CLOSING OF MEMBERS OFFICES

Mr. GUTHRIE. The Clerk's immediate office had activities as an old Congress ended (the 97th) and a new one began (98th) that were different from other years. We devoted considerable staff time to advising retiring and defeated Members on the procedures for closing their offices and shipping their official papers to their districts. We mailed information to, and met with, the new Members on the procedures for establishing an office and "getting started" as a Representative. One of our duties was to obtain the Certificate of Elections from the 50 states and prepare the Official Roll of the House. As incumbent Members moved (156 relocated) our property and equipment offices were heavily involved in establishing both relocated and new congressional offices.

SUMMARY OF DEPARTMENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN CLERKS

ORGANIZATION

Mr. Chairman, I mentioned the annual reports from the various offices that operate under the Clerk. I would like to insert into the hearing record a brief digest of some activities reported upon for 1982.

[The information follows:]

SPECIAL DEPUTY AT FEC

Although the fact is sometimes overlooked by the general public, the Clerk is an ex officio Commissioner of the Federal Election Commission (FEC). This requires the presence of a full-time special deputy at the Commission to represent the Clerk and the House in FEC operations. This special deputy advises Members and candidates, and their staffs, as to their obligations under the FECA and other Federal regulations. This requires attending all FEC meetings and being thoroughly familiar with rules and regulations, advisory opinions, litigation and special FEC activities and projects. Since last year was an election year, the Clerk's special deputy is unusually busy.

CLERK'S GENERAL COUNSEL

The Clerk's General Counsel continues to have a heavy caseload that involves Members, the Leadership, House Officers and some employees. A major portion of his time and resources in recent weeks has gone to the contempt of Congress citation of Anne M. Gorsuch and the suit that was subsequently filed against the House by the Department of Justice. The General Counsel is presently involved in three Supreme Court cases, two in an "of counsel" capacity and one as counsel of record. Also, the Counsel briefed and argued the suit challenging the House Chaplain last October before the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. At the same time our legal staff is involved in these major cases, the day-to-day work of the Clerk's Office must be handled-such as contract review, claims, interpretations of rules and laws, and many other items.

VARIOUS LEGISLATIVE OFFICES

The Clerk's various legislative offices had another busy year in the Second Session of the 97th Congress. These include the Bill Clerk, Journal Clerk, Reading Clerk, Tally Clerk and Enrolling-Digest Office. Some changes and mergers of personnel activities occurred and considerable progress was made in the computerization of legislative operations.

OFFICE OF PUBLICATIONS

The Clerk's Office of Publications, using the ATEX system, processes committees' hearings and other House publications for printing at the Government Printing Office. Most of these publications that were previously done using the hot metal process are now being produced by electronic photocomposition using the ATEX

system. This is a much more economical process and the full conversion to this method should be completed in 1983.

OFFICIAL REPORTERS

The Clerk reported in your last hearings, Mr. Chairman, on the merger and operations of the House Floor and committee reporters. This action of establishing an efficient and more economical reporting activity has continued in the last year. Some of the highlights in the yearly report on the reporters include: in 1982, committee transcript production increased by 9,204 pages over 1981; Official Reporters covered 63% of all hearings in 1982 compared with 51% in 1981; expenditures to commercial reporting firms in fiscal year 1982 were $525,838 compared to $719,997 in fiscal year 1981; net savings of $49,585 by covering field hearings with Official Reporters when feasible; $115,459 was saved by making extra copies of transcripts from magnetic tape rather than purchasing copies; from commercial firms; transcript sales proceeds were $87,500; Office of Official Reporters began accepting competitive bids for page rates from commercial reporting companies rather than pay maximum rates; and we anticipate lower personnel costs and expanded hearing coverage potential through the use of electronic recording.

HOUSE LIBRARY

The House Library is an excellent research facility whose staff is readily available to assist its users in gaining access to and properly utilizing its unique reference materials. The House Library served 5,463 persons in its Cannon facility during 1982 and with the acquisition and occupancy of new space in the Madison Building was able to embark on a project of reviewing the entire House Library's collection and disposing of surplus holdings for the first time in ten years.

