Taking a Byte into Congress – OpenCongress.Org, TheOpenHouseProject.com and more
In the United States, the Sunlight Foundation is leading a new charge to open up Congress online. (If you want to help, join this Google Group.) They are following the footsteps (and different approaches) of external to Congress efforts such as:
* OpenCRS – Congressional Research Report for the People – Led by folks including the Center for Democracy and Technology
* Contacting the Congress (since 1995!)
* Congress Online – Research from the Congressional Management Foundation
* Congress.Org – A public service of Capitol Advantage
* Open Secrets – Campaign finance data from the Center for Resposive Politics
* GovTrack.US – An amazing “a pet project of a regular joe.”
* Congresspedia – A newer wiki on Congress
* ReadthBill.Org – Promoting online access to legislation 72 hours before it is voted on.
* Congressional Accountability Project – Read this list from 1995. Most issues still unresolved.
* And others that I am missing… add them via comments to the blog: dowire.org/notes
One exciting project announced this week is OpenCongress.Org which among other things allows you to navigate blog posts related to legislation. Put together with the Sunlight Foundation and the Participatory Politics Foundation, the reviews are coming in. While I like the blog coverage and RSS feeds, I’d add personalized e-mail alerts and the ability for individuals without active blogs to comment/rate items like on the UK’s TheyWorkForYou.com enhancement of the UK parliament’s information.
Perhaps the most important project I’ve seen come along in U.S. e-democracy circles in years is TheOpenHouseProject.com which is organizing people to pick apart the legislative process and all of the strategic information components in order to make Congress truly transparent online. I will personally judge the new leadership in Congress on whether they are really living up to their promise to run a more ethical and open Congress on the speed with which they embrace this project and give a clear management green light to House and Senate institutions to actively participate and “open up the house.” With the new Speaker of the House getting guff over putting C-SPAN clips on her blog and other folks discovering that sharing of Congressional committee video use is often restricted, the devil is in the details.
You can help defeat that devil, where insiders have access to legally public information not online by intent or at least because of the lack of political attention, by joining Google Group for TheOpenHouseProject.com at:
groups.google.com/group/openhouseproject
Cheers,
Steven Clift
e-democracy.org
dowire.org
P.S. If you want to take a trip back down memory lane, read this House report from 1996 (and CRS analysis from 2001 and 2002) on implementing the CyberCongress and options for public access which said:
“A. Implicit in this principle is the need to ensure that the legislative information available to the public is as accurate and as timely as the information available to the Congress through this system. Technically this goal is achievable. The obvious qualification inherent in this statement is that if the information is not in the system it is not accessible either to the Congress or to the public. Committee chairs, for example, can choose not to make some information regarding committee actions available to the system. Despite the improved access that the public now has to legislative information through GPO ACCESS and LOC THOMAS, the most persistent criticism by some members of the public has concerned what is NOT YET available in these systems rather than what is. The implementation of the recommendations in this plan should address many of these concerns, but it may never be possible to address all of them.”
As long as Committee Chairs can choose to restrict access to information available within Congress or distributed by them selectively (like Chairman’s marks) we will never have and open and ethical Congress. Then Speaker Gingrich promised to make information “available to any citizen in the country at the same moment that it is
available to the highest paid lobbyist.” Perhaps the new Speaker will make the same promise, but this time make sure the House actually implements that vision to fullest and changes House procedures and rules where required.
Oooh, I am taking a walk back on memory lane via Google trying to find Gingrich’s full speech, and here is what then Representative Pelosi said in 1996:
“The majority has brought this appropriations bill to the floor with an onerous provision that restricts public access to congressional information. Most House committees have both majority and minority Web sites that the public can access to seek legislative information, committee schedules, and other relevant committee material. Since these sites first went on-line, they have been accessible to the public without restriction. The Republican majority would like to see this changed.
The same majority that claims to have a commitment to a `cybercongress’ and the information infrastructure has placed limits on what information the public can access. They want to make all committee home pages controlled by the majority. The public will not be able to read the minority information without reading the majority information first.
This is not the way to open up Congress to an ever-increasing electronic electorate. By limiting the information the public can access, the Republican majority is blocking freedom of speech, and limiting debate on issues the public has a right to be informed about.
The minority, regardless of party, has a right to be heard. It is not a question of Republican versus Democrat, it is a clear question of what the public has a right to read.
The committee refused to hear an amendment offered by Mr. Fazio in committee that questioned this arrangement, and then claimed that since it was a regulation and not a law, that the committee need not discuss the provision. Last night the Rules Committee made a similar amendment by Mr. Fazio out of order.
What are they afraid of? Individuals should be able to realize their freedom to access information, and the Republican majority should not define the way in which that information is available. What happens if a committee chairman decides not to put up a Web page, the minority is automatically cut off from the Internet? This is our Nation’s highest democratic body, but this process is anything but democratic.
I urge my colleagues to vote against this rule and support a free and open government.”
March 15th, 2007 at 7:33 pm