GovTrack users want better transparency from Congress
Josh Tauberer
beating of the drum for bulk legislative data from the Library of
Congress. Here's a new blog post.
Josh
http://www.govtrack.us/blog/2012/03/16/govtrack-users-want-better-transparency-from-congress/
GovTrack users want better transparency from Congress
It is time for the Library of Congress to modernize the way they
disseminate legislative information to the public, and GovTrack users
are standing up to a call to push Congress to make this happen.
I asked my users here whether they would sign on to a letter to Congress
asking for better legislative transparency. In the week from March 7-14,
more than 8,000 individuals gave their name and address, and wrote 150
pages worth of comments about why GovTrack is important to them! This is
an impressive showing. I will been using this outpouring of support as I
lobby Congress for better legislative data, in concert with the Sunlight
Foundation.
Here’s what some users wrote:
“As a citizen, it is my responsibility to ensure that I am involved in
the process of government. GovTrack makes it possible for me to hear
about and monitor legislation so that I may make my voice heard in the
process.”
“Gov Track informs me of bills that have been introduced in the House
and Senate and allows me to efficeintly track those bills. It helps
greatly with my job as a Chief Compliance Manager for a credit union as
well as in my life as an interested citizen.”
“GovTrack is a single concise source for tracking an assortment of
legislation. This user-friendly system is far superior to the Thomas
system and allows interaction between parties. The PopVox site is a
great addition to GovTrack.”
“Its very important to be informed about what is actually happening in
the US. As an overseas citizen, most of my knowledge of current events
comes from news companies, all with separate political agendas. If I
read the bills as they come out, i avoid bias.”
“TRANSPARENCY is mandatory…..enough said.”
Thanks to everyone who wrote such kind words about GovTrack — it is
sincerely appreciated. And I’ll write more about how your comments were
used.
What I’m asking Congress and the Library of Congress to do is to share
their internal database of legislative information that powers their
THOMAS website. That database would make GovTrack more accurate. And it
would do the same for the dozens of other websites and apps that reuse
the legislative database that we put together and share with others, and
dozens of other websites and apps that reverse-engineer THOMAS directly
themselves.
The Library of Congress’s current priority, with regard to legislative
information, is to upgrade the THOMAS website. While the upgrade is long
overdue (THOMAS was built in 1994), sharing their data is both far
cheaper and will have a much wider impact than a website upgrade.
Since 2004, GovTrack.us has been one of the most popular websites among
the public to research and track the legislation that Congress is
considering. Over the last six months, GovTrack and its data partners
have been used by 5–10 million individuals, which as far as I can tell
is more than the number of people using THOMAS. I’m not saying that the
Library of Congress should not be providing THOMAS, but helping websites
like GovTrack help the public is today the most efficient and effective
way for the Library to fulfill this part of its mission.
“Bulk data” is today considered a core component of any government
information dissemination program. In 2009, the Government Printing
Office began offering bulk data for bill text, the Federal Register, and
other publications, leading directly to new services that were created
in the private sector to help the public. Under the direction of the
Majority Leader, the House began publishing bulk data for bills to be
considered in the week ahead. Executive branch agencies are all now
under a directive to embrace data.
I’ve been beating this drum for a long time. In 2001, when I was just
starting work on GovTrack, I asked the Library of Congress about it. Six
years later, I was joined by the Sunlight Foundation in our Open House
Project report, and in 2009 we got the House to enact a law to ask the
Library of Congress to look into it. Yes, even an Act of Congress was
not enough. So here we are today, going back to the congressional staff
that oversee the Congress’s library asking them to revisit legislative
data again. Stay tuned as we dig further into this in the next few weeks.
WashingtonWatch.com
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