HOUSE PLACEMENT OFFICE

The House Placement Office, a vital service to the House, grows in expertise and efficiency each year by being responsive to the Members' needs. This office has assisted forty new Members of the House in filling job vacancies. Over 12,200 persons contacted the House Placement Office either in person or through the mails seeking employment information. The Office conducted 5,700 interviews; received and processed over 6,000 applications for employment; and administered over 17,000 typing tests.

RECORDS AND REGISTRATION

The Office of Records and Registration which is responsible for receiving, reviewing and making various reports and statements filed with the Clerk of the House available for public inspection, received 5,100 requests to review documents located in that office. Through the sale of microfilmed copies of reports, taped Floor proceedings of the House and transcripts of committee hearings, the office received income of approximately $126,551 during 1982. Through ever-improving electronic data assistance, the office anticipates that the 50,050 reports and statements received by the office during 1982 will be more expeditiously and accurately indexed, reviewed, microfilmed and made available to the public and the House.

TELEPHONE EXCHANGE

The Clerk of the House has the joint management responsibility along with the Senate Sergeant at Arms for the Capitol Telephone Exchange. Our Assistant Chief Operator reports that the Telephone Exchange handled over an average of 19,000 telephone calls daily; helped compile, edit and proofread the House Telephone Directory, the Capitol Directory and various other government agency directories; kept track of over 13,000 telephone lines in the House Centrex System and on a monthly basis verified the entire House telephone bill. The Telephone Exchange is an integral part of the operation of the Congress with a tradition of service that should not go unacknowledged.

HOUSE RECORDING STUDIO

The House Recording Studio and the Floor Television Coverage operations were also very busy last year. A total of 407 Members were served in the Studio with total sales of $222,522, the second highest in Studio history. A second video tape studio was opened and considerable equipment was replaced. The Floor television

coverage amounted to 767 hours covering 141 calendar days. The primary audience for the House coverage was 1,100 cable TV systems in 50 states. It is estimated that 11 million homes now receive the coverage with 33 million viewers.

OFFICE OF LEGISLATIVE INFORMATION

Our LEGIS Office joined the other Clerk's Offices in a year that might be termed one of "heavy utilization". LEGIS personnel answered 235,658 calls in 1982 with 69% coming from House offices. There was an increase in non-congressional callers to 28% of the total. LEGIS was relocated to more adequate quarters in HOB Annex 2 and new terminals were provided. Coordination of data exchange was improved between LEGIS, the Senate and the Library of Congress.

OFFICE SUPPLY SERVICE

Office Supply Service, our familiar "stationery store", had total sales in 1982 of $5,449,804. This was not higher than the previous year, but close to it. Cash and checks totaled almost $2.3 million with the remainder of the total being vouchered sales to House offices. Direct billing for committees, officers and other non-Member accounts, and "price averaging" were instituted. Inventory was increased to insure against items being out of stock, and new delivery vehicles were acquired to improve service. The 10% service charge added to all non-official sales produced more that $100 thousand in income in 1982.

Mr. Chairman, these are only brief comments on various of the Clerk's offices, and the annual reports prepared in great detail may be reviewed by your Subcommittee, if desired. I want to conclude this summary with special comments on three offices-Property Supply Service, Office Equipment Service, and the Finance Office. All three are usually very busy; all have been "hectic" during the conclusion of the old and the beginning of this new Congress.

PROPERTY SUPPLY SERVICE

Property Supply Service provides the furniture and furnishings for all House offices, and was involved in each of the 156 relocations of incumbent Members' offices. We had the installation of 80 new Members into their offices, so each of you can get an idea of the workload involved. Property's personnel worked many long hours of overtime and continued to provide same day service to varied requests. We have received letters of commendation for the performance that was accomplished in the past several weeks. Midst all need for responding to requests for service, Property's main office was relocated from HOB Annex 1 to HOB Annex 2. Thousands of calls and work orders involving construction, finishing, carpet, and drapery projects have been handled by Property Supply Service.

