humans just wouldn't get because
the journalism would weed it out before it got that far, and
now you have things being posted on social media anonymously
and just by crazy people.
And so how do we grow past the challenges that technology
and interconnectedness are creating? Anybody.
Ms. Allen. I am happy to speak to that if--so I think your
question gets to the deepest issues we are all facing and the
question that all of these suggestions relate to, which is, we
are facing a crisis of representation, of the activity and
practice of representation. And it is not a crisis of any
particular individual's making; it is a crisis that at the end
of the day has been finally driven all the way home by the
invention of social media. And I just want to be very clear
about why and how and, therefore, why your committee is so
important.
Basically, you know, we all know the Federalist papers, we
all know Federalist 10. The argument of Federalist 10 was that
the design of the Constitution, among other things, its job was
to mitigate the problem of faction. And the answer to how it is
supposed to mitigate is delivered in Federalist 10. It is a
two-part answer. We only teach one part of the answer.
We teach the part of the answer that it is about
representative government. The notion that you don't have
direct democracy; you have representatives who are going to
filter and synthesize opinion from around the country.
But there is a second part to Madison's answer, and it was
literally that the breadth of the country being a broad
republic would make it hard for people with extreme views to
find each other and coordinate. Okay?
So geographic dispersal was literally a pillar of the
original design. Okay? So Facebook knocked that pillar out from
under us.
And so all the work we are trying to do in terms of
thinking about the future of Congress is answering the question
of how to have effective representation when we no longer have
the pillar of geographic dispersal supporting the information
ecosystem that supports healthy deliberation.
So, yes, you need rules changes, okay, in order to improve
the process of deliberation and recognizing that circumstantial
change. Yes, we need a bigger House to be connected to the
whole of the country, and, yes, we need investment in civic
infrastructure that helps people navigate a completely changed
information ecosystem. We need all of these things in order to
have a healthy Congress.
Mr. Kosar. Yeah. I mean, I guess a quick kick would be just
Members should get off Twitter. But, no, it is a long-standing
problem that, you know, elites in the country have always had a
greater voice in the ears of Congress. I mean, this is
political science in the forties that complained to the--the
problem of pluralism is that it always--its chorus always sings
with an upper-class tone. So it is imbedded in the system. Some
people are going to be better connected, some people are going
to have the means to get here and communicate, et cetera, et
cetera.
But, certainly, technology has exacerbated it. It has, as
you have noted, just to sort of mediate things. And we have
also seen since the seventies a massive uptick in the number of
interest groups, not-for-profit, trade, otherwise here in
Washington, D.C. So you guys are getting hit from a million
directions with a lot of voices. But interestingly enough, most
of those are very self-interested voices that their views don't
necessarily jive with those of the public. But when you are
constantly hearing that sort of stuff, it naturally is going to
try and pull your brain towards those issues and those
solutions and that sort of thing.
So how do you counteract it? It is not easy. I mean,
turning off Twitter is one part of it, but you are still going
to have people beating their way to your front doors and, you
know, trying to come to your fundraisers, and do all sorts of
stuff like that.
So we have got to think about new tools for helping you
guys better get a sense of the communities and what their views
are on other things. One of the interesting experiments that
was, you know, being done--I heard about a few years ago was
this Steve Kull, social scientist, was working on something
called ``voice of the people,'' where he would put together
these really deep focus groups, on postal reform and other
stuff, of regular Americans, and they would come up with
solutions about how you could get something done, but they were
coming up with solutions that just never got a voice on the
Hill.
You all have been stuck in the position of, you know, you
go back to your districts, you try to do a town hall, but guess
what? Elites will hijack those. You know, interest groups will
send people because they want to create a Twitter moment or a
YouTube moment, and they wreck that too.
And so, like, it is really a tough position, and I don't
know if there are, you know, technological tools that can help
you kind of separate the kind of elite noise and get a better
sense of what, you know, the average community can make, other
than just the shoe leather you all put in so much, but it is a
real thing.
The Chairman. Dr. Drutman, I think----
Mr. Drutman. I just want to address your question as well
because it is a crucially important question and, I mean,
social media has done a lot of good things in connecting a lot
of people and it has also done a lot of bad things in
connecting other people, I think. I mean, the business
incentives of social media, of course, are to drive what gets
the most clicks, what is the most emotional, and that is the
stuff that people want to read, which is how terrible the other
side is.
There is a lot of confirmation bias, a lot of--when you
look at studies like why do people share stuff on social media,
it is because it makes them feel good. It makes them feel like
they are right. They have got it all figured out, and it
reinforces the kind of emotional charge that they get by hating
on the people that they like to hate on essentially.
And, you know, that is a real problem. But, you know, a lot
of these trends of division started before social media. They
started with cable news, they started with talk radio, before
social media, you know, took over. In fact, it is interesting.
