Toward a Unifying Tagging System for Casework in the U.S. House of Representatives

Note from Author: Figures reflect CAO data as of September 16, 2025 and are subject to change with future updates.

Starting Point; Why We Need to Stop Limiting the Benefits of Casework to the Individual 

Casework refers to the assistance congressional offices provide to constituents as they navigate federal agencies and programs. When a veteran struggles to access benefits, a senior needs clarity on Social Security, or a family faces a delay in immigration paperwork, they turn to their representative’s office for help. It is one of the most tangible forms of representation, translating the promises of federal policy into real outcomes for individuals and communities.

When we consider the ‘benefits’ of casework, we often solely focus on the immediate-direct benefit to both the constituent and the member. That individual constituent gets help solving their individual problem with some government service or program, and the member gets a single, albeit, intimately personal opportunity to earn name recognition and approval from that individual who presumably lives, and votes, within their district. A relatively simple equation, with a relatively simple payoff. 

But what if instead of bureaucratic backlog, each of those individual interactions could be imagined as vitally important indicators? Small, intimate points of data that have the power to come together to tell a bigger story about how the policies passed to serve the people are actually living up to their intent. In short, Aggregation is Everything. 

When leveraged through this new light, each case becomes a canary in a coal mine. A signal that allows your office to investigate and intervene before small issues snowball into broader inefficiencies and program failure. Casework can then be seen, as perhaps your most ‘district-driven’ source of policy outcomes bringing the work of congressional oversight out of the slogging bureaucracy and back into the hands of those you came to represent.  

They trusted you to pass legislation in the best interest of the district, trust them enough to listen when they tell you how legislation is actually working.

Towards the Future: A Unified Tagging System for Federal Casework Services 

A unified tagging system is necessary because casework is inherently fragmented across issue areas, agencies, and programs, which often leads to inconsistencies in how constituent needs are classified and tracked. Without a standardized taxonomy, two staffers might tag the same type of problem in completely different ways such as “Social Security,” “SSA,” or “retirement benefits.” This makes it nearly impossible to aggregate or compare data across offices or over time. The result is that patterns are obscured and the scope of constituent needs remains unclear. A shared tagging framework ensures that cases are categorized consistently, creating the foundation for accurate data collection and comparability.

A unified tagging system for casework gives agencies, academics, and caseworkers a common language for describing and tracking issues. This shared framework ensures that data from different offices and studies can be combined and compared without losing accuracy or context. It makes it easier to see patterns, coordinate responses, and measure what works, whether the goal is resolving individual cases more efficiently or informing policy reform. Without a shared system, valuable insights remain siloed, limiting both day-to-day problem solving and big-picture change.

Beyond consistency, a unified tagging system allows casework to serve not just individual constituents but also democratic accountability. When cases are tagged with a standardized set of categories, legislators can see where bottlenecks occur across agencies, where certain populations are disproportionately struggling, and where gaps in service delivery are systemic rather than isolated. This shifts casework from a purely reactive, individualized practice into a proactive tool for oversight, advocacy, and policymaking. 

In this way, the tags become the connective tissue that links everyday constituent interactions to larger questions of governance.

Finally, a unified tagging system is vital for taking steps toward a more equitable democracy. Traditional casework disproportionately benefits constituents with higher civic resources who know how to initiate and frame their requests. A standardized tagging structure allows offices to detect who is missing from the casework stream, which issues are underserved, and where proactive outreach could reduce barriers. By classifying issues along consistent lines, staff can systematically identify gaps in access and ensure that marginalized groups are not overlooked. In this way, the tagging system becomes more than an administrative tool and functions as a mechanism for making representation more equitable, transparent, and effective.

The Current Climate and Beyond

The conversation raised here regarding the need for such a system is not new, but instead a continuation, and hopeful, amplification of dedicated casework advocates who have been championing this change for years. Anne Meeker, Managing Director of POPVOX Foundation and preeminent champion of the practice spoke extensively to the need for a comprehensive, cohesive classification system for caseworkers. In the April 2024 hearing of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress Meeker states;

“Congressional offices receive rich information directly from those most impacted about how Americans actually interact with federal agencies—the “burdens, barriers, and inequities” they face in the course of claiming benefits they are entitled to by law. This data can be a valuable independent source of information to contribute to oversight plans, or suggest areas for legislative action. The problem is that this data is siloed between 541 offices.

For context, in our office before the pandemic, we had a standing caseload of around 400-450 open cases (some offices may have very different caseloads). When we worked to develop a more comprehensive case tagging system than the one that came standard to our CRM software, every now and then we’d start to see patterns emerge—a 20% rise in VA Aid and Attendance cases, or a sudden cluster of SSDI cases for cancer patients. But from such a small sample size, we had no good way to tell whether these patterns were just a coincidence or an indicator of something wrong.

