# Legislative Agencies Hub Just as the executive branch has its sprawling [[Federal Agencies]], the **legislative branch** has its own support agencies — the institutions that give Congress the independent capacity to legislate, oversee, and govern without depending on the executive branch for facts, money analysis, research, security, or the public record. They report to Congress, not the President, and that independence is the whole point: a legislature that must rely on the executive for its information and its security is not a coequal branch. For the KB, this tier matters because the same **war on independent fact-producing institutions** that runs through the executive branch reaches here too. The legislative support agencies are the bodies that score the bills, audit the spending, research the policy, and keep the public record — and in 2025–2026 several came under direct pressure, including an unprecedented executive seizure of the [[Library of Congress]]. ## The agencies - **[[Government Accountability Office]]** — the congressional auditor and impoundment scorekeeper; enforces the [[Power of the Purse]] (relocated here 2026-05-30; it is a legislative-branch body). - **[[Congressional Budget Office]]** — the nonpartisan budget-and-economic scorekeeper; under sustained attack over its scoring of the second-term budget agenda. - **[[Congressional Research Service]]** — Congress's confidential, nonpartisan research arm (housed in the Library of Congress). - **[[Library of Congress]]** — the national library; houses CRS and the Copyright Office; the site of the 2025 executive takeover (Hayden fired, DOJ officials installed). - **[[United States Capitol Police]]** — the legislative branch's own police force; inseparable from January 6. - **[[Government Publishing Office]]** — the official public record (Federal Register, Congressional Record, GovInfo). - **[[Architect of the Capitol]]** — custodian of the Capitol complex. ## Structural map → **[[Legislative Support Agencies Tree]]** — the ASCII structural map of all six agencies with their current heads, in the house style of the committee tree ## The throughline GAO, CBO, and CRS together are the legislative branch's **independent brain and conscience** — the auditor, the scorekeeper, and the researcher. Their nonpartisan authority is what lets Congress check the executive on facts rather than just on votes. Attacking their findings (CBO), ignoring their rulings (GAO on impoundment), or seizing their parent institution (the Library of Congress) is the legislative-branch front of the same campaign against independent fact-production documented in [[Oversight and Accountability Hub]] and across the [[Federal Agencies]] map. ## Related - [[Congress]] — the parent legislative-branch MOC - [[Federal Agencies]] — the executive-branch counterpart - [[Oversight and Accountability Hub]] — the executive-branch watchdog tier (GAO bridges both) - [[Power of the Purse]] — the appropriations check GAO and CBO serve - [[Separation of Powers]] — the principle the legislative agencies' independence rests on