Dear Chairman Harper and Ranking Member Brady:

We, the 30 undersigned organizations, write to thank the Committee on House Administration for its April 12th vote to unanimously report the bipartisan Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act (“ACMRA”),1 to reiterate our strong support for ACMRA, and to respectfully urge the Committee to communicate to the House that the Committee has in fact ordered the legislation to be reported and supports its prompt consideration. Once that occurs,2 ACMRA will be eligible for floor consideration.

This upcoming week marks the last time the House of Representatives will be in session until September. Only a short window remains for consideration of ACMRA by this chamber and the Senate before the 115th Congress ends.

We described the virtues of ACMRA in our April 4, 2018 letter endorsed by 45 organizations.3 In summary, ACMRA will strengthen Congressional oversight and improve government transparency. It establishes a central repository for agency reports submitted to Congress and tracks whether agencies have submitted the reports. This will improve all Members of Congress’s access to the reports and ensure Congress knows when they become available. ACMRA was first introduced in 2010 and after a long 8 years we are hopeful it will become part of this Congress’s transparency legacy.

We look forward to your prompt action and thank you again for your support for this important transparency bill.

Sincerely yours,

American Association of Law Libraries

American Civil Liberties Union

American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee

Association of Research Libraries

Campaign for Accountability

Campaign for Liberty

Center for Data Innovation

Center for Media and Democracy

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)

Common Cause

Data Coalition

Defending Rights & Dissent

Defense Priorities Initiative

Demand Progress Action

Free Government Information (FGI)

Freedomworks

Government Information Watch

In the Public Interest

Issue One

National Security Archive

National Taxpayers Union

New America’s Open Technology Institute

Open the Government

Project On Government Oversight

Quorum

R Street Institute

Senior Executives Association

Society of Professional Journalists

Sunlight Foundation

Union of Concerned Scientists

cc: Committee on House Administration

1.  https://cha.house.gov/markup/committee-business-meeting-1. See the 9:22 mark on the video.

2.  https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/4631/all-actions

3.  https://s3.amazonaws.com/demandprogress/letters/2018-04-05_Letter_in_support_of_CHA_Markup_of_ACMRA.pdf

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