Advocates call for public access to Congress’s research arm

Forty groups sent a letter to key members of Congress calling on them to give the public access to reports from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a major research arm for staffers on Capitol Hill. The groups -- representing libraries, transparency advocates, tech advocates, scientists and others -- said the move would put it in line with similar research arms such as the the Congressional Budget Office, the Government Accountability Office and the Law Library of Congress.

They said most reports produced by the CRS should be downloadable online with appropriate indexing. “Taxpayers provide more than $100 million annually in support of CRS, and yet members of the public often must look to private companies for consistent access,” the groups wrote in the letter. “Some citizens are priced out of these services, resulting in inequitable access to information about government activity that is produced at public expense.” The letter was sent to the leaders of both chambers’ rules and administration committees.