Public Access to Congressional Research Service Reports Resolution of 2013
Latest action. Referred to the House Committee on House Administration.
Public Access to Congressional Research Service Reports Resolution of 2013 or Congressional Research Service Electronic Accessibility Resolution of 2013 - Directs the Clerk of the House of Representatives, in consultation with the Director of the Congressional Research Service (CRS), to establish and maintain a centralized, searchable, bulk downloadable, electronic database consisting of: (1) CRS Issue Briefs, Reports, Authorization of Appropriations Products and Appropriations Products, and other materials intended or available for general congressional distribution through the CRS website; and (2) an index of such information.
Exempts: (1) any information determined to be confidential by the CRS Director or the head of the agency that provided it to CRS; and (2) any document produced in response to a confidential research request made by a House Member, officer, employee, or office, provided that the document has not been distributed and is not intended for distribution to anyone other than the individual or office making the request.
Directs the Clerk, in addition to the database, to establish and maintain contemporaneously a website containing a searchable, sortable index of all of the information in the database in both human- and machine-readable formats (such as Extensible Markup Language [XML]).
Authorizes the Clerk, on the basis of information provided by the Director, to: (1) remove from the database, and from related CRS products, the name and contact information of CRS employees or material that may infringe the copyright of a protected work; and (2) make any changes that the Director determines are necessary to ensure that information in the database is accurate and current.
Requires each official public website of a House Member, House committee, or joint committee of Congress to permit public use to obtain the information contained in such database to the same extent as House users may obtain such information through the CRS website.
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in House" stage on March 12, 2013. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
A simple resolution is the business of a single chamber. The House can adopt it on its own, and it is never sent to the other chamber or to the President.
The record's latest action, on March 12, 2013: Referred to the House Committee on House Administration.
- A vote of the House
What is a simple resolution, exactly?
A simple resolution concerns one chamber only, such as its own rules or an expression of its opinion. The other chamber and the President play no part, and it does not carry the force of law.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
Leonard Lance (R-NJ) introduced it on March 12, 2013, and 9 members have since signed on as cosponsors.
They come from both major parties: 6 Democrats, 3 Republicans.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on March 12, 2013, 4930 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 4930 days ago, on March 12, 2013.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 113th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2015 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
That deadline applies to this measure too, even though it was never headed for the President's desk.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- HouseIn committee, no floor vote yet
- SenateAwaits House passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers