United States House Committee on House Administration

Committee information

• Date created: January 2, 1947
• Members: Nine members in the 115th Congress (2017–2019)
• Subcommittees: Joint Committee on Printing; Joint Committee on the Library

Role

The United States House Committee on House Administration is a standing legislative committee tasked with supervising the operations of the House of Representatives and overseeing federal elections. The committee also helps makes decisions about memorials, artwork, the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, and other institutions.

One of the committee’s most important roles is to oversee federal elections. One of the first actions the committee undertook when it was formed was to introduce legislation to end poll taxes. The committee continues to review federal election law and suggest legislation meant to improve voting. The committee also monitors federal elections throughout the country to determine what types of legislation need to be introduced. The committee has played a role in making voting more accessible to American citizens living or working outside the country. It has also helped draft laws to improve the voting infrastructure to ensure Americans’ votes are safe and counted properly.

Another important role the committee has is to oversee most of the personnel and administrative tasks of the House of the Representatives. That means that the committee is responsible for designating parking and assigning offices to House members. It also distributes appropriations for committee staff. The committee deals with the use of the House office buildings and some of the services inside the Capitol. Since the 1970s, the committee has also been in charge of much of the technology updates for the House and its members.

Some of the committee’s responsibilities deal with issues outside the legislative branch. For example, the committee helps oversee the Smithsonian Institute, which is one of the most famous institutions in Washington because it is a place for learning that is free and open to the American people. When the committee was created, it gained power over the institution, and it oversees the Smithsonian’s management, occasionally holding hearings and taking legislative action to improve the institution. The committee has similar oversight of the US Botanic Gardens, which is a public garden on the Capitol grounds. The committee has had oversight over the gardens since the committee was created, but members of the committee have discussed numerous times whether the Botanic Garden should be under the power of the legislature. The committee also helps oversee the Library of Congress and the House Library, which is the official storage facility for the House’s congressional documents.

The committee also oversees the US Capitol Police, the chief administrative officer, the clerk of the house, and the sergeant at arms. The Capitol Police were traditionally paid from House of Representatives funds, so members of the House help oversee the force. Soon after the Committee on House Administration was created, it helped pass legislation that updated and professionalized the Capitol Police force so that members of Congress and the general public were safer when inside the Capitol.

Congress created the position of the chief administrative officer (CAO) of the House in the 1990s. The officer is nominated by the Speaker of the House and elected by House members at the beginning of each Congress. The CAO and his or her staff help with administrative responsibilities and other duties to assist House members. The Committee on House Administration oversees the CAO and his or her staff. The committee also oversees the clerk of the House and the sergeant at arms. The clerk of the House has clerical duties and other responsibilities to help run the House and document its members’ actions. The sergeant at arms is the House’s principal law enforcement official.

Two joint committees—the Joint Committee on the Library and the Joint Committee on Printing—oversee some of the duties the Committee on House Administration undertakes. These two joint committees bring together legislators from the House of Representatives and the Senate. Half the members on the joint committees come from the Committee on House Administration and half come from the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. The legislators from the different parts of Congress work together on the joint committees to manage different aspects of the government. Because of these committees and because of similar goals, the House Committee on House Administration has a relationship with its counterpart in the Senate, the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration.

History

The Committee on House Administration was created in 1947. The committee started in part because of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, which actually reduced the number of House committees from forty-eight to nineteen. The point of the act was to reorganize the House system because of changes that had occurred between the writing of the Constitution and the end of the World War II (1939–1941). One change was that the House of Representatives had more legislative work to conduct, and another change was that the president had gained more power in the government. The increased workload in the House and Senate had not been matched with a plan to better organize the houses. Instead, committees and groups were added when particular Congresses felt they were necessary. After World War II, many legislators believed the House of Representatives would benefit from a reorganization that gave it a more business-like structure. The Committee on House Administration was added, and it took on the responsibilities of ten other committees that were disbanded. The committees that the Committee on House Administration replaced were the Committee on Accounts; the Committee on Disposition of Executive Papers; the Committee on the Election of the President, Vice President, and Representatives in Congress; the Committee on Elections No. 1; the Committee on Elections No. 2; the Committee on Elections No. 3; the Committee on Enrolled Bills; the Committee on the Library; the Committee on Memorials; and the Committee on Printing. Many of these committees themselves had long histories in the House.

Many other committees were combined or removed so that each committee had specified roles and each performed important, necessary work. Although the Committee on House Administration was created to help deal with an increase in legislative activity, an increase in the demand for government intervention and oversight of the executive branch has continued to keep the House of Representatives and the committee busy.

