Congressional Research Service

Common card · No. 344510

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a nonpartisan public policy research institute under the Library of Congress of the United States Congress. CRS works primarily and directly for members of Congress and their committees and staff on a confidential, nonpartisan basis. CRS is sometimes known as Congress's think tank due to its broad mandate of providing research and analysis on all matters relevant to national policymaking. CRS has roughly 600 employees, who have a wide variety of expertise and disciplines, including lawyers, economists, historians, political scientists, reference librarians, and scientists. In the 2023 fiscal year, it was appropriated a budget of roughly $133.6 million by Congress. Modeled after the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, CRS was founded on July 16, 1914, during the height of the Progressive Era as part of a broader effort to professionalize the government by providing independent research and information to public officials. Its work was initially...

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