Congressional Research Service


The Congressional Research Service is a public policy research institute of the United States Congress. Operating within the Library of Congress, it works primarily and directly for members of Congress and their committees and staff on a confidential, nonpartisan basis. CRS is sometimes known as Congress's think tank due to its broad mandate of providing research and analysis on all matters relevant to national policymaking.
CRS has roughly 600 employees, who have a wide variety of expertise and disciplines, including lawyers, economists, historians, political scientists, reference librarians, and scientists. In the 2023 fiscal year, it was appropriated a budget of roughly $133.6 million by Congress.
Modeled after the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, CRS was founded during the height of the Progressive Era as part of a broader effort to professionalize the government by providing independent research and information to public officials. Its work was initially made available to the public, but between 1952 and 2018 [|was restricted] only to members of Congress and their staff; non-confidential reports have since been accessible on its website. In 2019, CRS announced it was adding "the back catalog of older CRS reports" and also introducing new publicly available reports, such as its "two-page executive level briefing documents".
CRS is one of three major legislative agencies that support Congress, along with the Congressional Budget Office and the Government Accountability Office. Collectively, the three agencies employ more than 4,000 people.

History

In 1914, Senator Robert La Follette Sr. and Representative John M. Nelson, both of Wisconsin, promoted the inclusion in the legislative, executive, and judicial appropriations act of a provision directing the establishment of a special reference unit within the Library of Congress. Building upon a concept developed by the New York State Library in 1890 and the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Library in 1901, they were motivated by Progressive Era ideas about the importance of the acquisition of knowledge for an informed and independent legislature. The move also reflected the expanding role of the librarian and the professionalization of the profession. The new department was charged with responding to congressional requests for information. The legislation authorized the librarian of Congress, Herbert Putnam, to "employ competent persons to prepare such indexes, digests, and compilations of laws as may be required for Congress and other official use..."
Renamed the Legislative Reference Service and given a permanent authorization with the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, it assisted Congress primarily by providing facts and publications and by transmitting research and analysis done largely by other government agencies, private organizations, and individual scholars. Verner W. Clapp headed the unit.
The Library of Congress, the home of CRS, had experimented during the 1940s with unrestricted publication Public Affairs Bulletins, which were produced by staff of the Legislative Reference Service, and devoted to various public policy issues. They were promoted by Archibald MacLeish, the librarian of Congress, and, among other topics, addressed timely policy issues, such as American national defense. About 100 Public Affairs Bulletins were generated before congressional appropriators ended their production in 1951.
The renaming under the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 reflected the service's changing mission: This legislation directed CRS to devote more of its efforts and increased resources to doing research and analysis that assists Congress in direct support of the legislative process.
The Congressional Research Service Review launched in 1980 and continued until the early 1990s; then congressional appropriators, once again, invoked "fiscal closure." The Review was published ten times a year and was available to the public by subscription. It offered analytical articles, summaries of CRS research products, and other assistance to the congressional community.
Inquiries increased from 400,000 questions per year in 1980 to 598,000 in 2000. CRS was reorganized in 1999 partly to handle the load, relocating staff, adopting more efficient workstations, and attempting to enable more communication across disciplinary specialists.
CRS reports were not generally available to the public until September 18, 2018, when a provision of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018, which directed that CRS reports be available to the public, was implemented.

Mission

CRS offers Congress research and analysis on all current and emerging issues of national policy.
CRS offers timely and confidential assistance to all members and committees that request it, but this is limited only by CRS's resources and the requirements for balance, nonpartisanship, and accuracy.
CRS makes no legislative or other policy recommendations to Congress; its responsibility is to ensure that Members of the House and Senate have available the best possible information and analysis on which to base the policy decisions the American people have elected them to make. In all its work, CRS analysts are governed by requirements for confidentiality, timeliness, accuracy, objectivity, balance, and nonpartisanship.
CRS services are not limited to those that relate directly to enacting new laws. For example, CRS attempts to assess emerging issues and developing problems so that it will be prepared to assist Congress if and when it becomes necessary. Although it rarely conducts field research, CRS assists committees in other aspects of their study and oversight responsibilities. In addition, it offers numerous courses, including legal research seminars and institutes on the legislative process, the budget processes, and the work of district and state staff. At the beginning of each Congress, CRS also provides an orientation seminar for new Members.
CRS does not conduct research on sitting Members or living former Members of Congress, unless granted specific permission by that Member or if the President nominates that Member for another office.

Organization

CRS is divided into six interdisciplinary research divisions, each of which is further divided into subject specialist sections. The six divisions are: American Law; Domestic Social Policy; Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade; Government and Finance; Knowledge Services; and Resources, Science and Industry.
The six research divisions are supported in their work by five "infrastructure" offices: Finance and Administration, Information Management and Technology, Counselor to the Director, Congressional Information and Publishing, and Workforce Management and Development.

