New Member Orientation: Successful Onboarding for a Modern Legislature

New Member Orientation (NMO) is a mandatory onboarding program for individuals newly elected to the US House of Representatives. Similar to other legislatures’ introductory training programs, NMO occurs once for Member Elects (MEs) and is the only formal onboarding the legislators receive before taking office regardless of prior political experience.

Formalized in the 1970s to address newly elected legislators’ needs to understand the increasing complexity of congressional operations, NMO has expanded over the decades to include programming on Member roles and responsibilities, House Floor operations, office structure and hiring, budgeting, security, ethics, and more.

However, recent NMOs have drawn criticism from Members as a program that provided information out of context, seeded polarization of the parties, and – generally – “missed the mark” as an effective onboarding experience.

POPVOX Foundation believes that a robust, effective onboarding program is essential for newly elected Members to be impactful out of the gate in representing their constituents and to operate effectively within an increasingly complex institution. NMO not only prepares MEs to take office, it creates an environment to foster bipartisan relationships, deepen understanding of the institution, and create a support network for MEs.

In the spirit of supporting the CHA Subcommittee on Modernization’s efforts to rethink NMO and the full committee’s preparatory work for the upcoming 119th Congress’ program, this report provides an overview of how traditional NMOs have been organized, structured, and hosted, and proposes creative alternatives for how this onboarding experience can be improved.