The committee was officially started on January 2, 1947, at the beginning of the 80th Congress. One of the committee’s first tasks was to end the poll tax paid in federal elections. After Reconstruction, white Southerners passed racist Jim Crow laws to continue to subjugate black Americans. Many Southern states required voters to pay a so-called poll tax before they voted. Many formerly enslaved Americans had no money, so they could not pay these taxes. The federal poll tax continued as part of the mass disenfranchisement of black Americans. The committee introduced legislation to end the poll tax, but the tax did not end throughout the country until the Twenty-Fourth Amendment was ratified in the 1960s.

The committee has also played an important role in helping people vote in elections even when they could not vote in their normal polling places. During the 1940s, thousands of Americans were overseas serving in World War II and were unable to vote because they were not near their homes. The federal government passed a law after the war to help soldiers serving overseas to vote, but the law was not very effective. Over the years, the committee suggested changes to that law and proposed other laws to make voting easier for members of the military and their families. By the 1970s, the committee made suggestions to make overseas voting possible for all Americans living outside the United States who were eligible to vote.

In the 1970s, the Congress gave the House Administration jurisdiction over campaign contributions to candidates for the House. In the early 1990s, the committee made a number of changes meant to combat alleged abuses of power. The position of inspector general was created to help investigate allegations of misconduct, and a Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight was established under the committee, with equal majority and minority membership, to receive audits from the inspector general and to provide oversight of the clerk of the House, sergeant at arms, director of non-legislative and financial services, and inspector general. The committee’s title changed for a brief time during the late 1990s to the Committee on House Oversight, though it was changed back in 1999 to the Committee on House Administration.

Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the 2001 anthrax attack on the Capitol, the Committee on House Administration has focused a great deal on safety for House members and safety for all people inside the Capitol. Members of the committee have introduced laws and regulations to keep representatives and the public safe. In the early 2000s, the committee also worked to pass legislation that improved the American election system. In 2002, the committee helped pass the Help America Vote Act, which upgraded voting equipment to help ensure accessibility for more people and to help prevent voter fraud or tampering. The act was passed in part because of problems that arose during the 2000 presidential election.

Subcommittees

The House Committee on House Administration has had numerous subcommittees throughout its existence. When the committee was first created, it had the Subcommittee on Accounts; the Subcommittee on Elections; the Subcommittee on Printing; the Subcommittee on Enrolled Bills, Library, Disposition of Executive Papers, and Memorials; the Joint Committee on Printing; and the Joint Committee on the Library. Since that time, the number and types of subcommittees has changed with the committee’s needs and roles. However, the two joint committees remained the same. During the 115th Congress, the committee had only the joint committees and had no subcommittees, though the body can choose to add subcommittees at any time.

United States House Committee on House Administration Joint Committee on Printing

This joint committee, which predates the House Committee on House Administration, was created in 1846, and it is one of the oldest committees in Congress. The statute that created the committee indicated that it would deal with congressional printing matters. The committee eventually oversaw the Government Printing Office (GPO), and it grants the GPO funding for machinery, paper, and more. The joint committee is also tasked with overseeing various federal agencies to ensure they follow regulations meant to minimize printing costs for the federal government.

United States House Committee on House Administration Joint Committee on the Library

The Joint Committee on the Library is the oldest continuing joint committee in Congress. Established in 1802, the committee oversees the Library of Congress, the Botanic Garden, and the fine art of the US Capitol. The committee is made up of the chair and three other members of the Committee on House Administration, the chair of the House Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee, and the chair and four other members of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. The chair of the joint committee alternates between House and Senate members with each Congress.

Bibliography

“About.” Committee on House Administration, cha.house.gov/about. Accessed 23 Jan. 2019.

“Committee History and Jurisdiction.” Committee on House Administration, cha.house.gov/about/history-jurisdiction. Accessed 23 Jan. 2019.

“A History of the Committee on House Administration (1947–2011).” United States House of Representatives, 2011, www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CPRT-112HPRT72170/pdf/CPRT-112HPRT72170.pdf. Accessed 23 Jan. 2019.

“History of the Office.” Office of the Clerk, clerk.house.gov/about/history.aspx. Accessed 23 Jan. 2019.

“House Committees.” United States House of Representatives, history.house.gov/Education/Fact-Sheets/Committees-Fact-Sheet2/. Accessed 23 Jan. 2019.

“Joint Committees.” Committee on House Administration, cha.house.gov/jointcommittees. Accessed 23 Jan. 2019.

“Office of the Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper.” United States Senate, www.senate.gov/reference/office/sergeant‗at‗arms.htm. Accessed 23 Jan. 2019.

Spieler, Matthew. The U.S. House of Representatives: Fundamentals of American Government. Thomas Dunne Books, 2015.