Project Overview

State of the Congress assesses Congress and provides insights into its civility, functionality, and capacity by those who know the institution best: congressional staff. Using timeless benchmarks grounded in a significant body of international research we will monitor, guide, and celebrate congressional modernization efforts over time, offering informed advice and hopeful assurances along the way that a better Congress, and a better democracy, is possible.

State of the Congress Research & Reports

• State of the Congress 2024, uses survey data collected from senior congressional staff in 2023 to determine if and where there have been improvements to the institution compared to data collected in the previous Congress.
• State of the Congress 2022, conducted with the Partnership for Public Service, expands upon the previous report on congressional capacity by exploring additional dimensions of functionality and civility.
• State of the Congress: Staff Perspectives on Institutional Capacity in the House and Senate, the 2017 report uses survey data collected from senior staffers in Senators’ and Representatives’ personal offices to coalesce disparate research and schools of thought about congressional capacity.

Resources for Benchmarking & Assessing Democratic Legislatures

• Benchmarking and Self-Assessment for Parliaments; Mitchell O’Brien, Rick Stapenhurst, and Lisa von Trapp, Editors; World Bank Group, 2016.
• "Common Ethical Principles for Members of Parliament,” Open Government Partnership’s Legislative Openness Working Group, 2015.
• “Common Principles for Support to Parliaments,” Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2014.
• “Comparative Research Paper on Parliamentary Administration,” Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2020.
• Evaluating Parliament: A Self-Assessment Toolkit for Parliaments, Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2008.
• Global Parliamentary Report 2022: Public Engagement in the Work of Parliament, Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2022.
• “Guidelines for Parliamentary Research Services,” Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2015.
• "Indicators for Democratic Parliaments" Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2023.
• “Putting Parliamentary Self-Development into Practice,” Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2019.
• World e-Parliament Report 2020, Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2021.

We also direct attention to the important work of the now-retired Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress — especially its final report — and the new Modernization Subcommittee of the Committee on House Administration.