What incoming Members of Congress should know about House Modernization

Q&A with ModCom Chairman Kilmer [D, WA] and House Admin Ranking Member Graves [R, IL], hosted by Brad Fitch (Congressional Management Foundation)

On December 9th, 2020, Members-elect of the 117th Congress joined current members, staffers, technologists, scientists, academics, and advocates for the inaugural Tech, Science, and Data New Member Orientation Day, hosted by the First Branch Tech, Science and Data (TSD) cohort. The following is a transcript of the Q&A hosted by Brad Fitch (Congressional Management Foundation)with Select Committee on Modernization Chairman Derek Kilmer [D, WA] and House Admin Ranking Member Rodney Graves [R, IL].

For a summary of remarks, please see here.

Brad Fitch 0:06
I think I’ve said a couple of times, without a doubt in my 20-year affiliation with CMF, this has been one of the most exciting projects that I’ve personally had the opportunity to work on. But I want you to talk a little bit about how you’ve talked about the importance of bipartisanship and civility. And one of the examples that the committee displayed, it actually didn’t display, it had a retreat, early on in the session. Could you talk a little bit about that and how that helped the functioning and the success of the committee?

Derek Kilmer 0:32
Our committee went to the Library of Congress at the beginning of our process and did a six hour retreat where we kind of talked through what do we want to get done, and how are we going to define success. Part of that was a recognition that most functional organizations do that. So as members talked about what they wanted to accomplish, we started to — there were some threads that we identified that were worth pulling from. Members had different reasons that they wanted to serve on the committee, but there was an overarching theme which we identified that day, which was every person was serving on that committee because they wanted to make Congress work better for the American people. Our takeaway from that is there is real value — to the extent that it can happen in a bipartisan way on your committees — that the committees have that sort of collaborative discussion on the front end of a Congress, to say, ‘here are things we have to get done that we are assigned as a committee; here are some things where we might be able to find some common ground.’ Listen, I feel like sometimes Congress is a not entirely super complicated Venn diagram. And part of that is, you know, there’s stuff that Republicans want, there’s stuff that Democrats want, part of this is simply trying to find the shaded area of things that we can work on together, and each of us has a role to play in that regard.

So that also leads me to, just for incoming freshmen, some suggestions as you hear issues in committee hearings, you know, certainly, if you’re on a committee that does that type of bipartisan retreat. One, recognize that you are a full shareholder in your committee’s work and contribute to that: show up and participate and contribute as your committees meet throughout the course of the year. Sometimes you hear someone testify, and they say something interesting where you go, ‘maybe that’s a thread we can pull.’ To the extent practicable, there are real opportunities when you pull those strings with someone from the other side of the aisle. So we did that, we would have a hearing related to for example, the congressional calendar. And afterwards, William Timmons, who was a freshman from South Carolina said, I would like to work on that, that was really interesting and I feel like I can dive into that. And Mark Pocan, who was a longer-tenured Democrat said, I would work on that with you. We had other examples where Emanuel Cleaver and Susan Brooks wanted to work together on issues related to bipartisanship and civility; we had other examples where Rodney Davis and Susan DelBene, at the end of the hearings on these issues related to technology, said that’s cool stuff, we want to work on that. They sort of spun out self-appointed work on these issues together. So look for those opportunities in your committee where when you hear something, and part of this is finding those shaded areas of the Venn diagram so that you can get something done. Again, even as an incoming freshman there’s a real opportunity there.

Brad Fitch 4:43
I want to follow up in your role, not only as the committee chair, but also as someone who moved from the state legislature to the federal legislature, and when you did that, I know you’ve referenced a couple of times the tools you had at the state legislature that you were surprised you didn’t have at the federal level. What were some of the tools that you had at the state level that you wish you had at the federal level, and that may start coming online because of the work of the committee?

