The House Modernization Committee held a hearing on rules about males sent by members of congress, two academics and a software testified at the hearing about how technology affected with members of congress communicate with their constituents. The share is authorized to convene a meeting and it is entitled bringing the standards to the 21st century and i recognize myself. Happy halloween. I am dressed as americas most maligned superhero, congressman able to fly across the country in six hours on Alaska Airlines we were wants to call it Franken Stein and how theyve haunted, and we some go with the unspooky title and like most that have fallen under the mandate with the work of the House Commission on congressional mailing standards is very inside baseball. To most people frank is a name or a hot dog and the members of congress, the congressional frank is how we respond to constituents and every time we respond to requests and we use the frank and it is no surprise that with the rise of social Media Congress has seen an overall decline of the use of the frank and ten years ago members spent an average of 58,000 and todays members spend about 26,000. Obviously, there is a lot of member, and social media has had a tremendous impact on how congress has constituents and the Digital Media staff and today almost every committee has one including ours and given these changes in the way that congress and the American People communicate, todays hearing is actually really important and communications, will continue to rapidly evolve and Congress Needs to adapt so they can communicate as possible, and susan davis and the Franklin Commission have put a lot of thought into the issues and have ideas on how to modernize the frank and members need to know the difference about platforms so they can make and it comes with constraints that social media doesnt and some platforms come with communicating is more complicated and im looking forward to what our witnesses have to say about the issues and its important to understand the history of the frank as well as modern trends and how members communicate with constituents. This committee is focussed making Congress Work better to better serve the American People and this meeting is wholly in support of that. I invite tom graves to share opening remarks and any halloween jokes he has, as well. I thank you, mr. Chairman. I think you stole them all. All i have is the last name and thats all i can do on halloween. Thanks for holding this hearing today. As you said, mr. Chairman, there are more ways than ever to talk with our constituents back home and with the click of a mouse we can connect with the district to help solve our problems and hear ideas and opinions from those we represent. Communication with those we represent is one of the most important parts of our jobs as we are representatives for them, but the current process as we describe that we dont know about or understand feels light years behind the speed of communications and the opportunities that we have today. We all want to quickly and effectively commu effectively communicate and get back to our constituents and we have heard from many of our colleagues who have many ideas for reforming congress including this process of communication. So on this topic, many of the freshmen members have stepped up to voice their opinions and question the way we do things and im very grateful for that because theyve experienced the rules and the regulations and the procedures for the first time and thankfully theyre very quick to highlight ways to improve or suggestions they may have to allow to communicate better and quicker. It will be great and it will be a wonderful halloween day and what a better way than be here. Our first panel which were calling the davis panel, we have representative susan davis the chair of the House Commission on mailing stand ars and representative rodney davis that served on congressional mailing standards of the 115th congress and both are here to framing the knowledge of the process and each will provide five minutes of testimony and well move on to the next panel. Susan davis, you are now recognized for five minutes. Thank you very much, chairman, and vice chairman graves. You do understand that we get confused now and then and i appreciate you pointing that out and members of this select committee and i am pleased to join you on the firstever franklinstein meeting and the House Administration committee, Ranking Member rodney davis and the new Ranking Member brian steel all of whom play a key role in the future of mass communications. The houses current franking rules have spooked members and staff over the years, but the good news is that we can make the whole franking process both, less scary and more effective. Contrary to what many staff believe, the house manual was not created to frighten people, but rather with the Good Intention of preventing members from misusing taxpayer funds for personal, political or commercial use. However, after nearly two decades of working with those rules, we know the rules have the unintended side effect of slowing things down and preventing members from writing the way they speak when they conduct official business. Our commission took a fresh look with a new approach and has two main components that go hand in hand. Greater transparency and a simpler set of rules. Greater public transparency ensures greater member accountability. We can achieve transparency easily by making the advisory online. It can link to ours as it currently does for Financial Disclosure reports for travel reports and gift and travel filings and Legal ExpenseFund Disclosures and statements of disbursements. I would just