MADISON is now on Github
Daniel Schuman
OpenGov Foundation Open Sources House Oversight's Crowdsourced Legislation Platform
Can the People’s House be a platform for the People?
Last December, the U.S. House of Representatives hosted its first ‘hackathon,’ which ended up being a soft of hybrid of unconference and code-a-thon in the House Oversight Committee’s offices. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, introduced the beta version of MADISON, a new online tool to crowd source legislative markup. The vision was that MADISON would work as a real-time markup engine to let the public comment on bills as they move through the legislative process.
“The assumption is that legislation should be open in Congress,” said Issa. “It should be posted, interoperable and commented upon.”
Today, the code for the MADISON project went live on Github, making it possible for legislatures around the world to use the same platform that has hosted discussions around the controversial SOPA bill, ACTA and TPP treaties, and a “Digital Citizen’s Bill of Rights.”
(there's more to the article online)
Daniel
Daniel Schuman
Director | Advisory Committee on Transparency
Policy Counsel | The Sunlight Foundation
o: 202-742-1520 x 273 | c: 202-713-5795 | @danielschuman