[...]

For individual Member offices, the ability to compare caseloads against national averages and understand longitudinal data about their district’s needs would allow teams to more effectively deploy limited resources, which may be especially valuable for new offices For constituents, this translates to a smarter, more informed, effective casework operation, and in the very long term, fewer casework issues that may have been avoided with effective oversight and reform—a marker of a truly constituent-friendly Congress." 

This pivotal testimony, and others like it, resulted in Recommendation #172 of the committee’s report, calling for a House wide system to aggregate anonymized casework data. 

House Digital Service took on this herculean task through the wonderful stewardship of Ken Ward, Ananda Bhatia, Craig Butler, Kateri Boink and Azhar Mian. This excerpt from their recent announcement succinctly describes the process and end product.

“In 2024, the CAO established a working group of staff to provide feedback on its newly created tool, "CaseCompass." A single taxonomy was created so that casework data from offices across Congress could be aggregated and categorized uniformly and then used to identify broader trends, track agency performance, enhance oversight, and more. Experienced Caseworkers were consulted to help categorize the types of constituent inquiries that Member offices frequently receive regarding issues with federal agencies. The first version of this taxonomy is now publicly available.”

Following publication of this groundbreaking taxonomy, Civic is proud to announce our commitment as the first CRM to pledge full system-wide adoption and implementation of this pivotal tool as a standardized organizational structure for all offices. While customization is critical for our customers, Civic stands firm alongside POPVOX, the Congressional Modernization Committee and the CAO in our commitment to utilizing this taxonomy to elevate casework from administrative burden to aggregated, actionable data.

Quick Take-Aways

• From individual fixes to systemic insight: Casework should not be seen only as solving one-off constituent problems but as vital signals that, when aggregated, reveal broader policy failures, bottlenecks, and inequities.

• Unified taxonomy through CaseCompass: The CAO’s tiered tagging system creates a standardized, chamber-wide framework—Tier 1 (agency) through Tier 4 (problem)—that allows casework to be aggregated consistently, enabling oversight, equity monitoring, and comparative analysis across offices and time.

• Civic’s added Issue-Area tags: By layering a cross-agency “issue area” classification onto CaseCompass, Civic enhances usability, transparency, and oversight. This final roll-up makes reporting faster, cross-jurisdictional patterns clearer, and equity gaps more visible without sacrificing Tier 1–4 precision.

The following section takes a deeper look at the evolution of the taxonomy, and how Civic’s integration with CAO’s CaseCompass, paired with our ongoing innovations, works to transform casework aggregation into a fully realized and practical tool.

Casework Tagging, A Deeper Dive

Currently, decisions about casework classification happen on an office-by-office basis, sometimes even, on a caseworker-by-caseworker basis. 

Most often, cases get grouped based on similar characteristics. The jurisdiction and expertise of the caseworker, demographic characteristics of the district or member, as well as member committee assignments and specialization, frequently cause these groupings and their labels to be wildly different across caseworkers, offices, and eras. As a quick example of how this can complicate comparisons, we offer an example drawn from anonymized audits and caseworker interviews. 

An experienced caseworker handles a large portion of Medicare cases for their district, and because of their years of service, they have vast experience with the many programs handled by the agency. They specialized in-patient programs into a ‘Part A’ category, while cases dealing with local clinics struggling with reimbursement for care fell under a ‘Title X’ category. By contrast, a newer caseworker described their classification system as “Agency Based” and tagged all cases with the broader agency jurisdiction so, a widower appealing a coverage decision, a clinic-manager desperate to secure funding, and a researcher trying to navigate the audit process are all captured under ‘Healthcare’ as a catch-all category. 

To be clear, we do not wish to disparage, discourage or dismiss the systems that have been created in the absence of chamber-wide agreement on aggregation. The innovations that have surfaced from the necessity the situation created have been brilliant, and many of them inform both the original recommendations and development of the CaseCompass system, and also, our offered extensions.  

The CaseCompass taxonomy classifies all cases in the following format;

Tier 1 identifies the Department, Commission, Administration or Board. 

• 44 unique top-level organizations are present.

• Examples; Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), General Service Administration (GSA)

Tier 2 identifies subagencies nested within top-level organizations, and, also introduces newly generated subcategories provided by House Digital Services for programming that falls directly under the agency, administration, or Board of interest. 

• 66 unique subagencies are present. 

• Examples; Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), Bureau of Consular Affairs, DOD subcategory 1

Given this second tier the full tagging system begins to display the ingenuity of this layered approach. Caseworkers can quickly orient a constituent’s need with greater specificity as each tier builds upon the last. Knowing a constituent is experiencing a problem with HHS is a great start, you know which agency it is and who in your office is best suited to serve the case. Tier 2 introduces further specificity so the caseworker now has a clear idea of which subagency is involved in the constituent’s issue and how to best navigate service. For example, we are now know we are dealing with HHS, but specifically thinking about CMS programs. 