state again because you all know this. The whole idea is to have members franking communications be available to their constituents and the public like other reports which i noticed which really does, i believe, discourage undue advantage of the franking privilege. Combined with transparency a shorter set of clear rules will prevent the misuse of taxpayer funds. I look forward to sharing the new list of rules we are developing with you and all of our colleagues soon and staffs are pulling those together and actually have come up with quite a bit of consensus. As we work on our new package at franking, we have some request relating to Digital Communications. My written testimony goes into detail, but ill highlight some. First, it recommend consolidating and Digital Communications and putting it under our jurisdiction. Right now we are only charged with reviewing postal mail and in practices we review all communications. Second, the Modernization Committee should evaluate the appropriateness and this is for you all to look at of evolving the members to auction from Campaign Accounts to their official accounts from time to time or perhaps just one time and also consider allowing Campaign Websites to link to official sites. This would eliminate confusion we all hear from our constituents while maintaining appropriate separation. And third, we need to use technology to upgrade District Office mail reports which are still selfreported and done by hand. Perhaps, we can fix this with a unique bar code. Ill wrap up now because i know votes and pumpkins are fast approaching. Thank you again, it has been a pleasure working with all of you and your staff as well. We look forward to your next set of recommendations. Thank you, chair davis, and now representative rodney davis you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman and thank you to the vice chair and also to the chair of the fracing commission. My good friend miss davis. I will tell you its an honor to speak from this side of the deus, and i know ill go back around to that side as soon as im done, but to be able to talk about something that a lot of folks in and around washington dont want to take the time to delve into, but it is very important for the job we do in communicating with our constituents. Last congress i was the chair of the Franking Commission and i have to commend constituents. Lt congress, i was the chair of the Franking Commission. And i have to commend my colleague ms. Davis, because we were able to Work Together to implement some new processes that made the frank easier. Older than you. And i do and see, the folks at work on House Administration and taking these franking requests, my staffers tim and elizabeth, do a great job in making sure they work with their member offices to implement monday of their archaic stands that we put in place but susan and i, and our teams were able to actually make the process easier. Will required higher percent online submission his. Were in the 21st century. Whose is the thing we should do. We digitized everything. It makes the process for turning that approval or disapproval around faster. And it is something that i know is a goal for both of us, when we are in the commission. Weve got to do more. There is finally i believe you have been tight on both sides to roll up our sleeves as chair davis said. To get our teams together and come up with some solutions. I believe we are doing that. I am very happy that lena mccarthy, appointed our calling congressman bryan style, a freshman and a former staffer like monday of us whose had the years of frank. He is doing a great job of getting involved in finding out how we can even expand on what susan and i did with our teams last year. They represent bipartisan negotiations and is she said, opportunities for substantial changes to the franking rules. And we have three main buckets. Focusing on making improvements on them. The speed of approval, we want to get these approvals turned around faster. Transparency. There also developing regulations that work for the 21st century. Let me frontline a few reasons why these reforms are in such need. First existing regulation is a burdensome and very bureaucratic. Were literally injuring the size of pictures and counting the numbers of times goleta i is used. Staff president. Has not been upstate created and regulations. Let me get whose straight. Monday of the rules that we follow and approvals that are teams follow, have been set by president between staff for decades. We as members of the codify whose president s into rules and regulations so that we dont have any changes when we have changes on the committee, and leadership and that is something that i am looking forward to working with whose committee and also with brian and susan on. It is hard to follow rules that are not written down. And when theyre not transparent. I also think we should visit when it is needed. Managers have an automatic approval process in some instances. For the consequences if members and staff dont follow those rules. For example doesnt make sense that facebook had died 500 people the cost of 20 is the subject to the same review the physical mailer going to hundred thousand people at a cost of 50000 taxpayer dollars. A little more than the expectation of privacy has brought the same it was ten years ago. And is a we support increased transparency standards for frankie. Massively Greater Transparency comes a check and balance with constituents and the american taxpayer is the should replace the role of staff here in dc measuring pitcher and counting eyes. And finally is members of whose committee contemplate recommendations, even my three things. Members need to keep