House Information Systems Online Services: Today and Tomorrow

Lea Fowl ie*

House Information Systems serves as data processing for the House of Since 1971, has developed supported a of computer and services to assist work of House.

Under direction of Committee on Administration, House Systems’(H.1.S.) staff service and to 440 26 standing, and joint and the offices of House, including Clerk, Doorkeeper, Parliamentarian, Sergeant Arms, Office the Legislative

Office of Law Revision and the The Congressional Office, General Office, and Congressional Research also

use services. H.I.S. consulting services members of House and to assist

in the and configuration equipment needed answer constituent produce reports, perform day-to-day functions. Classroom

individual training provided in use of and IBM computers and software packages. and software and support

available through in-house hotline. user requests, as a of research analysis, H.I.S. automated

functions as bill production of calendars, financial facilities management, the process preparing the budget for use.

House Systems serves liaison to agencies to information of to the Where possible, information also automated.

* Direct correspondence to: Fowlie, Senior Analyst, House Systems, 637 U.S. House Representatives, Washington, 20515.

Government Information Quarterly, Volume 8, Number 3, pages 285-291 ISSN: 0740-624X

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This process has resulted in one of the most useful research tools available in the Federal

government. Known as the “Member Information Network”(MIN), this suite of online applications offers comprehensive information in the areas of legislation, Federal

funding, demographics and statistics, and local, national, and international news, and provides assistance in performing day-to-day office functions (see Table l).’ From its

inception sixteen years ago, MIN has evolved from a call-in service for Bill Status information to more than 25 user-accessed information services containing over 63 databases.

Data for many applications come from outside sources and, where possible, the process of loading the data onto the mainframe is automated. Data are delivered to the Hill via traditional means, such as 9-track tape as well as through satellite transmission, fiber optic cable, high speed dial-up facilities, and optical disk. All services

are backed up nightly, and a UPS system is installed. As a result, H.I.S. services are available seven days a week, from 7 a.m. to midnight; newswires from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m.

After extensive analysis of user requirements, MIN applications have been grouped into functional areas that correspond to job activities in House offices. Generally, use

of the services varies by the priorities of the office. For example, member’s offices interested in promoting legislation extensively use the Legislative Services; offices monitoring Federal monies coming into or going out of the district would use the

Federal Funding Services. Staff at all levels use MIN systems in the course of their daily work.

LEGISLATIVE SERVICES: Floor

Legis Congressional Record Committee Meeting Announcement

Service

Biographical Directory Congressional Quarterly U.S. Code Text of Legislation House Rules, Precedent, and

Procedures

Compilations of Acts

FEDERAL FUNDING: Pre-Award Grands Post-Award Grants Available Contracts Awarded Contracts Budget

ADDITIONAL FEATURES: Zip Code Phone Directory

NEWS SERVICES: Associated Press newswire

USA Today Decisionline Reuters Information Services newswire

ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES: Electronic Mail Bulletin Board

Member and Committee Scheduling

Casework Tracking Teledex Tracking

DEMOGRAPHICS AND STATISTICS: Geographic Profile Economic Indicators

House Information Systems Online Services

Table 1. MiN Usage Statistics for 1990

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l Average number of unique users accessing MIN per month: 3,953

0 Average number of unique offices accessing MIN per month: 633

l Average number of user/application sessions per month: 110,865

l Top services/ monthly average: Legis, Associated Press, Floor

l Registered users: 10,664 (as of January 1, 1991)

Through the News Services and the Quarterly Service, an online version of the Congressional Quarrerly Weekly Report publication, members can advise constituents on fast-breaking issues and provide commentaries on stories either before or as they become “hot topics.” Extensive coverage by the Associated Press of news at the local and state level and Reuters’ international coverage and transcript service have provided congressional staff with one of the most comprehensive news sources available. During the crisis in the Persian Gulf, these services have been heavily used by staff; HIS. programs are able to track the number of transactions executed and determine the number of unique offices and users accessing MIN.

Members and staff also rely on other MIN services. Staff can check the Legislative Services (historical information from the 93rd to 102nd Congresses) to determine if any bills have been introduced on a subject, and then help determine whether the member should initiate one. If the decision is positive, staff next can check the U.S. Code Service (the entire text of the fifty titles of statutory and related legislative history

material, the Classification Table, and the Table of Popular Names) and the Acts database, which contains laws created when Congress amends an original act. Used together, these databases provide staff with building blocks for drafting the legislation, amending an existing law, or creating a new one. Once a bill has been drafted and introduced on the Floor of the House, staff use the Committee Meeting Announcement Service (information gathered daily by H.I.S. staff from the House standing, select, and joint committees) to ascertain dates of hearings, and the Floor Service to monitor Floor debate and roll call vote results, The legislation’s progress can be reviewed daily using the Congressional Record Service, a full-text online version of the Congressional Record. Members are assisted in planning Floor strategies (to get the bill passed) by databases containing the internal procedures of the House as adopted at the beginning of each Congress, rulings of the Speaker of the House and Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, and the practices of the House, compiled by the Office of the Parliamentarian.