Tier 3 identifies specific programs at Tier 2 subagencies, while again introducing a new subcategory for subagencies similar to the one introduced for Tier 1 agencies.

• 101 unique programs are present. 

• Examples; Medicare Part A, HUD subcategory 2, GI Bill Benefits

This third layer adds additional context to the tag, allowing caseworkers to quickly identify the specific program of concern. Extending the example above from Tier 2, we now know we are dealing with HHS, specifically, CMS, but need to find our best contact for Part A issues so we can most effectively serve the constituent. 

Tier 4 identifies program-specific departments within Tier 3 organizations, and also introduces typical program-specific problems unearthed through CAO’s careful partnership with current caseworkers. These are both broad issues like ‘Records Request’ which is linked to three different Tier1-Tier2-Tier3 combinations, and highly specific, like the Savings Deposit Program (SDP). 

• 401 unique problems are present. 

• Examples; Claim Processing, Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA), Eligibility

Through this brilliant innovation from House Digital Service, casework can now be considered through the broadest lens allowing caseworkers, members, and academics to finally have a unified language to discuss the provision of constituent service.

Tiered Tagging Structure

The tiered system allows for a natural nested system of tags for casework. Progressing Tier1-Tier2-Tier3-Tier4. 

In practice what this looks like for issues is Top Agency -> Sub Agency -> Program -> Problem.

An easy example following the discussion of the different tiers above, shows this with an actual case tag. 

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) -> Center for Medicaid & Medicare Services (CMS) -> Medicare Part A -> Claims Processing  

Tags then, offer a complete picture of agency involvement and help prepare the caseworker to best serve the constituent. The unique benefit of this approach is its flexibility. Broad cases with only one tier of identification, like Amtrak National Railroad Passenger Corporation are captured, as well as extremely versatile programs with multiple Tier2, Tier3 and Tier4 inclusions, like Department of Defense (DOD) that has 54 unique tags associated with 9 unique subagencies and 10 unique program categories. 

Below we show what proportion of all Tier 4 tags flow from which Tier 1 agencies. 

From Tier 1 – Tier 4, Total Instances of all Tier 4 Stemming from Each Tier 1 Category

DOD stands apart with over 100 programs. 

Civic’s Commitment to CaseCompass and Continuing Collaboration  

We at Civic believe CaseCompass is a vital step toward a more accountable, people-centered approach to constituent service. We urge other providers to align with this vision, and we commit to do so through full adoption and implementation across all customer offices. As part of that commitment, Civic will share anonymized, aggregated data directly with CaseCompass under a robust data-sharing agreement that protects constituents while enabling genuine learning across Congress.

The system as it stands is brilliant and will help every office do better. By applying the CAO’s tagging taxonomy, Civic can now offer caseworkers data that meaningfully informs both oversight and outreach. Reporting will be sortable at every tier, allowing offices to focus on services under pressure and to understand the distribution of need across the district. That common language makes comparison possible across time, across offices, and across agencies.

We are aligning our data model, workflows, and training to reduce drift and make adoption painless. Legacy tags will be crosswalked to CaseCompass with clear audit trails. Guided tagging and validation rules will keep cases anchored to Tier 1–4. Dashboards will surface bottlenecks, time-to-resolution, and equity gaps. We will maintain a living integration with CaseCompass, contribute field-tested feedback to House Digital Service, and publish change notes as the taxonomy evolves.

Issue-Area Tags: A Final Layer for Streamlined Reporting

To make the system even more usable, Civic is adding an Issue-Area layer that sits alongside the CAO Tier 1–4 taxonomy. This is not a new tier. It is a clean, standardized classification that lets offices roll up hundreds of specific tags into a small set of policy buckets for fast reporting and external communication. Even within the CAO’s robust system, some issues do overlap, risking over-collapse if not integrated properly with existing systems. The following bipartite network shows the top five Tier 1 tags alongside the top ten Tier 3 and 4 tags that are common across multiple Tier 1 agencies.

Expanding this view, we explicitly detail how tangled these tags can become without a broader unifying theme. This is not to say CAO has not taken explicit measures to circumvent this issue, the label_id of each tag follows a natural progression. For example; Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is tagged at Tier 1 as CFPB1, the subsequent subcategories present with label_id’s CFPB2SUB1 and CFPB3SUB2. 

Savvy caseworkers, or tech-knowledgeable interns may be able to adopt these label_id’s and it is our sincere hope all current providers adopt House Digital Service’s taxonomy. However, there still exists concern that categories like ‘whistleblower’ will overly-collapse, reducing nuance and clarity. We do not introduce our Issue Area strategy in competition with CAO’s taxonomy, but rather as a compliment to this pivotal work.

