{"id":2826,"date":"2014-12-11T11:01:06","date_gmt":"2014-12-11T16:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/?p=2826"},"modified":"2015-04-24T20:50:14","modified_gmt":"2015-04-25T00:50:14","slug":"commemorative-bills-plunge-in-113th-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/commemorative-bills-plunge-in-113th-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Commemorative Bills Plunge in 113th Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2827\" style=\"width: 607px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Kosar-Congress-Commemorative-Legislation-12-10-2014.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2827\" data-attachment-id=\"2827\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/commemorative-bills-plunge-in-113th-congress\/kosar-congress-commemorative-legislation-12-10-2014\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Kosar-Congress-Commemorative-Legislation-12-10-2014.png\" data-orig-size=\"597,587\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Kosar Congress Commemorative Legislation 12-10-2014\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Source: Table created by Kevin R. Kosar from data in Congress.gov.&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Kosar-Congress-Commemorative-Legislation-12-10-2014-300x294.png\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Kosar-Congress-Commemorative-Legislation-12-10-2014.png\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2827\" src=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Kosar-Congress-Commemorative-Legislation-12-10-2014.png\" alt=\"Source: Table created by Kevin R. Kosar from data in Congress.gov.\" width=\"597\" height=\"587\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Kosar-Congress-Commemorative-Legislation-12-10-2014.png 597w, https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Kosar-Congress-Commemorative-Legislation-12-10-2014-300x294.png 300w, https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Kosar-Congress-Commemorative-Legislation-12-10-2014-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 597px) 100vw, 597px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2827\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: Table created by Kevin R. Kosar from data in Congress.gov.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>For all the talk of congressional dysfunction, there is a bit of good news: Congress has spent less of its valuable time passing &#8220;commemorative&#8221; legislation. For this development, we can thank Republicans and leaders in the U.S. House.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, the <em>New York Times<\/em>\u2019 Derek Willis <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/12\/05\/upshot\/one-thing-congress-delivered-fewer-bills-to-rename-post-offices.html\">reported<\/a> that this Congress has enacted far fewer bills to name post offices than its recent predecessors. The 110<sup>th<\/sup> Congress (2007-2009) set the record, passing a whopping <a href=\"http:\/\/big.assets.huffingtonpost.com\/postoffices.pdf\">109 of these laws<\/a>. With hardly any time left on the clock, the 113<sup>th<\/sup> Congress has renamed only 23 post offices. (At the moment, 15 bills have been signed into law and another eight post office naming bills await the President\u2019s signature.)<\/p>\n<p>Commemorative legislation, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hsdl.org\/?view&amp;did=753673\">Congressional Research Service report<\/a> explains, comes in many forms:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Naming post offices, other federal buildings and other federal structures<\/li>\n<li>Creating postage stamps<\/li>\n<li>Issuing commemorative coins<\/li>\n<li>Bestowing congressional gold medals<\/li>\n<li>Establishing monuments and memorials<\/li>\n<li>Creating commemorative commissions and observances<\/li>\n<li>Establishing federal holidays<\/li>\n<li>Requesting presidential proclamations<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Additionally, Congress issues <a href=\"https:\/\/wikileaks.org\/wiki\/CRS:_Congressionally_Chartered_Nonprofit_Organizations_%28%22Title_36_Corporations%22%29:_What_They_Are_and_How_Congress_Treats_Them,_July_14,_2008\">charters<\/a>. These honorific documents of incorporation typically do nothing more than slap an \u201cendorsed by Congress\u201d sticker on favorite nonprofit organizations.<\/p>\n<p>The 113<sup>th<\/sup> Congress, to its credit, has passed only a small number of commemorative bills (seen in Table 1 below). The 46 commemorative bills enacted amount to 21 percent of the 218 total bills enacted in the last two years. To put this number in perspective, in recent Congresses, post office naming legislation alone constituted <a href=\"http:\/\/big.assets.huffingtonpost.com\/postoffices.pdf\">20 percent of the total bills enacted<\/a>. In the 113<sup>th<\/sup> Congress, postal naming bills amount to only 10.5 percent of the bills sent to the president (thus far).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rstreet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Kosar-Congress-Commemorative-Legislation-12-10-2014.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9831 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rstreet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Kosar-Congress-Commemorative-Legislation-12-10-2014.png\" alt=\"Kosar Congress Commemorative Legislation 12-10-2014\" width=\"597\" height=\"587\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h6><\/h6>\n<p>Those who love these sorts of bills talk up their beneficence: <em>commemorative legislation is nice because it honors someone, something or some place. It\u2019s legislation that a party-torn Congress can work together to pass, and which might serve as the basis for collaboration on substantive policy-making.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Or maybe commemorative legislation usually is little more than an attempt to win votes back home. Regardless, commemorative legislation comes with significant costs: time and man-hours.