I have looked at some studies. It is really older Americans who
are most victimized by this, by fake news, because they haven't
grown up in this environment of social media and Facebook and
where they can really more easily distinguish, and also, they
are most set in their views and most likely to believe the
worst things about the other side, you know.
So a lot of it is really coming from political leadership
and, you know--like, it is a reinforcing dynamic because
political leaders say, well, I just have to--what my angry
followers are saying, I should amplify that. As the expression
goes, Twitter is not the real world, but it is a representative
sample of people who are the most engaged in politics.
Now, one thing that gives me some hope is that, well,
social media is obviously everywhere throughout western
democracies and the world. Not every country that has social
media is as polarized and divided as the U.S. So makes me think
that there is something distinct about what is happening in the
United States, and I think that distinct thing is the endless
demonization of the other side that is coming from leadership
and political elites and media elites, and that filters down
and that is where most people get their opinions from and then
they want to hate on the other side.
Also, the geographical sorting that a lot of the
polarizations really that people live in communities that are
very solidly ``R'' or very solidly ``D.'' And when you are
surrounded by like-minded people, you tend to become more
extreme. And when people on the other side are far away and
distant, they become scarier and it is easier to demagogue and
fearmonger about who they really are.
So some of this bridge building is important. People are
more polarized in real life, actually, than they are on social
media, which is something that I don't think we really
appreciate. So, you know, I think social media amplifies a lot
of what is happening, but it is not--it is an amplifier, not a
root cause of a lot of the division.
And, you know, it is true, people's attention spans are
shorter, but the belief in conspiracy--I published a rather
interesting paper recently--that belief in conspiracy theories
hasn't increased over time; it is just that it is consolidated
more on a few that become more amplified.
So, I mean, the lack of people's understanding about
politics--I mean, this is--political scientists have always
kind of taught, oh, American people don't know anything about
politics. American people are so dumb, right? But like--you
know, that is not really fair because most people know what
they need to know from shortcuts and heuristics, and they
depend on political leaders to represent them and help them to
figure out what they know. And when political leaders don't do
that responsibly, we--it is very hard for people who really
depend on leadership. Leadership matters.
The Chairman. Go ahead, Mr. Larson, and then Mr. Mariani.
Mr. Larson. Well, I just wanted to--these are all good
questions, and I am enjoying listening.
But Representative Cole and DeLauro have a bill on history
and civics and, frankly, it is not being taught the way it
should be within our school systems. Some do it better than
others, but across this Nation, the lack of civic understanding
and responsibility, which is critical for a republic, isn't
taught. And between that and financial literacy, Congress is
loathed to mandate educational instruction on the States that
is responsibility of the State, but especially in this day and
age where you are bombarded with information, and people--it is
hard to distinguish the difference between the two.
And, frankly, anyone can produce a scientist or an
economist or something that supports their point of view and
there really isn't a Nation that has been grounded in its civic
responsibility.
There is another notion and idea also that we should have
to go along with that, what Australia does with 100 percent
voting, and having voting as a requirement. And making sure
that civic instruction, in order to get out of high school,
that you understand how that works and how we apply that.
The Chairman. Go ahead.
Mr. Mariani. I will just strike an optimistic note on the
technological side, which is technology certainly has created
some of these challenges, but it is ultimately a tool, right?
So it is value agnostic. It kind of just does what we tell it.
And to Dr. Kosar's point, there are some technology platforms
that just by tweaking the rules, you can drive towards
consensus. So vTaiwan is a social platform that Taiwanese
government uses to drive towards some of these things that
consensus on even fraught issues like internet regulation.
But to Dr. Allen's point about, you know, trust in
government, you can see one of the things that we have been
looking at in our research is, one of the factors that can
drive that is this kind of idea of, you know, psychic distance;
like, how close you feel to that is kind of how much you trust
it. So the public trusts local government more than State,
State more than Federal, and so on.
So by creating distance technology, you know, you don't
have to go to your county clerk anymore, you don't need to meet
in person with your Representative. By creating a distance, it
can feed that distrust, but we have also seen the opposite
begin to take place.
If you can create a good customer experience for the
public, that actually goes a long way. Even if it is a digital
customer experience, that goes a long way to building trust. So
we have seen this kind of high correlation between the customer
experience of government services and public's trust in
government.
So if we kind of have the mindset shift that everyone is
describing, we can actually use these technological tools to
actually build some of the trust that we are all looking for.
The Chairman. Okay. I feel like this was well worth waiting
3 years for this hearing. This was really meaty.
I want to thank our witnesses for their testimony today and
thank our committee members who were able to attend. I also
want to thank our staff for pulling together another great
hearing with such outstanding witnesses. And I want to
acknowledge the Armed Services Committee for letting us squat
in their room.
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, our hearing is adjourned. Thanks,
everybody.
[Whereupon, at 10:32 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[all]