Once Again Congress Votes Proactively To Keep Itself Ignorant On Technology

Four years ago, we wrote about the House voting to keep itself ignorant on technology, and unfortunately, I can now basically just rerun that post again, with a few small tweaks, so here we go:

The Office of Technology Assessment existed in Congress from 1972 until 1995, when it was defunded by the Newt Gingrich-led "Contract with America" team. The purpose was to actually spend time to analyze technology issues and to provide Congress with objective analysis of the impact of technology and the policies that Congress was proposing. Remember how back when there was the big SOPA debate and folks in Congress kept talking about how they weren't nerds and needed to hear from the nerds? Right: the OTA was supposed to be those nerds, but it hasn't existed in nearly two decades -- even though it still exists in law. It just isn't funded.

Rep. Mark Takano (in 2014 it was Rush Holt) thought that maybe we should finally give at least a little bit of money to test bringing back OTA and to help better advise Congress. While some would complain about Congress spending any money, this money was to better inform Congress so it stopped making bad regulations related to technology, which costs a hell of a lot more than the $2.5 million Takano's amendment proposed. Also, without OTA, Congress is much more reliant on very biased lobbyists, rather than a truly independent government organization.

The fact that we're seeing this kind of nonsense in Congress should show why we need it:

A quartet of tech experts arrived at a little-noticed hearing at the U.S. Capitol in May with a message: Quantum computing is a bleeding-edge technology with the potential to speed up drug research, financial transactions and more.

To Rep. Adam Kinzinger, though, their highly technical testimony might as well have been delivered in a foreign language. "I can understand about 50 percent of the things you say," the Illinois Republican confessed.

But, alas, like so many things in Congress these days, the issue of merely informing themselves has become -- you guessed it --partisan. The amendment failed 195 to 217 on mostly partisan lines (15 Republicans voted for it vs. 211 against, and only 6 Democrats voted against it, while 180 voted for it). If there's any silver lining, that's slightly better than in 2014 when a similar vote failed 164 to 248. So... progress?

Either way, when Congress is ignorant, we all suffer. That so many in Congress are voting to keep themselves and their colleagues ignorant should be seen as a problem.