Derek Kilmer 5:05
Well, some of it you’re already (hopefully!) taking advantage of, including things like having a transition staffer, a paid transition staffer. This is the first time that members on the House side are able to do that and I hope it was helpful to the new members. That was a recommendation from our committee. We’re also in the process of trying to provide more resources to your offices — things like having a centralized HR function, so that as you become a new member (and unfortunately, I don’t think you’re able to benefit from this quite yet, but it’s something that we’re trying to get implemented), you’ll be able to have a centralized HR function so you have a clear sense of what does a congressional office look like, what’s a basic pay band, what should I expect to pay someone who’s doing this type of function. You know, Brad’s organization, CMF is very helpful with some of those things, and House Admin can be very helpful with some of those things, but I think the institution has some work to do on that front. Same thing on things like technology, where the expectations should be, you know, you get a basic technology suite when you come in.

But the other thing that I will just share in terms of main differences — a lot of the challenges that you’ll find in Congress have less to do with the rules of the institution and seem to have more to do with the norms of the institution. You know, every bill that I got to vote on or debate in the state legislature was taken up under an open rule, meaning you could have unlimited amendments as long as the amendments were germane to the bill. You don’t see that happening here in part because it’s too open for abuse, there’s too much ‘gotcha’ by both sides of the aisle. And that’s a choice, right? So one of the choices that we have to make as members of this institution is whether we keep doing that, or whether we, particularly with these tight majorities in both the House and in the Senate, we try to figure out where we can collaborate better and do things together rather than just play gotcha politics all the time. That is a choice that each of us has to make, and that we as an institution have to make.

Marci Harris 7:23
What are some recommendations for the freshmen in how to engage with the committee and share their ideas?

Derek Kilmer 7:31
Yeah, our intent is if the committee is extended — and there’s not any official white smoke yet emanating from the Capitol but we’ve gotten some promising signs that our work may indeed continue into the next year — our intent is to have another member day for members. Listen, each new member came here for a reason, and you’re going to have observations about your ability to have impact, and we want to hear if there’s certain barriers that you feel are inhibiting that. Our intent is to have another Member Day (it’ll be a virtual member day!), and to continue to get input from members of Congress because you are our stakeholders. The new members who are on the line are our stakeholders in trying to improve this institution. And because you come in with new eyes, with a clear vision of things even in the transition process. Listen, the recommendations we made around freshman orientation, almost without exception came from freshmen who had just gone through the orientation process and said, You know, one, we’d like more of it to be bipartisan since, you know, you had members saying, ‘guys, we had Democrats get on one bus and Republicans get on the other and that seems a little funky.’ You had freshmen say, ‘I would like to have a paid transition staffer because I know I can’t just ask someone to take it out of their hide for six weeks and that’s a problem.’ You had freshmen also say, ‘it would be valuable and we’re working on this too and we made a recommendation in the space that more and more of the your your professional development as an incoming member happen on a just-in-time basis or they, or even go online,’ so this is something that Brad and CMF have worked on quite a bit. You know, as we kick off the appropriations process, there’s an opportunity to basically have a training module on what you need to know about the appropriations process, which may be in November. That’s right after your election, but you do need to know it. So I would just invite you, as you see those opportunities of things that you wish to happen differently in your transition, or once you hit the ground here, if you see things where you think, ‘this has been funky, why does it work this way?’ recognize that it’s not just this Select Committee on the modernization of Congress, there are senior members who want to hear from you and want the institution to function better.

Brad Fitch 10:00
I do want to give a shout out to the House leadership and the Committee on House Administration, because the rapidness with which they made these changes in the last 12 months is nothing short of amazing, in comparison to how Congress has moved in the past, and Chairman Kilmer just identified a couple of them. A couple others that were implemented are the schedule for orientation was actually elongated, and the first four days of orientation for just the freshmen — that was a direct response to the recommendation from the committee for more bipartisanship. The new schedule that majority leader Hoyer has just put out for the new year absolutely reflects the committee’s recommendation that there’ll be segmented time for committee work and floor work that has never happened in the institution before. It’s an amazing schedule. We’re very optimistic. It was some of the work was started in 2010 by Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor to change the schedule — this is another improvement so I want to really call out the leadership in the House because folks in the past didn’t quite listen to the membership as well as they do now. It’s really been a wonderful breath of fresh air

Marci Harris 11:05
One question for you when it comes to working with staff and I think it will be helpful for new members because, and this was something that I would also like to ask Mr. Davis, if and when we get him, you both have wonderful staff, and they really amplify your effectiveness. Do you have any thoughts or tips on, especially for these freshmen who are about to be recruiting and setting up their own process (as Brad would say, ‘setting the course!’) within their offices?

