Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I support this bill, the CASES for Constituents Act, introduced by Representatives Garret Graves and Joe Kennedy. This bill, as you heard, would modernize the way Federal agencies process Privacy Act waivers and make it easier for Members of Congress to help constituents get assistance from Federal agents. We all know what this means. It helps to speed up the process of assisting your constituents, so it is a very valuable improvement. A constituent has to provide an agency with written consent before a congressional office can obtain information from the agency on behalf of the constituent. Some agencies, as we have heard and know, have outdated policies and still require these consent forms to be mailed or faxed. Under the bill before us, the Office of Management and Budget would be required to establish standards for Federal agencies to accept electronic consent forms and for agencies to accept such forms. The bill also would require the OMB to operate a consolidated online portal that would allow individuals to submit electronic consent forms and to track the status of their form. The bill would also allow congressional offices to provide online links to the portal. I appreciate very much the bipartisan way in which this bill was developed.…”