Thomas Beta released

[Rob Pierson]

Great questions, John. Seeing votes by topic would be great, and it looks like Thomas is going in that direction in their beta release:

http://thomas.loc.gov/beta/

I also noticed an advanced search that isn't very easy to find, but is quite powerful.

http://thomas.loc.gov/bss/d110query.html

I found the advanced search under the search bill summary and status section, and hopefully the advanced search will be more easily available as the beta testing continues. In addition, I hope that search results will no longer come up with multiple versions of the same bill ( i.e. engrossed, introduced, etc), but will show a single bill and then allow you to learn more through its bill summary page (the way that LIS operates).

One other change that I'm hoping for is to allow member offices to link documents and web pages to bills in Thomas. Committees currently have this capability, but it would be great if Representatives had that ability as well. (And maybe someday allow other organizations to have links to the bill as well, with spam management built in. The US Government, however, is not web 2.0 friendly enough for anything of that sort to become a reality. Hopefully in a few years though...)

On 10/25/07, John Wonderlich < johnwon...@gmail.com> wrote:

I recently learned that the House is actively considering a redesign/upgrade of their public vote posting procedures, in terms of the format and functionality of the Clerk's House floor votes area.

I'd like to hear what sort of ideas and priorities everyone has about how one can interact with votes data.  This is important from two perspectives, the data perspective and the citizen perspective.

As database managers, what features would be most helpful to see added to public votes data access?  I was just told that one helpful aspect would be to have the DTD or schema itself be published or available after it has been decided on, so that one can see the specific way that the data is organized.  From a data perspective, what else is most important to include?  A standardized reference to an index of bill information (links to THOMAS/LIS)?  Standardized representative elements that link to lawmakers' pages?  Some sort of change log, or a feed or new votes?

From the perspective of an individual citizen, what would you like to see there?  Votes searchable by topic?  Votes indexed by lawmaker?  Links back to the party position, by whip statement?  Indexing to Congressional Record statements (one can dream...)?

What are the most important improvements we'd like to see implemented?  (I'd also like to see the Senate move in this direction too.)

John

--
John Wonderlich

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

[Peggy Garvin]

Hi,

Hope to illuminate rather than confuse…

 

1)       The public Thomas beta (which has been up for most of the year without change or development) has legislation by topic but not votes by topic.

2)       The Advanced Search feature you cited, Rob, is on regular (non-beta) Thomas, albeit buried too deeply.

3)       John, not sure what you mean by this “Indexing to Congressional Record statements (one can dream...)?” but the “status” section of the Bill Summary and Status database on Thomas does a nice job of linking congressional debate and votes—although the way the CR is linked is old and awkward.

See, for example,

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:H.R.3043:

and click on All Congressional Actions with Amendments.

But perhaps you mean *from* vote to CR page?

Anyway, the Clerk currently does an OK job of linking from the vote to the Thomas record which has the CR page links…

 

 

Peggy

 

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[John Wonderlich]

I think I was being vague about the Congressional Record to votes link, but watching CSPAN right now...

Maxine Waters just said she voted incorrectly on a recent bill, and had it inserted into the record that it was an error.  I wonder what it would take for the official record of the votes to link to this sort of information?  The same thing goes for the vote-trading agreements that happen as a result of someone needing to attend something like a family funeral.

John

On 10/25/07, Peggy Garvin <pe...@garvinconsulting.com> wrote:

Hi,

Hope to illuminate rather than confuse…

 

1)       The public Thomas beta (which has been up for most of the year without change or development) has legislation by topic but not votes by topic.

2)       The Advanced Search feature you cited, Rob, is on regular (non-beta) Thomas, albeit buried too deeply.

3)       John, not sure what you mean by this "Indexing to Congressional Record statements (one can dream...)?" but the "status" section of the Bill Summary and Status database on Thomas does a nice job of linking congressional debate and votes—although the way the CR is linked is old and awkward.

See, for example,

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:H.R.3043:

and click on All Congressional Actions with Amendments.

But perhaps you mean *from * vote to CR page?

[Josh Tauberer]

John Wonderlich wrote:
> Maxine Waters just said she voted incorrectly on a recent bill, and had
> it inserted into the record that it was an error.

Does anyone know, does this cause a voting record to change or anything
like that, or is this just "for the record"?

--
- Josh Tauberer

http://razor.occams.info

"Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation! Yields
falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
Tortoise (in "Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)

[Chris Kinnan]

Its just for the record; no do-overs in congress once the vote is closed!