What the 120th Congress Could Be
As one of the largest freshman classes in decades heads to the 120th Congress, AI is reshaping the landscape: frontier models are advancing in math and encryption, OpenAI shelved a model it couldn’t see inside, DHS banned DeepSeek, and House Rules proposals target Congressional modernization.
POPVOX Foundation's Sample AI Policy for Congressional Offices
POPVOX Foundation’s updated AI use policy template gives House and Senate offices a free, customizable starting point for setting internal rules on generative AI. It covers prohibited uses, best practices, and recommended use cases, with steps for adapting it to each Congressional office.
Claude is Approved for Senate Use. POPVOX is Here to Help.
POPVOX Foundation offers free, vendor-neutral AI training for Senate, House, state legislative, and parliamentary offices. Following the Senate’s approval of Claude Enterprise, one-hour, off-the-record sessions cover prompting, security, hallucination risks, and Congressional use cases, helping legislative staff adopt AI responsibly and confidently.
Updated: Where the House and Senate Are on Internal Use of AI
A detailed overview of how the US House of Representatives and Senate are governing internal use of artificial intelligence, including a summary of current AI policies, approved tools, and key limitations on staff use.
The POPVOX Foundation Model
POPVOX Foundation’s nonpartisan model helps legislatures modernize from the inside out by recognizing problems, mapping pain points, proposing solutions, piloting them, and sharing lessons. Case studies include remote Congressional proceedings, Internapalooza, casework data systems, AI training for staff, and Congressional modernization efforts.
Reclaiming the First Branch: Eight House Rules Changes for the 120th Congress
Eight practical House Rules updates for the 120th Congress would modernize how the first branch works, strengthening Congressional capacity, evidence-based lawmaking, and oversight. By replacing language from the era of paper and stenography, the House can keep pace with fast-changing technology and serve constituents better.
Model Legislative Text: Giving Congress Standing Access to Program Data
POPVOX Foundation's draft legislative text gives Congressional committees, GAO, CBO, and CRS standing, automated access to federal program data. Drafters can add the modular provision to authorization or appropriations bills, requiring machine-readable data, unthrottled access, and annual agency compliance certifications to strengthen Congressional oversight.
AI’s Exponential Change and Riding the Wave
AI models are accelerating faster than staff can track, with AGI claims, agent swarms breaking sandbox limits, and new watermarking and data-retention rules reshaping the landscape. Congressional staff get practical context on these developments, plus guidance on vibe coding and POPVOX Foundation's upcoming Three Horizons vision for Congress.
Casework Navigator: New Report on the State of Casework
Congressional casework demand is rising as federal agencies decay and constituents turn to legislative offices for help. A new report, The State of Congressional Casework, examines this trend and introduces the Constituent Service Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit continuing casework research, advocacy, and support for caseworkers nationwide.
Announcing the Casework Navigator Program’s Next Chapter: The Constituent Service Institute
POPVOX Foundation's Casework Navigator Program is spinning off into a standalone organization, the Constituent Service Institute, led by Anne Meeker. Built on years of webinars, training manuals, newsletters, and research supporting congressional caseworkers, the new institute continues advancing dedicated resources and education on constituent service.
New Report: Congressional Casework, the Last Safety Net for Americans Caught in Federal Bureaucracy, Approaches a Breaking Point
Congressional casework is straining under mounting demand, as constituents increasingly turn to their representatives to resolve problems with federal agencies. A new landscape analysis traces this rise to policy decay and implementation debt, and outlines five recommendations to modernize constituent services.
Congress is Investing in Custom AI. Here are the Questions that Need to be Asked.
The House of Representatives and Library of Congress are pursuing custom AI initiatives like Mia and PRISM, raising key questions about model selection, security, and vendor lock-in. Weighing closed versus open-weight models, retrieval-augmented generation, and fine-tuning, durable success depends on investing in institutional data infrastructure rather than any single AI model.
AI Model Customization: Why it Matters for Policy Makers
Meta's Muse Glimmer, Moonshot AI's Kimi K3, and Thinking Machines Lab's Inkling mark major open-weight AI releases, reshaping competition with closed providers and raising policy questions around foreign models, security, and accountability.
The AI Industry Changed, Again.
Open-weight AI models from China and the US are closing the gap with frontier systems, autonomous AI cyberattacks are raising new security concerns, and the House launches an Innovators Pipeline for staff-built tools. State legislatures also confront capacity gaps in adopting AI responsibly.
POPVOX Foundation Launches H3: A Three Horizons Vision for Congress
POPVOX Foundation's Three Horizons Vision (H3) Project maps the gap between Congress' governing demands and its institutional capacity. An interactive microsite invites Members, staff, and civil society to classify reforms across three horizons and five domains, shaping a capable Legislative branch.
AI Is a New Input in Young People’s Career Calculus
AI is reshaping how young people weigh career decisions, but San Francisco and Washington calculate the risk differently. San Francisco channels AI anxiety into startup bets and Big Tech tradeoffs, while Washington treats it as another policy input shaping mission-driven work, prestige, and personal brand.
250 Years of Legislative Legacy
Legislative data modernization takes center stage alongside frontier AI model export controls, tips for avoiding LLM lock-in, using AI as a Congressional rules tutor, and roundups of tools, events, and research shaping technology adoption across Congress and legislatures worldwide today.
Lessons Being Learned with Fable
Anthropic's Fable 5 model was pulled from public access days after release when researchers found ways to bypass its safety guardrails, prompting Commerce Department export controls on Fable and Mythos. The episode highlights gaps in Congressional oversight of rapid AI policy decisions affecting national security.
Why We Brought an AI Sandbox to Capitol Hill
POPVOX Foundation brought a hands-on AI sandbox to Capitol Hill, giving Congressional staff direct access to coding agents, file-aware assistants, and agentic workflows blocked on official devices. Participants built hearing-prep dashboards, bill trackers, and Federal Register monitors — gaining firsthand intuition about how fast AI is advancing.
AI Base Camp: Congressional Staff Exploring AI Adoption Hands-On
POPVOX Foundation and Meridian International Center brought AI Base Camp to Capitol Hill, offering Congressional staff hands-on exploration of AI tools across six skills-based stations — from prompt basics and workflow integration to agentic AI and deepfake detection — in an open-house format welcoming all experience levels.