The number of House employees with top secret clearances is not publicly available, but it is likely only several hundred. By comparison, approximately 1.2 million executive branch employees and contractors hold top secret clearances. It’s likely that more than 100,000 executive branch employees and contractors hold TS/SCI clearances, not counting foreign officials who are “in access.” Similarly, the legislative branch receives approximately 0.7% of the non-defense discretionary federal budget—approximately $5 billion—to oversee the entire federal government. By contrast, this year the intelligence community requested $85 billion, or more than 16 times all the money spent on the legislative branch. This significant disparity in both resources and people with access puts Congress in an inherently weak position when it comes to effectively conducting oversight.

Critics of this proposal have argued that rather than increasing congressional access to highly sensitive information, Congress should combat over-classification. It would be a mistake to force Congress to choose one over the other. “Secrecy, while necessary, can also harm oversight,” the 9/11 Commission warned in 2004. Over-classification is a serious problem because it impedes sharing information within the federal government and with state and local governments, placing the public at risk. Over-classification also undermines the legitimacy of this designation and threatens the protection of legitimate secrets. Excessive secrecy also spawns the related problem of uncoordinated, haphazard declassification, as the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, commonly known as the Moynihan Commission, pointed out in 1997. While we support efforts to reduce the overall amount of classification, we still think that Congress must also work toward ensuring it has adequate access to controlled information. It is important for Congress to stand its ground in the face of the executive branch’s assertion that it has the sole authority to make classification decisions.

It is important to remember that providing select House staff TS/SCI clearances will not necessarily give them unfettered access to classified information. A determination must still be made that they have a need to know. This need-to-know determination, made by the entity that holds the classified information, will ensure that information is available only to those who have an actual need for it. The granting of a TS/SCI clearance addresses an administrative hurdle—the determination that a person can be entrusted with this information—but it works hand-in-glove with the demonstration of a need to know and it would not improperly infringe on the executive branch’s classification powers.