Derek Kilmer 11:31
You know what, I do encourage people to read Brad’s book, the CMF book “Setting Course.” In fact, one of the Members called me and said, do you have any advice, and my advice was, get a copy of that book and read it, because it really is valuable, just in an understanding if what the role looks like. And to me, some very good advice about you know if sometimes Congress feels a little bit like college, right? You can major in something, and you can minor in something but you can’t do it all. Helping define what it looks like to actually be an impactful member of Congress, I thought was laid out very thoughtfully in the book. Then in terms of staff, you know, one, identifying, those basic functions, I think is something that that book does well. And House Admin and existing Members can give you a sense of just what your hiring looks like. You know, I always establish some baseline around what I’m looking for in that staff, and one is a sense of leadership and appreciation for the fact that our constituents are our boss, and that needs to be a fact that’s held by every member of our team. You know, not everybody who comes to Congress has managed a team before and I will mention it is really important to recognize that your team is your team. It’s a little bit that ‘isotoner gloves ethic,’ to have you protect the hands that protect you — that’s your staff. Making sure that you’re providing development opportunities for your staff, and a positive environment for your staff, is really important, not just from the standpoint of the things you’re required to do under law. There is the kind of the training that members get in terms of having an office where you don’t have this discrimination or mistreatment of staff going — that’s sort of necessary, but not a sufficient thing for having an effective office. You also have to make sure there’s a positive environment where people want to stay and work in Congress, because one of the unfortunate dynamics is people aren’t doing these jobs for the pay or the glory, they’re doing it because they want to make a difference. So finding opportunities where your team can make a difference on behalf of your constituents and on behalf of our country is really important. I see that we’ve been joined by Rodney Davis, so why don’t I stop there.

Marci Harris 14:04
And such a good transition on the conversation about staff and people wanting to continue their public service — but I was singing the praises of a Member who was also a staffer, who comes to this position, as you do, and now is the top Republican on the Committee on House Administration, with a great appreciation of the institution, and with an understanding what it means to be on both sides of that table. Thank you so much for joining us, despite the technical difficulties. Over to you.

Rodney Davis 14:30
I want to be able to answer questions with you guys. And I’ve got to give Derek a big shout out. This is a guy who helped create the Select Committee on Modernization of Congress. When I came to Congress, and when I was a staffer, when we had select committees, it wasn’t to do anything that would make Congress work better. It usually cost more in polarization. And Derek, and under the leadership of him and Vice Chair Tom Graves, you know, old-timer Tom Graves who’s now gone, they really put together a leadership style to allow all of us to have input.

A lot of my remarks are going to be about technology. When you move into your office for the first time, don’t just automatically inherit what was left, because some of these folks may have been using technology that was outdated 10 years ago.

So make sure that you go through, and inventory, and we’re going to work with you and the CAO to ensure that you have the most up-to-date technology. Hopefully, your previous member invested in that, but I guarantee you, not all did. I had that problem just eight years ago. But utilize today’s technology: we have more options for you as a freshman class than we’ve ever hadm to use off the shelf software, cloud based software… It’s going to make it easier to converse with your constituents. However, I want to remind you that one of the single most important jobs that you can perform as a member of Congress, I used to do it in the district office, is to make sure that constant outreach and communication and constituent service is really what we focused on. That allowed me to have a — now an eight-year career, and going into my ninth and tenth year in a district that many said I shouldn’t have won the first time and wasn’t surely going to win the second time. But five times later, now you guys are stuck with me at new member orientation, stuck with me being the self-appointed pledge educator, each and every one of you.

But before we do some q&a, I want to say one thing that I didn’t get a chance to tell you at new member orientation. You all are now about to be sworn in as Members of Congress. That day when you raise your right hand, and you become one of us, you are now part of the institution that you ran against. So do what you can to make it better. That’s what we’re all here for.