Budget data, maintained by the House Budget Committee, provide summary information on the Federal Budget. Included are such topics as budget comparisons of the House, Senate, and Presidential budget figures, appropriation status reports, questions and answers on the President’s budget, a congressional history of spending, actual budget aggregates from 1948, and budget authority and outlays by function from 1962. The Budget service is updated as the budget process proceeds and is used as a general reference tool by congressional staff. Unlike the other MIN services, Budget is a menu-oriented service with pre-formatted tables.

The Economic Indicators Service is a series of macro-economic statistics consolidated into one source that can be used to identify and analyze changes and trends in business

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cycles. Information is provided by Data Resources, Inc., a leading econometrics firm, and includes a variety of econometric tables that are updated as statistics are released. The body of the data constitutes a monthly congressional data book used by the Congressional Budget Office to monitor changes in the economy.

Detailed information about Federal grants and contracts, and unemployment and census statistics, including socio-demographic and economic statistics of an area, are available through the Geographic Profile Service. Data are compiled from four sources: Federal Assistance Awards Data System, maintained by the Bureau of the Census; the Federal Procurement Data Center; the Bureau of Labor Statistics; and the Bureau of the Census.

Federal Funding Services provide House staff with a comprehensive source of grants and contracts information. The Pre-Award Grants database contains information on how, where, and when to apply for Federal grants, loans, and cooperative agreements. This service is the online version of the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA), produced by the General Services Administration. H.I.S. supplements the information by contacting agencies to ascertain telephone numbers of Program Officers and Congressional Liaisons-the information is then included as part of the online data. The Census Bureau provides information on monies that have been awarded during the last four reported fiscal quarters.

The Federal Funding Report summary, a compilation of items published in the Federal Register, can be reviewed for information related to Federal domestic assistance programs: availability of funds, notice of rules and other register notices, early warning grants reports, and disaster loan application deadlines. H.I.S. has produced and published the Federal Funding Report weekly for the past nine years. This report is mailed to over 234 Washington offices and 225 district offices.

An online version of the Commerce Business Daily (CBD) provides House staff with notices of upcoming Federal contracts worth $25,000 or more, and lists awarded prime contracts that exceed $25,000 and offer subcontracting opportunities. Within the Available Contracts Service, procurement offerings and awards have been divided into “services” and “supplies and equipment” categories. Eight weeks of the CBD are kept online and the service is updated daily with data provided by the Department of Commerce. The Awarded Contracts Service lists every civilian contract of $25,000 or more and every defense contract of $25,000 or more that has been entered into by the Federal government with a prime contractor over the last four reported fiscal quarters. All contracts are summarized by individual contractor. Tape updates are provided quarterly by the Federal Procurement Data Center.

Although H.I.S. does not help offices or constituents with grant or contract proposals or applications, it does provide information on where to go for assistance. H.I.S. also provides a call-in service for staff who cannot perform searches themselves because of time constraints or lack of equipment, or who want verification that they have found the most applicable grant or contract.

Administrative functions form an integral part of any office. H.I.S. has designed and currently supports several services to help manage the member’s time and track day- to-day activities. Each office has its own file space on the H.I.S. computer, and data are entered by the staff. Information is retrieved using reference terms established by the user. The Member Scheduling Service allows staff to enter the member’s current

House information Systems Online Services 289

and projected schedule of appointments and committee meetings and produce statistics

on the number of appearances made to a specific organization or trips to district

locations. The Committee Scheduling Service provides the member’s committee staff

the same entry and retrieval capabilities and can be used to track witnesses heard at

committee hearings.

Correspondence with constituents is of primary importance to every office, especially

when the constituent needs help. The Casework Service offers a central file in which

caseworkers can enter names, addresses, agency and agency contacts, a brief history,

and status (open, pending, or closed) of a case. Replacing the 3x5 index card system

or file folder, the online file provides case histories in a concise, organized approach.

The Tracking Service monitors Service Academy applications, the member’s bills and

vote history, tour and flag requests, special projects, and issues of interest. Another

MIN service serves as an automated “Rolodex” and gives offices the ability to track

names, addresses, and phone numbers of business associates.

An Electronic Bulletin Board provides an easy-to-use central information sharing

device for staff. Items such as legislative deadlines, staff club announcements, restaurant

menus, C-SPAN programming guides, the Congressional Quarterly OUTLOOK, U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers’disaster activities, Department of State security-related travel

advisories, phone numbers of casualty assistance officers for Operation Desert Storm,

reports from the Congressional Research Service Persian Gulf Task Force,

announcements from the Clerk, and H.I.S. training schedules are included. Staff can

add their own notices to the H.I.S. Bulletin Board. Separate Bulletin Board Services

can be used to review information disseminated by either the Democratic or Republican

Leadership offices.

All Member Information Network services can be accessed by staff in both the

Washington and district offices. The Electronic Mail Service links services and staff

from each location. In addition to sending traditional electronic mail messages, staff

can load documents and news stories into mail messages for forwarding and use an

online document creation capability to send short memos or reports to other staff.

House support organizations, including the Finance Office, Clerk, and Documents

Room (public laws) can be reached by Mail, thereby decreasing the number of phone

calls made to request information.

