Strategy: Empowering Congress

To support TechCongress, a project of New America Foundation, in placing an additional mid-career fellow with deep technological knowledge in a congressional office to support and strengthen the ability of lawmakers and staff to generate informed public policy on a variety of technology-related issues currently facing the nation.

The Pew Charitable Trusts’s Bipartisan House Chiefs of Staff Initiative (“Safe Spaces Project”), run by Pew’s Government Relations Department, offers programming for chiefs of staff in the U.S. House of Representatives aimed at fostering relationships, sharing best practices, and strengthening the capacity of Congress.

The Bipartisan Policy Center’s Congress Project fosters congressional reform ideas, with a particular focus on the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. The Congress Project will also organize recurring bipartisan programming for Members of Congress and their staff.

The American Political Science Association (APSA) will host a public service fellow from May 1, 2019 – October 31, 2020 to conduct research in  service of the U.S. Congress. With this fellowship, APSA enhances public understanding of policymaking and improves the quality of scholarship, teaching and reporting on American national politics.

This grant will provide support to Demand Progress, an organization that plays a critical education and advisory role on a variety of institutional practice and rulemaking areas that affect congressional capacity to function.

To support the Georgetown University’s Beeck Center in conducting its first field research project of the Resilient Democracy Coalition (RDC), as well as to support RDC’s experimental effort to design an app to connect newly elected Members of Congress to current and former Members.

This grant will renew support for training programs developed by the Library of Congress. Specifically, this grant will extend Democracy Fund support for the Congressional Research Service – a division of the Library of Congress – to conduct orientation seminars for newly-elected members of the 116th Congress and for the John W. Kluge Center at the Library to conduct a congressional masterclass series on governance-related topics of wide interest by leading academics. 
The grant will also support two historical exhibits that will showcase important Library resources and collections for congressional audiences and the broader public. One exhibit will focus on the history of Baseball and the exhibit will focus on the women’s’ movement. The goal of the exhibits is to educate members of Congress and others who might not seek education on the role of race in sports or the history of gender (in)equity in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

The National Conference of State Legislature’s Center for Legislative Strengthening (CLS) provides nonpartisan research and analysis for state legislators and legislative staff about legislative operations, procedure, and continuity planning. Their work bolsters the autonomy and effectiveness of the legislative branch of government in the 50 states and U.S. territories.