Redistricting Transparency and RE: Senate to Expand Transparency of Senate Votes
J.H. Snider
Redistricting transparency may not be as high profile an issue as legislative transparency, but with the next U.S. Census scheduled for April 2010 and the once-in-a-decade redistricting that will follow at the national, state, and local levels, it’s going to become an increasingly important issue during the next 24 months. The time has come to recognize that redistricting transparency must be an integral part of redistricting reform. For an argument making this case (in the context of arguing for redistricting juries), see my working paper, Does British Columbia’s Revolutionary Experiment in Democratic Reform Offer a Model for American Redistricting Reform?, released yesterday at the Hudson Institute/iSolon.org conference, Reforming American Redistricting: Lessons from British Columbia. Representative John Tanner’s redistricting bill, expected to be introduced in the next few weeks, may include some transparency language.
--Jim Snider
J.H. Snider, MBA, Ph.D.
President
iSolon.org
P.S. In addition to all the thanks for current advocates who pushed for increasing the transparency of Senate roll call votes, recognition should be given to Gary Ruskin, head of Ralph Nader’s now defunct Congressional Accountability Project, who worked hard during the mid-1990s to raise the visibility of this issue.
-----Original
Message-----
From: openhous...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:openhous...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Josh Tauberer
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 12:31 PM
To: openhous...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [openhouseproject] Re: RELEASE: Senate to Expand Transparency
of Senate Votes
Jones, Tom (Commerce) wrote:
> /DeMint thanks Rules Committee for quick response/
So do we!
Josh
From:
openhous...@googlegroups.com [mailto:openhous...@googlegroups.com] On
Behalf Of Jones, Tom (Commerce)
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 12:25 PM
To: 'openhous...@googlegroups.com'
Subject: [openhouseproject] FW: RELEASE: Senate to Expand Transparency
of Senate Votes
Senate to Expand Transparency of Senate Votes
DeMint thanks Rules Committee for quick response
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, thanked Senators Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and Bob Bennett (R-Utah), who lead the Senate Rules Committee, for quickly responding to a bipartisan effort to modernize the way the Senate publishes its roll call votes using the XML format. The Rules Committee has instructed the Secretary of the Senate to make this change.
“I want to thank Senators Schumer and Bennett for helping us increase Senate transparency and accountability. Last week, a group of Senators on both sides of the aisle sent them a letter asking them to publish Senate votes in the XML format so the public can use computers to search, sort, and visualize voting records in new ways. I’m pleased we were able to quickly make this change, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to make more improvements in the future,” said Senator DeMint.
“This simple but important change will help give Americans real transparency on their Senator’s voting record,” said Senator DeMint.
An XML feed of votes for the first session of the 111th Congress can be found at this feed: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_111_1.xml
An XML feed of individual roll call votes will also be posted, such as Vote # 177 found here: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1111/vote_111_1_00177.xml
On Friday, Senator DeMint and a group of bipartisan senators wrote to the Rules Committee and asked for Senate votes to be made available in XML format.
###