MIN has two features that are available without having to access a specific service.

The Zip Code feature allows staff to find the member associated with a specific zip

code; if a piece of constituent mail is misdirected to a congressman’s office, staff can

search the zip code online and find the correct member name and room number. The

Phone Directory feature provides staff with an automated phone directory that can

be searched by staff name, member’s name, and committee.

Members and staff have come to rely on the Member Information Network as the

source for legislative, Federal/fiscal, news information, and administrative services. MIN is used by district offices from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Virgin

Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam, and American Samoa. An average of 3,953 unique users

access MIN each month; in 1990, MIN averaged monthly 110,865 user/ application

sessions. In January 1991, MIN had more than 10,664 registered users.

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MIN’S FUTURE

MIN has served the needs of the House for the past eleven years. Members and staff

rely extensively on the legislative, Federal/fiscal, and news information, as well as the

crucial administrative services. Unfortunately, the MIN infrastructure has been

developed over time; this has resulted in overly sophisticated software, which has

become increasingly difficult to enhance and maintain. The system also is showing signs

of losing its relevancy as the character and needs of the user community change.

Congressional staff have become more sophisticated in the use of personal computers

and the use of word processing and spread sheet applications. They are demanding

that MIN keep pace by integrating PCs with departmental level file servers and the

mainframe. Users want to cut and paste text from news stories, to know the total of

grant award monies for their districts, as well as to configure a system to meet their individual needs.

In 1990, H.I.S. began to redesign the Member Information Network. The new system,

known as Integrated Systems and Information Services (ISIS) will provide the next

generation of automated tools and information services through integration of intelligent workstation and other technologies with H.I.S. information resources. There

are specilic problems and issues that will be addressed in the redesign. Today’s system

requires users to know much about where and how to find information. There are over

63 separate databases; information is duplicated in many of them. For instance, in order

to find comprehensive information about a particular piece of legislation, the user now

has to look at no fewer than five separate databases.

Utilizing the client/ server model as the foundation, ISIS will be implemented initially

on three platforms: Macintosh, IBM compatible personal computers, and dumb

terminals. “Workbenches” relating to job functions in a congressional office (e.g.,

executives and legislative aides) currently are being developed. The major benefits of

ISIS will be: elimination of duplicate data; greater user awareness of the information

value; integration of personal computer and Macintosh tools; need for the user to know

only what is wanted, not where it is located; more meaningful querying and results;

single view of services or information via an application architecture; and user ability

to build personal applications from an information inventory.

Replacing MIN will take three to four years, but a phased-in approach to

implementing services and capabilities is planned. A pilot test will begin in April 1991

with two applications: (1) vote analysis of an individual member’s own voting record

in relationship to his state delegation and the entire House, and (2) tracking of awarded

grants to a congressional district, individual, organization, local government, etc. with the ability to produce reports with the total monies awarded.

There appears to be growing user frustration with MIN functionality because the

information is not organized in a way that continues to correspond to the information

needs of the House. Consequently, a new technical infrastructure based upon a client/ server model has been specified. Currently the system is being built on an organization- wide data and application architecture. Computer Aided System Engineering (CASE)

tools have been acquired, installed, and used to create a top-down design and

implementation plan for ISIS.

House Information Systems Online Services 291

Time has passed, and the nature of the user environment accessing MIN has changed. Computing devices with intelligence, such as personal computers and Macintoshes, have gained pre-eminence as vehicles of choice for accessing MIN resources. Yet MIN continues to treat every device as though it were a dumb terminal. Users expect to be able to use the intelligence of their workstations to access and manipulate information; MIN offers no such capability.

Over the past eleven years MIN has been expanded and enhanced, but there has been no real attempt to integrate information. Each time a user wanted a different view of the same information, a new database was developed.

Finally, there is the need for a greater amount of information as the legislative and constituent demands on members increase. The complexity of the information has also escalated, making it essential that members and staff have the most advanced analytical tools. Users want to define an area of interest and have the system draw from its resources to provide a composite of both daily and historical information. Profiles of a topic such as “alcohol and drug abuse” could include news stories, documents from the Congressional Record and Congressional Quarterly services, legislative histories of bills and resolutions introduced, grants and contracts monies available and/ or awarded, and Floor activity.

In conclusion, House Information Systems has played a significant role in providing the online systems and services that members of the United States House of Representatives need to serve their constituents. Computer technology is changing at a rapid pace. It is the goal of House Information Systems to continue to develop and improve systems and services that meet this challenge.

NOTE

MIN services are offered via a central computer facility located in the Ford House Office Building.

Services reside on an IBM 3090/4OOJ, which is configured with 128 megabytes main memory, 128

megabytes expanded storage, a Processor Resource/ System Manager (PR/ SM) feature, and 64 channels

(capable of a 4500K CPS Transfer Rate). The system operates under Multiple Virtual Storage/Extended

Architecture (MVS/ XA) system control programs. Peripheral storage and I/ 0 hardware consist of Direct

Access Storage Devices (DASD) with a total capacity of 170.42 gigabytes; tape drives with 38,000 bpi

capability; and