send communications to their constituents. Regional regulations are necessary to prevent abuse and filing of the regulations and guidance need to be transparent and accessible and easy to understand. In whose basic process, i. E. In courage the members to think bold and also new ideas are always welcome. I will take whose opportunity to yield 29 seconds back to you mr. Chair. Soon thank you both. And it was a busy morning for you so thank you for making time to come. One of the if the nextel of witnesses. To take their seats and perhaps is they do, i will start providing introductions just in the interest of time. Our first witnesses doctor matthew glassman, a senior fellow with a government of georgetown university. Prior to joining jai he worked at the regression all Research Center for deniers. Congressional operations, frank in preparation of powers appropriations and traditional administration, Agency Design and congressional history. He was detailed to the House Committee on appropriations is professional staff. Legislatures land of symphonies in 2010 and 2011. Next witnesses justin tucker. Professor of politics at the new your university. Doctor tepper is the coprincipal investigator in the wind like so laboratories, codirector of the nyu center for social and political behavior. Doctor tucker specializes in comparative politics with an emphasis on elections and voting and Public Opinion formation and the use of social media and facility all forms of participation. Coeditor also of the monkey cage and Award Winning and politics log which appears in the washington post. Final witnesses josh billy meyer, did i get that right . Who worked for the past 15 years has worked with Congressional Offices and streamlined the cmm operations and leverage new technologies. Prior to focusing on Software Solutions for Congressional Offices fulltime for josh worked for several meters patients Testing Services and attorney 18 began ceo of congressionally office that he cofounded. Five minutes for all of you. That went out objection your written statement will be part of the record. Keller, vice chairman and members of the select monday. Thank you for the opportunity to sit testify today. Im senior fellow at georgetown university. Lamented congressional service. Institutional issues in congress including members of communication in the pagan philip privilege credible legislative speech. Testimony, i provided to historical and contextual overview of the frank. Pacifically discusses the origins of national and longstanding criticisms of it. In writing frameworks congress is used regulate. Number consecutive would medications the building block. Its information about legislative activity cannot flow for members of constituencies. Joint policy judgments and professional action and judgement about members. Likewise, the constituents cannot easily communicate preference to members and congressional action is less likely to reflect a Public Opinion. For most of the 19th century, postage free frank mail could not only be only be semimembers, but to congress by constituents. The frank privilege dates to the 17th century england and has existed tenuously in the united states. So for a brief period in the 1870s when it was temporarily abolished. The modern system basic comprehensive forum passed in 1973. Subsequent reforms made in the 80s. They include monday of the familiar restrictions. Abandoning use of private her name to produce right now for a rail. On expenditures, Public Disclosure individual member costs. In preelection bands on mass mailing. The last 20 years, house regulation of email and other electronic commissioning medications but built on top of the frank medications. Two longstanding criticisms have been lodged against the Frank Franklin privilege. First that it is financially wasteful and second that it gives unfair advantage to incumbents and congressional elections. In 2018, house members spent just under 70 million pieces of unsolicited mass mail. 27. 6 million. An average cost of 35 cents per piece. Expenditures were actually quite small. Between 1988 and 2018, official congressional postage cost dropped by uber 80 percent. The contemnor a cost of mass mailing however are being driven by an increasingly small number of offices. 2004, 85 percent losses said at least one mass postal mailing. In 2018, almost 61 percent in. Furthermore, uber half of the cost of postal mass mailings or accrued by 65 high standing offices. That averaged 260,000 at mass mailing expenses. Several offices for more than a quarter of the members on mass mail. Is have been the case for the skates, spend much more mass mailing than senior members and members electro states. In order frank will cost continue to be higher in election years than nonelection years. Throughout history Technological Development have altered communications. They have often triggered regulatory changes. For example, the rise of Computer Generated mailing lists and Mail Services in the 60sexpanded the ability to members to reach their constituents. The rise of Electronic Communications in the 21st century is once mel is n again, jane, resume constituents communicate. Mel is now the most popular way to reach members. Social media accounts, allow for realtime interaction. No costs. These changes call question relevant and financial efficiency of the traditional frank postal mail system. Its become a smaller portion of members constituent communication in recent years. While members spent almost 78 million mail 2018, 1. 2 million pieces of mass communication. These costs are costs less than half than one half percent of each. Seventy times cheaper than mass mailings. Is a Public Policy the fran