March 4, 2022–Due Process Institute and 35 other organizations joined to urge the Committee on House Administration to address a gap in public access to public records held by the Office of the Clerk. The Clerk manages the Legislative Resource Center (LRC), which makes available lobbying disclosure filings, other public disclosure forms from all House Officers, Members, and staff, and other records. While some of those records are available online, others are not, including Legal Expense Fund Disclosures. The House of Representatives has been closed to the public for nearly two years, impeding public access to these records and undermining the purpose of public disclosure.
Many documents maintained by the Clerk within the LRC are in digital form but are not available online. Instead, requesters must use a terminal located in the LRC and print out the records — it is not currently possible to make an electronic copy. While this practice may have been reasonable when it was instituted, its consequences are two fold. First, most members of the public and press must go to the office to access these documents, which in normal circumstances limits access to those in Washington, D.C. and in COVID times restricts access further. Second, paid services such as printing, scanning, and digitizing the documents create unequal access for those who can afford the costs. We urge the Clerk to avoid these perverse results by examining how to make these public documents available online in a user-friendly format and providing a plan of action for review and implementation.