The Office of Interparliamentary Affairs is an office of the United States House of Representatives that is responsible for working with "parliamentarians, officers, or employees of foreign legislative bodies" to organize official visits to the House of Representatives.
Created in 2003 by the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2004, the Office is headed by the a Director, appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The serves for as long as they are sanctioned by the Speaker, and, with the approval of the Speaker, the may appoint other employees necessary to carry out the functions of the Office. Appointed by the Speaker of the House the head of Interparliamentary affairs is Kay King.
Specific duties of the Office include:
- To receive and respond to inquiries from foreign parliamentarians or foreign legislative bodies regarding official visits to the House of Representatives.
- To coordinate official visits to the House of Representatives by parliamentarians, officers, or employees of foreign legislative bodies.
- To coordinate with the House Sergeant-at-Arms, the Clerk, and other officers of the House of Representatives in providing services for delegations of Members on official visits to foreign nations.
- To carry out other activities to—
- discharge and coordinate the activities and responsibilities of the House of Representatives in connection with participation in various interparliamentary exchanges and organizations;
- facilitate the interchange and reception in the United States of members of foreign legislative bodies and permanent officials of foreign governments; and
- enable the House to host meetings with senior government officials and other dignitaries in order to discuss matters relevant to United States relations with other nations.
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, house, office and/or affairs:
“In the United States there is more space where nobody is is than where anybody is.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“United Fruit... United Thieves Company... it’s a monopoly ... if you won’t take their prices they let your limes rot on the wharf; it’s a monopoly. You boys are working for a bunch of thieves, but I know it ain’t your fault.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Since the Civil War its six states have produced fewer political ideas, as political ideas run in the Republic, than any average county in Kansas or Nebraska.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“This house was designed and constructed with the freedom of stroke of a forester’s axe, without other compass and square than Nature uses.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“These people who are always briskly doing something and as busy as waltzing mice, they have little, sharp, staccato ideas.... But they have no slow, big ideas. And the fewer consoling, noble, shining, free, jovial, magnanimous ideas that come, the more nervously and desperately they rush and run from office to office and up and downstairs, thinking by action at last to make life have some warmth and meaning.”
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)
“In France a woman will not go to sleep until she has talked over affairs of state with her lover or her husband.”
—Jules Mazarin (1602–1661)