<\/p>\n<p>How much? Nobody knows, because the calculation of cost per bill enacted is so complex. But to get a sense of the magnitude, consider a typical post office naming bill. Should a member decide he or she wants to name a post office, one of his or her staffers must meet with legislative attorneys to draft the bill; do the research to choose a post office that is appropriate (preferably not one soon to be closed); get other representatives and senators from one\u2019s home state to cosponsor the legislation; and work with the House and Senate committees of jurisdiction to get buy-in for the bill.<\/p>\n<p>Then the legislation needs to be formally introduced into both chambers, entered into Congress.gov and CRS will need to write a bill digest. CRS librarians also may be asked by Congress <a href=\"http:\/\/big.assets.huffingtonpost.com\/postoffices.pdf\">to research the background<\/a> of the individual for whom the post office is being named, so as to ensure he or she is not a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/story\/2008\/04\/15\/ST2008041500972.html\">lobbyist<\/a> or disreputable figure. Then the legislation must be scheduled for action by both chambers (including the committees), voted upon, finalized and delivered to the president\u2019s desk, after which it gets printed by the Government Printing Office and added to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gpo.gov\/fdsys\/browse\/collection.action?collectionCode=STATUTE\">U.S. Statutes-at-Large<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Thereafter comes the work of issuing self-congratulatory press releases by the bill\u2019s sponsors, and actual implementation (whatever there is). And let\u2019s not forget that added to all of this is that CRS has to devote the valuable time of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hsdl.org\/?view&amp;did=753673\">Ph.D.s<\/a> to writing reports about these types of bills and coaching Congress through the process.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rstreet.org\/2014\/12\/11\/commemorative-bills-plunge-in-113th-congress\/screen-shot-2014-12-09-at-11-36-29-am\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-9821\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-9821\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rstreet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-12-09-at-11.36.29-AM-300x183.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2014-12-09 at 11.36.29 AM\" width=\"300\" height=\"183\" \/><\/a>In recognition that time was short and commemorations were not a high-utility use of it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politifact.com\/truth-o-meter\/promises\/gop-pledge-o-meter\/promise\/688\/eliminate-congressional-resolutions-to-honor-indiv\/\">Republicans<\/a>, particularly in the House, cracked down on them. The leadership of the House made it clear that a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hsdl.org\/?view&amp;did=753673\">20-year old rule (Rule 28)<\/a> curbing commemorative legislation would <a href=\"http:\/\/rules.house.gov\/113th-congress-legislative-protocols\">actually be enforced<\/a>. Additionally, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, to which post office naming bills are referred, <a href=\"http:\/\/big.assets.huffingtonpost.com\/postoffices.pdf\">adopted a rule<\/a> stating:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>The consideration of bills designating facilities of the United States Postal Service shall be conducted so as to minimize the time spent on such matters by the committee and the House of Representatives.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The committee, which spent an enormous amount of time in recent years working on postal legislation, saw little sense in spending its precious time on naming bills. The majority also likely sought to exert a little pressure on members to get behind their postal reform bill by going slow on moving post office naming bills. (No postal reform was enacted, alas.)<\/p>\n<p>Critics, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2013\/12\/17\/congress-productivity-_n_4461097.html\">especially on the left<\/a>, tar this Congress for not passing as many bills as other Congresses. Congressional productivity, plainly, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/248179165\/CRS-The-Evolving-Congress-December-2014\">should not be measured by legislative enactments alone<\/a>. The institution has duties beyond that, like oversight. And when it comes to costly and mostly pointless commemorative legislation, passing fewer bills is a good thing.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s hope the 114<sup>th<\/sup> Congress continues the trend. With the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rstreet.org\/op-ed\/u-s-government-celebrates-half-trillion-dollar-deficit\/\">debt skyrocketing<\/a> and the economy limping along, our nation\u2019s highest legislature has better uses for its time.<\/p>\n<p>(This op-ed previously was published at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rstreet.org\/2014\/12\/11\/commemorative-bills-plunge-in-113th-congress\/\">RStreet.org<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rstreet.org\/people\/kevin-kosar\/\"><i>Kevin R. Kosar<\/i><\/a><i> is the Director of the <\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rstreet.org\/2014\/10\/14\/a-welcome-message-from-r-streets-governance-project\/\"><i>Governance Project<\/i><\/a><i> and a Senior Fellow at the <\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rstreet.org\/\"><i>R Street Institute<\/i><\/a><i>.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For all the talk of congressional dysfunction, there is a bit of good news: Congress has spent less of its valuable time passing &#8220;commemorative&#8221; legislation. For this development, we can thank Republicans and leaders in the U.S. House. Last week, the New York Times\u2019 Derek Willis reported that this Congress has enacted far fewer bills [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[160,163],"tags":[176],"class_list":["post-2826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress","category-congressional-research-service","tag-r-street-institute-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pBCzY-JA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2826"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2830,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826\/revisions\/2830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}