What's Happened
- During the 110th Congress, in September 2008, the House passed a bipartisan bill by voice vote to create a pilot program with six law clerk positions in each chamber.
- In the 111th Congress, the bill (H.R. 151) won overwhelming support in the House 381-42, with bipartisan sponsorship by Representatives Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Dan Lungren (R-CA). A companion bill in the Senate (S.27), sponsored by Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and cosponsored by then-Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Byron Dorgan (D-ND), and Kent Conrad (D-ND) did not reach a floor vote before the end of session.
- In the 112th Congress, Reps. Lungren, and Lofgren re-introduced the bill in the House as H.R. 1374 on April 5, 2011. The bill nearly passed the House by unanimous consent but did not reach a floor vote before the end of the session. To read the text of H.R. 1374 (which is substantively identical to S.27 and H.R. 151 from the 111th Congress), go to: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr1374/text
What's Next
- We are in the process of locating primary sponsors and co-sponsors in the House and Senate for the 113th Congress. Our team is writing advocacy letters, reaching out to the legal community, and meeting with members of Congress to move the initiative forward.
- The primary committees of jurisdiction are the House Administration Committee, chaired by Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI), and the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, chaired by Sen. Schumer (D-NY).
- Support from Members in the caucus leadership in both chambers would be very helpful, as would support from the Ranking Members and others on the House Rules, Senate Rules and Administration, Senate and House Judiciary, and Senate and House Appropriations Committees.
- Please write to your Representatives and Senators to encourage them to support the creation of a congressional clerkship program. You can find contact information for your members of Congress at:
Example Letter to Congress
Dear <Senator or Representative>,
As a <constituent / supporter / friend>, I write to urge
you to support the Daniel Webster Congressional Clerkship Act. The Act would create in Congress a law clerk
program analogous to the law clerk program of the Supreme Court and lower
courts. Congress and the legal community would both benefit from a law
clerk program that brings energetic, dedicated recent law school graduates to
Capitol Hill to work for a year as legislative lawyers. We expect
the Congressional Clerkship Act to be introduced in the House/Senate in the
very near future. I hope that you will
vote in favor of the bill when the time comes.
Unlike the other two branches of the federal government,
Congress does not have a standardized, unified program created with new lawyers
in mind. This lack of a legal apprenticeship program is a key part of why
Congress, among the three branches, is the least influential on the
constitutional perspective of the legal profession.
Legislation is central to legal practice, providing the
statutory substance and foundation for most federal law today. Statutory
interpretation and the legislative process are complex, and yet in law school
they receive nowhere near the emphasis placed on court process and interpretation
of judicial decisions. A Congressional Clerkship Program would help
Congress gain access to young legal minds while helping the legal profession
gain a better understanding of both Congress and the statutes it produces.
The Daniel Webster Congressional Clerkship Act would create a
pilot program of 12 year-long law clerk positions, equally divided between the
chambers and between Democratic and Republican offices. The program would
pay Congress’s clerks the same as U.S. district court clerks, and hire them on
the same fall schedule. The annual cost of the program is estimated by
CBO at one million dollars per year – less than the cost of the larger Supreme
Court clerk program, and easily justified by the potential benefit to Congress
and legal interpretation of the law it writes.
It is time for the 113th Congress to pass the Daniel Webster
Congressional Clerkship Act. I urge you to cosponsor and work to pass
this legislation creating a Congressional Clerkship Program to train a new
generation of lawyers who will more fully understand Congress's constitutional
role, the legislative process, and the U.S. Code it produces.
Sincerely,
<Your
Name>
