indexing jurisdictions

[John Wonderlich]

After writing this rather convoluted post, I decided to try to list all of the competing jurisdictions of the government bodies, agencies, and support agencies responsible for public information access in one way or another.  Here's what I've got so far (from a google document that will update its corresponding web page as it is updated).  I'm looking for things I've missed.  (I'm also including the current list at the end of this email.)

Perhaps it will be helpful to have a single place indexing the various bodies responsible for access to government information.

Looking at the list, it makes me think again that the jurisdiction of these various bodies is not necessarily based on a logical division of responsibility, but instead based on whatever the developmental history is of each institution.  Navigating this sort of complex system of overlapping responsibilities can be confusing, to say the least.

-John


(start list)

support agencies need to be systematically described, in order to clarify this post, and to set up for government information sources (those with a transparency function).



Governmental Support Entities with a Role in Transparency: Statutory Basis for Negotiated Terrain



Congressional Budget Office (CBO): CBO intro PDF from their website, see also Congressional Budget Act of 1974

General Accountability Office (GAO): 

Office of Technological Assessment (defunct, then reinstated)

Library of Congress (LOC):

THOMAS, Congressional Research Service (CRS) running LIS on LIMS, DLR

Government Printing Office (GPO)

Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) ( jurisdiction from FGI)

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)

Center for Legislative Archives (CLA)

Chief Administrative Officer (of the House) (CAO)

Speaker of the House (link)

House Historian (link)  (under the speaker's jurisdiction)

Clerk of the House (link)

Office of History and Preservation ( OHP)

Secretary of the Senate (link)

Senate Historical Office (link)  (is this under the secy of the senate?)

Senate Rules Committee (link)

Senate Sergeant at Arms (link)

Committee on House Administration (CHA)

Joint Committee on Printing (JCP)

Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee (HSGA )

Advisory Committee on the Records of Congress (link)

Senate Historical Office (link)

Senate Office of Public Records (SOPR)

Legislative Resource Center (LRC )

Executive Branch

General Services Administration (GSA), (executive branch)

CIO Counsel ( link)  (also see federal indexes: usa.gov, info.gov, (fedworld.gov by us commerce dept)

Office of Management and Budget ( OMB)

Judicial Branch

Federal Judicial Center (FJC )




--
John Wonderlich

Program Director
The Sunlight Foundation
(202) 742-1520 ext. 234

[Michael Stern]

John- I think this is extremely helpful.  As you note, the sheer number of entities, combined with their overlapping jurisdictions, makes it very difficult to get a handle on this area.  I think it would be great to have a central location with all of the entities and links listed.

 

A few thoughts.

 

It seems to me that I have seen a listing of the various depositories for document collections of former members of Congress.  It may have been in the Advisory Committee Report.  That might be a useful addition.

 

I don’t know that there is any reason to include the Office of House Historian separate from the Clerk’s Office of History and Preservation.  The former has been pretty much defunct since the departure of Christina Jeffrey.

 

Not sure about the Senate Historical Office, but the Senate Office of Public Records falls under the Secretary of the Senate.

 

If you are going to include the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (presumably because of its jurisdiction over governmental information), you probably want to include its House counterpart (the Government Oversight and Reform Committee, I think it is now called).

 

 

Best regards,

 

Mike Stern

[David All]

The Congressional Management Foundation just released it’s list of Golden Mouse winners for Congressional websites. Paul Blumenthal and I wrote the chapter of the OHP report on Member web-use last year and found that the Congressional Rules were largely to blame.

If you have a blog – I’d encourage you to bring light to the issue.

Some links of interest ---

Congressional Management Foundation press release:
http://www.cmfweb.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=243&Itemid=50

Washington Post on the report:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2008/01/and_the_mouse_goes_to.html

Just blogged about this at TechRepublican:
http://techrepublican.com/blog/surprise-congressional-websites-are-still-awful

All the best,

David All


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