Overview of services

Responses to congressional requests take the form of reports, memoranda, customized briefings, seminars, videotaped presentations, information obtained from automated databases, and consultations in person and by telephone.
CRS "supports the Members, committees, and leaders of the House and Senate at all stages of the legislative process":
  • Ideas for legislation. A 2008 CRS report details how the service can assist legislators in evaluating the need for legislation:
At the preliminary stage, members may ask CRS to provide background information and analysis on issues and events to better understand the existing situation and then assess whether a problem requires a legislative remedy. This assistance may be a summary and explanation of the scientific evidence on a technically complex matter, for example, or it may be a collection of newspaper and journal articles discussing an issue from different perspectives, or a comparative analysis of several explanations that have been offered to account for a generally recognized problem. CRS also identifies national and international experts with whom Members and staff may consult about whatever issues concern them and sponsors programs at which Members meet with experts to discuss issues of broad interest to Congress.

  • Analyzing a bill. The same 2008 report also clarifies the various ways in which the service further supports the work of legislators once a bill has been introduced:
If a Member decides to introduce a bill, CRS analysts can assist the legislator in clarifying the purposes of the bill, identifying issues it may address, defining alternative ways for dealing with them, evaluating the possible advantages and disadvantages of each alternative, developing information and arguments to support the bill, and anticipating possible criticisms of the bill and responses to them. Although CRS does not draft bills, resolutions, and amendments, its analysts may join staff consulting with the professional draftsman within each chamber's Office of the Legislative Counsel as they translate the Member's policy decisions into formal legislative language. Members and committees can also request CRS to help them assess and compare legislative proposals, including competing bills introduced by Members and proposals presented by executive branch officials, private citizens, and organizations. CRS can assess the various proposals' intent, scope, and limits.

The report goes on:
During committee and floor consideration, CRS can assist Representatives and Senators in several different ways, in addition to providing background information to assist Members in understanding the issues a bill addresses. CRS attorneys can help clarify the legal effects the bill may have. CRS policy analysts can work with members to decide whether to propose amendments and then make certain that their amendments are designed and phrased to achieve the desired results. CRS also can help Members prepare for the debate by providing data and other information that they can use to support the positions they have decided to take.

  • Hearings. When a subcommittee selects a bill for serious attention, it usually begins by conducting public hearings on one or more days at which executive branch officials, other Members of Congress, representatives of private organizations, and even individual citizens present their views on the bill's merits. CRS analysts can assist in this process by providing background information and reports, presenting a preliminary briefing to Members or staff, identifying potential witnesses, and suggesting questions that Members may consider asking the witnesses.
  • Subcommittee or committee votes. After the hearings on a bill, the subcommittee or committee meets to debate and vote on amendments to it. If requested, CRS staff may attend these meetings to serve as a nonpartisan source of expert information available to all Members. If the subcommittee and then the full committee conclude that new legislation is needed, they report a bill to the House or Senate for all its Members to consider. The committee also submits a written report explaining its decision's background, analyzing the purposes and effects of each major provision of the bill, and includes other information, such as predictions about the cost of implementing it, that helps other Members decide whether they should support the bill. CRS specialists may assist the committee's staff in preparing some sections of this report, although the Congressional Budget Office develops cost estimates.
  • Parliamentary procedure. CRS staff can clarify the legislative procedures of the House and Senate, assisting Members and staff in understanding the effects of these procedures and how Members can use the procedures to promote their own legislative goals.
  • Conference committees. CRS analysts can contribute to this last stage of the legislative process by helping identify the issues to be resolved, by clarifying and comparing the positions of the two houses on each issue, and by identifying different ways in which the legislative disagreements could be resolved.
CRS also performs several functions that support Congressional and public understanding of the legislative process and other issues.
  • Bill Summaries. Since 1935, the Legislative Analysis and Information Section of CRS has had statutory responsibility for the preparation of authoritative, objective, nonpartisan summaries of introduced public bills and resolutions and maintenance of historical legislative information. Detailed revised summaries are written to reflect changes made in the course of the legislative process. This CRS office also prepares titles, bill relationships, subject terms, and Congressional Record citations for debates, full texts of measures, and Member introductory remarks. The bill summaries were released to the public via THOMAS, the Library of Congress's online database, but are now released via Congress.gov.
  • Constitution Annotated. The American Law Division of the Congressional Research Service prepares The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation, a continually updated legal treatise that explains the U.S. Constitution as it has been interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court.