Similar to efforts currently underway, the Committee on House Administration and the Government Services Administration (GSA) should develop a practice of negotiating an MOU covering leases for House district offices with the goal of lowering costs, improving consistency of rental rates, and guaranteeing House offices are offered the lowest available rates in GSA buildings and receive tenant protections and benefits in line with the Senate.

This recommendation, raised by Committee Member Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, encourages the Committee on House Administration and the GSA to negotiate leases on behalf of congressional offices in local districts. Currently, each member of Congress manages their own lease process and payments for district offices, and the funding is pulled from the Member’s MRA. This is a time-consuming and costly endeavor.

However, unlike individual Members of Congress, GSA has a great deal of expertise in this area. Today, the GSA owns and leases nearly 400 million square feet of space throughout the country, from ports of entry, post offices, laboratories, and more.[134]  Allowing the GSA to handle the responsibility of negotiating the lease for individual Member’s district offices would save time and money. This change would result also in more time for Members and staff to work on constituent services and could create additional funding within the MRA that could be used to compensate staff.