Brad Fitch 16:38
Congressman Davis, as we’ve said a couple of times, you are a district staffer, district director, and one of those people that have made the transition. We have on this chat today both staffers, future staffers, and future members. Talk to the staffers for a second. As a former staffer, what advice would you give them for transitioning into this new roller coaster of a job that is setting up a congressional office?

Rodney Davis 17:04
Yeah, as a former staffer, I actually feel bad for those who didn’t have a basic knowledge of the institution first. I came in with a leg up, especially on how to set up district offices, what it was going to take to actually budget your MRA (your Members Representational Allowance, your budget), so that you could have an adequate amount for the staff that you need, and also an adequate amount for the district offices that you wanted to put in your district. Don’t automatically take what your predecessor had: go through with a fine-toothed comb that budget, and we can get you all that information if it hasn’t been shared with you before. But, learn and listen to to those who have been through this. Number one, this isn’t rocket science, or Derek and I wouldn’t be here. Trust me. But we can make the job easier, or we can make the job more difficult.

And I know I gave you advice at new member orientation to hire a single staffer who has the final say in your office. Because the last thing you want to be as a member, and it’s more difficult as a staffer, is to give up the control, and to not micromanage. I found that out, and some of our former-staff colleagues still haven’t figured that out. But when you become the conflict resolution department in your office, you’ve got no one to blame. It’s you. It’s your fault. You set it up that way. So, from the beginning, set it up correctly, and make sure that your district director and your chief, somebody, has got the final say before it gets to you, and they will (I guarantee you!), they will make in almost every case the right decision, and you will be able to get things done and get the ball rolling. We were able to begin constituent services on day one because we had already planned over the last few months to get rolling.

And if you have any questions about that process coming in, please let us know. We’re here to help you. We want to answer your questions. We will not get annoyed with your questions. And if, as I’ve told you, if it’s a dumb question, I’m going to tell you it’s a dumb question, because I have fun doing that. But we’re going to answer everything you need, and help you get started. But you have more opportunities as a freshman this class than any previous freshman class to really hit the ground running, and that’s because of a lot of the work that Derek and the Mod Com committee did in changing the way your orientation is, and changing your opportunities to have access to different things to make the house better.

Brad Fitch 19:39
Talk to us a little bit about the unusual or new relationship that these new members and staffers are going to have with the Committee on House Administration, and indeed the institutional offices. talk a little about what advice you have for leaning on institutional support systems that are there and available that frankly sometimes freshmen don’t know about, and find themselves in March or February saying ‘I don’t know what office to call if I need to buy or rent a copier for my district office!’ Give them a little guidance here, because this is an incredibly important part that sometimes gets overlooked in orientation.

Rodney Davis 20:17
No Brad, you’re right it does. Number one, make sure that you reach out and ask these questions before swearing in day. Talk to your ambassador, who’s somebody on my team on House Admin, or somebody on the majority’s team on House Admin. If you have any questions, ask. Ask whomever your contact has been. But in the end, you guys have had a lot of webinars, you’ve been in person, you’ve sat down and listened to so many panels, and I know what was there, what was given to you, is all scrambled. What I’d like you to do, is sit down and figure out the process with your chief, district director, whoever you have — start identifying areas where you need further answers, and at that point in time, what I would suggest is you can reach out to the CAO, the Chief Administrative Officer contact. They can give you answers, relative to what they have jurisdiction over; you could reach out to the Architect of the Capitol, they can give you answers of what is under their jurisdiction. But as a former staffer, I will tell you, a lot of times they’re going to give you the most bureaucratic answer that only fits within their box of responsibilities. So instead of doing that, I’m going to give you some advice: call House Admin. Any one of us. We’re going to be able to at least tell you where these calls need to go to get a final answer from the person, or the group in charge, within the House. We will troubleshoot and funnel down who you need to go reach out to, so you’re not just on a ping pong of calls while you’re trying to also hire staff, while you’re trying to also meet your new constituents, and you get ready to get sworn in. Because you’re gonna deal with families who think they’re going to come out in a COVID year, and everything’s going to be square, is going to be like it always has been, and the difficulty you’re going to have over the next few months — it’s probably going to be more with your family and friends than it is setting up your office. We can make that part easy. I can’t fix the family and friend issue, because they, they’re so supportive of you and want to share in your experience