OFFICE EQUIPMENT SERVICE

All of the things that I have said about Property Supply can be repeated about the Office Equipment Service. In the relocation of Members or the installation of new Members, it was sometimes necessary to move a "package" of equipment more than once-from an office to storage and then to a new office. OES estimates 231 "moves" that involved 5,500 items of equipment. The total equipment inventory of the House is now almost $18.2 million. We estimate that Members saved more than $200 thousand last year by converting from vendor leasing plans to a 5-year House plan. OES estimates that in-house repair service provided savings of $283,226 under commercial costs, and that Members saved $158,220 by using in-house stencil cutting services when compared to outside costs.

HOUSE FINANCE OFFICE

The House Finance Office is a major activity concerned with budgeting, disbursing House funds, payroll, audit, vouchering, personnel benefits, and other duties. The budget section of this office prides itself on the accuracy of our yearly estimates. In Fiscal Year 1982, 97.78% of the total budget has been expended and, when the "books are finally closed", the estimate will prove to be more than 99% accurate. The General Accounting Office has given a "clean bill" in their Fiscal Year 1981 audit of the Finance Office, and we expect the same for Fiscal year 1982. In 1982, the Finance Office disbursed and accounted for $457 million in salaries and expenses, which averaged nearly $1.8 million per business day. The number of vouchers paid by Finance was up 10% from 1981, but only in the busiest months of January and February did "turnaround time" reach the average high of 6 days.

Most months the time varied between 1 to 4 days, which is excellent for voucher payments in the government. The payroll department produced 104,772 checks last year. This recitation of workload efficiency and production could continue, Mr. Chairman. However, I will simply commend the Finance Office staff and move on to budget matters.

STATEMENT BY CLERK'S GENERAL COUNSEL

Mr. GUTHRIE. I have with me Stan Brand, the General Counsel to the Clerk. I would like to introduce him at this point. The Clerk's General Counsel continues to have a heavy caseload that involves Members, the Leadership, House officers, and some employees. A major portion of his time in recent weeks has gone to the contempt of Congress citation on Anne Gorsuch. As of Tuesday, we went into court and the court had some disclosures yesterday which I would like Stan to report to the committee if you don't mind.

Mr. FAZIO. Fine, please proceed.

Mr. BRAND. Yesterday the District Court dismissed the Department of Justice's action against the House and its officers; and so for the time being, that part of the Gorsuch case is complete. There is a question about whether they will appeal; but I think that temporarily puts us in a hold on that one case until we hear back from the Department of Justice about

Mr. FAZIO. What will be the Department's reaction to the contempt of Congress situation? What do you think will be the response now that their approach has failed?

Mr. BRAND. They stated this morning they want to approach the House in a spirit of cooperation and comity that they also had in their hearts, they say.

I would point out while we were negotiating with the Department, on the floor of the House with Representatives, they were busy writing their complaint and one minute after ten they had filed it. So I don't know how serious they were about it then. They appear to be serious about it now. That is only one of our cases, but that has been the most important one.

DUTIES OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL

Mr. FAZIO. Would you briefly indicate where the office spends its time and the kinds of cases it handles, without getting into too great a detail?

Mr. GUTHRIE. That would be fine.

Mr. BRAND. Quickly, there is the garden center variety libel, defamation cases that Members and employees get involved in. Some more serious matters involve committee investigations, constitutional tort actions filed against the committees and Members based on their investigative activity, and representation in cases involving the constitutional powers of the House, the one house veto case, three of which are now pending over in the Supreme Court. That is the basic-and subpoenas to Members, officers and employees in their official capacities.

Mr. FAZIO. Just for the record, It would be important to the public, so they don't have any misunderstanding, that this office is not involved in any defense of a Member in any activity that would not really constitute the exercise of their responsibilities and duties as a Member of Congress. Is that correct?