Think of Civic’s Issue Areas as a final layer of aggregation that answers, “What broad issue is this case about?” without losing the underlying Tier 1–4 detail.

To further reveal the tangled system of cross-jurisdictional issues that often result in caseworkers navigating multiple agencies for a single constituent concern, or, dealing with vastly different issues within a single agency, we offer the following graph. In it we have isolated the most commonly occurring Tier 1 Agency, Department of Defense (DOD).  Below we show how many different Tier 3 Programs and Tier 4 Problems are handled by this one department. 

Convergence of Tier 2 DOD Subagencies in Tier 4 Program and Problem Areas.

While the existing agency and program tags capture the immediate bureaucratic entry points, they do not adequately represent the underlying issue that drives the constituent’s need for assistance.

Civic’s added Issue Area tag compliments CAO’s already robust system creating a unifying layer that can:

Streamline Cross-Agency Mapping

By grouping cases under a common issue area, we can immediately identify when a single constituent problem—say housing insecurity—requires simultaneous coordination with HUD, USDA, and local housing authorities. Without this tag, these cases appear fragmented, obscuring patterns of multi-agency reliance.

Enable Clearer Oversight

Aggregating cases by issue area allows for better monitoring of systemic service failures. If multiple agencies are consistently implicated in resolving a single type of problem, Congress can more easily identify structural bottlenecks and direct oversight resources where they are most needed.

Support Proactive Outreach

Identifying which issues are most cross-cutting enables offices to anticipate constituent needs. For example, knowing that veterans’ benefits frequently intersect with healthcare and education services helps members design more integrated outreach strategies.

Improve Reporting and Public Transparency

When data is aggregated at the issue-area level, we move beyond a narrow “which agency was contacted” frame toward a more citizen-centered understanding of needs. This makes reports clearer, more accessible, and more aligned with how constituents actually experience problems.

Civic’s Casework Issue Area Tags

The following casework Issue Areas have been identified by Civic and assigned to all CAO tags within the taxonomy. The following graphs show how Civic’s Issue Area tag changes the scope of service. 

Proportion of all CAO Tiered Tags in each Civic Issue Area classification.

Military and Veterans’ issues remain high in the overall proportion of CAO tags classified under the new Issue Area system, however the further collapse of tags under the Immigration and Healthcare/Family Services allow these issues to emerge as some of the leading areas of concern identified by House Digital Services in their extensive taxonomy build.  

Next Steps

With a firm commitment to furthering the cause of CAO’s system, we will publish a public crosswalk that links each CAO label (Tier 1–4) to one Issue-Area. The mapping is keyed on the official CAO IDs and includes effective dates and version numbers so offices and researchers can track changes over time. As additional descriptive or procedural information becomes available, we will continue to expand the taxonomy into a full database of casework resources with tags accompanied by detailed service information like specific district liaison contact and estimates on typical processing times for each tag. 

By adopting this collaborative approach, Civic aims to lead the field in comprehensive auditing and reporting. The dynamic dashboard offers reports that can be sliced by Issue-Area in one click, then drilled down further into Tier 1–4. By fully integrating the detailed taxonomy created by House Digital Services, Civic allows caseworkers to filter and review cases by each Tier, as well as Issue Area. Leadership gets a simple district view. Casework directors get operational precision. Oversight staff can move between broad patterns and specific programs without re-tagging. Because the crosswalk is public and keyed to CAO IDs, partners can reuse it in dashboards, audits, and scholarship with no extra transformation.

Our goal is a shared language for aggregation that improves service, sharpens oversight, and supports research. Data remains anonymized and privacy-safe. The mapping is open, documented, and versioned, with a clear process for feedback from caseworkers and agency partners.

With this final layer, offices get the best of both worlds: a precise, standardized Tier 1–4 taxonomy for doing the work, and a compact Issue-Area view for reporting, trend detection, and equity monitoring. It is a simple addition that makes the whole ecosystem easier to use and much easier to compare across time, across agencies, and across Congress.

The result is service that is faster and fairer for constituents, and governance that is more accountable to the people it is meant to serve.

Conclusions

Adopting a unified tagging system, and extending it with Issue-Area roll-ups, elevates casework from administrative burden to actionable governance. With Civic’s commitment to full adoption, anonymized data-sharing, and public crosswalks, constituent service can become not only faster and fairer, but also a cornerstone of democratic accountability and evidence-based oversight.

The next frontier is extending this framework to grants, which represent a rapidly growing share of congressional service. Civic will be rolling this out shortly, extending coverage to nearly five thousand additional governmental programs. By applying the same principles of standardization and aggregation, we position offices to meet emerging needs with the same clarity, equity, and accountability that CaseCompass brings to casework.