Brad Fitch 22:16
I do want to add and do a plug (I’ll put this in the chat), you talked about the strain on families and friends. Most people don’t realize the average work week for a member of the House of Representatives is 70 hours a week. I’m betting the DNC and the RNC didn’t include that in their recruiting materials when they brought you all to join this wonderful institution. But the Congressional Management Foundation is offering a training program on December, 16 the topic is what to expect for families and friends and for staffers. So my next question, gentlemen, is based on what you just touched on, which is the different experience that people can expect as a result of either working remotely or working from home, or because of the restrictions that coronavirus is imposing on the legislature and the offices. Can you touch on how coronavirus has changed your operations, and what advice you can have for new members and staff that are going to be setting up a congressional office during a pandemic, which no one has ever done before?

Derek Kilmer 23:12
You know, all of the work looks different in the midst of this pandemic. Oftentimes when you’re in DC, it’s this extraordinary juggling act of running from committee to committee when you’re in multiple committees at the same time, meeting with constituents in the hallway because they’ve done fly-ins — obviously that is just not happening. With what the circumstances are in the midst of this pandemic, there are still going to be and there need to be committee meetings, and many of them will be virtual meetings. But it’s a little bit more manageable in terms of being able to work around meetings with constituents, because they haven’t flown in from (in my instance) 3,000 miles away to see you with a small window of time. So that is a little bit more manageable. On the district side it’s challenging, because so much of this job is trying to familiarize yourself with folks in your district. I always think about it as concentric circles: there’s the people you see all the time, and then you try to, part of our goal in our office is to get to those outer circles, because I represent everybody in all of those circles. So we’re constantly trying to find outreach opportunities to engage with folks that we might not otherwise have an opportunity to meet, and to understand what their priorities are. That is far more difficult in the midst of this pandemic. So it is a real opportunity to lean on your outreach team in the district to try to figure out means of engaging with people. It’s still valuable to do that process of identifying organizations, stakeholder groups, churches, chambers, Rotary Clubs, Kiwanis clubs, you know, all of those entities that you would otherwise be meeting in person. It’s a little bit harder with things like company visits, while we’re still remote, to go to the factory for and shake hands with the workforce. We can’t really do that right now, and that is something that hopefully we’ll be getting back to soon. But I would just lean on your team to be entrepreneurial about identifying new ways, particularly as new members. It is really important for your constituents to know that you are their representative, and that means them being able to put a face to you. So a big part of the job is just finding new opportunities to engage with your constituents, in this instance remotely.

Rodney Davis 25:47
This is the weirdest year ever. Remember, on March 13, our job out here in DC was meeting on 15 minute increments with constituent groups. We would double stack up, and we’d rotate in between, and then on March 14, no one wanted to talk to us anymore. And then the advent of Zoom, the advent of WebEx, the advent of this one that I clearly don’t know how to use — it changed our lives again. Today, my job is consisting of doing virtual hearings and meetings, the entire day. So I’m sitting behind a computer. DC as we used to know it does not exist. People don’t run the buildings freely, they don’t come into your office. So when you set up an office, you’re going to be like, ‘I need all these people here!’ No, actually, you won’t, in the beginning, because no one’s going to be here still in the midst of this COVID fight. That will change though, and I think for your class, that’s going to be the biggest surprise to you, because your time is going to get even more limited, and you need to be prepared for that. Because your time in the district is going to be much different. Your family’s going to have expectations, and your friends are going to have expectations that are artificially set right now by COVID that are going to change overnight as we move back into a sense of normalcy. And I think you need to prepare your staff for that, if they don’t have pre-COVID experience here on the Hill or working in the district, because that’s the time that they need to really talk to some mentors and understand what their world is going to look like, and in turn, what your world is going to look like when we return.

About the TSD Cohort

The First Branch TSD Cohort is a forum for information sharing and collaboration, bringing together innovators on and off the Hill focused on Technology, Science, and Data research and resources for Congress. The cohort is a forum for information sharing and collaboration, made possible by support from Democracy Fund and the Hewlett Foundation, and led by POPVOX.

For more information, contact tsd@popvox.com.